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letstalksymphogear · 5 years

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Symphogear, EP. 2

Last time, on Symphogear!

An adorable little girl, stood up by her date for a reasonable explanation, jams it out with her favorite pop duo, caught unawares that they are also a monster-fighting syndicate experimenting with the power of sound (the power to make you dizzy) to activate an ancient historical relic. Shit goes south as the jams prove to be too powerful, guaranteeing tragedy amidst an otherwise baller concert. Hibiki is rescued by The Bigger Of The Lesbians before she self-destructs to make sure the entire threat is neutralized, leaving The Smaller Lesbian sad, yet still incredibly gay. Years pass as our protagonist goes to Music School, for Music, to bunk it up with her girlfriend as she tries to figure out what the hell happened. Her prayers are answered when she tries to rescue a little girl and is promptly cornered, activating the same outfit The Bigger Lesbian that saved her had on. Gungnir Dattos all around, The Smaller Lesbian loses her shit as everything goes downhill from there.

Now, where were we?

...right. The piss beacon.

And the person taking the piss.

Hibiki has nary a clue what to do. Symphogears don’t actually come with manuals, you see. They’re sort of a “close your eyes and wing it” kind of experience. In Tsubasa’s case, it’s quite literal.

“FUCK that was COOL AS SHIT, tight as FUCKING HELL”

Take pity on this face. This is the face of someone who’s last memories will be a confused lady wondering why she is suddenly part machine.

“imma save you widdle kid”

Something to note about this show is that all the fighters sing while fighting. Hibiki is no exception, even after being confused about what the hell she’s doing. It helps that her voice actress is a professional singer.

It helps that every voice actress here is some sort of professional singer.

This picture basically summarizes why Hibiki is cool despite being so goddamned dumb. She’s angry, and she’s gonna protect some kids even if she dies doing it. Kanade would be proud, if she wasn’t too busy being dead.

No shit!

Have you ever watched the original Sam Reimi’s Spiderman? Like, the very first one? You know all those awkward scenes about Spiderman learning how his powers work? Hibiki basically does that under crunch time. There’s a long segment about how she’s forced to figure things out while protecting a kid and Not Dying.

It’s going pretty great.

I can’t believe she’s secretly Steve Urkel.

“cannot FUCKING believe that girl my girlfriend saved managed to GET HER HANDS on her FUCKING CLOTHES that I WANTED to ENSHRINE IN A MEMORIAL to her how the FUCK did she do that cant BELIEVE i have to SAVE HER IDIOT ASS because she just CANT EVEN DO THAT-”

Tsubasa, preparing herself as a contender for the World’s Angriest Lesbian, barrels through the Noise in her motorcycle...

...which she smashes directly into the Noise. It does nothing.

Tsubasa has many a motorcycle to smash. It’s a testament to her dedication following her aesthetic.

She fueled the tank completely before smashing it in.

Tsubasa... is petty.

As Tsubasa t-poses to assert dominance (a woman ahead of her time, this first aired in 2012), she comes down ready to kick some ass and vent some frustrations. And frankly? She’s all out of ass.

“oh my god she’s even hotter up close i cant believe it”

“fucking knock-off outfit looks like it came out of a bootleg flea market”

You don’t need to know what happens next, because you already know what happens when someone shows up with a fucking sword ready to sing about their dead girlfriend and the conflicting feelings about seeing her armor pop up again on someone else.

Murder.

Lots... and lots... of murder.

“we’re so fucking useless why do we even exist”

After Tsubasa finishes what could only be described as a massacre, we’re treated to how people clean up the aftermath.

“hey, you know, make fun of me all you want, but at the end of the day, im the one holding the vacuum cleaner, and you’re literally turned to dust, so”

Even this little girl knows shit’s about the go down. Got the tea and everything.

This is one of the minor characters of the series. She works for the 2nd Division. Who is the 2nd Division? You’ll find out soon.

“i didnt die! fuck yeah. today’s a good day.”

“OH WAIT NO-”

Hibiki learns that her outfit unsets after a while, like bideo game. Who catches her mid-fall?

Her new best friend, of course. Don’t be fooled by this look. Tsubasa tragically suffers from resting angry face syndrome. It is, unfortunately, incurable.

“i hate how cute she is”

Hibiki reminds her that this is technically the second time Tsubasa has saved her, which in the large scheme of things, seems incredibly innocuous for someone who escaped a major tragedy many years ago. Unfortunately, time doesn’t move forward for Season 1 Tsubasa. Not for quite a while...

The funny part is it doesn’t even hit her initially. She never actually saw Hibiki personally during that moment, so she actually doesn’t even have a clue what she means.

Look at her. Look at this clown. How could you hate her. Look at that smile.

All the survivors are always forced to write NDAs about what they saw. This grows to comical levels at times, given the scale of what happens eventually. It might as well be the world’s biggest open secret by now.

“aight homies looks like i gotta go home, the wife’s gonna be lonely an-”

Oh.

“sorry holmes but you’re going to gay baby jail like the rest of us singers”

Hibiki’s face is riddled with guilt. The guilt of someone who just saved a little girl. How dare you, Hibiki. This is what you get for doing The Right Thing.

And so she’s taken to “jail.”

“sorry pal but you literally turned into a huge weapon and you have no idea how to use it so!”

And so, Hibiki was never seen again...

Alright, so she really isn’t going to jail. She is genuinely being taken into custody, though. To be honest, this kind of handcuff procedure is sort-of ridiculous for someone who literally just saved children, and you could probably bribe her to join them with a 10 piece chicken dinner, but hey, fuck it. 2nd Division has protocols, and that is to arrest people.

