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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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💫Moreid Masterlist

GIF by @criminalmindsvibez

Hurt/Comfort or Angst with a Happy Ending

🌊Still Left With the River

Derek wakes up to find his boyfriend crying on the sofa. Cue the hurt, the comfort, and the fluff.

1.6k, hurt/comfort, fluff, caretaker!derek, autistic spencer, crying, sad spencer

🌳Trees and Seas Have Flown Away, I Call it Loving You

Derek says something hurtful, but it happens to lead to just about the best thing that’s ever happened to Spencer.

3.2k, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, fighting/making up, angst with a happy ending, autistic spencer, coming out, getting together

🍓A Chronicle of Loss

5 people Spencer Reid lost and 1 person he gained. A look at the traumas Spencer faces over the series, and giving him the happy ending he deserves.

3.6k, grief, loss, abandonment issues, insecurity, depression, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, getting together, ‘didn’t know they were dating’, protective derek, autistic spencer

🍯Honeysuckle

The BAU decide to head out for a picnic one summer afternoon, but they’re soon rudely interrupted by a bee sting and anaphylactic shock. Seeing Spencer carted off in an ambulance is not exactly how they expected the day to go.

2.3k, whump, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, hurt spencer, friendship, medical conditions, severe allergic reactions

🌙The Noiseless Crash of Crumbling Walls

After Derek and Spencer are paired up on a science project in their senior year of high school, they become the closest, most unlikely friends possible. But what happens when Derek finally finds out what Spencer's dealing with at home? Inspired by the prompt “where did you get those bruises?”

4.5k, high school au, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, hurt spencer, protective derek, abuse, friendship, pre-slash, spencer just turned 16, derek is almost 18

🔥The Insistent Burn of a Falling Heart - part two

Derek is hopelessly in love with his childhood best friend, and he can't even escape him at home, since they're living together while they study at Cal Tech. He's resigned himself to a miserable, Spencer-less fate until lasagne, bad memories, and a whole lot of crying bring the real truth out into the open.

4.2k, hurt!spencer, fluff, angst with a happy ending, mutual pining, getting together, college au, first kiss, misunderstandings

💔let him be soft (and let him be mine) part one // part two

After Derek pulls another self-sacrificing stunt at the culmination of their most recent case, Spencer runs out of their apartment as he desperately grapples with how it makes him feel. (Collab with @criminalmindsvibez! You can find her complimentary edit here.)

2.4k, hurt/comfort, crying, abandonment issues, injured!derek, hurt!spencer, miscommunication, angst with a happy ending, fluff, protective!derek

🪦how the cold numbs everything but grief

Six days after Emily dies, Spencer finds himself soaked in freezing water, catatonic on the bathroom floor. Only Derek can ease the roaring, burning, demanding agony of this grief.

1.2k, grief/mourning, emily’s ‘death’ in season six, hurt!spencer, hurt!derek, hurt/comfort, angst with a hopeful ending (serious tw for grief here)

✨storm-darkened or starry bright

Spencer contracts HIV. It all falls apart after that.

6.5k, angst, illness, hurt!spencer, hurt/comfort, worried derek, depression, mutual pining, getting together, angst w a happy ending

⛈this heavy humanness

Spencer leaves the oven on overnight, and Derek - whose pent-up emotions get the best of him - loses it, exposing secrets neither of them expected to be spilled, for two very different reasons. They get there in the end.

3.9k, est. rel., past abuse, arguing & making up, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, miscommunication hurt spencer

💤I turn and reach for you

Three months after Hankel, Spencer starts getting terrible nightmares that keep him up at night. He tries desperately to keep his secret until one day when it's all too much to bear anymore. Luckily, Derek Morgan is there to hold him together as he falls apart.

2.1k, nightmares, hurt/comfort, ptsd, angst with a happy ending, fluff, literal sleeping together, getting together, post-revelations

Pure Fluff

🌒when I fall asleep (it is your eyes that I close)

Spencer’s not been sleeping, and as much as Derek adores his sleepy clinginess and physical affection, as soon as they get home he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

1.9k, fluff, hurt/comfort, sleep-deprivation, clingy!spencer, physical affection, anxiety, cuddling

🎄A Christmas Like This

Spencer has a very specific plan for their first Christmas in their new house, and it has to be absolutely perfect. Derek’s going to do everything in his power to make his boyfriend as happy as possible, even if that means a house covered in garlands and a tree covered in animal skeletons…

2.9k, fluff, christmas fic, est relationship, neurodivergence, romance, domesticity, day in the life

💍my heart talks about nothing but you

Derek finds Spencer staring longingly at dancing newlyweds while on a case and once he gets to the bottom of why he’s tasked with making a proposal to a man who knows it’s coming special somehow. (He pulls it off.)

2.5k, established relationship, hurt/comfort, minor angst, fluff, relationship discussions, proposal, protective derek

✨I told the stars about you - part two

Derek and Spencer have their first date. They dance to Frank Sinatra and cuddle in an ice cream parlour, before kissing the hell out of each other at Spencer's front door. That's pretty much it. (Prequel to above fic.)

2.1k, first date, first kiss, pure tooth-rotting fluff, dancing, flirting, protective derek

🎂I can’t hold enough of you in my hands - part three

Derek and Spencer are finally getting married and the rest of the BAU are there to help them through every step of the day. Including a little surprise that Derek has up his sleeve for their first dance. (Third part to the above two fics.)

3.1k, tooth-rotting fluff, marriage/wedding day, team as family, team dynamics, domesticity, paternal hotch, maternal alex, just a whole lotta love man

🔪Shovel Talk

Hotch and Emily find out about Derek's relationship with Spencer and decide it's time for a chat.

1.5k, fluff, humour, est. rel., protective!derek, emily, and hotch, relationship reveal, mentions of past hurt spencer

📚I’ll (Never) Know What It’s Like Not to Love You

Spencer finds his old journals in the attic, and he and Derek reminisce on the days they used to pine for one another. Luckily, those days are over, and they have forever ahead of them.

1.3k, tooth-rotting domestic fluff, past mutual pining, past hurt!spencer, cuddling & snuggling, late canon

Getting Together

🌨Even More Beautiful

The BAU is stuck in Michigan with no case and no way home, so naturally, Spencer and Derek confess their love for one another. (Based on the prompt ‘You look even more beautiful covered in snow.’)

3.5k, fluff, love confessions, shy spencer, insecurity, hurt/comfort

🎧Hear it in the Silence

A short, fluffy chronicle of Spencer realising in increments how in love with Derek he is, and navigating a real, beautifully sweet relationship that's not always smooth sailing, especially since he's been hurt before. (Based on Taylor Swift’s You are in Love.)

3.7k, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, dev relationship, tw past abuse, domesticity

🎅🏼Secret Santa

Penelope rigs the BAU’s Secret Santa game to finally get Derek and Spencer together with extraordinary success, and they have her to thank for their future first date. Oh, and a sprig of mistletoe nearly throws the whole thing out the window.

2.8k, fluff, getting together, insecurity/anxiety, christmas fic, first kiss, misunderstandings, friendship

🌳The One Constant

Derek wakes up after having his appendix removed with temporary amnesia from the anesthesia, and Spencer certainly isn't prepared for the man he's pined after for four years to a) not recognise him, and b) start flirting with him. It all works out in the end, with a little help from Hotch.

4k, hurt/comfort, fluff, mutual pining, insecure spencer, flirting, getting together, misunderstandings, first kiss

☕️i’ll retire my bones to make you tea and read you poetry

Derek doesn't exactly expect to invite a sleepy Spencer over for a movie night after a case, but his blinding smile in response makes him happy he did. The kiss they share the next morning makes him even happier.

3.6k, fluff, getting together, cuddling, insecure!spencer, pet names, mutual pining, light hurt/comfort, first kiss, love confessions

Embarrassed!Spencer Drabble

A misunderstanding at a BAU get together has Spencer embarrassed and a long-awaited kiss finally happening.

1.2k, fluff, angst, getting together, first kiss

📚100

Spencer's an academic researcher who spends every morning at his local library. Derek just happens to drop by one Tuesday and ask the pretty boy in the classics section if he can help him find a book. Sparks fly.

2.1k, library au, fluff, meet-cute, pining, shy spencer, coming out

💣Mayhem

Imagine that scene in S4E1 when Derek is driving the ambulance loaded with a bomb about to explode, except it’s Spencer on the other end of the phone and they finally get their shit together.

4.2k, canon divergence, spencer is the tech analyst, getting together, mutual pining, insecure spencer, angst with a happy ending, fluff, declarations of love

🧑🏻‍🦽 dry me off and hold me close

Derek has finally relented and is bringing his boyfriend Spencer to meet the rest of the team. That means, though, he has to finally tell them about his boyfriend's disability. Terrified that they'll react badly, he puts it off until he can't anymore. Turns out he was worried for nothing

5.7k, so much fluff, protective derek, disabled spencer, caretaker derek, spencer is not in the bau, team as family, hurt/comfort, light angst, est. rel, chronic illness, slice of life: disabled edition

💐I’ll bloom for you (while my heart still cries)

(Based on the age-old tumblr prompt) "Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery and today you've caught me and insisted on coming with me to make sure the 'girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft' and I'm trying to figure out how to break it to you that we're on our way to a graveyard."

3.7k, fluff, meet-cute, au: student spencer, fbi agent derek, hacker penelope, grief & mourning, shy spencer, getting together, mutual pining

🌖This Gravitational Pull

Penelope Garcia sets her two best friends Derek & Spencer up on a blind first date. Even with the best intentions and highest expectations, no-one could've predicted it would go quite this well.

2.9k, fluff, first date, au: diff first meeting, shy spencer, insecurity, anxiety, flirting, cuddling, protective derek, silly amounts of affection

#criminal minds #criminal minds masterlist #criminal minds fic #moreid #moreid fic #derek morgan #spencer reid #derek morgan/spencer reid #derek morgan x spencer reid

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vanessakirbyfans · 3 years

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Defying expectations, challenging Hollywood’s norms and facing one’s own fear of failing emerged as central themes when Michelle Pfeiffer, Kate Winslet, Rashida Jones, Vanessa Kirby and Andra Day met virtually in December for The Envelope’s Actress Roundtable. Collectively, they represent four decades in film and more wild experiences than we can fit in one discussion — and they’re also behind some of the most complex characters in film right now.

Pfeiffer is eccentric, wealthy New York widow Frances Price in the quirky drama “French Exit,” which opens this week in limited release. When Price blows through most of her inheritance, she flees to Paris, where she attracts an odd assortment of friends. Winslet is rough-hewn paleontologist Mary Anning in “Ammonite,” a period drama that explores the hardships of a female pioneer in 19th century England’s patriarchal science world and the challenges she faced hiding her love for another woman.

Jones is Laura, the dutiful daughter of an eccentric father in the comedy-drama “On the Rocks.” Despite their complicated history, daughter and father embark on a covert mission to find out if her husband is cheating, but self-discovery may just be the biggest reveal. Kirby conveys anger, sorrow and grief following the death of her newborn baby as Martha in the emotionally wrenching “Pieces of a Woman.” And singer Day makes her film debut in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” a period drama streaming on Hulu later this month that chronicles Holiday’s battles with law enforcement, drugs and the crush of systemic racism.

Their conversation here has been edited for length and clarity.

Your films are built around narratives of complex women, many of whom face challenges that aren’t often explored on screen. “Pieces of a Woman” is a great example of a film that is so specifically female, it would have never made it to the screen in the past.

Vanessa Kirby: It definitely feels like a different time right now ... we want to represent women that we identify as being us and the weird parts of us. In the movie, my biggest intention was to make it not a sanitized, movie version of a birth. So [she] felt super sick and burped a lot. She was really nauseous ... things that we might think are unpalatable or not comfortable. That’s all the facets of being human, and particularly being a women. I’ve read so many scripts where it was a version of a woman that I don’t know. It was a film version as opposed to my sister or my best mates or me.

Kate Winslet: That’s what is great about now ... the world is making space for all of these stories. We’ve always tried to tell these stories, but the world is more receptive to hearing them now. That is a shift.... It’s such a moving, seismic time to be doing this job.

Michelle, your character Frances Price is the perfect example of an imperfect female protaganist. She is a mess, and fantastic, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Michelle Pfeiffer: I was just was so curious about this woman, and I thought she was so odd and not like a character that I had seen or that I had played. And then the dialogue is very stylized. So you have to give in to it but, at the same time, not too much. It was made up of these disparate tones of absurdism and melancholy, and it was funny, and it was tragic — these oddballs sort of living on the fringe of society and trying to make some sort of human connection, all of them, in some way.

Rashida, in “On the Rocks,” you play a reserved writer with a charming, flamboyant father. Your real father is Quincy Jones. What sort of parallels did you feel playing Laura?

Rashida Jones: I very much related to this idea of coming of age with a larger-than-life father who commands presence and changes the atmosphere of any room he walks into, and how that in itself can be something you have to untangle from. Because in order to be your own person, in order to find your life, in order to figure out who you are in the world, not relational to anybody else, you have to separate yourself from all that charm and the warm light of your father’s love. That part of it I very much related to. But Laura is unlike me in the sense that I’m pretty outspoken. This character, I think, has a lot of restraint. That was a challenge.

Andra, stepping into the shoes of Billie Holiday must have been a huge challenge, and this is your first film!

Andra Day: It was definitely terrifying. First of all, I’m a fan of hers. And I’ve always loved movies and had such a great respect for the craft of acting. My biggest terror was that I was going to suck. So I was like, “OK, I’m going to take two to three years off of music just to study and focus on acting.” I auditioned at the end of 2017, landed the role at the beginning of 2018, and then we shot at the end of 2019. So I had time to really live in her [shoes]. The film isn’t a sanitized version of Billie Holiday. She is raw. She is a fighter. She’s a hero, in all of her real humanness, even as a fractured figure. All of the emotional pain. It was the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve done in my life — and the most terrifying.

Winslet: It never goes away.

Day: That’s actually my question. I mean, do you ever really, really shed all of it or let it go?

Winslet: Honestly, it does not go away. But I feel so excited for you, Andra, that in this moment you are connecting with other people, having these kinds of conversations, because we all learn on the job. All of these experiences that we are sharing are the things that will hold you up and buoy you through, and this is a time when we have to hold each other up. But it doesn’t get any easier. And I’m afraid you will always be terrified. I f—ing am.

Pfeiffer: When I first started acting, probably for the first 10 years, I literally on the first day would shake so terribly that I was sure you could see it on film. Fortunately, you couldn’t. I don’t shake any more, but I still have those jitters. I still think the first week of shooting I’m going to be fired and replaced.

Jones: Yeah. So congratulations on that, for a lifetime.

Day: This is a roundtable, but also a therapy session.

Let’s talk about the risks that jangle those nerves. Those of you who have been doing this a while have tackled a wide variety of characters and survived, and thrived. That’s unusual in Hollywood, especially for women.

Pfeiffer: Like all actors, you sort of choose the best of what is available to you, and go for as long as you can without working, until you need a paycheck. It’s also that thing where, depending on what your last role was, that’s how the industry sees you. It’s really up to you to try to find those things that shift it in the direction you want it to go. I did “Grease 2,” and that was one thing, and then was lucky enough a year later to get cast in “Scarface.” People were very upended, because nobody expected that turn. And then when I did “Married to the Mob,” that [was] another seismic shift, like, “Whoa, wait a minute; who’s that?” I remember when I met Marty Scorsese for the first time, he expected this dark-haired girl from New Jersey to walk in. That was one of the most flattering things anyone ever said about my work. It’s just looking for those opportunities, and sometimes they’re very small, but those small opportunities end up having the biggest impact on the direction that your career goes in.

Jones: I just want to interrupt and say how cool this is. Michelle, obviously, you’re an icon and a legend, but the fact that you did [those films] back to back; such different things, such different audiences, such different characters. To me, that is the success of the art form.

Pfeiffer: Well, thank you. I spent lots of time being unemployed and waiting and really stretching it out, but it is, for me, the most exciting thing about being an actor. And that’s why we’re always terrified, because we’re always trying to do something different.

Day: As music artists, people are always trying to put you in a box, like, “This is what you do,” and we’re constantly rebelling against that, because life’s not like that. I can’t be the same. This role changed me, and I wouldn’t have been the same [person] as three years ago anyway. As a fan of yours, [Michelle], it’s exciting not to know what you’re going to come out with next.

Kate, your recent leap into the unknown is playing Mary Anning.

Winslet: She was a woman of scientific brilliance who made pioneering discoveries in the fossil world. But she was an unsung hero, because she lived in the early 1800s, and the world of science and geology was, like so many worlds back then and still now, dominated by men. And those men would buy her finds and claim them as their own discoveries, actually put their names on them. But there was something incredibly stoic and accepting of her lot in life. Mary was self-taught. She was extremely working-class, actually impoverished, lived a very harsh life. I just loved her even though she is cantankerous at times and quite difficult.

Vanessa, in “Pieces of a Woman,” Martha is emotionally distant and hard to read even after going through significant trauma. Was that challenging?

Kirby: In her nature, [Martha] tries to never show anything she’s feeling. So I was really scared, because I thought, “Oh, my God, what if it looks like I’m feeling nothing or nothing’s going on?” I just had to trust that if I really felt it, and I really thought those thoughts [it would come through]. I’ve never given birth ... so a lot of women spoke to me about their experiences of miscarriage or stillbirth or losing children. I owe them everything, because they allowed me to sit with them and try and understand how it really felt. At the end of the shoot, I was like, “I hope it’s done them justice,” because it’s definitely something that’s not spoken about. There’s so much silence around it. I hope that the film will help start conversations that really need to start happening.

Andra, Billie had an exceptional life that was also quite brutal. How did you go about trying to convey that while still honoring her greatness?