“i cant believe i was a fan of a narc all this time”

The school has a giant elevator that goes deep into the Earth. Also, look at that symbolism. Hibiki’s the only one looking at her own reflection. Deep.

Thanks, Tsubasa.

The interior decorator for this elevator is wild.

Tsubasa forbodes where they’re all going as some ominous, strange, and evil place where joy and happiness die. Where good feelings and innocence are destroyed, and hope is crushed and ripped at the seams.

As it turns out, Tsubasa is just an angsty piece of shit.

So here’s the situation:

The 2nd Branch, which are the people in charge of poking relics until they glow with the power of music to study and harness the power of as weapons to kill the Noise, live in a several mile deep high tech basement of an all girl’s boarding school dedicated to music. This is because, for the record, that the girls recruited to this school have the habit of being a little bit attuned to these relics. Hibiki, a newly christened Gear user, is now being recruited into this organized by Genjuro.

“i never got this kind of party when i was recruited”

“thats because nobody liked you, hans”

“im skipping my soaps for this”

“fucking hate my twin brother hans”

“she?????? gets a party??? SHE. gets a party. I DON’T GET A PARTY. SHE... GETS A PARTY? and i dont get a fucking party. i was literally BORN into this job. NOBODY gives me a damn party. this MORON who CLOWNS AROUND with her SUBPAR SONGS. gets a party. oh my god. oh my GOD. FUCK. FUCK!”

“if this is what its like to get arrested i gotta be gayer and do more crimes”

“I’m not actually surprised. I’m just pretending to be. I’m just really not good at pretending to be surprised.”

“fucking hate this family, im gonna eat all of hibikis cake and cry in my room”

Remember: This show first released in 2012. Ryoko? Trendsetter.

Ryoko’s screen is very dirty and foggy. Don’t ask why. Don’t even remember why I pointed this out. Just forget this point completely.

Hibiki understands that handcuffs just aren’t fashionable.

Genjuro casually explains that they’re the fictional japanese equivalent of the NSA, all while doing magic tricks. Truly a man of many talents.

Tsubasa is already plotting how to vent about all this in her diary, which she addresses as letters of Kanade every time she writes in it.

Genjuro and Ryoko introduces themselves as everyone else apologizes to her, except Tsubasa.

Ogawa also intro- yes, I’m recycling a picture- introduces himself. He’s pretty cool, too, and serves as Tsubasa’s ninja bodyguard, butler, and all around mentor. We never get a backstory on him, and likely never will. It’s best to keep it that way; it only adds to the mystery of who the hell this guy is.

“weird flex but okay”

Hibiki realizes she’s being recruited, after being told she’s being recruited. Given some brain cells remain in her head, she asks the obvious and wonders what the hell happened to her.

“ryoko, care to explain?”

“well, it’s simple. you’re the protagonist now.”

Ryoko, who has no sense of boundaries, subjects Hibiki to a medical inspection. As creepy as her tone is, its to inspect the state of Hibiki’s newly formed gear.

She’s finally freed from that long winded event and returns home to her wife.

“buddy you smell like shit. and french fries.”

“hibiki. you’re not dead, hibiki. come on, get up. i just cleaned this floor, hibiki. hibiki, please. this is genuinely unbecoming of you. hibiki, oh my god.”

“miku please i learned how to kick ass and im tired and please let me enjoy this nice floor”

Tsubasa does the thing real life Symphogear and all related products never actually bother to do.

“god she’s so gay for her but i know she’d never cheat on me so”

Hibiki ruminates on the day she’s had. This is where the really dumb angst comes in. You see, Hibiki can’t tell anyone about what happened, and Miku, now a civilian in her eyes, cannot know about her alter ego Symphogear antics. Hibiki feels bad about this.

“y u no trust me. y u no tell me troof. im wife.”

After a brief heart to heart Hibiki smiles and snuggles her girlfriend.

They’re gay.

“im gonna marry her knowing full well she’ll sleep through the ceremony. god.”

#symphogear #symphogear season 1

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starklore · 5 years

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I actually used to buy into the whole “Zuko is the only well-written redemption arc” thing, like I was never an anti as such, but before it was as widespread as it was I would still see the concept floating around and be like “yeah,” and thinking back, the process I went through as a villain fucker looked like this:

-2007, ATLA is airing, I’m in middle school and I’m obsessed and I like zuko. Didn’t care that much about him in s1, then he cut his hair off and I was like “okay, yeah, I feel it.” Sexual awakening happens. I start writing a lot of Zuko/OC fanfiction that is now unfortunately lost to time.

Zuko serves as a gateway drug for hot villains & antiheroes that follows me through my fandom journey. (I was also super gay for Ty Lee, i just didn’t know it yet. This is not relevant.)

-2012, around the time villain wank is starting to spring up due to Loki’s popularity, I realize then that I’m supposed to be ashamed of wanting to get railed by sad murderboys cause it’s cringey (I miss when people didn’t try to label it as “problematic” and just admitted they find it personally annoying.)

I quickly try rebrand myself to myself and others as a Good Villain Fan who never excuses their actions and doesn’t want redemption, I just think they are interesting!!! And sure, the actor is handsome but that doesn’t change the character’s actions ladies!! Remember your fake crushes need to be pure organic home-grown grass fed free range no GMO or else!!

Except that my love for Zuko, a character who fits that exact archetype only with toned down fictional crimes cause he’s on a kid’s show, is too deeply embedded for me to abandon.

So now I have to retroactively justify why it’s okay to stan him and not Loki and the other murderboys, and luckily some brave bloggers on tunglr dot hell have already done the work for me by declaring that his redemption arc was the Best Ever and your fave will never compare. Great! Glad we got that sorted out.

I proceed to thirst only after the most pure of heart characters. I still think Loki is mad sexy but I pretend I don’t and I only like him for the most sophisticated literary reasons. Secretly I yearn to thirst after fake bad boys. I pray that someday a new murderboy will appear who will have such a good redemption arc that he will be acceptable stan material.

-January 2016, the new Star Wars just came out. I’m already starting to get sick of this bullshit and the Kylo Ren w4nk is the last straw. I don’t even think he’s hot at first, I genuinely just think he’s interesting and I relate to him, but now even that is too impure.

You have to preface every post with an acknowledgement that killing people is Bad Actually and you KNOW this and definitely do NOT want him to have a half-assed redemption arc. If you want him to have a long painful well-written redemption arc full of suffering (just like Zuko’s incidentally, only not as good because it never can be) then you can stay, but you’re on thin fucking ice.

But ideally you only like him as an intellectual exercise in like, the MRA psyche or whatever. You definitely can’t ship him with Rey or find him attractive cause then you’re woobifying him because you think he’s hot and ignoring the MoC in the cast. (Insert the “I have three holes” tweet).

That’s when I call bullshit on the whole thing, there was never an acceptable level of villain stanning, the game was rigged from the beginning and there’s no winning it. It was never about making sure fake people get held accountable for fake crimes, it was always about controlling women’s sexual fantasies.

I start to follow a lot of reylo blogs and accidentally start shipping it. I make this shitpost. It becomes the bane of my existence that haunts me to this day.

2019: I don’t know anything about MCU!Mysterio except that he’s a villain and is played by Jake Gyllenhaal. I stan anyway cause his dumb costume is hot and villains are hot and I want him to rail me until I forget my own name and that’s literally the whole reason. It hurts literally no one and it makes me happy, so who cares? Not this bitch.

Anyways, my point here is that--like, I can’t speak for everyone, but I think probably a lot of people on here are still stuck in the 2012 phase here, where they actually really like villains but are scared to admit it because it’s considered neither cool nor woke (and let’s be real, the second is only valued as an extension of the first on this site) so they pretend they don’t.

And if any of those people are reading this, I would just like to tell them that it’s okay. You can like a bad guy because you think they’re hot, or you relate to them, or you think they’re interesting, or any combination of the above, or completely different reasons. They’re fictional characters. How you engage with them is not a performance for other fans, it’s for your own enjoyment. So enjoy them.

#discourse cw #fanw4nk #the villain thing #pixie special

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focusontheeasternlightning-blog · 5 years

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Seeing Through the Facts, I Have Discernment of the CCP’s Rumors

By Lijing, China

“Mom, you are not to believe in God anymore. Just look at what it says online!”

“You mustn’t believe what the Chinese government says. They are all just rumors and falsehoods …”

“Even the news reports these things, and you still want to believe in it?”

Whenever I remember that time a few years ago, when I believed the CCP’s rumors and tried to stop my mom believing in God, when I was guarded against the brothers and sisters and tried to sound them out, I feel extreme remorse. At the same time, I’m filled with gratitude for God’s love that never left me, as it was this love that enabled me to see through the rumors and return before God. As I think about it now, every scene of those past events plays over in my mind …

Mother and Daughter, Yet Strangers to Each Other

When I was eight years old, my father became ill and died, and my mother and I had to stick together and depend on one another. My mom was in a lot of pain back then and always looked sad. She also had to work every day, all day long, and she never spoke to me about anything. She never cared much about my life or my studies, and when she was in a bad mood, she would frequently lose her temper with me. I therefore felt aversion toward my own mother, and I never wanted to tell her about any difficulty I encountered. Over time, our exchanges became less and less frequent and, although we lived under the same roof, we became like the closest of strangers, and I felt lonelier and lonelier …

Deceived by Rumors, I Try to Stop My Mom Believing in God

One day in November 2012, two people came to our home, and they spoke to my mom about faith in God. Afterward, my mom would read the book The Scroll Opened by the Lamb every evening after she got home from work. Curious, I asked her, “Mom, what book have you been reading lately?” She smiled and said, “These are the words expressed by Almighty God. Every word is the truth. Here, take a look.” I thought that I’d read enough books over recent years while at school, so I refused.

But when I saw how earnestly my mom was reading this book, I began to worry that she might be getting duped, and so I went online and looked for relevant information. When I opened a webpage and saw a news headline that read “People Become Abnormal After Believing in God,” my heart began to thump, and I felt very afraid. I immediately told my mom not to believe in God anymore. She didn’t listen to me, however, but instead continued to read the book The Scroll Opened by the Lamb, and so I told her about what it said in the news. After reading the news report online, my mom was unconcerned, and said, “The news is all fabricated by the Chinese government, and it doesn’t report the facts at all.” I said to her anxiously, “All the news say the same thing, and you still believe in God?” My mom said nothing but just walked silently back to her room.