Day: She is musically, my foremost inspiration. I already knew a lot about the government going after her. The early war on drugs, and the subsequent wars on drugs, were wholly entrenched in race. I was aware of that, but I didn’t know about how deeply they went after her, even up to her death. Yes, she was an addict and, yes, alcohol and drugs ... but they wanted her to die. And not just kill her, but to actually eradicate her legacy. It’s why I call her the godmother of civil rights, because she was doing it alone. Her singing “Strange Fruit” and the death of Emmett Till reinvigorated the civil rights movement. She was innately a fighter, a character with resilience and tenacity.

Kirby: Kate, can I ask what it was like being so young in “Titanic”? Did it like blow your mind after it came out and you realized that that many people were watching you in the cinema? Did you know at the time when you were making it —

Winslet: I didn’t. I was playing an American for the first time. And working with Leo, who I’d seen in "[What’s Eating] Gilbert Grape” and “Basketball Diaries.” So it was like, “Oh, my God, I’m Kate from Reading.” I was the overweight girl who would always be at the end of the line. And because my name was a W, sometimes I wouldn’t even get in the door of the audition because they’d run out of time before the Ws. And I was in “Titanic.” It’s mad.

Jones: How were you smart enough to know, even with all of that pressure and then getting hit with all of that fame, how did you know to back off and not take the big paychecks? You were so young. How did you know to shoot for longevity?

Winslet: The honest answer is I was scared of Hollywood. A big, scary place, where everyone had to be thin and look a certain way. And I knew that I did not look that way or feel like I fit there, so if I was ever going to belong, I had to earn my place. And to me, I hadn’t earned it. “Titanic” might have been a fluke. I had done “Heavenly Creatures.” I had done “Sense and Sensibility,” which I was nominated for an Academy Award for at the age of 19, but still I had this feeling of “maybe that was just luck.” When I became a mother at 25, all of that stuff evaporated completely. Then two years after she was born, I was asked to do “Eternal Sunshine [of the Spotless Mind].” I do believe that was a huge turning point in my career, because from then on people suddenly went, “Oh, she can do that?!”

Kate, what if anything did you learn from “Ammonite”?

Winslet: It really opened my eyes to wanting to take responsibility for this sort of shared voice that we have as women. To try harder to not be objectified.

Jones: But we take it for granted that things will be the way they’re supposed to be. And that’s what’s been cool about the last five years is there has been a complete and utter subversion of just having that existential moment of like, “Wait, what is it that I’m supposed to do? What are the societal norms? What are the professional norms that I’ve agreed upon that actually don’t feel comfortable?”

Kirby: I remember when I first started reading scripts, the character descriptions. The man, it would always be “articulate, intelligent, high-powered.” And then the woman would be “attractive, dark, beautiful hair, and all eyes look at her when she comes into the room.” It was so subtly objectifying. Often, the woman would be just ever so slightly moving the man’s story along, rather than necessarily having her own journey.

Day: I think we so often write this [young] generation off as like, “Oh, it’s the social media generation, and all they care about is selfies and dah, dah, dah.” But I think we can partly attribute this shift to them. I don’t think this generation wants the glossy, clean, the sanitized version of life. Also, with the internet and social media, everyone’s still connected; the globe is so much smaller now.

Rashida, you’ve not only acted, you’ve written, produced and directed. Do you think that kind of representation behind the camera is making a difference in what we are seeing?

Jones: The good news now is there definitely is an appetite, at least within Hollywood, for female content creators. And what’s nice is what all of you have been saying is the more women there are around, the more comfortable women feel advocating for themselves. If you don’t have that representation around, you’re less likely to speak up, because you don’t feel like you have any backup.

Day: One of the things we learned is that certain audiences would wince at [Billie] getting beat, but I was like, “If we don’t have that in there, then we’re continuing to retool her narrative, the thing that she’s been a victim of her entire life.” Suzan-Lori Parks cowrote this movie with Lee Daniels. Women’s stories have always been told through the lens of masculinity, through how they view us or how they want us to be. Most of our stories need to be told by women, written by women, done by women. Not to write men out of the picture, but for them to understand that it is a collaborative effort.

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #Kate Winslet #Michelle Pfeiffer #Rashida Jones #Andra Day #Interview #Articles #Roundtable #Videos

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toa-incorrect-quotes · 5 years

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with the new book coming out soon, how do you feel about reyna and apollo possibly getting together or whatever's going on? i REALLY don't like it and honestly, i'm pretty sure no one else does either

So I am personally really against the pairing, I don’t think they are compatible at all and I just don’t think they would be good as a couple, their personalities make it hard for me to picture them ever being in a healthy relationship, they are just too different, and that’s not to say that people who don’t have a lot in common can’t be in a functional relationship, I just really can’t find anything about either of them that would make me think they would be good as a couple, they have a few minor things in common, but their personalities are polar opposites, they’d likely get bored of each other if they actually dated. I think they have potential to become close friends who support each other and have a platonic relationship, but they both seem to want such different thing in their life, I don’t think them being together romantically would work. Apollo’s quest is for him to regain his immortality and to bring back the oracles he neglected, when his quest is over and he becomes a god, how would they even stay together? Their options would be for Apollo to stay mortal for Reyna, have Apollo become a god and Reyna stay mortal or have Reyna become a goddess with him. And none of those options really sound great to me, and I will riot if this series ends with Apollo not being a god. But lack of compatibility aside, my main problem with the ship is that the age gap seems highly inappropriate to me, I think in the Heroes of Olympus Reyna was sixteen or something, she might be seventeen by The Tyrants Tomb, but regardless she is a minor. Apollo on the other hand is thousands of years old, even though he is technically in the body of a sixteen year old, he’s still had the life experiences of an adult, he has kids for crying out loud. He’s definitely lost a lot of his memories, and doesn’t remember all of his 4612 years, but he clearly does remember quite a lot of his life and he doesn’t really seem to think of himself as a teenager, and he definitely doesn’t have the maturity of a teenager, so him dating a minor is very much off the table in my opinion. He even stated that Olujime, the guy he was flirting with in The Dark Prophecy, who would have been in his twenties and in college, was too young for him, so Reyna would certainly be too young for him. The age gap for me is the biggest reason I don’t like it, and another reason that I really don’t like the ship is that I know that Apollo is a character who has gotten a lot of hate from the pjo fandom for being “annoying” and because a lot of people in the fandom have decided its his fault that Jason is dead (people seem to be more mad at him than they are at Caligula for Jason dying which infuriates me to no end, even though everyone knows it was Caligula that killed him and no one denies Caligula’s role thankfully, there are still people spending more time being mad at Apollo than at Caligula, I have even heard people say “it’s almost entirely Apollo’s fault”) and if Apollo, someone who is hated by a decent chunk of the fandom dates a character like Reyna who has a lot of stans who think she is too good for this world and that no one is worthy of her, Apollo is going to get even more hate. And not to mention that I think a lot of people will be annoyed if Reyna ends up with any man at all, people want her to be a lesbian (despite the fact that she has had male crushes, so if she were to be wlw she would surely be bi or pan) I think the fandom will throw a hissy fit if Reyna doesn’t either stay single or end up with a girl, and if she ends up with Apollo, people aren’t going to be happy and they’ll take their anger out on him and I’m not ready for that to happen. I’ve already seen him get enough hate for Jason dying, if this happens too, Apollo and toa is going to get so much hate I can’t stand it.

And I know I’ve given a lot of reasons why I think it doesn’t work, and I don’t think it does, but honestly if it weren’t for the inappropriate age gap, I would be willing to give Reypollo a chance if it were well developed, and I think that if Venus’ prophecy was about them, there wouldn’t be the problem of underdevelopment, since it’d be in the making for several books now. But given Reyna’s age no amount of development is going to make me like it. If Venus’ prophecy was about Apollo and Reyna being a couple and Rick has been planning this for several books now, I really wish that he had given more thought to the age thing, and made Reyna at least eighteen if she were to end up with a four thousand year old in the body of a teenager. Like if Rick has been planning this for so long, I’m going to be pretty mad that he never gave consideration to the fact that Reyna would be too young for Apollo, he could have easily avoided it by making Reyna 18+ and having Apollo be turned into a mortal a few years older than sixteen, and then the age thing wouldn’t be a problem. But I think Rick just really doesn’t seem to consider the age gaps of characters when pairing them up, like Caleo for example, it’s a ship I would otherwise be fine with if not for the fact that Leo is younger than Reyna and Calypso is older than Apollo. I think the only thing about Caleo that makes it a little less terrible is that Calypso at least acts like a teenager and wants to go to school like a normal teen, and since time was very distorted on Ogygia, maybe she does have the maturity of a teen, but that’s a big maybe and I just don’t understand why Rick would even go there, Caleo is a pairing that is hard to defend. And Sadie and Anubis, which I don’t remember too well, but Sadie is twelve or thirteen and her love interest was thousands of years old. I need to reread the Kane Chronicles, but I don’t think they actually ended up together, I think they just sort of liked each other or something, but even that just weirds me out so much.

And yeah, there certainly aren’t many people who like this ship and want it to be canon, I’ve only heard maybe two people say they were open to it, I haven’t seen Reypollo really get much more support than that, most people seem to agree that the ship just does not work.

And I know that during the lead up to The Tyrants Tomb there are going to be Reyna stans that are going to hate the ship because “Reyna deserves better” I know that we are going to start seeing more posts saying stuff like “Reyna don’t worry I’ll save you from that idiot Apollo” I already have for months, and this was before we had that excerpt from TTT hinting at Reypollo, I’m honestly scared to check the toa tags these days, because even though it isn’t canon (yet) Apollo is probably already getting hate.

I think in the next book we will find out what Venus’ prophecy that “no demigod would heal her heart” meant and who it was about. I have argued before that Venus’ prophecy could be about Apollo, but the heart healing was meant in a platonic way and that Reyna and Apollo will confide in each other and help each other through some of their past traumas. The prophecy was vague, and to me “healing her heart” doesn’t necessarily have to mean that they would need to be in a romantic relationship to do that, sometimes what people need isn’t a romantic relationship to fix their problems, sometimes what people need is a friend who can support them and who they can confide in, and I’m really hoping that Apollo can be that person for Reyna, and that is what the prophecy was talking about. I’m hoping that Rick is just trying to subvert our expectations, Reypollo seems almost too obvious in my opinion, however that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part, it’ll likely end up being canon.

Edit: Okay since posting this I’ve also come to the realisation that Rick’s timelines are as the kids say “whack” so with that in mind there is the possibility that Reyna is fucking somehow eighteen years old by the Tyrants Tomb tbh I don’t really remember her age too well so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m wrong but if she is eighteen by the Tyrants Tomb, then the ship would definitely be less problematic in my opinion and I’d definitely have less ground to stand on when I say that the age is inappropriate, however from my memory of her age in hoo, she would still be a minor, and if she is a minor I am not cool with it. Any other problems I have with the ship are incredibly small compared to my problems with the age gap. So if it were to be canon and they were both at an age where they could consent to a relationship, I could live with it, if Reyna is a minor however, I am very much not okay with them dating. But unless it’s confirmed in canon that Reyna isn’t a minor, I still stick by the statement that the age gap isn’t appropriate. And even if she is eighteen, it still would be pretty weird in my opinion.

#ask #trials of apollo #apollo pjo #pjo apollo #lester papadopoulos #Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano #reypollo #apoleyna #the tyrants tomb

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thefeministherald · 5 years

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Your Ultimate Women-Write-The-Best-of-Everything 2019 Reading List

The Voyeurs (Graphic Novel)

"The Voyeurs is the work of a mature writer, if not one of the most sincere voices of her literary generation. It's a fun, honest read that spans continents, relationships and life decisions. I loved it."—Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library

"As she watches other people living life, and watches herself watching them, Bell's pen becomes a kind of laser, first illuminating the surface distractions of the world, then scorching them away to reveal a deeper reality that is almost too painful and too beautiful to bear."— Alison Bechdel, Fun Home

"A master of the exquisite detail, Bell provides a welcome peephole into our lives."—Françoise Mouly, The New Yorker

The Voyeurs, was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and the Atlantic.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

In this brilliant, breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate.

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir

Cartoonist Ellen Forney explores the relationship between “crazy” and “creative” in this graphic memoir of her bipolar disorder, woven with stories of famous bipolar artists and writers.

Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passions and creativity.

Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to “cure” an otherwise brilliant mind.

Darkly funny and intensely personal, Forney’s memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on an artist’s work, as she shares her own story through bold black-and-white images and evocative prose.

The Woman in Cabin 10

From New York Times bestselling author of the “twisty-mystery” (Vulture) novel In a Dark, Dark Wood, comes The Woman in Cabin 10, an equally suspenseful and haunting novel from Ruth Ware—this time, set at sea. In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

1222

Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, from Norway’s #1 bestselling female crime writer—a “beguiling” (The Washington Post) “good old-fashioned murder mystery” (The New York Times Book Review) set in an isolated hotel where guests stranded during a monumental snowstorm begin turning up dead. A train on its way to the northern reaches of Norway derails during a massive blizzard, 1,222 meters above sea level. The passengers head for a nearby hotel, centuries old and practically empty. With plenty of food and shelter from the storm, the evacuees think they are safe, until one of them turns up dead. With no sign of rescue and the storm raging, retired police inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen is asked to investigate. Paralyzed by a bullet lodged in her spine, Hanne has no desire to get involved. But when another body turns up, panic takes over. Complicating things is the presence of a mysterious guest, a passenger who traveled in a private rail car and now stays secluded on the top floor of the hotel. No one knows who the guest is, or why armed guards are needed. Hanne has her suspicions. Trapped in her wheelchair, trapped by the storm, and now trapped with a killer, Hanne knows she must act before the killer strikes again.

Robot Dreams

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A PW Best Book of the Year An ALSC Notable Children’s Book A YALSA Great Graphic Novel

This moving, charming graphic novel about a dog and a robot shows us in poignant detail how powerful and fragile relationships are.

Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged, and continue to challenge, how we think about identity. Borderlands / La Frontera remaps our understanding of what a "border" is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us.

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

Now a Netflix series! New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2018 James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook and multiple ICAP Cookbook Awards Named one of the Best Books of 2017 by: NPR, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Rachel Ray Every Day, San Francisco Chronicle, Vice Munchies, Elle.com, Glamour, Eater, Newsday, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Seattle Times, Tampa Bay Times, Tasting Table, Modern Farmer, Publishers Weekly, and more. A visionary new master class in cooking that distills decades of professional experience into just four simple elements, from the woman declared “America’s next great cooking teacher” by Alice Waters.

Monstress Volume 1: Awakening

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers. About the Creators: New York Times bestselling and award-winning writer Marjorie Liu is best known for her fiction and comic books. She teaches comic book writing at MIT, and leads a class on Popular Fiction at the Voices of Our Nation (VONA) workshop.

Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir. Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval.

Nobody Nowhere: The Remarkable Autobiography of an Autistic Girl

Donna Williams was a child with more labels than a jam-jar: deaf, wild disturbed, stupid insane... She lived within herself, her own world her foreground, ours a background she only visited. Isolated from her self and from the outside world, Donna was, in her words, a Nobody Nowhere. She swung violently between these two worlds, battling to join our world and, simultaneously, to keep it out. Abandoned from all connection to the self within her, she lived as a ghost with a body, a patchwork of the images which bombarded her. Intact but detached from the seemingly incomprehensible world around her, she lived in what she called 'a world under glass`.

After twenty-five years of being misunderstood, and unable to understand herself, Donna stumbled upon the word 'autism': a label, but one which held up a mirror and made sense of her life and struggles, and gave her a chance to finally forgive both herself and those around her.

The Ice Princess

The psychological thriller debut of No.1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg.

A small town can hide many secrets

Returning to her hometown after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems like she’s taken her own life.

Meanwhile, local detective Patrik Hedström is following his own suspicions about the case. It’s only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past…

The Vampire Chronicles: Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned

In 1976, nearly 80 years after Bram Stoker published Dracula, Anne Rice's bestselling first novel, Interview with the Vampire, breathed new life into the vampire myth. Now, in one chilling volume, here are the first three classic novels of The Vampire Chronicles; Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned.

Adulthood is a Myth: A Sarah's Scribbles Collection

Do you love networking to advance your career? Is adulthood an exciting new challenge for which you feel fully prepared? Ugh. Please go away. 2016 GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER FOR GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS! These casually drawn, perfectly on-point comics by the hugely popular young Brooklyn-based artist Sarah Andersen are for the rest of us. They document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, and dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas. In other words, the horrors and awkwardnesses of young modern life. Oh and they are totally not autobiographical. At all.

Nimona

Indies Choice Book of the Year * National Book Award Finalist * New York Times Bestseller * New York Times Notable Book * Kirkus Best Book * School Library Journal Best Book * Publishers Weekly Best Book * NPR Best Book * New York Public Library Best Book * Chicago Public Library Best Book

The New York Times bestselling graphic novel sensation from Noelle Stevenson, based on her beloved and critically acclaimed web comic. Kirkus says, “If you’re going to read one graphic novel this year, make it this one.”

Nemeses! Dragons! Science! Symbolism! All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from Noelle Stevenson. Featuring an exclusive epilogue not seen in the web comic, along with bonus conceptual sketches and revised pages throughout, this gorgeous full-color graphic novel has been hailed by critics and fans alike as the arrival of a “superstar” talent (NPR.org).

Cultural Anthropology Barbara Miller

Cultural Anthropology presents a balanced introduction to the world’s cultures, focusing on how they interact and change. Author Barbara Miller provides many points where readers can interact with the material, and encourages students to think critically about other cultures as well as their own. Featuring the latest research and statistics throughout, the eighth edition has been updated with contemporary examples of anthropology in action, addressing recent newsworthy events such as the Ebola epidemic.

Captain Marvel Volume 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More

Kelly Sue Deconnick

Hero! Pilot! Avenger! Captain Marvel, Earth's Mightiest Hero with an attitude to match, is back and launching headfirst into an all-new ongoing adventure! As Captain Marvel, a.k.a. Carol Danvers, comes to a crossroads with a new life and new romance, she makes a dramatic decision that will alter the course of her life - and the entire Marvel Universe - in the months to come. But as Carol takes on a mission to return an alien girl to her homeworld, she lands in the middle of an uprising against the Galactic Alliance! Investigating the forced resettlement of Rocket Girl's people, Carol discovers that she has a history with the man behind the plot. But when the bad guy tries to blackmail Carol and turn the Avengers against her, it's payback time! Guest-starring the Guardians of the Galaxy!