From that time on, whenever I saw her pick up that book, I would rush over and tell her not to read it. She didn’t listen to me, however, but said to me patiently, “I know you’re worried that I’m being duped, but throughout this time and through my contact with the brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God, I’ve seen that they’re just not like what the CCP says at all. When we gather together, we just fellowship about the truth and we talk about our experiences and knowledge of God’s words. We don’t do anything wrong.” Hearing her say this, I thought to myself: “The Chinese government puts propaganda online saying that people become abnormal after they start believing in God, but I haven’t seen my mom behave abnormally at all since she started believing in God. Could what the Chinese government says be false? I’d better look into this.” Afterward, I kept my eyes on how my mom acted, and I discovered that she was no longer sad like she had been before. She smiled more often, and even when she was in a bad mood, she only lost her temper with me very seldomly. She also started to confide in me often, she cared about my life and my problems, and she would fellowship God’s words with me to guide me on how to resolve those problems. Also, whenever anything happened that made her happy or frustrated, she would talk to me about it. Seeing how my mom had changed, I thought: “After reading Almighty God’s words, my mom hasn’t become abnormal like the CCP says. Instead, her spirits are improving all the time, she is always concerned about me, and we are getting along better and better.” From the bottom of my heart, I felt that the book she’d been reading was a good one. I still hadn’t met anyone from The Church of Almighty God, however, and so I thought it would be best if I stayed on my guard.

Facts Counter the Rumors, and I Gradually Come to Have Discernment

Later, several sisters from the church came to our home to have a meeting with my mom. When they saw me, they all smiled and said hello. But the moment I saw them, I thought of the rumors I’d read online, and so I just gave them the impression that I was ignoring them, but really, I secretly watched their every move. When I watched them at their meeting, they all talked about the events or problems they’d recently encountered, and then they fellowshiped God’s words to resolve these problems. As I listened, I was puzzled, and thought: “I’ve never been this frank and open with my good friends, and I’m even less willing to talk about anything embarrassing that happens to me. These sisters, however, are able to be so frank and open with each other. They also help each other out and they don’t disparage each other. My mom is chatting so happily with them, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen her this happy. I get the sense that what they’re bringing to my mom, and to our home, is happiness, and they are not bad people. So then why are there such horrible reports online? I’m really at a loss ��”

Two days later, two of the sisters invited me to attend their meeting, and I felt a little hesitant. “Just go meet with them,” I thought. But then I thought of the CCP’s rumors, and I became afraid. If I didn’t meet with them, however, I’d still feel a little uneasy. And so I quietly sat down to one side and listened to them sing hymns and fellowship God’s words, and they ended their meeting in an atmosphere of joy. I really enjoyed meeting with them like this.

By spending time with them, I came to feel more and more that these sisters were good people. The elderly ones were kind and amiable and the younger ones were so sincere. Meeting with them and being in contact with them made me feel happy and liberated. Over time, my attitude toward them slowly improved, and I would often attend meetings with them. When I thought of how I had been toward them before, I felt indebted to them. I apologized to them, but they didn’t blame me. Instead, they showed me understanding and forgiveness, and they encouraged me to read more of God’s words and attend more meetings. I was very moved.

By Sounding Out a Sister, I See the Truth of the Matter

The CCP’s rumors, however, were deeply rooted in my heart. Whenever I thought of the Chinese government’s news reports that said people who believed in Almighty God forced others to believe in God, I would begin to worry: “Will the sisters be like it says online and try to force me to believe in God? I’ll pretend that I don’t believe in God to see whether they try to force me or not.” And so, I deliberately said to a sister that I didn’t believe in God. After hearing me say this, the sister was concerned and asked me whether I was experiencing any difficulties, and she asked me to tell her about them so that we could resolve them together. I didn’t say much, so finally the sister said, “You’ve made your decision, and we won’t force you. You’ll always be welcome at our meetings in the future, if you would like to attend.”

I didn’t attend meetings for a whole month, and the sisters didn’t call on me. I thought to myself: “They’re not like what the Chinese government says. They haven’t tried to force me to believe in God at all—everything the CCP says is false.” I thought of the happy times I’d spent with the sisters and I really wanted to attend meetings with them again. Later on, when I was confiding in Sister Wang, I told her all about my thoughts and concerns, and she read God’s words to me: “Kin who are not of the faith (your children, your husband or wife, your sisters or your parents, and so on) should not be forced into the church. God’s household is not short of members, and there is no need to make up its numbers with people who have no use. All those who do not believe gladly must not be led into the church. This decree is directed at all people. In this matter you should check, monitor and remind each other, and no one may violate it.”

Sister Wang said, “God requires us to strictly adhere to His administrative decrees. We’re not allowed to drag people kicking and screaming into the church, for this is God’s administrative decree. We also preach the gospel in accordance with the administrative decrees and principles expressed by God, and we only preach to those with good humanity and who believe in God. If someone does not wish to believe, then we respect their choice and will never try to force them.” After listening to God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, the doubts and suspicions I’d harbored in my heart were finally dispelled: So The Church of Almighty God has this system of administrative decrees! Those who study their way have the right to choose freely, and the brothers and sisters in The Church of Almighty God have never forced anyone to believe in God. I also thought about how my mom had been since she started believing in God; she’d become much more broad-minded, she’d become caring and considerate toward me, and she’d begun to get along well with relatives and neighbors alike. The sisters also treated us all like one family, and they often came to help mom with her work. There was no scheming or guarding against each other among the sisters. I now saw clearly that the opinions put about by the CCP were just outright lies intended to dupe people, and I would no longer be deceived by them.

I therefore began to attend meetings, and my brothers and sisters would often inquire whether there was anything I was having difficulty with or felt confused about. After I told them about the problems I’d been having at work, they gathered some of God’s words together and gave me fellowship on how I should get through this situation. My problem was then resolved, and my heart felt liberated. Over time, I gradually relaxed my guard until I was no longer guarded at all. I became certain about Almighty God’s work of the last days, and I began to live a normal church life.