#reading list #literature #women in literature #feminism #feminist

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rachelthompsonauthor · 6 years

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Sexual Abuse Is Not A Competition

**Updated July, 2018

Someone asked recently if, in addition to writing about women’s issues, I also write about men’s sexual abuse.

I don’t. I’m a nonfiction writer of essays, poetry, and prose based on my experiences (and business articles on author marketing and social media at BadRedheadMedia.com). As I’m a woman, I have no personal experience with male sexual abuse.

This seems fairly obvious, but I guess it’s not. And he had an agenda — to publicize his cause: to give men the same type of press women ‘get.’ To minimize what these women (and others) experience, to make it ‘fair.’ Nothing about sexual abuse if fair, ever. Why blame the survivors for surviving?

Part of me supports the fact that all victims of sexual abuse need to be heard. I understand where his anger comes from. Another part of me is, frankly, kinda pissed off.

Let’s deconstruct.

Sexual Abuse

Abuse of any kind is horrific, particularly when sexual, it involves children, and especially if it’s over a long period of time. Hearing about what those girls in Ohio survived just reinforces what an issue sexual abuse of women is. I was dismayed when someone on Facebook wrote: how could they not have escaped over the course of ten years? There were so many issues in gaining freedom, fear and terror for each other and the child chief among them, as well as further punishment by their captor if caught. To suggest they didn’t try hard enough makes me so angry (not that this person intended that). It’s simply my reaction.

{July 11, 2018 note: **There stories we read daily, particularly since the #MeToo Movement began last October crush my heart, yet I’m encouraged that people are bravely coming forward. Our brains can protect us for decades — this collective consciousness is moving us forward toward healing.

If you question why people wait, educate yourself. Neuroscience explains so much about the brain and trauma.}

Why? In my own situation, I was a child (age 11 to 12) who lived next door to my own personal hell. The man who threatened to kill my family if I told. Who said he’d shoot us all in our sleep. Why would I NOT believe him? As a military officer, he carried a gun.

Assumptions are a terrible thing. To assume these women didn’t try to escape over that long period of a time is to assume they were happy to be there or didn’t try hard enough to get away — obviously, we know that’s not the case.

I can understand that feeling of utter helplessness, confusion, and terror — something most people thankfully will never experience. Sadly, many will — and have. The latest statistics show that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted over their lifetime. 80% under the age of 18 (source: RAINN).

Men

Men certainly have their own issues to deal with regarding sexual abuse (societal pressures, etc), and just because it doesn’t happen as often (or make the news as much) doesn’t make it any less horrific for the victims. 1 in 33 (again, RAINN) men will be abused. My heart bleeds for anyone who has suffered, and many men have reached out to me after reading my book with their own terrible stories.

I write about my experiences and how they have affected me. I had no knowledge (back in the 70s) of anyone close to me experiencing this — male or female — so the whole situation was particularly isolating. It’s only through research and years of therapy that I’ve learned so much more about it.

Men do need advocates for their stories — no question. Someone who regularly treats these cases, who has been through it themselves, or who has knowledge from a therapeutic standpoint — something I’m not qualified to do.

I wasn’t upset with this fella — he’s simply trying to advance his cause. Men feel marginalized. They suffer just as terribly as women. Sadly, the fact that women are more often victims creates this situation. And doubly sad is that our system of justice is ill-prepared to deal with these crimes and society judges men for not being able to ‘man up’ is ridiculous and dumb — yet is the reality for guys.

Competition

My only issue? His approach. It’s not a competition. Our abuse isn’t worse than their abuse. It’s not us versus them. It’s all bad. I understand and accept also that my experiences color my reactions. I share my truth, not anyone else’s. It’s all part of dealing with our own personal traumas.

Just because some people write about difficult topics doesn’t mean they are purposefully ignoring other populations. One voice is what this collective ‘we’ contributes.

Hopefully, many voices together will create a change.

Read more about my situation in my award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

I go into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected my life in Broken Places, available now on Amazon.

Sisterhood Done Right Is An Amazing Commodity

Top Tips To Creating A Dynamic Twitter Account

Review of Nira/Sussa by Julian Darius – Dangerously Trasgressive and Beautifully Erotic

Author Morticia Knight Talks Love and Acceptance Along With New Release, Set Ablaze

Interview with @LornaSuzuki, Indie Author of Movie-Optioned ‘The Imago Chronicles’

Cyber Bullying on Goodreads: Take 2

Book Review – Mine by Jill Noelle

Interview & Review: Unbeautifully Loved by Emma Grayson

Cleveland councilman: Women suffered sexual abuse

Talking About Sexual Abuse Helps Male Victim Find Internal Peace

The post Sexual Abuse Is Not A Competition appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

source http://rachelintheoc.com/2018/07/sexual-abuse-is-not-a-competition/

#rachel thompson #rachelintheoc #love #loss #relationships #trauma #abuse #sex abuse #survivor #write

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zyzzyva1936-blog-blog · 6 years

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“Lemma the Librarian - The Last Dance”

Published: 14 April 2018*

http://www.mcstories.com/LemmaTheLibrarian/index.html

“The Last Dance” brings an end to the episodic nature of the series. Everything from here on out is welded quite tightly into the main plot - or, rather, the main plot constitutes what happens in the last three stories. Spoilers for “The Last Dance” from here on out. What seems like a straightforward get-the-book smash-and-grab (which involves Lemma and Iola going undercover in a harem, because @midorikonton knows which side her bread is buttered on) turns into the return of fairy murdergoblin “Red” for his third and final confrontation with Lemma. Red loses, although mostly thanks to Iason and Rhoda and Rhoda’s Machamp rage-demon Sonneillon. (Rhoda being, of course, the person Lemma used the ghost last time to call for.)

Lemma’s desire to be enslaved is something she’s been dealing with, more or less successfully, up until this point, but it’s something Iason and Iola don’t actually know about yet. That reticence is now coming back to bite her in the ass. The most important conflict in this story isn’t the fight against Red, or Lugal’s** magic clothes; it’s between Lemma and Iola over what the right course of action while trapped in the palace is. Lemma wants to give in, of course, but Iola’s experience with mind-control has been a lot more traumatic than Lemma’s, and she has a very strong personal/cultural “go down fighting” ethos, and she doesn’t seem to have this particular kink on any level anyways. We were reminded just last story of all of Iola’s trauma around the whole magical mind-controlled sex thing. But unlike that time, Lemma, for strategic reasons, doesn’t feel like she has to room to let Iola do her own thing. So she doesn’t just go along with the enchantments, she actively throws her magical weight behind glamouring Iola too. Iola doesn’t know the actual reasons Lemma did this, but I’m not sure it’d make a difference anyways: she would understand it, correctly, as just as awful a betrayal either way.

The party - now up to four with the addition of Rhoda - is off to Hattush to find the last, most apocalyptic book, and it’s all very dramatic. But what sticks with me the most about the end is Iola’s refusal to tell Lemma everything’s ok.

*Look, it was supposed to be out this week, but the EMCSA (my canonical reference for links and dates) is on a one week break, I’m travelling next week, and its been posted to Tumblr now. Also it’s been burning a hole in my drafts folder for nearly a month now. ;P

**His death at the hands of Red is a little abrupt, but he’s enough of a controlling jerk I can’t brink myself to feel too sorry for him. Plus, you know, dying abruptly is a peril of kingship. (If Red had murdered, say, poor Simta, I’d be a lot angrier; but Jenny seems to have learned her lesson since the Vamp!Brea business***.)

***Yes, I’m still mad. ;P

When The Fuck Are We? 🤷

For the first time, we’re further back in time than the Bronze Age Collapse! “Possession with Intent” is set in Khemeth, which is clearly K•m•t, Egypt*. Ancient Egypt is one of those things everyone at least knows a little about** so I’ll focus on two slightly more obscure points.

The first is Iason’s reference to Khemeth being “the breadbasket of the Inner Sea”, which is both true and false in an interesting way. Egypt, being spectacularly fertile, essentially one-dimensonal, and laid out on a lazy, easily navigable river, is indeed just about the optimum imaginable setting for extracting massive food surpluses with ancient technology and governance. But it wasn’t a big export from Egypt (Egypt’s main ancient export was papyrus, thanks to its ecologically-enforced monopoly). Rather, it was mostly used to pump up Egypt’s own population, and in particular the showpiece capital cities such as Memphis, Thebes, or Alexandria. In the ancient world, having an unnecessarily - nay, infeasibly - large capital was a point of pride, which is where Egypt’s actual role as a breadbasket comes in: after it lost its independence in 30BCE, the Romans told Alexandria to get stuffed and began exporting Egypt’s wonderful easy grain surpluses to Rome, instead***. But of course, there’s not much here to imaginably suggest that we’re in the Roman Empire, timeline-wise.

Which brings us to the other point: the party being around for the invention of pyramids is obviously just for the joke, but even discounting that Egypt is old. The usual comparison is to note that when Augustus began redirecting the Egyptian grain surplus to Rome, the pyramids at Giza were already older than Augustus is now. The Egyptian state that survived the Bronze Age Collapse was the already declining New Kingdom, third of the traditional old/middle/new kingdoms division of ancient Egyptian history; it’s the heir to a polity stretching back into the 31st C BCE. Egypt is old.

“The Last Dance” takes us to the one city-dwelling society even older than Egypt. Lagasch/Lagash is a Sumerian town, and Sumer (the south end of Mesopotamia, so modern-day south-central Iraq) has recognizable cities all the way back into the fifth freakin’ millennium BCE, and a historical record stretching patchily into the late fourth. Lagash ceased to exist as in independent city-state in the late third millennium*****, so about as long before our stop in Etruria as that was before Mercia, or Mercia is before the present day (and this story doesn’t seem to be taking place at the end of Lagash’s time as an independent polity, either). Based on some truly shoddy historical research******, we might slap this with a date of 2500 BCE - old enough to actually start getting close to the invention of the pyramids.

Sumerian, like Etruscan, is a language that seems to be unrelated to every other known language. (Before you come up with a brilliant theory that will revolutionize ancient history - no, they don’t seem to be related to each other, either.) Unlike Etruscan, we have such a huge corpus of text that we can translate it fairly reliably. (It helps that Sumerian remained in use as a record-keeping language for centuries after it had stopped being spoken - rather like Latin in Medieval/Early Modern Europe.) I’ve already mentioned the problems with king lists and such, but one of the great things about Mesopotamia is that unlike the logistical records of Mycenae, or the glorifying propaganda of Egypt, we have all of that and also preserved letters, and that lets us look so much further afield into the culture, you don’t even know. We even have recognizable preserved jokes: a regional administrator writes the central palace complaining that his requests for supplies to repair a dangerously deteriorating wall have been ignored, and it’s going to fall over and hurt someone. He demands supplies again, “and if you can’t send those at least send a doctor”.

Also, despite what Neal Stephenson will tell you, Sumerian is not glossolalic and you can’t use it to mind-control people.

*Look, you try transliterating Coptic into Latin characters! Like its distant relatives the Semitic languages, Coptic is based around consonantal root-words, into which vowels are slotted to make verbs, adjectives, and so forth. It makes for somewhat awkward transliterations.

**He says, and then panics trying to figure out how much people who aren’t actually historians have read about ancient Egypt. Tutankhamen’s weird Sun cultist dad is common knowledge, right?

***Rome’s peak in the Augustan period at a couple of hundred thousand, maybe a million****, was almost entirely on the back of the annona, a massive subsidized bread ration distributed to the Roman civic populace, and supplied in large part by Egypt. (It’s not terribly comparable to modern food stamps or other social welfare; in an ancient context, it’s more like spiking the football.) The population cratered between then and the burned-out husk the Goths and Byzantines squabbled over in the 6th C CE, but not because of the “fall of Rome”. Rather, the 4th C CE founding of Constantinople and the redirection of the Egyptian grain surplus there (so the new capital would bulk up to an appropriately prestigious population) was what really did it for Rome; and all of that happened when the Roman Empire was still riding high. The state of Rome was closer before and after the Visigoth sack than either was to Augustus’ city of marble.

****The brilliant if wildly opinionated historian Colin McEvedy had a great turn of phrase arguing for 250,000. (He has a great turn of phrase for everything, you should read him.) After laying out the more archaeological arguments about land use and suchlike, he notes that the one solid literary record for the annona we have, around the time of Augustus, gives a little less than a quarter of a million rations, and “who ever heard of a dictator who put a smaller figure on his largesse than he needed to. If [Augustus] had fed a million Romans he would have said so.”

*****We can peg it to exact years relative to related dates - the Mesopotamians were pretty through chroniclers, so we know how long kings ruled, in what regnal year they went on what campaign, and so forth, but they’re floating around in a little bit of a void. There are a couple of different possible chronologies depending on which recorded astronomical events you make line up with which calculated astronomical events.

******To wit, googling “Lagash king list dates” and looking for names that resemble “Lugal”. My historiography prof just shuddered and doesn’t know why.

Next time: the thrilling climax! Oh, man, does Lemma do some climaxing.

#Lemma Reviews

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kayla-turpin · 4 years

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My Favourite Articles of 2019

Normally, I try to post this as the year is careening to the end, but 2019 was a bit different and I am posting this a month late. I started 2019 with the New Years Resolution to read an article a day. Part of the motivation was to break the habit of mindlessly scrolling Reddit right before bed and be more intentional with my reading habits. The other part was just to see if I could stick to a daily habit. It seemed low-stakes - I already enjoy consuming stories in the longform format and I knew it would take up a marginal slice of time in my day.I didn’t set out with any specific rules, but some did form as the year progressed:

I did not need to limit myself to articles that came out this year - I could delve into the archives and find articles that peaked my interest depending on the mood I was in.

Articles should generally be considered journalistic in nature, but there was no particular length. I generally tried to aim for anything over 10 minutes. I would say the average read time was about 20-25 minutes.

I could read at any point of the day. I occasionally read in the morning, but I would say 90% of the time I read at night.

For tracking purposes, I would use Pocket. As a result, most printed articles went unread.

I am happy to report that I read. I read every single day. Some days were harder than others: I definitely remember one night coming home from the bar and trying to focus on a Zadie Smith article about Graham Greene while the ceiling started to spin. Or moving into my new home and squinting into the light of my phone on a mattress on the floor, no internet and surrounded by towers of boxes. I read quietly to myself the evening follow my uncle’s funeral. I read surrounded by sleeping colleagues after a night out in Denver. I read in coffee shops, on planes, next to the river, on long car rides, on my sister’s pull-out, but mostly from my bed. I read for days on multiple subjects, largely determined by whatever rabbit hole I had fallen into - Chernobyl, MH370, Dirty John, adult friendships, self-help columns, spooky houses, and wacky science discoveries. I read a lot of true crime. I would sometimes take the opportunity to stay abreast on current events.

This goal itself wasn’t revolutionary or life-changing - but I am mostly proud of the fact that I was able to maintain the discipline to do it every day. This year, I am going to maintain the same trajectory but shift over to books with 1-2 days of dedicated time for longform.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some articles I loved* this year!

10. I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on AirBnB - Allie Conti (Vice)

I would be remiss if I didn’t include this article for the sole reason that my colleagues and I were scammed by the same scam! Not entirely, since we SSDGS (stayed sexy and didn’t get scammed), but we initially booked with the exact same fake listing.

The bad news, which went unstated, was that I had unknowingly stumbled into a nationwide web of deception that appeared to span eight cities and nearly 100 property listings—an undetected scam created by some person or organization that had figured out just how easy it is to exploit Airbnb’s poorly written rules in order to collect thousands of dollars through phony listings, fake reviews, and, when necessary, intimidation.

9. The Tinder Swindler - Natalie Remøe Hansen, Kristoffer Kumar, Erlend Ofte Arntsen (VG)

The UX design of longform articles has vastly improved and this article takes full of advantage – I’d suggest reading it for the interactivity alone. Also, I am already sensing a rhythm to this list, one of true crime and elaborate schemes and unsuspecting rubes.

8. Worked at Vice Then Went to Jail - Kate Knibbs (The Ringer)

This article is scattered with a bunch of ‘six degrees of separation’ vibes from people quoted in the article to the geographical snapshot of the Vice office and the borders of Liberty Village and Parkdale. It’s weird thinking that this story was developing blocks away from where I was binge-watching Scandal and eating muffins from The Abbott.

Slava says he wound up in touch with people who were in touch with people who, somewhere along the line, ran a transnational drug trafficking ring organized enough to move humans who smuggled millions of dollars’ worth of product around the globe because he was sick of writing about Canadian music. “I really exhausted the pipeline of potential content,” he said. He’d noticed other writers in the Canadian office get praised for daring reporting, particularly one coworker who’d managed to get a source within ISIS. Pivoting to crime writing sounded exciting.”

7. The Fisherman’s Secret - Giuseppe Pennisi (San Francisco Chronicle)

The deep sea is deeply fa-sea-nating. Ok, that was nau-sea-ating. Ok, I’ll stop. In any case, this article reads like a contemporary treasure hunt. Did you know you like learning about maritime law?

Well, you do now.Joe was about to learn this for himself. It was the biggest secret he had ever needed to keep. So big that he was compelled to just blurt it out. So big it could put his family in danger. And it felt like destiny. He’d come to know it only because of the particular way he fished, the same way his father had, and his grandfather — trawling the ocean floor.He had spent his life on the water, yet when it came to treasure, he was a rank amateur. But he knew something the experts didn’t.Joe knew, within a tiny circle of the Pacific, where a treasure might be.

6. What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane - William Langeweische (The Atlantic)

We will likely never know the answer to this – but this theoretical account, at least, feels close to the truth.

Eleven minutes later, as the airplane closed in on a waypoint near the start of Vietnamese air-traffic jurisdiction, the controller at Kuala Lumpur Center radioed, “Malaysian three-seven-zero, contact Ho Chi Minh one-two-zero-decimal-nine. Good night.” Zaharie answered, “Good night. Malaysian three-seven-zero.” He did not read back the frequency, as he should have, but otherwise the transmission sounded normal. It was the last the world heard from MH370. The pilots never checked in with Ho Chi Minh or answered any of the subsequent attempts to raise them.

5. The Strange Life and Mysterious Death of a Virtuoso Coder - Brendan I. Koener (Wired)

Despite the tragic turn-of-events elucidated in the title, the article is an interesting foray into the life of an enigmatic individual with a raw talent in a language I know little about (despite operating professionally in tech space).

There were occasions, however, when Haas would temporarily shake off the druggy haze and dazzle with his brilliance. Mark Yannitell recalls that Haas figured out how to dramatically improve an open source video encoder so that it could crunch multimegabyte files in a matter of minutes rather than hours. Yannitell urged his friend to capitalize on his achievement, but Haas hemmed and hawed before dropping the project altogether.“He was like Cypher from The Matrix—y'know, ‘You see code, but I see brunettes and redheads,’ ” Yannitell says. “But when he reached that genius moment, when he was on the cusp of some big idea that could maybe change the world, he got nervous.”

4. The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge - Kera Bolonik (The Cut)

I guffawed all the way through this article. Be sure to read the follow-up, because the ride doesn’t stop.

That could help explain why warning signs that might have been obvious to many managed to elude a man who teaches a Harvard Law class on “Judgment and Decision-Making,” which analyzes those elements of human nature that allow us to delude ourselves and make terrible decisions. “Of course, now I feel slightly ridiculous teaching it,” Hay told me, “given how easily I let myself be taken advantage of.”

3. The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence - Ezra Marcus (The Cut)

Another unbelievable story that operates in the shadow of the ivory tower. This story is unsettling, with elements of Dirty John in the methodically-manipulative-yet-charsmatic nature of Larry Ray, the father of one of the students living in the dorm.

Larry’s core program of personal transformation happened on nights they stayed in. After a late dinner, everyone would gather in the living room for a marathon discussion in which the group interrogated one person about anything and everything. Usually, the person being questioned had landed in the hot seat because he or she had done something Larry didn’t like. Trivial mistakes, such as scratching a pan or breaking a plate, were considered intentional manifestations of childhood trauma. The group session’s purpose, Larry explained, was to reveal deep personal truths.

2. Chaos at the Top of the World - Joshua Hammer (GQ)

There will always be places on this earth, especially spaces that push the boundaries of the extreme, that will always have a magical quality. The deep recesses of the ocean, the cusp of the Kármán line, the long stretch of polar landscape. Stories of Everest are no exception, as they always feel heroic and adventurous. This article examines the ever-growing popularity and the danger that ensues.

He swiftly identified the problem: a woman in a red climbing suit adorned with the emblems of a Chinese mountaineering group perched just before the drop-off, unwilling to go forward. The woman's two Sherpa guides were firmly encouraging her to descend the ladder, but she remained paralyzed in apparent fear. For those in the logjam behind her, there was no going around. Everybody was stuck, freezing in the storm.

1. Gimme Shelter - Wes Enzinna (Harper’s)

It goes without saying as I listed it as #1, but this was my favourite read by a long-shot. Longform journalism can be riveting due to the subject matter alone, but can also be so well-written that even describing the confines of a small shack in an unremarkable backyard in Oakland can make your chest feel heavy. This article contained an unexpected callback – I happened to read an article that was tangentially related a couple of years ago that filled in some of the colour. I recommend starting there.

It rained. First for days, then for weeks. The yard filled up with a quarter foot of water, as if somewhere a levee had collapsed, and the heads of coyote mint and monkey flower became lily pads. At night, ghosts of mist rose from the pools, and inside my shack I could see my breath, even with my space heater turned to ten. The power flickered. To use the toilet or kitchen in Erik’s house I dashed through the mud, high-stepping, and returned to the shack soaked and shivering. There was nowhere to sit or lie other than my mattress, so I spent most nights pupated in my sleeping bag, the zipper under my chin, the space heater tucked under the covers with me as I watched the rain fall outside and the waterline creep slowly up the walls.

Honourable mentions

(*I kept the Top 10 list to strictly articles from 2019, but here’s some highlights from the temporal smorgasbord of content available)

Made me feel a little homesick for the streets of Toronto: The Woman Who Built Queen West

If you want to ball your eyes out: The Unthinkable Has Happened

Friends writing and doing cool things: Wonders and Wanders Along The Way

2 Spooky 4 U (Ghost edition): The Murder House

2 Spooky 4 U (Stalker edition): The Watcher

Calling Keith Morrison to come narrate this story immediately: The Body in Room 348

Fitbits aren’t just counting steps anymore: A Brutal Murder, a Wearable Witness, and an Unlikely Suspect

Never forget: When P!nk was Black

If you could get ASMR from reading words: David Chang’s Unified Theory of Deliciousness

Be still, my 1999 tween heart: ‘Cruel Intentions’ Oral History

I am actually obsessed with him, tho: Why Million of People Watch This Youtube Eat 50-year old Rations

A new (laughable) spin on remote work: My Life As a Robot

When music literally soundtracks important moments in your life: The Christmas Tape

The other side of that Aziz Ansari story: The Rise and Fall of Babe.net

Some expert level trolling: I Made My Shed the Top-Rated Restaurant on Trip Advisor

My dirty secret is my love for influencer drama: I Was Caroline Calloway

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dannymolloy · 7 years

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In Marius’ defence; getting very personal

First of all, there has been some confusion here on Tumblr as to what my intentions are with this post. If you read this and honestly believe I condone pedophilia, I can tell you now; I don’t. Simple as that. If you read this post, written out of my own emotions and translate that to me not caring about yours, that’s simply false. Just because I share mine, doesn’t mean I don’t care about yours. Each their own. Simple as that. If you truly believe I wrote this piece to trivialize abuse victims and/or glorify sexual predators, you think very poorly of me and I invite you to come and talk to me to get to know me better. I guarantee you, I’m a very nice, loving and caring person. Secondly, we’re talking about a fandom. Almost in all fandoms, there is love for protagonists and antagonists alike. This does not mean we condone crime, rape and murder in real life. Look at the love for The Joker, Sephiroth, Moriarty, The Master, Mason Verger etc. Is everyone that loves these characters a bigot and contributor to the trivialising of crime victims? No. Wether it’s a villain that not so bad or a ‘hero’ that’s not all good; it is still fiction. No matter how real our feelings are for certain fictional characters, this is not a real reflection of our stance in real life. Period. Especially in VC, the fandom is based on loving killers. We love Lestat. We love Armand. All the vampires in VC have done horrible, horrid stuff, taken lives and committed an array of criminal acts to (for example) get undeniable wealth. To go into this and pin pointing one guy with a flaw that makes him in all honesty a villain (Marius in this case); is funny to me as they then all are. They are all criminals. They are all killers, arsonists and thieves and all have their own mental issues to cope with. I will gladly have discussions about individual characters and their crimes or contributions to the fandom, but don’t point fingers saying I discredit crime victims when the whole series does that in romanticizing vampirism in the first place. If you don’t like the books, I discourage you to read this post or anything I post on my Daniel blog.

If someone reads this and still finds me a horrible person, I insist you contact me personally in PM for an open conversation. Don’t hide behind others. If you want your voice to be heard, speak up. I am open to any civil, reasonable conversation. ON TO THE ACTUAL POST. ------ One of my dear friends just messaged me about how she feels terrible about the fact that Marius is being portrait as an abusive monster by a lot of people of the fandom and nothing but that. And I just want to share with you my story to let you guys know why there are people out there that love him.

Reading this story take in account that I am religious. When I was 15 I got into a particular fandom which stimulated my art, my creatively and my love for roleplay. I fell madly in love with one of the characters and RPed him for a looooong time. Nonstop. Only back then I did not know what a muse was. I did not know of the word. And darker forces took advantage of that. When it was revealed that this particular character died in the next book, it tore my heart to shreds. And instead of experiencing the muse as an inspirational source for my writing, it became a constant presence that would ‘talk’ to me. Said it came to be with me. Demand things of me. For almost two years this thing pretending to be him tried to isolate me and drag me down a dark path. I would be his and only his. I even broke up with a boyfriend back then whom I was crazy about. Because he told me to. And in the end he would even start telling me to off myself to truly be with him. Thank god something then clicked in me, only then realising this was going too far. I believe by recognising it, God reached out and expelled it. This thing left. But I didn’t realise it was my own strength- my own doing that did this. So I was distraught. It broke me. It left me depressed and unhappy for more years than I dare admit. It ruined my ability to be romantically involved with anyone which I still suffer from till this day.

But then something happened. I got introduced to the Vampire Chronicles fandom. I was scared at first. The confrontation with such strong, vibrant characters and the overwhelming subject of death made me so very weary for this fandom. But when I reached the point in The Vampire Lestat where Marius dug Lestat up and Lestat said he had never laid eyes on something so beautiful, I was roused. And as I kept reading, this Marius- this beautiful, man so full of life and optimism and love for life made me smile again. He was calm and wise and friendly and so extremely patient. An artist too and in love with everything beautiful in life. He appreciated the simple gesture of opening a door and all his strength and power made him humble towards weakness. Through his death, he only loved life more. All these lessons overwhelmed me. Shook me to my core. Slapped me in the face and told me this was the muse to follow. And he saved me. He literally saved me. I smiled again. I started appreciating life again. I went back to art school. I started appreciating the small beauties around me again. He opened my eyes again to the beauty of living. Getting back into roleplay scared me but I met a girl who for the first time explained what a muse was and only then did I realise that I had been tricked. That I had been taken advantage of by darker forces. And so then I decided that if I was going to RP again, I was going to keep the now called muses at a distance. And I did. And I still do. And I can enjoy it again. I can enjoy life again.

-----

In Marius’ defence Yes, after reading all the books, I realise he has major issues. I know he made some really bad decisions and a million more mistakes. But let me tell you; I was happy to see he wasn’t perfect. I was relieved to know that even those we look up to are flawed. And yes, in the span of his life, which is over 20 lifetimes!!!!, it is really quite OKAY for him to make more mistakes than we do in a lifetime. But lets not forget he is a vampire. Do we blame a lion for killing the antelope? No. It’s in his nature. Do we blame a vampire for manipulating and taking lives? No. It’s in their nature. It is quite unfair to throw shade at Marius for faltering every now and then when he so desperately tries to be human. And then there are some things I wish to point out that people seem to forget. - If it wasn’t for Marius, The Parents would have died thousands of years ago and the vampire race would have gone extinct. There would literally be no VC if it wasn’t for Marius sacrificing his freedom to harness and protect the Core.

- The knowledge of Marius’ possible existence was the thing that kept Lestat going in TVL. It was Marius that dug him out of the ground for a second shot at life. It was Marius who showed Lestat there was more to vampirism than the pain he had suffered so far.

- Without Marius intervening, Daniel would have been lost. Despite Marius’ double agenda to kill his own loneliness or feeble attempts to make it up to Armand, taking Daniel in was an act of kindness. Marius saved Daniel and only could through his endless patience.

- Marius welcomes Mael into his house. This is such an important aspect of his endless attempts to be good. Do not forget Marius was a very, very happy man in his mortal days. Mael stole that away from him. He robbed him of a simple but wonderful life and tossed him into this whirlpool of death and loneliness and misery. And yet Marius lets him sleep under his roof and offers him his own clothes!! His kindness is often obscured by acts of petty behaviour, but in his heart he is a genuinely good man who wants peace. He tries. And that is what matters.

- It is Santino that destroyed Armand. Not Marius. It gets my blood boiling when people have Armand speak in defence of Santino and somehow dare to shove all the blame onto Marius. Despite his questionable ethics with children, Marius wanted nothing but to give the boys and especially Amadeo a second chance in life. He wanted to make him happy, knowledgeable, successful and powerful. Marius is not the one that set the Palazzo on fire. Marius is not the one that tossed children in a fire. Marius is not the one that cruelly made Amadeo kill his best friend. Marius is the one that got burned to the bone and had to recover for 100 YEARS!! Marius is the one that had to suffer the loss of all his children. The loss of his happiness he experienced in Venice. The loss of his acolyte. The loss of his empire. His pupil. His lover. Marius is the one that served Akasha and was therefor told to leave Amadeo behind. I am not saying he was right in leaving Amadeo behind. Yes, t was one of the biggest mistakes he made. Despite being weak and in excruciating pain, he gave up on Amadeo because Santino had already tainted him. The fact that Amadeo forgot about his trauma’s in the past, Marius had a clean slate to make the best piece of art he had ever made. But Santino went over it with a sharpy and Marius, forever being the perfectionist, did not see a chance of saving it. And yes, that was wrong of him. And yes, he should have tried to get Amadeo back and save him. But it is extremely unfair to forget all these things in play. Marius suffered tremendously through this ordeal and caught his own traumas on the way. - He stays positive. He couldn’t marry the girl he loved due to discrimination. He was kidnapped. He was robbed of his mortal life by a man whom he later had to safe by pulling his head off and putting it back the right way. Three of his houses got burned down to the ground. He sacrificed his own freedom for the sake of his kind by taking care of The Parents. Akasha then thanked him by crushing him and breaking all his bones. He lost his happiness and the love of his life by a Satan-worshipping cult. He suffered 100 years because he was set on fire. He got the chance to finally be with the woman he loved but literally missed the memo. And yet... he stays positive. His natural optimism of living a happy, mortal life is what kept him going. It’s what made him a child of the millennia. He is the eternal optimist because he knows how precious life is.

So again; I am not saying you don’t have any right or reasons to dislike Marius or distrust him. All I want to say with this, is that despite his flaws, he inspired and set in motion more than the fandom gives him credit for. He suffered more than the fandom gives him credit for. He saved my life and therefor I will always defend him. He deserves it.

#marius #marius de romanus #mariusderomanus #vc #anne rice #blood and gold #the vampire lestat #the vampire armand #queen of the damned

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 2 years

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Robin's Shadow

by Aria_Woods

A woman continues her soul’s journey, this time being reborn into the animated comic book realm of Gotham. She is reborn as Anastasia Todd, older twin sister to Jason Todd, the second Robin to Batman. Death has sent her here to teach her soul its next lesson, only this time she must find out the lesson on her own. Can she look towards that light and purpose, or will the darkness of growing up in Crime Alley as an orphan break her growth? On one fateful night in Gotham, she and her twin will try to steal the tires off of the Batmobile, her knowing that it is their ticket both out of poverty and into their destiny, where her brother becomes Robin and she becomes something more. Join Ana through her dark, dangerous life in Gotham as she becomes a sidekick, a hero, a sister, and for a time, something much darker.

Words: 23506, Chapters: 8/61, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of Soul Revitalization Chronicles

Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con

Categories: F/M

Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original Batfamily Member(s) (DCU), Original Characters, Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Joker (DCU), Harleen Quinzel, Ivy, Roy Harper, Oliver Queen, Stephanie Brown, Scarecrow, Harvey Dent, J'onn J'onzz, Reader, Bane (DCU), Selina Kyle, Clark Kent, Jonathan Kent, Slade Wilson, Red Hood

Relationships: Jason Todd & Original Female Character(s), Bruce Wayne & Original Child Character(s), Dick Grayson & Original Female Character(s), Tim Drake & Original Female Character(s), Damian Wayne & Original Character(s), Roy Harper/Original Female Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Male Character

Additional Tags: Hurt, Angst, Comfort, Pain, Anger, Heroes to Villains, Batman: A Death in the Family, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd-centric, Twins, Fluff, Sex, Rough Sex, Rape, Suffering, Crime Fighting, Training, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Resurrection, soul, Death, Crazy, Murder, Revenge, Dead Joker (DCU), Shadow - Freeform, Anti-Hero, Sidekicks, Depression, Twin Jason Todd, Gotham City is Terrible, Gotham Academy, Gotham University, Villains, Batfamily Meets Justice League, Batfamily (DCU), Knives, Assassination, Teenage Rebellion, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Nightmares

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/41079804

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the dark knight #the cape crusader #gotham #dc universe #ao3 #ao3feed

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theonyxpath · 7 years

Link

Three Suns Standing by Gunship Revolution for the Exalted 3rd Jumpstart.

Feeling a lot better, but am still fighting the last bits of this flu or whatever it is. Last week, though, was a sort of semi-conscious staggering from the one thing I could focus on each day to trying to rest/medicate/cough this thing out until the next day and the one thing I could concentrate on that day. And so on.

I did manage to work with BackerKit to send out the links for the Backer PDF for Pugmire. There was a hiccup on coding that they fixed pretty fast, all things considered, and then I not only Locked Down the pledges, but charged them for any additional Add-ons they might have added on to their pledges.

I think the timing for these three steps basically worked as intended by BK, so that’s good to see happen with our first use of their system. Next will come the address corrections right before shipping; so a few months down the line. Until we Shut Down the project then, anybody interested can still “Pre-Order” a bunch of Pugmire things like the books, and dice, and such. Here’s the link: http://ift.tt/1WC83B5

We’ll do a similar sequence for the Deluxe Changeling 20 KS, the Deluxe v20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary KS, and the Scion 2e KS as their Backer PDFs get finished.

FYI, a Backer PDF is basically the beta version of the final book. Pretty much just like the Advance PDFs for our non-Kickstarted projects, we’re sending them out to folks to review and to get back to us with any errata they might find. Then, after we review and implement any errata that we agree needs tweaking, we replace the Backer or Advance PDF with the final version. Anybody who downloaded the Backer or Advance PDF can then re-download the PDF and get the final version automatically, and for free, as it sits in their DTRPG Library.

Strategy-wise, we’ve found that this errata phase really helps catch those last lingering bits that our developers and editors missed for any number of a variety of reasons. Most of all, though, it’s because no text is ever perfect. There is always something everybody missed. With this errata phase, we’re trying to get closer than ever before to catching as many boo-boos as humanly possible.