I Understand the CCP’s Purpose in Fabricating Rumors

At a meeting, I asked a sister’s opinion on the CCP’s rumors, and asked why it wanted to make up such rumors about our church. The sister read a passage of God’s words, “Satan wins its fame through deceiving the public. It often establishes itself as a vanguard and role model of righteousness. Under the banner of safeguarding righteousness, it harms man, devours their souls, and uses all sorts of means to benumb, deceive and incite man. Its goal is to make man approve of and follow along with its evil conduct, to make man join it in opposing God’s authority and sovereignty. However, when one grows wise to its schemes, plotting and vile features and does not wish to continue to be trampled upon and fooled by it or to continue slaving away for it, or to be punished and destroyed together with it, Satan changes its previously saintly features and tears off its false mask to reveal its true evil, vicious, ugly and savage face. It would love nothing more than to exterminate all those who refuse to follow it and those who oppose its evil forces. At this point Satan can no longer assume a trustworthy, gentlemanly appearance; instead, its true ugly and devilish features under the sheep’s clothing are revealed.”

By reading God’s words and listening to the sister’s fellowship, I finally realized that the Chinese government is atheist and, ever since it came to power, it had labeled Christianity as an evil cult, labeled the Bible as the book of an evil cult, and it had frantically suppressed and arrested Christians. On the outside, it propagandizes freedom of religion, but this is actually just done to deceive ordinary people. It hates the truth and hates God most of all and fears people believing in God, because when people understand the truth, they then come to have discernment of the CCP, and they reject it. Therefore, in order to stop people from believing in God, achieve its evil goal of ruling over and controlling people forever, and of turning China into an atheist zone, the CCP uses various media such as the internet, TV and newspapers to discredit and fabricate rumors about The Church of Almighty God, and it wantonly slanders God’s work. Without the truth, people have no discernment, and they thus become prone to being deceived by the CCP’s rumors, and they dare not study or accept God’s work of the last days. They therefore lose their chance to attain God’s final salvation. Through the revelations of God’s words and through my contact with the brothers and sisters, I finally came to see that everything the CCP said was rumors and lies, and yet I’d still naively believed that the government couldn’t possibly deceive the people, and that everything it did was for our protection. Faced with the facts, however, I finally saw through to the CCP’s reactionary essence of its resistance and opposition to God. We human beings were created by God, and to believe in God and worship God is an immutable law of heaven and earth. And yet the Chinese government makes up all manner of rumors to deceive us and to stop us from believing in God in the vain hope that we will become its accomplices and join it in resisting God, so that we will be destroyed by God in the end—the CCP really is so hateful! Just then, I thought once again about how I had been deceived by the CCP’s rumors and had tried to stop my mom from believing in God. I wouldn’t let her read God’s words, and I had doubted, been guarded against and tried to sound out my sisters. I felt so ashamed of my own rebelliousness, and I regretted having done things which resisted God.

Later, I read God’s words, “The Almighty has mercy on these people who have suffered deeply. At the same time, He is fed up with these people who have no consciousness, because He has had to wait too long to get an answer from humanity. He wishes to seek, to seek your heart and your spirit, to bring you water and food, and to awaken you, that you may no longer be thirsty and hungry. … He is watching by your side, waiting for you to turn back. He is waiting for the day you suddenly recover your memory: realizing the fact that you came from God, but at who knows what point losing your direction, at who knows what point falling senseless by the wayside, and again at who knows what point acquiring a ‘father.’ Furthermore, you realize that the Almighty has been there the whole time, standing watch, awaiting your return, for a very, very long time.” After I’d read this passage of God’s words, I perceived God’s love and the painstaking efforts He goes to to save man. I had been so profoundly duped before by rumors and had done things which resisted God. And yet God had taken mercy on my foolishness and ignorance and had not concerned Himself with my transgressions. Instead, He had arranged brothers and sisters to go to great trouble to fellowship God’s words with me, which had enabled me to see the truth of the matter and see through to the malicious intent behind the Chinese government’s rumor-mongering. Otherwise, I would never have been able to escape from the fog of rumors, to discern clearly between right and wrong and differentiate clearly between true and false, and I would have ended up losing God’s salvation of the last days. God’s love really is so great.

In my experience, I saw that, although the Chinese government fabricates all sorts of rumors to discredit The Church of Almighty God and it frantically oppresses its members, it has not only failed to suppress God’s work but, conversely, more and more people are seeing the CCP’s God-resisting essence. They are also seeing that every word expressed by God is the truth, that they can indeed save man, and they are returning before God one after another. God truly is so almighty and wise! From this, I saw that the CCP is something God uses to render a service, and which God uses as a foil—the wisdom of God will forever be exercised based on the deceitful schemes of Satan!

#Gospel Testimonies #Spiritual Warfare #Seeing Through the Rumors #Come Before God

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jaywasablindpirate · 7 years

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You know the theory where Jack and Sean are two different people? yeah, take a look at this:

What if there’s two Antis? There’s an old one, and there’s a new one. The old one that has been here ever since 2012/13 and the new one was here in October? The old one being very subtle with everything and what if he was the one who caused every one of the other egos into existence because he ‘damaged’ Jack’s sanity somehow and that’s how they first came about. He’s the secret villain who’s been behind everything.