Shapeshifter by Ken Meyer, Jr for M20 Book of Secrets

Thanks to everyone who jumped in and contributed to the Hunter: the Vigil Bundle of Holding that just ran. It was great to see so much support and interest in HtV, particularly with Hunter 2nd Edition starting to get fired up. And the Bundle also contributed to a great cause.

Going to keep this week short, and hopefully I’ll be back to my old self next week <hack, cough>.

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER!

We’re exploring card game Kickstarters, packaging, and components, for Prince’s Gambit. I’m working on the KS pages this week for sure, and our videos are finished. Things look good, and we are all for starting the KS in Feb so long as the process of pulling the KS together cooperates. If so, then Monarchies of Mau KS would be next, after Gambit.

ON SALE!

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages!

From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Doubting Souls (Hunter 1690-1695 Salem). Immigrants and tribes struggled to co-exist on the Eastern Seaboard in the ever-expanding Colonies. Violent clashes, supernatural beliefs, and demonic influences spelled disaster for Salem Village and its surrounding towns, while others fought werewolves and vampires on the frontier. With so much at risk, only god-fearing men and women were deemed innocent — and those were few indeed.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG on Wednesday the 15th!

From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: The Bowery Dogs (Werewolf 1969-1979 NYC). New York City in the 1970s. Crime. Drugs. Gang violence. Vast economic disparity. And werewolves. It’s a lean, ugly time to be alive, and the lone wolf doesn’t stand a chance out there. In the end, all you really have is family.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG on Wednesday the 15th!

The Locker is open; the Chronicles of Darkness: Hurt Locker, that is! PDF and physical copy PoDs are now available on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2gbM9me

Hurt Locker features:

Treatment of violence in the Chronicles of Darkness. Lasting trauma, scene framing, and other tools for making your stories hurt.

Many new player options, including Merits, supernatural knacks, and even new character types like psychic vampires and sleeper cell soldiers.

Expanded equipment and equipment rules.

Hurt Locker requires the Chronicles of Darkness Rulebook or any other standalone Chronicles of Darkness rulebook such as Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, or Beast: The Primordial to use.

Both the Beast: the Primordial http://ift.tt/2fEMsdO & Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition Condition Cards http://ift.tt/2iSein1 are now on sale on DTRPG in PDF and physical card PoD versions! Great for keeping track of the Conditions that are on your characters!

From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Ruins of Empire (Mummy 1893-1924). Perhaps the quintessential era of the mummy in the minds of Westerners, this period saw the decline of the two greatest empires of the age: British and Ottoman. Walk with the Arisen as they bear witness to the death of the Victorian age, to pivotal mortal discoveries in Egypt, and to the horrors of the Great War.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG. http://ift.tt/2k0XDhX

From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: The Sundered World (Werewolf and Mage 5500-5000 BCE). At the birth of civilization, in the shadow of the Fall, the Awakened stand as champions and protectors of the agricultural villages spread across the Balkans. In a world without a Gauntlet, where Shadow and flesh mingle, the steady taming of the world by humanity conflicts with the half-spirit children of Father Wolf.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG. http://ift.tt/2k16mRj

Night Horrors: Conquering Heroes for Beast: the Primordial is available now as an Advance PDF: http://ift.tt/2j7p7lO

This book includes:

An in-depth look at how Heroes hunt and what makes a Hero, with eleven new Heroes to drop into any chronicle.

A brief look at why Beasts may antagonize one another, with seven new Beasts to drop into any chronicle.

Rules for Insatiables, ancient creatures born of the Primordial Dream intent on hunting down Beasts to fill a hunger without end, featuring six examples ready to use in any chronicle.

The PDF and physical book PoD versions of Reap the Whirlwind, the Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition Jumpstart swirls into being on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2i1WPpD

You are a vampire, a junkie. Every night, you beg and you borrow and you steal just a little more life, just a few more sweet moments. But there’s a guy at the top. The Prince. He’s got everything. The money, the secrets, the blood.

Tonight, you’re going to take it from him. Tomorrow, there’ll be hell to pay.

This updated edition of Reap the Whirlwind features revisions to match the core rulebook for Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition. Text edits and rules clarifications have also been updated.

Reap the Whirlwind Revised includes:

Rules for creating and playing vampires in the Chronicles of Darkness

The first two levels of every clan Discipline, the dark powers of the dead

A complete adventure by noted horror author Chuck Wendig

This new revised Reap the Whirlwind Revised includes an updated booklet, 7 condition cards, and the interactive Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition character sheet.

It is now the preordained time for Dawn of Heresies, the Mummy: the Curse novel written by internationally renowned author Brian Hodge to arise! Both PDF/electronic and physical book PoD versions are now available on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2iEP9dW

Rawhead and bloody bones

Steals naughty children from their homes,

Takes them to his dirty den

And they are never seen again.

So says the nursery rhyme that gives birth to Rawhead, the most fearsome entity to imperil the living since the infamous Roller. Once an obedient mummy by name of Benefre, a desperate bid by his cult fails in tragic fashion, and in so doing, sends him to the Devourerís waiting, corruptive maw. What remains of Benefreís ambitious soul rises again, impure and unholy, set to the execution of a scheme so baleful, it constitutes a heresy even among his own misbegotten kind.

All that stands between Rawhead and his terrible aim are a lone mummy, Kemsiyet, and what little remains of her cult following its destruction at Rawhead’s hands. Declan, her prized security aide, and Fiona, an Irish researcher only just recently inducted into the cult and its blood-soaked world, must fight both the odds and the clock in order to prevent a calamity the likes of which the world hasnít seen since the days of the mummies’ creation.

About the Author:

BRIAN HODGE is the acclaimed author of 11 novels, almost 125 short stories, and four full-length collections. His first collection, The Convulsion Factory, was ranked by critic Stanley Wiater among the 113 best books of modern horror. Heís currently wrapping up his fifth, The Immaculate Void. Among gamers, he is perhaps best known as the author of the first official Hellboy novel, On Earth as It Is in Hell.

Recent works include “The Weight of the Dead,” from Tor, and novelettes of cosmic horror in The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu and Children of Lovecraft. His oft-reprinted 2013 novella, “The Same Deep Waters as You” has recently been optioned by a London-based production studio for development for television. Brian lives in Colorado.

Open the V20 Dark Ages: Tome of Secrets now on DTRPG! Both PDF and physical book PoD versions are now available! http://ift.tt/2i1XOXd

The Tome of Secrets is a treatment of numerous topics about Cainites and stranger things in the Dark Medieval World. It’s about peeling back the curtain, and digging a little deeper. Inside, you’ll find:

• Expanded treatment of Assamite Sorcery, Koldunic Sorcery, Necromancy, and Setite Sorcery

• A look at Cainite knightly orders, faith movements, and even human witchcraft

• Letters and diaries from all over the Dark Medieval World

Travel with us all the way to the Red Planet for the Cavaliers of Mars Jumpstart: A Festival of Blades, available in PDF and PoD on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2biWBpR

Live, fight, and love on Mars, a world of red death and strange mystery, a world of savagery and romance.

Includes:

A complete adventure set in one of dying Mars’ greatest remaining cities.

The innovative DEIMOS rules, for high-flying, swashbuckling adventure.

Four pre-generated player characters, ready to get into the heart of the action.

Discover the long-awaited Secrets of the Covenants for Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition as we unearth the Advance PDF now on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2gbQjus

This book includes:

A variety of stories from each of the covenants, all told in their own words.

Never-before revealed secrets, like the fate of the Prince of New Orleans.

New blood sorcery, oaths, and other hidden powers of the covenants.

CONVENTIONS!

Discussing GenCon plans. August 17th – 20th, Indianapolis. Every chance the booth will actually be 20′ x 30′ this year that we’ll be sharing with friends. We’re looking at new displays this year, like a back drop and magazine racks for the brochure(s).

In November, we’ll be at Game Hole Con in Madison, WI. More news as we have it, and here’s their website: http://ift.tt/RIm6qP

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Cookbook (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

CtD C20 Jumpstart (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Pugmire Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Monarchies of Mau Early Access (Pugmire)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Scion: Origins (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

VtR Half-Damned (Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Second Draft

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

BtP Beast Player’s Guide (Beast: the Primordial)

Book of Freeholds (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

Development

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

SL Dagger of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Dagger of Spiragos (5e– Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

BtP Building a Legend (Beast: the Primordial)

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

Editing:

VtR A Thousand Years of Night (Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition)

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Stretch Goal Content)

W20 Song of Unmaking novel (Bridges) (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

CtD C20 Anthology (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

CtL fiction anthology (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary – new stuff AD’d

M20 Book of Secrets – AD’d

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook

V20 Dark Ages Companion – Sketches and some finals rolling in

Dagger of Spiragos – AD’d

VTR: Thousand Years of Night

Cavaliers of Mars – Contracting.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

V20 Lore of the Bloodlines

Prince’s Gambit – Kickstarter Prep.

Dark Eras Companion – artist shenanigans.

C20

Proofing

Necropolis Rio – backer PDF out to Mummy KS backers this week.

EX3 Tomb of Dreams Jumpstart – first proof.

At Press

Ex 3 Screen – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

Ex 3 core book – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

Secrets of the Covenants – Waiting for errata to make PoD.

Beckett Screen – At Printer, being printed.

W20 Shattered Dreams – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

Shattered Dreams Screen – At Printer, being printed.

Beast Conquering Heroes – Advance PDF now on sale at DTRPG, gathering errata.

Mortal Remains: Beast- Red In Tooth and Claw – Gathered errata.

Dark Eras: Doubting Souls – PDF and PoD versions on sale this Wednesday at DTRPG.com.

Dark Eras: Bowery Dogs – PDF and PoD versions on sale this Wednesday at DTRPG.com.

Pugmire – Backer PDF out to backers.

Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – Out to backers.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Feb 13th: QUICK! Get out tonight and buy some candy, a toy, flowers, adult novelties, a puppy, champagne, more candy – but different, or at least a flippin’ card, for your mostest loved one. Even though it’s a made-up, capitalist holiday…it’s the thought that counts (and that you’ll be judged for).

#Onyx Path Publishing

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Elliot, an alcoholic, asked his parole officer for help. She sent him back to prison

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/elliot-an-alcoholic-asked-his-parole-officer-for-help-she-sent-him-back-to-prison/

Elliot, an alcoholic, asked his parole officer for help. She sent him back to prison

Elliot Hudson found the box on his first afternoon home from prison.

He’d gone up to his old bedroom in his parents’ Ottawa house to unpack some of the clothes his father tidied away while Elliot had been incarcerated. He pulled out the old crock-pot box with “recovery stuff” Sharpied on the side. Inside there were maybe six or seven leather-bound journals, dating back to 2012.

Elliot, a contemplative 37-year-old man with an occasionally destructive tendency to get trapped in his own mind, couldn’t resist flipping through. It was disheartening.

The dates scrawled in the corners changed but the story didn’t. He read one page: I’m back in recovery… I’m super committed… I’ve been to five AA meetings in the last five days… I’m really grateful to be sober. This is it.

Then he’d flip ahead two weeks or two months: I’ve relapsed again and I feel terrible about it… I’m so ashamed. I’m so broken… What’s wrong with me?

“I saw the progression of how this illness has just decimated my life,” Elliot says. Family, friends, work, financial stability, emotional stability —

“There’s not a single area of my life that (addiction) hasn’t touched.”

Elliot Hudson writes in a journal he found inside an old crock-pot box. The journal chronicles his struggles with addiction and relapse over the course of several years.

Jane Gerster/Global News

To be sober and fresh out of jail on that day, Oct. 24, 2019, doesn’t feel all that different from being sober and “super committed” to staying that way in 2012, 2013 or 2014. A little more humbling, sure, with a list of court-ordered restrictions meant to encourage sobriety vis-à-vis the threat of more jail. But if his brain, already well aware that alcohol was ruining his life, couldn’t keep him sober then, what’s to say it will succeed now, rubber-stamped rules or no?

At Alcoholics Anonymous meetings they tell you that alcohol is “cunning, baffling and powerful,” but that if you acknowledge that, and admit your wrongs and are willing to make amends and put your life in the hands of a higher power, you will recover.

It’s an enticing thought, almost like if you know enough about the disease you can protect yourself from it — appealing to a thinker like Elliot. And yet, as two doctors wrote in a March 1993 review of addiction in the Psychiatric Clinics of North America medical journal, “the potential for relapse… persists indefinitely.”

Elliot thumbs through his old journals.

I’m back in recovery… I’m super committed… I’ve relapsed again… What’s wrong with me?

“My first priority is staying sober,” he says. “If I don’t do that, I can’t do anything else.”

***

For many people, addiction rolls off the tongue a little too easily. It’s, oh, I’m addicted to these little scones at the bakery down the street, or this new show on Netflix that I can’t. Stop. Watching. But the reality is that you probably can stop. Or at least, you can stop watching long enough to go to work or to your dinner reservations or to walk your dog.

Many experts, including the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), rely on the four Cs to differentiate addiction as a catchall term for finding it hard to say no and an actual substance use disorder. The four Cs are: craving, loss of control of amount or frequency of use, compulsion to use and using despite the consequences. Elliot knows that last one well.

Often, addiction stories double as sobriety narratives. We like that story, says Dr. Raj Bhatla, the chief of staff and psychiatrist-in-chief at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, where Elliot has received help in the past, because it’s simple.

Elliot had his first drink at 13, showed up drunk repeatedly throughout high school and graduated to drugs in his mid-20s.

Provided

We don’t like to look at the way social factors and individual people’s thoughts and behaviours interconnect. We don’t like to think about how housing, finances and abuse can each help push someone down the path of addiction.

“Addiction is a complex condition, a complex interaction between human beings and their environments,” wrote Dr. Gabor Maté in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a book about addiction. It’s a book that makes Elliot feel seen.

“Addiction has biological, chemical, neurological, psychological, medical, emotional, social, political, economic, and spiritual underpinnings — and perhaps others I haven’t thought about,” Maté wrote.

“To get anywhere near a complete picture we must keep shaking the kaleidoscope to see what other patterns emerge.”

That’s a big ask. Bhatla explains we’ve simplified things as a society because it’s easier to form conclusions.

“We should be more sophisticated as a society and we should be less judgmental.”

***

The first time Elliot had a drink he was 13 years old and a friend had stolen a mickey of whisky from her dad’s basement.

He’d grown up with a mother who struggled with addiction. So while he knew the effects of someone’s addiction — how they could be selfish, inadvertently cruel with cravings or wreck your plans to go camping or to a movie with their hangover — he hadn’t really placed a mickey of whisky on the spectrum to a lifetime of struggle.

In the backyard, the two friends mixed whisky with Pepsi and drank until Elliot was giddy and a little bit dizzy.

Elliot lay back on the grass.

Wow, he thought, no wonder my mom likes this stuff. This is incredible. I want to feel like this all the time. For a moment, he was content. He looked at his friend and asked, “When can we do this again?”

He didn’t think twice about asking; he felt wonderful and he wanted to feel wonderful all the time. She gave him a funny look, like, why are you already thinking about next time? Why aren’t you just enjoying this moment?

“The problem with substance abuse is that it works,” Elliot says. “Up to that point I had been so full of fear and uncomfortable emotions and in that moment, they just disappeared.”

Clockwise from top left: Elliot as a baby with his mother, Elliot as a toddler with his younger sister and Elliot as a young boy.

Provided

Elliot started showing up tipsy, then drunk to high school events. He wrote an exam hammered. He ignored the lectures: alcohol is bad! Drugs are bad! Don’t you dare use!

It was an easy out from dealing with physical abuse in a home that revolved around addiction, and an incident where he was sexually abused as a teenager. Drunken Elliot appeared so frequently that the school reached out to his parents to intervene. They set up a meeting with an addiction counsellor.

The counsellor was the first person Elliot met who scratched at the surface of why he drank.

Elliot told him the truth: I drink because it makes me feel good and normal, I become a teenager who can actually connect with his friends instead of feeling anxious and isolated in my own brain.

It was as Maté wrote: “Drugs have the power to make the painful tolerable and the humdrum worth living for.

“Like patterns in a tapestry, recurring themes emerge in my interviews with addicts,” Maté wrote.

“The drug as emotional anaesthetic; as an antidote to a frightful feeling of emptiness; as a tonic against fatigue, boredom, alienation, and a sense of personal inadequacy; as stress reliever and social lubricant.”

Elliot went back to the counsellor half a dozen times. He didn’t stop drinking, but he did find himself devoting a little more headspace to why he was drinking.

***

Addiction is a brain-warping disease, but is it a crime?

The desire to see drug use treated as a health issue rather than a criminal one is behind the push for decriminalizing illicit drugs for personal use, an idea that’s come up repeatedly in recent years as a result of the opioid crisis, which claimed nearly 14,000 lives across Canada between January 2016 and June 2019.

In July 2018, Toronto’s board of health asked the federal government to decriminalize drugs and in April 2019, B.C.’s chief health officer asked the provincial government to do the same. So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resisted, preferring to focus on other harm reduction efforts.

Canada has a huge mental health and addiction crisis in prison. Federally, 70 per cent of inmates used alcohol or drugs in problematic ways in the year leading up to their incarceration, per a fact sheet compiled by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. More than half of inmates serving time have a problem with alcohol, while nearly half have had problems with drugs.

Substance use and abuse is a prominent factor underlying criminal behaviour, and not just in obvious ways like impaired driving. Substance use plays a direct or indirect role for people serving time federally for assault (69 per cent), theft (66 per cent), murder (58 per cent) and break and enter and robbery (56 per cent), per the centre’s research.

And the people for whom addiction and mental health disproportionately leads to jail time are some of Canada’s most marginalized residents — Black people, Indigenous people, people who are grappling with the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma.

Last month, Canada’s prison ombudsman warned of the “Indigenization of Canada’s prison population” now that the proportion of people in federal prison who are Indigenous has reached more than 30 per cent, despite Indigenous people making up only five per cent of the country’s total population. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of Black people behind bars has grown by 69 per cent, so while they make up roughly three per cent of the Canadian population, they now represent more than eight per cent of the population behind bars.