The new Anti is the one who first appeared in October that the ASE (That’s what I’m going to call the first Anti) had made as a copy of himself so Jack can be even more afraid over time. The new Anti is the one who’s been ‘in control’ ever since October, but he didn’t know that ‘the true Anti’ had made him and that he wasn’t in control as he had thought. But Anti is a demon, right? The ASE is a demon and the reason why the cameras glitch out is because the ASE puts his influence on technology on the new Anti so the new Anti could think that he’s the only one and that he’s the one that has these effect on the cameras, that would also explain that whenever new Anti is ‘pretending’ to be Jack in the videos ASE doesn’t give new Anti his ability to mess with cameras. And whenever new Anti made appearances in October and the first of this year is because ASE gave enough power to new Anti to make appearances. And the more we paid attention, ASE got power and he used new Anti as a power source and he used him to do all of the work for him because new Anti thought it would be all him and do it for his own gain and not for anyone else and that he was in control and always will be. This would explain why Anti was so giddy (Is that a word you would describe it?) in the first two videos that he had taken over –say goodbye and Enjoy the Show- and now the most recent one he was angry and somewhat scared/nervous. Maybe the first two videos he didn’t know that the ASE had created him and that he actually doesn’t have as much control as he did and that’s why he was so angry this time. He found out that the ASE is actually in control, but he refuses to believe that that’s why he was raging. But there was a frame in ‘Kill Jacksepticeye’ that somebody pointed out where Anti was looking behind him and that there was another Anti in the frame and new Anti looked scared. And think about what he says (I’m going to skip a few because they’re just anti talking to the audience and not to ASE and I want to get to those):

“I am in control.” He’s not just saying this to the audience, but he’s also saying it to the fist Anti.

“I’m tired of playing pretend. Sick of it” This is saying to the audience because he’s talking to the audience about control but at the same time he’s secretly talking to ASE that he is in control and not him.

“They all follow me” He’s talking about the egos, but he’s also talking about the ASE that he follows him.

“Nothing gets rid of me” He’s talking to the audience, yes, but he’s also talking about ASE that he can’t get rid of him and he can’t kill him when in reality he can, but won’t.

“But he was mine, he was weak.” Anti thinks everything is run by him and him alone and jack ‘belongs’ to him and not ASE. This is what new Anti thinks.

“Just like the rest of them” the rest of them of course being the other egos including ASE.

“We’ve always been in control” I think this is ASE changing new Anti’s words to saying ‘we’ve’ meaning that the two of them are the same, but new Anti is not in control like ASE has lead him to believe by creating him and by letting him ‘take control’.

“You’ve all seemed fascinated, and you’re just watching” At the end, ‘and you’re just watching’ meaning that we, the audience, doesn’t know what’s actually going on and we’re just watching what we’re being shown.

“Powerless” One again, he’s saying it to us, and to ASE as well. We are powerless against him. The ASE is powerless against him. Both, of which, are false.

“Just my puppets” this is another example of new Anti thinking that he’s always in control. He thinks that all of the egos are his puppets including ASE.

“I’m in control” Now this, he says he’s in control again, but with more force behind the words and beating on his chest. He’s saying it too ASE to establish that he’s not in control and new Anti is.

“This is my world” ‘world’ meaning consciousness? This is still a bit hazy to me, can you maybe help me out?

“All of these, creatures” Creatures meaning humans, egos, demons. Basically saying all the ASE, a demon or creature (according to new Anti)

“There are no strings on me.” Meaning that Anti is in no one’s control and that he’s not ASE’s puppet that he can control. He’s saying this to ASE, of course. This would explain what he says right after ‘And for you’ which is implying that he wasn’t talking to us before, but now he’s acknowledging us and talking to us now and not to ASE.

So, recap because that was a lot to read and write: there’s two Anti’s, ASE created the egos and Anti, but he created Anti because he needed more power so he created a clone to get said power. Anti thought he was the only one and he thought he was in control. He found out that ASE actually created him but refused it, and he decided to create a video saying to the audience that he’s in control and by saying that to ASE as well. But ASE is actually in control right next to, of course, Jack. ASE frightens Anti and Anti feels like he should/must say that he’s in control. And that’s why he was more unstable and out of control than he usually is and he’s a lot more angry and he’s also afraid of him.

#antisepticeye #theory #jacksepticeye #anti #jack #this is what I'm gonna believe for now #yes #I'm telling you #two anti'sjacksepticeye

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comebeforegod · 5 years

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Seeing Through the Facts, I Have Discernment of the CCP’s Rumors

By Lijing, China

“Mom, you are not to believe in God anymore. Just look at what it says online!”

“You mustn’t believe what the Chinese government says. They are all just rumors and falsehoods …”

“Even the news reports these things, and you still want to believe in it?”

Whenever I remember that time a few years ago, when I believed the CCP’s rumors and tried to stop my mom believing in God, when I was guarded against the brothers and sisters and tried to sound them out, I feel extreme remorse. At the same time, I’m filled with gratitude for God’s lovethat never left me, as it was this love that enabled me to see through the rumors and return before God. As I think about it now, every scene of those past events plays over in my mind …

Mother and Daughter, Yet Strangers to Each Other

Deceived by Rumors, I Try to Stop My Mom Believing in God

Facts Counter the Rumors, and I Gradually Come to Have Discernment

By Sounding Out a Sister, I See the Truth of the Matter

I Understand the CCP’s Purpose in Fabricating Rumors

#the gospel #faith in God #rumor #truth

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love-god-forever · 5 years

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Seeing Through the Facts, I Have Discernment of the CCP’s Rumors

By Lijing, China

“Mom, you are not to believe in God anymore. Just look at what it says online!”

“You mustn’t believe what the Chinese government says. They are all just rumors and falsehoods …”

“Even the news reports these things, and you still want to believe in it?”

Mother and Daughter, Yet Strangers to Each Other

Deceived by Rumors, I Try to Stop My Mom Believing in God

Facts Counter the Rumors, and I Gradually Come to Have Discernment

By Sounding Out a Sister, I See the Truth of the Matter

I Understand the CCP’s Purpose in Fabricating Rumors

#the gospel #The Bible #believe in God

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bakedberry · 7 years

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PARA - QUINN & LEROY

Who: Quinn and Leroy Berry. What: A run-in. Where: Burt’s Auto Shop. When: Saturday, December 15th 2012. Afternoon.

It was almost the end of the school semester. Break was so very close, Quinn could almost taste it. She wanted some time off, some time away from the every day. It had become easier, seeing Rachel in school and next to her in most classes. Quinn was still worried of what would happen if they were alone, and that kept her from reaching out still. But she was also with Finn now and enjoyed being with Finn and actually felt she may love him. It was fast but they were almost pushed together. Half their friends had been pissed about them hanging out when they weren't even officially together that when they got together, they were able to bond over the fact that they were hated.

But being with Finn was nice. It was easy. And he was a really good guy. Quinn started staying out of her house again. She went to his often, making nice with his parents, which was easy because they were welcoming and kind. Her own mother loved Finn and constantly tried to feed him when he was over. Her dad seemed indifferent, but Quinn was fairly certain he was never going to approve anyone she dated.

Quinn had found she didn’t even mind the boring stuff, like hanging with Finn at Burt’s shop for instance. She didn’t have anything better to do and she kind of liked when she got to see him fix things and build things. It was kind of cool. Occasionally, Quinn would help too. She’d learned some of the tools and she’d bring them to Finn or Burt. Or she’d go into the office and print paperwork or fax or mail something out. She didn’t mind, it was something to do, and it was easier than any work Quinn had ever done at the farm.

She missed the farm greatly. She missed her Berry dads. She missed Rachel. It was hard to be without them on her birthday, to be without her coffee pie, and while she was sad, she put on a smile and it was still a great birthday. Quinn was an adult now, she should be happy with that. She could vote just in time for the election, and she did. She wished she could have shared that with Rachel. Then came Thanksgiving and she missed the vegan food. And now, Hanukkah had just passed, Rachel’s birthday would be soon, and then Christmas. And while Finn’s family was great and made up for the fact that her family lacked togetherness, she was still missing her Berry family.

Which was why, on a cold Saturday in December, she was surprised, mortified, and excited to see Leroy Berry come into the shop. Quinn had been spinning, back and forth, in a chair on wheels, phone in hand as she played around on Facebook. She had looked up and seen him. She stopped moving the chair immediately and stared.

He was in the middle of talking to Burt and Quinn wondered if he had seen her. Did he know she was here? Would he want to talk to her? Would he ignore her? That thought alone gutted her. Would he not even say hi? But instead of letting herself get hurt by being ignored, Quinn got off the chair and went practically running away from him. She didn’t want to be rejected, and she also didn’t know if he hated her or not, because he might, after what happened with Rachel, so she hid. She went between the shelves of parts and tools and supplies, all the way to the back, and waited. He certainly wouldn’t come looking for her, would he? She prayed he wouldn’t and hoped he would.

Until they relocated to the farm, Leroy had no idea that his husband knew how to change oil on a car. Apparently he’d been doing it the entire time they’d been together, but Leroy always thought that when Hiram said he’d take care of an oil change tomorrow, he meant going to a shop. Not slipping into old clothes and sliding under the car. But he quickly learned that Hiram wasn’t just handy around the house. His skills extended to cars, and of course tractors. Stuff he picked up on and was taught as a boy from his, but he still wasn’t a mechanic. So when Leroy’s car began to make a high-pitched whine, Hiram thought it was probably a belt somewhere, but that a professional should take care of it.

After explaining the situation to Burt Hummel, Leroy handed over his keys as he caught sight of... “Quinn?”

Burt turned around and glanced in the direction of where he knew Quinn had been sitting. “She’s a good kid, isn’t she? Helps out around here sometimes when Finn’s working.”

“Would you care if I went--” Leroy motioned toward the back of the shop where he’d watch disappear. “She used to come over all the time with Rachel, but we haven’t seen her...much lately.”

“Oh, sure. Go on right ahead.” Burt waved him back.

Weaving his way through shelves, Leroy finally found Quinn with her head in a box of lugnuts. “I thought that was you. Hi, Q-Bird.” The nickname hurt to say, and Leroy was sure his smile was bit pained, too. Just the way it had been when Judy Fabray had messaged that she needed to stop by the farm to collect some things Quinn had left behind after the girls’ fight. While Rachel would have known what to pack up, they weren’t about to mention it to her and send her into another night of sobbing. So he and Hiram had to try and go through Rachel’s things while she was out, gathering what they knew Quinn had left behind. They hadn’t gotten everything, but they had packed up enough, and it felt like giving away a piece of their heart when they handed over the box to Judy. “We missed you last week,” Leroy added, referencing Hanukkah and putting up their decorations around the house, which this year didn’t include Quinn’s stocking.