Elliot, who is white, knows he has privilege. Sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge while shame spiralling after another relapse, but he fights to remind himself. An estimated six million Canadians will meet the criteria (those four Cs) for substance use disorder in their lifetime. Elliot wants to use his experience to help them.

Elliot with his mother and father circa 2009.

Provided

People don’t get the help they need when our society focuses on individual choice and responsibility, says Justin Piché, an associate criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project.

We wind up “setting aside our collective responsibilities to each other and to the people,” he says.

Economic, social, racial and gender inequality is well documented in Canada. And so, Piché says, “we live in a society where people experience a great deal of trauma quite frequently.

“We need to be making a gradual shift towards a more compassionate and caring society, while at the same time trying to address the harms that exist now,” he says.

“That’s not easy work, to work towards a just transition, but we need one.”

***

On Jan. 18, 2018, Elliot made a weapon out of a prison regulation deodorant canister and a sock and attacked a guard at the Central East Jail in Lindsay, Ont. He grabbed her by the shirt collar and threatened her.

He would later acknowledge he must have looked terrifying — big and burly, sporting a beard — and want to apologize. But in the moment he felt desperate. He’d been in prison a few months, still waiting to be sentenced and still using. He wasn’t getting the treatment he needed and he had just come out of isolation.

His mother had recently died.

“I was a mess,” Elliot says.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services says it is its “firm belief that when someone is given the chance to address the personal and socioeconomic issues that drive their criminal activity, everyone benefits.”

She acknowledged that “crime, violence, mental health and addictions are complex issues that cannot be solved overnight or by the provincial government alone.”

Elliot Hudson is pictured in the family visiting room at St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre on Sept. 24, 2019.

Brent Rose/Global News

Elliot worked in audio engineering throughout his 20s, where booze and drugs were normal and nobody batted an eye when he was drunk or high — or both.

Elliot felt functional until he wasn’t. At some point, he realized that once he started drinking, he couldn’t stop.

Then he missed his best friend’s wedding. It was time to get sober.

With a clear head — and liver — Elliot’s world opened up.

He wanted to help open up other people’s worlds, too. He got a diploma in addiction counselling and spent a few years as a peer support worker. In 2015, he was accepted into the social work program at Carleton University. He wanted his thesis to be about the criminalization of addiction.

READ MORE: Ramadan behind bars — How one inmate’s fight to fast highlights oversight concerns

The war on drugs, which was initiated more than four decades ago, “has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” wrote a panel of experts in the 2011 Global Commission on Drug Policy report.

It led to the mass incarceration of people with addictions and didn’t even curb drug use. In fact, United Nations estimates show that drug consumption has actually gone up. Opiate use jumped by more than 34 per cent from 1998 to 2008, when it was estimated that 17.35 million people were using. Similarly, cocaine use jumped by 27 per cent to 17 million and cannabis use jumped by 8.5 per cent to 160 million.

“End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others,” recommended the Global Commission.

“One of the research topics I was interested in was the criminalization of addiction,” wrote Elliot Hudson in his first letter to Global News on Aug. 21, 2018. “How sadly ironic that I should end up incarcerated for an addiction-related crime.”

Global News

It’s a huge topic; one so big that Elliot’s thesis advisor dissuaded him from pursuing it. And so Elliot winnowed it to access to addiction treatment in Ontario.

Having a purpose didn’t make Elliot’s stressors disappear. After all, logic doesn’t stop emotion. When the anxiety and cravings are overwhelming, it’s easy to seek relief in one sip that becomes two drinks, then 10.

Elliot finished his first year of school in spring 2016. He relapsed in the fall and took a mental health leave. By October he was facing charges for drunkenly assaulting his parents. He was released on conditions to not drink or do drugs. He was arrested again six months later for drunkenly damaging two windows at an ex-girlfriend’s home and failing to comply with the court condition that he stay sober.

Elliot tried to go back to school in the fall, but he was still drinking and using. He was bouncing between shelters. All his money went to alcohol and drugs. He started to shoplift from the liquor store when he couldn’t scrounge up the cash.

“It’s hard to remember what it felt like to be that desperate,” Elliot says. “It’s almost like your brain’s been hijacked.”

By the fall of 2017, Elliot had dropped out of school and was driven only by how to get the next bottle, his next fix.

On Oct. 10, he robbed a store. On Oct. 14, he robbed a gas station. Both times he threatened the cashier, although he had no weapons. The Ottawa police spread his image far and wide after the gas station robbery. Elliot turned himself in.

“Obviously, alcohol has led you down this path at this point and it’s time to deal with it,” Justice C.S. Dorval said during his sentencing on Feb. 5, 2018. He added six months for attacking the prison guard.

READ MORE: The Liberals promise to expand drug treatment courts — but will this reduce harm?

“The mental health issues, you can always get assistance. The addiction, you need to want it, you know, want to deal with it and it’s difficult until you get to the point where you want to be sober every single day,” the judge said.

Dorval encouraged corrections to help Elliot.

Substance abuse cost Canada $38.4 billion, or roughly $1,000 per person regardless of age, in 2014, according to a report from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. About $14.6 billion was attributed to alcohol abuse alone.

But is jail the right place for treatment?

Most addiction experts say no.

As Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk noted in her December 2019 report on Ontario prisons, they are not equipped to deal with the rising number of inmates who have mental health issues.

The report found frontline staff don’t have the training required to de-escalate situations that arise because of mental health. In a review of internal investigations done in response to prison incidents in Toronto and Thunder Bay, the auditor general found that 57 per cent of inmates who tried to harm themselves or others had a mental health alert on their file.

Per the auditor general’s report, enhanced training provided by CAMH is due to be rolled out across the province this year. A spokesperson for the ministry said the program officially launched in January and includes “more job-specific case studies and scenario-based learning, as well as an emphasis on communication and de-escalation skills.”

And yet, there’s a culture clash between health care and justice.

It’s inevitable, Dr. Raj Bhatla says. While both health-care providers and corrections staff value community safety, he says the health-care side is more focused on treatment — “it’s a different paradigm.”

READ MORE: How Trevor died — Why prison offers a ‘golden opportunity’ to help solve the opioid crisis

That means it can be harder to rehabilitate people in prison, says Dr. Lori Regenstreif, an assistant professor at McMaster University who also works with the rapid access to addiction medicine clinic at St. Joe’s Hospital and the Shelter Health Network.

In Ontario, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services makes decisions about prison health care instead of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Corrections’ focus winds up being “what’s legal versus illegal on the inside,” Regenstreif says.

In other words, the ministry will be concerned about the safety risk of inmates sharing the drugs Regenstrief prescribes with one another. However, Regenstrief, who prescribes buprenorphine, an opioid medication like methadone that’s used to treat addiction, would rather them share. The drug isn’t very dangerous and won’t get a person high, she says, but it could help them a lot. A spokesperson for the ministry says policies and procedures are in place for delivering health care behind bars and that “decisions are between inmates and medical professionals.”

More than 250,000 people are sent to prisons in Canada every year, which means one in 250 people. It has serious impacts on their health. Researchers in Ontario followed provincial inmates, such as Elliot, for 12 years beginning in 2000 and published their results in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2016.

Those inmates were four times more likely to die than the general population. Their deaths were largely due to preventable and treatable causes, including overdose, heart disease and suicide. Inmates also died younger — men’s life expectancy was 4.2 years shorter compared with the general population while women’s declined by 10.6 years.

For Elliot, already feeling desperate in jail, just hearing the judge say he would get help to treat his mental health and addiction was a positive step forward.

Some of the many letters Elliot Hudson exchanged with Global News reporter Jane Gerster while he was incarcerated.

Global News

Except, nothing happened. Elliot stayed in maximum security at the Lindsay jail. When he asked about treatment, he says he was brushed off and told to put in a form to request a meeting with a social worker. The social worker told him it might take months. A spokesperson for the ministry says it works with staff as well as health and social service agencies to make sure inmates get the supports they need.

There was a lot of drug use on his range that the guards ignored so long as there weren’t any fights, Elliot says. A spokesperson for the ministry says it takes the health and safety of staff and inmates “very seriously” and that staff are “trained to be vigilant” with respect to contraband.

Frustrated and overwhelmed, Elliot kept using. What was the point?

“There was already despondency on my part,” he says. “Can I do this? Can I have a good life? Is there any point?”

Using felt like the path of least resistance.

***

“I’m one of the fortunate ones from where I’m sitting,” Elliot said in the family visitation room at St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre in December 2018.

He was transferred to the centre that summer and was finally receiving the treatment he’d envisioned during his sentencing. It was the first time in a long time he felt hope.

The St. Lawrence facility is solely for men, a special prison operated in conjunction with the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group for inmates with serious mental illness. It provides specialized treatment for a number of issues, including sex offending, trauma disorders and dysfunctional anger. Roughly 100 inmates receive treatment at a time and according to a ministry spokesperson, there are currently four inmates on a waitlist to get in.

Elliot was eloquent and cheerful. He also acknowledged his privilege, even behind bars. So many of the men he’d met in jail had been in and out of prison since they were teenagers. They had no easily employable skills, no stable housing and no further education. Many would have to return to neighbourhoods where there were strong ties to crime, trauma and what landed them behind bars in the first place.

Elliot often found himself reflecting on just how different his life would be if he’d been caught up in the justice system at a young age instead of planted in front of an addictions counsellor who probed into the why of his disorder.

“It helps me have empathy for the suffering that these guys are enduring because a lot of them haven’t had a chance,” he says.

It’s a tough trajectory to put numbers on, says Bhatla, because it’s multi-faceted and you can’t blame just one thing. Correctional treatment programs like St. Lawrence Valley are important, he says, but not the sole solution.

“We need to do a much better job in catching people earlier, prior to them ending up in the correctional system.”

Many people with addiction and mental health issues have adverse childhood experiences, he says.

“We put them in a position where, from a psychosocial point of view, that’s the pathway.”

Growing up, some people experience emotional, physical or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect, domestic abuse, parental separation or divorce, mental illness at home, substance abuse at home, or an incarcerated household member.

READ MORE: Is poor health a problem you can fix by yourself? Not when you don’t have money

Each one increases the likelihood that a person will start using illicit drugs at a young age and use for life between two- and four-fold, according to a 2003 study published in the Pediatrics medical journal looking at more than 8,600 illicit drugs users. Of those surveyed, more than 30 per cent grew up in homes where someone abused substances, like Elliot did, and 25 per cent grew up in homes with mental illness.

“Children and adolescents, who are exposed to the types of childhood experiences that we examined, may have feelings of helplessness, chaos, and importance and may have problems self-regulating affective states,” according to the study.

“Thus, illicit drug use may serve as an avenue to escape or disassociate from the immediate emotional pain, anxiety, and anger that likely accompany such experiences.”

At the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre, Elliot was optimistic about the possibility of a parole hearing. He had plans to get out, stay with his father until he could lease his own apartment, and work in construction to make money to return to school.

“I feel incredibly fortunate.”

***

On March 7, 2019, Elliot’s dad drove to pick him up from the prison in Brockville. Right away, Elliot says it felt wrong, “like a fantasy movie that didn’t match up to what was happening in real life.”

He’d spent months planning his first meal free — a diner breakfast with real eggs and real sausages instead of the airplane-style pre-packaged meals he’d been fed in prison — but the restaurant he wanted to go to was closed. The backup restaurant was only so-so.

He was excited to sleep in a real bed with lights he could turn all the way off, but he couldn’t sleep. Every time he dozed off, he’d wake up disoriented by the dark and unsure of where he was.

“I got out thinking, ‘Oh, this is no big deal, this will be easy,’” Elliot says. “It turns out it was very, very difficult.”

Elliot’s anxiety was like a living, breathing entity he couldn’t dislodge from his back.

He’d gone from a regimented prison schedule to the freedom to wake up when he wanted and eat when he wanted and do whatever he wanted so long as he stayed stone-cold sober. And while Ontario prisons are required to assist in discharge planning, connecting people like Elliot to reintegration resources, Elliot says he didn’t get that when it came to parole. A ministry spokesperson did not respond to Elliot’s specific case, but said there are support options for inmates being released on parole.

“I felt like I had to make 1,000 decisions a day,” he wrote in a letter.

There was alcohol at the LCBO at the street corner, in the beer commercials during a hockey game, and in the vodka ad on the side of the bus station.

Alcohol was everywhere.

“FREEDOM!!!” The first email Elliot Hudson sent to Global News after being released on parole.

Global News

He made a to-do list, put his head down, and tried to will his anxiety to pass. As he crossed things off — bank, dentist — there were more to add on.

“I never felt like I was getting ahead so I started becoming very kind of manic about it,” Elliot says.

His dad told him to slow down but he didn’t listen.

Five days after being released on parole, Elliot went to get his hair cut. He sat there, silently battling his anxiety, while the barber trimmed his hair.

He talks about his anxiety as if it is another person inhabiting his brain, deceptively reminding him that there is one nearly instantaneous relief.

“Hey Elliot,” it tells him, “I know how to get rid of this anxiety. Why don’t we have a few drinks?”

Elliot took an Uber from the hairdresser to a bar at 11 a.m. and started to drink. The first sip tasted like relief.

“Many people have watched themselves helplessly as they began to do something they knew would be unhelpful or self-defeating,” Dr. Gabor Maté explains in his book.

“That’s the experience of brain lock: the clutch is stuck, so nothing can be done to stop the motor of ‘doing’ from engaging.”

Elliot drank until they cut him off around 3 p.m. Then, he went somewhere else — too drunk now for specifics — and drank through the night. It was a direct violation of his parole.

He woke up hungover and scared. He worried he wouldn’t be able to stop drinking again, so he called his parole officer to come clean. He thought she might be able to steer him towards a detox centre or some sort of community-based treatment.

She issued a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest.

“Her hands were tied as soon as she found out I was drinking,” Elliot says. “I fault the system.”

Addiction is a disease, says Bhatla: “It’s a relapsing illness.”

“Many parts of our society see (addiction) as a social weakness or an individual weakness and that’s not OK.”

***

The Criminalization and Punishment Education Project, which Piché co-founded, runs a jail accountability and information hotline. It’s for people incarcerated at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre and their loved ones to report human rights issues and try to get help staying out of jail.

Elliot’s story — a slip, a plea for help, and an uncompromising system — sounds an awful lot like those calls, Piché says.

Two extreme examples made waves this month after a justice of the peace in Nunavut blasted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for separately arresting two victims of domestic violence. The women had called the police for help with abuse, but wound up arrested because they had both been drinking contrary to sober bail conditions in place prior to the domestic violence for which they asked for help.

“It is troubling,” wrote justice of the peace Joseph Murdoch-Flowers of the RCMP’s decision.

“The police and the Crown must guard against what I would characterize as ‘institutional indifference.’ They must be sensitive to the big picture, and they must not allow legal papers to get in the way of decency and common sense.”

A ministry spokesperson says it’s modernizing health-care delivery for inmates and working to better identify those who have mental health needs.

“The ministry works to ensure those in its custody are treated fairly, respectfully and with the access to health care services that aligns with those in the community,” she says.

But the system is the problem, Piché says.

“We need a (criminal justice system) that actually makes common sense, that provides people care, not cages.”

Back in the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre, Elliot felt demoralized. He pictured his life being married with kids and a career.

“I’m approaching 40 and I don’t really have much to show for myself.”

One of the guys on Elliot’s range offered to help with the depression. Elliot got him some money and spent his first week back in jail high on opiates.

***

At the end of March, Elliot wrote a letter to Global News from the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre.

“I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong,” he wrote. “All I can say is that getting out was WAY more overwhelming than I could have anticipated. My anxiety was through the roof.”

Elliot intended to push for release again when he went before the parole board on April 2.

“I basically explained to them that my problem is not criminal behaviour, my problem is substances and I just need to figure out a way to stay away from substances,” Elliot said that afternoon. “I politely begged them for a second chance.”

They revoked his parole.

St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre, the secure prison in Ontario for inmates with serious mental health issues where Elliot Hudson was incarcerated for the better part of a year.

Global News

“6 months, 180 days till Freedom version 2.0,” he wrote on April 25. He’d decided to recommit himself to recovery and had been sober again for a few weeks.

Elliot was back at St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre.

As good as it felt to be sober and in daily treatment again, it also didn’t feel real. Elliot looked ahead to release, wondering how he could avoid the revolving door of prison and wishing he could focus instead on his health and sobriety.

“What the hospital thinks is best and what corrections thinks is best aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

***

Oct. 24, 2019 marked two-thirds of his sentence and so his release; another car ride back to Ottawa with his dad. Elliot does not want to go back to jail and he no longer believes he can outsmart his disease. It means he is living with opposing realities: that he must fight to stay sober while bracing for relapse.

The hardest part is the shame, he says.

“When you relapse there’s so much shame and guilt that just perpetuates more using and it creates a cycle that’s very, very difficult to get out of.”

On his last morning in prison, Elliot’s psychiatrist took a moment to remind him that relapse happens. Don’t drink and don’t use, he told him, but if you do, don’t make it a bigger deal than it has to be. You don’t have to throw your life away just because you have a slip.

To Elliot, that means don’t let the shame of having a beer or two turn into an all-night cocaine bender.

One big metal gate opens and shuts, then the second opens.

Is this real? He spent a moment in the car with his father, just thinking. Yeah, it’s real. Two years. I’m done. I’m free.

***

Less than a week after Elliot got out of jail, he sat at his father’s kitchen table in Kanata, an Ottawa suburb, wearing a button-down with more colours than you’d ever see on an inmate.

He was anxious but not forlorn. He sounded like a person who knew a lot about addiction, trauma and relapse and really, really wanted to stay sober.

“Today’s the fifth day,” Elliot said. “I feel much more calm.”

Elliot Hudson is pictured at his father’s Ottawa home in October 2019, just five days after being released from prison.

Jane Gerster/Global News

On the sixth, the Tuesday, Elliot went to a meeting with the John Howard Society to talk about finding him his own lease in Ottawa. It’s too easy to hide away in Kanata, he said, “I don’t want to isolate myself.”

He’d woken up anxious, lonely and full of fear.

Just after 4 p.m., Elliot sent a text about his day. The meeting went well, he wrote. He got bus tickets and $20 in Giant Tiger gift cards.

A pause. Another text: “I woke up today feeling terrified. I’m having a few drinks right now alone but I don’t want to talk about it on camera.”

Relapsing on probation rather than parole is superior in one way: there’s no condition not to drink. Sure, Elliot wants to be sober, but this time an alcohol slip doesn’t automatically mean a return to jail.

Still, November was hard and December was harder. Elliot drank and used drugs. He went to detox twice, although it made him panicky because it reminded him too much of being locked up.

“I need to learn how to live in the world sober and hiding away in a rehab for 28 days is not necessarily going to do that,” he says. “It sort of breaks the pattern of drinking or using, but it’s not teaching me how to integrate back into society.”

The tricky part was sticking to a routine, not hiding away.

He was looking forward to visiting a friend who’d stuck by him when he was incarcerated. She had two kids, a loyal Lab and an exuberant new puppy.

***

The kids wake up at 7:45 a.m. Breakfast, meds and teeth brushing takes until 8:30 a.m. and then they’re off to school. After school, they get two hours of video games and YouTube followed by one hour of homework and then another hour of games. Then, it’s meds, teeth brushing and lights out.

The routine is for Elliot’s friend’s two kids, who he moved in with just before Christmas. And yet, Elliot says, it’s really helped him cement his own routine. “Addicts are selfish,” Elliot says, but kids demand time and attention in a way that distracts from addiction and makes Elliot feel useful.

Add in the dogs — a Lab named Honey and a pug puppy named Lola — that demand pets and walks and love to wrestle, and his days are full with less time to overthink.

READ MORE: Harper was tough on crime, Trudeau promised a new approach — did he deliver?

Elliot is also sober. He marks one month on Jan. 17, 2020. It is a relief. He spent November and early December drinking and using. He went to detox twice. He buried his cousin from an overdose, a cruel reminder of addiction’s end game.

“I woke up clean and sober this morning. I have no intentions of using today, and hopefully I go to bed the same way,” he says. “Rinse and repeat.”

He’s seeing a psychiatrist now who’s made a huge difference. She told him to always come, but to let her know when he’s been drinking so she can adjust her therapy plan. That takes off some of the pressure and shame.

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Elliot’s also on new medications: clonidine for stress and naltrexone for his cravings. The last time he drank was the first time he took naltrexone. It’s supposed to trick the pleasure centre of your brain, he says, and — ever-curious — Elliot tested it out by having a few beers. He felt no relief, just bloat.

“It sounds kind of dramatic but it was a bit of a goodbye ceremony for me,” he says.

“Alcohol’s been hurting me for years. It’s destroyed every important relationship in my life and it’s time to say goodbye.”

Elliot slips later that month. He is admitted to the Royal Ottawa Hospital for inpatient treatment for substance use on Feb. 12.

***

The hospital program is good, “really good,” Elliot says after a few days, but he’s emotional. Right now, he’s listening to Blackbird by Shake Shake Go a lot: Imagine if it all goes wrong / One day I know it must come / But nothing’s gonna change my love for you, for you.

— with files from Abigail Bimman

[email protected]

Follow @Jane_Gerster

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bowlsister75-blog · 5 years

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The 24 Best Songs, Ranked From Great to Spectacular

Even without the songs, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would still be one of the best comedies on TV: a sharply insightful, wickedly subversive, riotously funny rom-com that is fully aware it’s a rom-com. But the show’s original songs — all 150-some of them! — have elevated it into something wholly unique and unmatched anywhere on TV.

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With Crazy Ex taking its final bow with Friday’s series finale (The CW, 8/7c) — no, we’re not anywhere close to being ready to say goodbye yet — we’re honoring four seasons of musical comedy genius by ranking the very best Crazy Ex songs from the entire series. To be clear, there are many, many worthy songs that it pained us to leave off this list. (Sincere apologies to the likes of “Maybe This Dream,” “F—kton of Cats” and, um, “Period Sex.”) But these are the absolute cream of the crop, the essential songs in the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend canon. And what’s great is, even if you’ve never seen the show, you can enjoy these songs as one-off musical comedy sketches. They’re that good!

So grab a Rebetzel’s Pretzel and join us as we waltz, tap and Soul Train our way down West Covina’s memory lane and look back on the very best Crazy Ex-Girlfriend songs from all four seasons. Hey, if we keep singing, the show can’t really end, right?

24. “No One Else Is Singing My Song” (Season 4, Episode 1)

Rebecca started out the final season in prison, and sang this mournful ballad about how alone she felt — not knowing that Nathaniel and Josh were feeling the exact same way. (And singing about it, too.) It’s one of the least overtly comical songs in the Crazy Ex songbook, but it packs a huge emotional punch, especially when the whole cast touches hands in a 12-way split-screen. (Even the creepy grocery guy.)

23. “I Could if I Wanted To” (Season 1, Episode 16)

Whoop-dee-frickin’-doo. Back when Greg was still an alcohol-soaked sourpuss — and looked a lot different than he does now — he delivered this Weezer-y anthem for cynical jerks everywhere, boasting about all the great stuff he could do in life if he actually gave two s—ts about anything. Like it, don’t like it, whatever… not like he cares.

22. “Santa Ana Winds” (Season 2, Episode 11)

This insanely catchy doo-wop ditty is a perfect example of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend finding laughs in a highly specific subject: the gusty Santa Ana winds that plague southern California each year. Here, a Frankie Valli-style vocalist — bravo, Eric Michael Roy — sings of the fierce winds of change blowing through Rebecca’s life, which bring with them “whimsy and forest fires.” Good luck getting this one out of your head.

21. “I’m the Villain in My Own Story” (Season 1, Episode 14)

Here, Rebecca goes the Disney route for a tune where she realizes maybe she’s not the beautiful princess in her love triangle with Josh and Valencia… maybe she’s the cackling witch. The music on this one would slide right into the soundtrack of any Disney cartoon, it has fantastically self-aware lyrics that touch on one of the series’ major themes… and Rachel Bloom’s evil witch voice is just impeccable.

20. “First Penis I Saw” (Season 3, Episode 7)

Donna Lynne Champlin has given us more than a few memorable tunes as Rebecca’s trusty pal Paula, but none can top this upbeat, ABBA-esque tribute to her first real boyfriend… and, well, his distinctive genitalia. (You never forget your first, right?) Bonus points for Paula and her bandmates singing into cucumbers and eggplants in the “Suggestive Vegetables” aisle.

19. “A Boy Band Made Up of Four Joshes” (Season 1, Episode 3)

Along with playing lovable dummy Josh Chan, Vincent Rodriguez III is one hell of a dancer, and he gets to show off all kinds of moves in this charming boy-band number, where he — well, four of him, really — reassure a smitten Rebecca that she can let all of her childhood traumas go. (They are licensed mental health professionals, after all.) It’s sneaky emotional, too; that moment where Rebecca hugs her younger self and dances with her gets us every time.

18. “We Tapped That Ass” (Season 2, Episode 4)

Josh and Greg team up for this snappy tap-dance number where they exchange notes about their, uh, intimate encounters with Rebecca. The lyrics are jam-packed with naughty wordplay (“On the ottoman, you took a lot of men…”) and double-entendres that we’re surprised made it past the CW censors. They even finish on her chest… of drawers, you sickos.

17. “Where’s the Bathroom?” (Season 1, Episode 8)

God bless Tovah Feldshuh. As Rebecca’s supremely judgy mom Naomi, the Broadway veteran unleashes a whirlwind of passive-aggression while visiting her daughter in this rapid-fire tune, demanding to know where the bathroom is while still dishing out backhanded compliments. (“You’re looking healthy/And by healthy, I mean chunky…”) She even judges Rebecca’s bathroom once she gets there! Anyone with a Jewish mother — or any mother, really — can relate.

16. “I Go to the Zoo” (Season 3, Episode 3)

We can’t stop giggling every time we think about this supremely goofy Drake-inspired slow jam about… Nathaniel’s love of going to the zoo? (Hey, it makes him feel better, alright?) The silky smooth beats are a strangely fitting accompaniment for Nathaniel’s ode to his beloved zoo animals. (“My favorite’s probably the cheetahs/But I ain’t f—king with no zebras.”) Just another hyper-specific, hyper-hysterical Crazy Ex tune that we’ll probably hum every time we go to the zoo from now on.

15. “The Sexy Getting Ready Song” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Right away, in the very first episode, Rachel Bloom let us know what to expect from Crazy Ex with this sultry, silly chronicle of all the plucking and scrubbing women do to get ready for a date. (The back-up singers are there to help Rebecca get into her shapewear, at least.) We couldn’t agree more with the rapper Nipsey Hussle (RIP), who has a cameo midway through: This is some “nasty-ass patriarchal bulls—t.”

14. “Let’s Have Intercourse” (Season 2, Episode 11)

Scott Michael Foster joined the Crazy Ex cast late as cocky corporate guy Nathaniel, but he made a great first impression with this Ed Sheeran-esque ballad in which he gets very specific about what he’d like to do with Rebecca. It’s not terribly romantic — he just wants to “see what [her] nipples look like,” really — but the admittedly gross lyrics make for a hilarious contrast with the lilting, sensitive-dude guitar. And the ballroom dancing’s not bad, either!

13. “Settle For Me” (Season 1, Episode 4)

A song for guys and gals everywhere hopelessly stuck in the friend zone, Greg tries to convince Rebecca to forget Josh and give him a shot with an elegant, old-school number complete with tuxedos and gowns. (“Like two percent milk or seitan beef, I almost taste the same!”) As with a lot of Crazy Ex songs, the buoyant music and snappy dancing help to mask the crushing sadness of the lyrics. So twirly!

12. “We’ll Never Have Problems Again” (Season 2, Episode 10)

Who’s ready to disco? This relentlessly peppy dance track is a hilarious examination of the comforting lies young lovers tell themselves about their future — “No more ups and downs/It’s just ups and ups and ups!” — and it also happens to be ridiculously catchy. Besides, any song that gives Heather an excuse to “Soul Train on outta here” is a keeper in our book.

11. “Friendtopia” (Season 2, Episode 6)

Most musical comedies would be happy with a note-perfect Spice Girls parody, but Crazy Ex had to take it several steps further: Rebecca’s cheerfully sinister girl-power jam is actually a full-on military manifesto, with her, Heather and Valencia plotting to take over the world. (“All agriculture will be diverted/Into making us rosé!”) You’ll never hear the term “squad goals” the same way again… and you better like watching Hocus Pocus.

10. “Remember That We Suffered” (Season 2, Episode 10)

In true Jewish mom fashion, this jaunty dirge is eager to remind listeners that the Jewish people have had a rough go of it for, oh, a few centuries now — so don’t enjoy yourself too much! It’s the perfect distillation of morbid Jewish humor, Tovah Feldshuh continues to be this show’s secret weapon — and bonus points for including the legendary Patti LuPone and her even more legendary voice.

9. “A Diagnosis” (Season 3, Episode 6)

One of the least comical Crazy Ex songs, but one of the most emotionally resonant, this triumphant showstopper sees Rebecca celebrating the fact that she’s been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after years of struggling with her mental health. We’ve been struggling right along with her, so it’s cathartic to see her so full of hope here, and Rachel Bloom’s vocals positively soar. A beautiful tribute to a major turning point in Rebecca’s life.

8. “Love Kernels” (Season 2, Episode 1)

We all know Rebecca could live for days off a single compliment from her beloved Josh Chan, and she puts that poignant desperation into song here with a Lemonade-esque torch song. It’s probably Crazy Ex‘s most sweepingly ambitious music video, with plenty of costume changes — our favorite is a tie between “sexy fashion cactus” and “hamster slurping from a water bottle” — but of course, it openly acknowledges how wildly expensive it must be, too. (Hi, Broom Darryl.)

7. “It Was a S–t Show” (Season 2, Episode 4)

Greg’s farewell lament to Rebecca sheds light on a frustratingly familiar romantic situation: They liked each other a lot, but they knew full well they were just terrible together. (“Chernobyl, next to us, looks like a campfire/Hurricane Katrina was just bad weather…”) Like many great Crazy Ex songs, it’s hilarious and heart-wrenching, all at the same time — and man, Santino Fontana can sing, right?

6. “You Stupid Bitch” (Season 1, Episode 11)

Crazy Ex has had four different theme songs, one for each season (we’re partial to Season 2’s “I’m Just a Girl in Love,” for the record), but this ballad is truly Rebecca Bunch’s theme song. Deeply scathing and cleverly meta all at once, Rebecca harshly chides herself for all of her many mistakes… and not for the first time. (Her audience knows every word!) It’s a stunning depiction of the self-hating voice inside all of us, and probably Rachel Bloom’s best vocal performance of the series to boot.

5. “JAP Battle” (Season 1, Episode 13)

Yes, Rachel Bloom can rap, too: This hilarious hip-hop showdown between Rebecca and her sworn frenemy Audra Levine — a pair of Jewish-American princesses, you see — is a treasure trove of cutting insults (in Yiddish, of course) and references to tony New York hometowns. Guest star Rachel Grate proves herself a very worthy opponent as Audra, and the mean-mug faces that Darryl, Paula and Josh make as Rebecca’s backup crew are just priceless.

4. “Don’t Be a Lawyer” (Season 4, Episode 3)

Burl Moseley’s Jim has been a background player for most of Crazy Ex‘s run, but he hit it out of the park with this spotlight number: a sizzling ’90s R&B throwback jam about the perils of pursuing the legal profession. The vintage fashions and dance moves are perfectly on point, and the lyrics are quite persuasive, actually: “The job is inherently crappy/That’s why you’ve never met a lawyer who’s happy!”

3. “The Math of Love Triangles” (Season 2, Episode 3)

This is probably the pinnacle of the classic Crazy Ex formula: Start with a spot-on recreation of a classic song genre — the ditzy-girl tune, a la Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes — and add a brilliantly meta twist to it. Here, a dolled-up Rebecca wants to understand the elements of her love triangle with Josh and Greg, but keeps getting adorably confused by all the “man math,” and Rachel Bloom’s over-the-top breathy vocals make it all even funnier. Whee, a swing!

2. “Let’s Generalize About Men” (Season 3, Episode 1)

The genius of this Pointer Sisters-inspired toe-tapper is that it’s both a “yas, queen” girl-power anthem and a parody of those anthems, pointing out the flaws in painting all 3.6 billion men on this planet with the same broad brush. (“Let’s take one bad thing about one man/And apply it to all of them!”) It’s catchy enough that you could fool us into thinking it actually made the pop charts in the mid-’80s, and the twist ending, when Paula remembers that her sons are also men, is maybe the most brutally funny punchline of the whole series.

1. “West Covina” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Could Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s very best song also be its very first song? Yes, we believe it could. Rebecca’s dizzingly romantic ode to her new hometown — and the guy who just happens to live there — manages to set the tone for the entire series: delightfully clever (the visual gags at the start still make us giggle) and heartbreakingly earnest all at the same time. There’s a giddy, go-for-broke magic to it, and it all builds to a massive dance number featuring dozens of extras and one giant pretzel, as if to say, “You’ve never seen anything quite like this on TV before.” And they were right: We hadn’t… and we never will again.

Did your favorite Crazy Ex song not make our list? Sing it out in the comments below.

Source: https://tvline.com/2019/04/01/crazy-ex-girlfriend-best-songs-list-music-videos-watch/

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bigmacdaddio · 5 years

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Gitta Sereny

Gitta Sereny, the author who has died aged 91, was celebrated for her detailed studies of iniquity, of which she had had unusual experience as a child living in Central Europe between the wars.

Gitta Sereny chose for her subjects the sort of perpetrators of “evil” that other writers feared to touch — the child murderers Mary Bell and the killers of James Bulger, the Nazi architect Albert Speer, and the commandant of Treblinka, Franz Stangl.

Her attempts to explain why such people committed monstrous acts led some to accuse her of being more sympathetic to the villains than to their victims. Certainly there was something uncomfortable about the pleasure she seemed to take in feeling personally close to the people she chose to write about. Others took issue with her rejection of the concept of evil, her unreconstructed belief in the moral perfectibility of the individual and controversial claim that the root causes of terrible acts can usually be found in childhood trauma.

Her book on Albert Speer, though widely acclaimed, caused some to say she must be a Nazi sympathiser. But it was with the events surrounding the publication of Cries Unheard (1998) about the child murderer Mary Bell, that the climate of public opinion became most frenzied.

In 1972 Gitta Sereny had published The Case Of Mary Bell, which chronicled the trial of the 11-year-old Tyneside girl convicted in 1968 for the murder of two boys, aged three and four. Over the years, she remained in touch with Mary Bell’s relatives, monitoring her life throughout her 12 years in secret homes and prisons, and then the years of freedom that followed. In her later book she attempted to go beyond the facts of the case, to understand the psychological factors that drove her to murder.

But Gitta Sereny’s admission that Mary Bell was paid about £50,000 for her collaboration caused an outcry, as did what many considered to be the author’s sympathy for the woman and her too willing acceptance of Mary Bell’s uncorroborated claims that she had been sexually abused as a child by her prostitute mother and her mother’s clients, and her contention that this abuse was irrefutably the causal basis of Bell’s homicidal behaviour.

In the ensuing media frenzy, the whereabouts of Mary Bell and her young daughter (who had been unaware until then of her mother’s true identity) became known, and a letter from Gitta Sereny justifying the book to one of the victims’ mothers was also published in the press.

The controversy focused the spotlight on the author, who found herself accused of threatening to destroy what rehabilitation Bell had achieved, wreck her daughter’s life, and reopen the wounds inflicted on the families of the murdered boys. What had hitherto been seen as the heroic pertinacity of a writer who had spent much of her life uncovering the facts about individuals associated with the Holocaust, began to be presented as mere ghoulishness and opportunism.

This was, in a sense, the paradox that lay at the heart of Gitta Sereny’s life and her self-proclaimed mission to uncover the “why” of seemingly senseless atrocities. For her ability to empathise with her subjects and her insistence on the need for understanding grew from the ambivalence of her own youthful response to events in Europe before, during and after the Second World War.

For a woman so devoted to the pursuit of truth, Gitta Sereny was notoriously cagey about her age and the circumstances of her childhood, leaving some to surmise that there may have been an element of make-believe in her account. Within the last decade she had wound her birth date back by two years, but Will Self, who interviewed her in the 1990s, thought it conceivable that she might be at least six years older than she admitted, noting that her pre-war experiences seemed far too various for someone who would only have been in their mid-teens when war broke out.

Gitta Sereny was in fact born on March 13 1921 in Vienna into a family of Anglophile, Protestant Hungarian landowners. Her father died when she was two and it appears that young Gitta had a difficult relationship with her actress mother. When seated in Anthony Clare’s Psychiatrist’s Chair on BBC Radio she alluded to a relationship which was possibly even abusive.

Owing to her father’s love of the English, she attended during her early youth Stonar House, a boarding-school in Kent. It was there, extraordinarily, that she read Mein Kampf. In 1934, when travelling home to Vienna, her train broke down in Nuremberg and at the age of only 13, courtesy of the German Red Cross, she found herself taken to see the Nazi Party Congress.

She was swept away by its pageantry: “One moment I was enraptured, glued to my seat; the next, I was standing up, shouting with joy along with thousands of others.” When she returned to school, she described the scene in an essay entitled “The happiest day of my holiday”.

Four years later, she was studying at the Max Reinhardt Drama School in Vienna when the Nazis arrived. She heard Hitler speak and joined “the mindless chorus” that welcomed him. The euphoria apparently died the following day when she noticed “a band of men in brown uniforms, wearing swastika armbands” surrounded by a laughing crowd.

As she drew near she saw, in the middle of the crowd, a dozen middle-aged men and women on their knees, scrubbing the pavement with toothbrushes. One of them she recognised as the Jewish paediatrician who had saved her life when she was four and had diphtheria.

Although apparently only 17, Gitta Sereny remonstrated with the brownshirts accusing them of humiliating a great physician. It seems that her protest succeeded, for within minutes the crowd had dispersed. In the longer term it did little good. The paediatrician was gassed at Sobibor in 1943.

Gitta Sereny left Austria for Switzerland in May 1938 and was sent to a finishing school near Lausanne. She did not like it and ran away to London, where she sought a place at the Old Vic Theatre School and auditioned for Alexander Korda in an effort to get into films. Neither attempt worked.

When war broke out, she was in France where, after the German invasion, she worked for a year and a half as a volunteer nurse, looking after refugee children, hiding “a couple of shot-down British airmen” and treating the Germans with contempt.

One night a German officer warned her that she was about to be arrested. She fled across the Pyrenees, outwitting the guards who intercepted her by convincing them that she was only popping across the border for a week to visit her boyfriend.

At the end of the war, she went at once to Germany as a child welfare officer working for the United Nations: her first assignment was the care of child prisoners from Dachau. Back in Paris, she met and fell in love with Donald Honeyman, an American photographer with Vogue magazine. They married in 1948 and, after stints in New York and Paris, she moved with him in 1958 to London.

By then she was already working as a writer. A novel, The Medallion, was published in 1957 and she freelanced for papers and magazines, acquiring a reputation for persistence in pursuit of a good story; Magnus Linklater, who worked with her on The Sunday Times, described her as “one of the most remarkable journalists I know”.

Her great strength was her ability to get people to tell her things that they would tell no one else — something she achieved by a combination of sheer doggedness and a knack of making people feel she was genuinely interested in what made them tick.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, working for The Daily Telegraph magazine, she spent several months attending trials of Nazi concentration camp personnel held in Hamburg and Düsseldorf, and found herself instinctively looking for someone from among the accused who might be able to help her towards an understanding of how individuals could be brought to commit such terrible acts. Her choice fell on Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka, whose story became her book Into That Darkness (1974).

The book won acclaim for the light it threw on the bureaucratic, careerist character of a minor player in the Nazi machine, but Stangl himself was the one subject who quickly exhausted Gitta Sereny’s considerable reserves of sympathy. Not only did she find him physically repellent, despite herself she seemed to sense a malignity about him which she could not entirely rationalise. She became ill and began hearing the voices of crying children when travelling by train.

Given what he told her during punishing weeks of interview, this is hardly surprising. Of the 900,000 people for whose deaths he had been held personally responsible, Stangl remarked: “It is all a matter of accommodating oneself to one’s situation.” While he regarded his human victims as “cargo”, he had been shocked into giving up tinned meat after seeing cattle herded into slaughterhouse pens in Brazil.

Yet Gitta Sereny insisted that Stangl was “not an obviously evil man” and when he died 19 hours after her last interview with him, she ascribed his death to her success in making him face up to the truth.

She adopted a different approach to Albert Speer, the subject of Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995). In 1945 she had briefly attended the Nuremberg war crime trials where she caught her first glimpse of Hitler’s architect and all-powerful armaments minister in the dock, though it was Speer who first contacted Sereny in 1977, to praise an article in which she had disproved claims made by the historian David Irving that Hitler did not order genocide.

Encouraged by this overture, she befriended Speer and his wife and, although it had been Speer who, more than anyone, assisted Hitler, she confessed to liking the former Nazi notwithstanding his delusions of innocence.

Despite suggestions that the handsome Speer had charmed her out of her customary objectivity, her book was only superficially sympathetic. Importantly it proved for the first time that Speer had known about the plan to exterminate the Jews as early as 1943 but went along with it because of his love for Hitler, an admission she only secured after weeks of dogged questioning.

As well as her books about Mary Bell, Gitta Sereny wrote Invisible Children (1984), a study of child prostitution in America, Britain and Germany and, as a journalist, wrote extensively about the murder by two boys of the Liverpool toddler James Bulger, her articles forming an appendix to a reissued edition of her 1972 book about Mary Bell. Her last book, The German Trauma (2001), was a collection of essays, some autobiographical, about Hitler’s Germany and its long, difficult legacy.

She was appointed an honorary CBE in 2003.

By her marriage to Don Honeyman Gitta Sereny had a son and a daughter.

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oselatra · 6 years

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One faith-based group recruits almost half of foster homes in Arkansas

The CALL operates in 44 counties with plans for expansion. This story was produced by The Chronicle of Social Change. When Ashley and John Herring of Heber Springs decided to become foster parents in 2009, they were told there were just four foster homes in Cleburne County. Children taken into state custody in this rural county in the Ozark foothills were often sent to homes or short-term placements in other communities, sometimes hours away. For kids, being abruptly separated from school and other community supports only compounded the inherent trauma of family removal. For overburdened staff at the local office of the state Division of Children and Family Services, out-of-county placements entailed lost time and bureaucratic headaches. Yet DCFS workers had little choice: There simply weren’t enough placement options in Cleburne County (pop. 25,970) to keep up with the number of children coming into care. Today, the county has 23 open foster homes, a five-fold increase since 2009. “On average, in our county right now, there are about 33 kids in care,” Ashley Herring said. “I have three right now, and some other families will have three, so we meet our need. We don’t get ahead, [but] we haven’t been in a situation in a while where we’ve just been terribly behind, and have to send, send, send out of county … . We would get very upset if a kid has to leave our county.” The vast majority of the county’s new foster homes have been recruited into Arkansas’s network not by a statewide campaign, but by The CALL, a Christian nonprofit that takes no state funding. The CALL moved into Cleburne County in 2009, and has expanded its operation across the state since. Herring, who is a nurse, and her husband, a family practice doctor, have opened their home to 42 foster children over the past six years. In addition to the couple’s five biological children, they have adopted one former foster child and are in the process of adopting two more. Herring now serves as The CALL’s volunteer county coordinator. The organization recruits potential foster parents, trains them, guides them through the state’s certification process and provides ongoing assistance once the kids begin arriving. It has become the source of 40 percent of all foster homes in Arkansas, according to the DCFS, and “CALL families” have also adopted hundreds of children in the DCFS system. All of this is done without any public money — state, federal or local. The CALL’s $1.7 million budget comes from individual donations, churches, businesses, foundations and other private sources. That also gives The CALL greater operational freedom than most child welfare providers. It means the faith-based organization is allowed to limit its recruitment and training only to those Christian households that meet its criteria. The CALL does not work with cohabiting couples, same-sex couples or couples who follow other faiths or who are nonreligious, instead referring such families to the DCFS directly. “We really don’t have any families in our county who are not CALL families, because even if they went through the state [training process] for some other reason, they end up just being a part of us and supporting and being supported by us — as long as, you know, they agree with the Apostle’s Creed,” Herring said. National advocates have expressed concern that LGBT youth may face bias and discrimination within state foster care systems. Ellen Kahn, the director of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Children, Youth & Families Program, indicated by email that she was not familiar with The CALL specifically. However, she wrote, “based on what is publicly known about The CALL, we would certainly have concerns about whether their families are safe placements for LGBTQ youth."

Making The CALL

The CALL was founded in 2007 by a group of church leaders and child advocates in Pulaski County. It now operates in 44 of Arkansas’s 75 counties, with an additional 10 county outposts planned for 2018. The DCFS needs the help: It has seen a record surge in numbers of fosters in the past two years, with 5,079 children in care as of early November. That’s down slightly from a high of 5,200 last year, but still represents a 38 percent increase since 2012. In a 2016 report, the DCFS itself bluntly stated that “the system is in crisis,” an assessment echoed by Governor Hutchinson, who has pushed for more aggressive foster parent recruitment. Hornby Zeller Associates, an outside contractor hired by the state to assess its foster care surge, found in 2016 that the state might be removing more kids than necessary. “The increase in foster care is due largely to two factors: the DCFS removing more children [from their homes] immediately upon investigation and the courts ordering removals against the recommendations of the agency,” the consultant firm stated in its report. Whatever the cause of the increase, the DCFS has come to consider The CALL an indispensable partner. In 2008, DCFS Deputy Director Beki Dunagan was working as a supervisor in Lonoke County, the second site The CALL targeted after its founding. “Being in the field, in the weeds, I know what it is like,” Dunagan said. “You remove children, and sometimes you might be in that office for seven hours trying to find a placement. Then you might end up with that child in an emergency shelter or a placement just for the night, and you start all over the next day.” After The CALL took off, she said, “it was like day and night. … Within an hour, we’d have children placed.” When Lonoke County DCFS told the upstart nonprofit that it needed help providing snacks to kids visiting their parents after school at the DCFS office, The CALL mustered resources to do just that. “I can’t even articulate to you the support I felt in Lonoke,” Dunagan said. Lauri Currier began working with the original Pulaski County chapter in 2008. In 2011, the growing number of county affiliates were organized into a statewide, 501(c)(3) nonprofit at the behest of the DCFS, and Currier was hired as its executive director. The DCFS wanted The CALL to include “a central hub to create best practices, to do training … so there was consistency in how we were operating at the local level,” she said. Currier, who has been a teacher, a marketing director and a small business owner, said she was drawn to The CALL after “a self-discovery Bible study” led her to conclude her life’s purpose was to “positively affect the lives of the fatherless.” Currier’s own family history played a role: When she was an 18-year-old college freshman, her father revealed to her that he was adopted. “My dad was brought into foster care in 1939, with four siblings,” she said. “He had a younger sister and three older brothers, and they got split up and never got back together until much later in their lives, when they were in their 40s and 50s. There was such a stigma about adoption that my grandmother’s wish — my father’s adoptive mother — was that he not tell anyone until after she passed. … That is why I do the work that I do.”

Between church and state

Currier said the key to The CALL’s recruitment success is building relationships within each church it works with. The group partners with about 700 of the estimated 5,000 churches in the state, Currier said. “We identify generally someone in that church who is a layperson — somebody that's passionate about kids in foster care,” she said. “Maybe it's a foster parent or adoptive parent or someone who was a foster child when they were young. We train that person to kind of be our representative in the church.” The representative will then connect any member of the congregation who expresses an interest in foster care to The CALL. Recruitment is only the first step. The foster care certification process “can be very daunting in that there a lot of requirements, a lot of hoops you're having to jump through,” Currier said. “We're walking alongside [the family] and helping them stay on track.” At the same time, “we want to make sure that we're appropriately vetting families, and we do that according to what DCFS' standards are.” Potential foster parents in Arkansas have often complained of lost paperwork and endless delays, so The CALL’s assistance can make a major difference. In 2015, a review of the DCFS commissioned by the governor and conducted by consultant Paul Vincent of the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group found the overstretched agency was having trouble moving new foster parents through the certification process. “Difficulty in securing staff and other barriers ... resulted in a large backlog of prospective foster parent inquires, applications and background clearances that the system couldn’t respond to in a timely manner,” Vincent wrote at the time. (The DCFS said later that it resolved the backlog issues.) Foster parent Ashley Herring said local DCFS employees were dedicated and diligent — and also “the most overworked people I’ve ever seen.” That’s why Herring maintains her own tracking system to keep up with potential foster families as they move through the process. Herring said her local DCFS resource worker told her she manages 83 cases spread over four counties. (Resource workers are responsible for opening and closing foster homes; they are distinct from caseworkers, who manage individual child welfare cases.) “If I only counted on her to walk my families through, you can imagine which files would be on the bottom,” Herring said. “I go meet with her once a month. We sit down together and I say ‘This family, right there — where are they? Have they had their fingerprints? Have they done this, or this?’” Perhaps the most visible advantage of being a “CALL family” is a compressed training schedule. Arkansas statute requires foster families to undergo a specific 30-hour training model called Foster/Adopt PRIDE, which the DCFS provides through a nonprofit contractor. PRIDE classes take place each Saturday over a two-month period in just five sites throughout the state, meaning families in remote areas may have to drive hours to attend. In contrast, The CALL’s training is delivered locally and compresses the PRIDE curriculum into two weekends. “We knew there are awesome Christian families that would be available to do something like this, but they're busy families,” Currier said. So, The CALL obtained permission from the DCFS to create an adapted version of PRIDE. “We'd have a weekend of training which would start on Saturday morning at 9 o’clock and go until 7 in the evening,” Currier said. “Then, on Sunday, they'd show up at 1 and stay till 7. And then we skip a weekend, and then they'd come back for that marathon again.” In 2010, the independent consultant Hornby Zeller Associates performed a study at the request of the DCFS that compared the experience of CALL-recruited families to DCFS-recruited families. Hornby Zeller found a strong preference for The CALL’s expedited training schedule and also found that CALL families “averaged roughly 37 days between their home study date and approval date. Meanwhile, the DCFS-recruited families waited nearly twice as long (73 days) between their home study date and approval date.” Evidence suggests The CALL has reached families that the DCFS could not recruit on its own. A 2013 paper authored by Michael Howell-Moroney, a researcher at the University of Memphis, found that 36 percent of CALL families said they probably would not have become foster or adoptive parents if it had not been for the nonprofit. Hornby Zeller similarly found that “several CALL-recruited parents stated that they would not have fostered if not for the Christian environment promoted by The CALL.”

Questions of equity

Arkansas is an overwhelmingly Christian state, with 79 percent of adults identifying as such in a Pew Research Center poll. The number is likely higher in many rural counties. For non-Christians and unmarried potential foster parents, The CALL is simply not an option. Any prospective family is asked to provide a letter of reference from their congregation, and must sign a statement of faith, which Currier described as an adaptation of the Apostle’s Creed. “There’s no unkindness involved in that decision. It’s just who we are as an organization,” Currier said. “We will always kindly refer those families [to the DCFS] ... for them to be able to become foster and adoptive families.” The desire by some faith-based groups to limit their recruitment to Christian couples has become a hot-button political issue. Several states, including Texas, Virginia, Mississippi and Michigan, have passed laws that exempt faith-based providers from working with same-sex foster and adoptive parents. But those laws relate to organizations that receive funding from state child welfare agencies. The CALL does not receive a single government dollar for supplying nearly half of Arkansas’s foster homes. "We would hope that the Arkansas [Division] of Children and Family Services is doing its due diligence to insure a safe placement for all children and youth in foster care,” said Ellen Kahn, of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. “Not all families will be suitable for supporting an LGBTQ child.” Asked whether The CALL’s limited focus on certain types of families creates challenges for the DCFS, Dunagan noted that the onus for recruitment ultimately lies with the agency. “It takes a village … and The CALL is just one part, although it’s a major part, of our village,” she said. “I will tell you that I think in years past we did not do a very good job of engaging other training partners or having specific targeted recruitment.” Dunagan said the DCFS has ramped up its own foster care outreach in communities across the state, thanks in part to a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “I do think we do need to do some additional work with LGBT,” Dunagan acknowledged. The DCFS is making efforts to recruit more same-sex couples interested in becoming foster parents, she said. Amy Webb, a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services, the agency that oversees DCFS, wrote in an email that the agency does not necessarily avoid placing youth who identify as LGBT with CALL-recruited families. It does take into account the preferences of the child and the foster parents, she said, so as to ensure stable placements. “We may have youth who prefer not to be in a home with a same-sex couple or who would prefer a same-sex couple home because that is what they are used to,” Webb said. “Or we may have great foster parents who honestly say they don’t know how best to support LGBT youth and asked that they not be placed in their home.” Currier said the state-mandated training curriculum delivered by The CALL “addresses the topic of appropriate interactions with LGBT children and youth in foster care.” Asked whether The CALL avoids proselytizing to LGBT foster children, Currier replied that “DCFS provides policies and guidelines regarding respecting the beliefs of children and youth in foster care. The families recruited by The CALL follow these policies and guidelines. These families simply live out their Christian faith on a daily basis as an example of a way of living.” The Chronicle of Social Change is a national news outlet that covers issues affecting vulnerable children, youth and their families. Sign up for its newsletter or follow The Chronicle of Social Change on Facebook or Twitter. One faith-based group recruits almost half of foster homes in Arkansas

#One faith-based group recruits almost half of foster homes in Arkansas

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