Quinn tried to determine how long to stay hidden. Was Leroy going to wait on his car or was he going to leave? Was Hiram here with Rachel too, in another car? She tried to decide if there was a way to sneak out without being seen, then she heard someone approaching and, not knowing who it was, she pretended to be busy, distracting herself with the first thing she saw--a box of lugnuts. She didn't look over when she heard his voice. She wondered if she could get away with ignoring him, but then when he said they missed her, she knew there was no way she could.

She stared at the lugnuts as if her life depended on it then spoke softly, trying not to tear up. “I missed you too.” She paused and skimmed her fingers over the metal pieces, still refusing to look at him. “I… tried to light some candles but I didn't have a menorah and then thought it was stupid,” she confided, stupid for even trying. Quinn had missed the tradition of Hanukkah, had missed the singing of words she didn't understand, had missed helping light the candles, had missed the food. But it was too painful to try and do it alone.

Quinn wouldn’t look at him and it honestly just ripped at Leroy’s heart even more. Since the spring break fiasco last school year, Hiram had been riding high on theory that their girls were secretly dating. And after the way this summer ended, Hiram was convinced he was right and he was fully in Rachel’s camp. Leroy sort of could get on board with Hiram’s theory except for the fact that he felt like their girls would have them told. Their house was safe haven, after all, and they would have had no reason to hide. So whatever happened, a break-up or some epic fight, Leroy of course felt for Rachel, she was his kid after all, but especially in this moment he felt for Quinn, too. She was hurting just as much as Rachel.

Without another thought, Leroy took the few steps forward needed to close the distance between them and wrapped Quinn up in his strong arms. Voice strained, “You know you’re still family, right?” Because, and maybe this was one of the things Rachel got from him, but Leroy was holding out hope that their girls could work things out.

The moment Leroy stepped in to hug Quinn, she dropped the lugnuts in her hands and wrapped her arms around him in return. She had gotten used to hugging the Berry dads, to hugging things out, because that didn’t really happen at her own home. She was just glad Carol was a hugger too. “No,” Quinn said, her voice strained as well. Her tears had fallen and wet his coat. “No, I’m not. Not if I’m not there.” Because how could she still be family? If she didn’t see them or talk to them and if she basically ignored Rachel because she still wanted to kiss her? She couldn’t be family with people she refused to see.

“You know that’s not how it works with us, Q-Bird.” They didn’t put conditions on family and love. “Once a Berry, always a Berry. And since I know you know we don’t lie in our family, you know I’m telling the truth, too.”

She only nodded for the moment because her tears were still falling and she needed to pull herself together. Quinn sniffled a few times and realized this was the first person she let see how upset she was over Rachel, over what had happened between them. “Yeah…” she said finally, speaking against his chest. “I'm sorry.”

At that, Leroy didn’t step back, but his hands did move to Quinn’s shoulders, adding enough pressure push her away just enough so he could look her in the eyes. He wasn’t sure what that sorry was for or how to interpret it. Was it for Rachel? Him? Both he and Hiram? Was it for whatever happened? The fact that if felt like part of their family had been missing these past five months? He wasn’t even sure how to respond, if he should echo the sentiments, that he was sorry as well, but again, Leroy wouldn’t know specifically what it was for, and he didn’t want to imply that he did know what had happened. So instead he stuck with what he had voiced earlier. “We miss and love you, Quinn.”

Quinn looked up at him once his hands were on her shoulders. She nodded and then breathed out, tears streaks down her cheeks. She felt like an emotional mess right now and she just hoped Burt or Finn or anybody wouldn't stumble upon them. But there wasn't much else she could do or say right now. She couldn't make this better. She couldn't fix this. Maybe some day, when those feelings for Rachel were gone, she might be able to initiate a reconciliation. She wrapped her arms around Leroy to hug him again because this was going to have to be the last time in what would probably be a while. “I miss you too,” she told him and then added softly, “love you,too.” She really was going to miss him. And Hiram. And Rachel. And they never really had a proper goodbye so maybe this had to be it.

He wished he would just bring Quinn back with him. Deliver her as Rachel’s final night Hanukkah gift. Have her at their dinner table again. But Leroy couldn’t make that decision. Quinn coming back, reconciling with his daughter, her ex...whatever. Well, that had to be on her own terms. So Leroy hugged Quinn back, tighter this time because this did feel like a goodbye, didn’t it? And then he did take a step back, and then another, to head toward the front of the shop once again and find out if Burt could do the fix while he waited or if he’d need to leave the car. “You have a good holiday, Quinn.”

The hug ended sooner than Quinn wanted it to, but she knew she couldn’t hold onto him forever. She hadn’t realized just how much the Berry men meant to her, as her psuedo-fathers, until this moment. She really had grown to love them as she had Rachel. She swiped at the wetness on her face as he stepped away. She nodded. “I’ll try.” She drew in a deep breath and then added softly, “bye.”

#qf #para qf #berrymen #para31 #faberry rp #hs rewind #dec 15

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coffee-and-vroomvroom · 7 years

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I don't know if you're still doing this, but Nico/Jenson for the ship meme?

ENTSCHULDIGUNG, MEIN SCHATZ, this took me forever (thanks to life and lack of inspiration), but here it is, FINALLY. And I hope these will not disappoint.

Rating: The ship I never knew I needed until you showed me the way. Thank you, teacher xD They are my most recent otp, and I’m already a bit addicted.

Who is the most affectionate? Nico. He’s always leaving little gifts around the house for Jenson to find (well… he’s been leaving little tokens of affection for Jenson around the paddock way before they actually got together), and now that they don’t have to worry about weight limitations, he simply LOVES baking cupcakes to surprise Jenson when he comes home after one of his biking adventures. Jenson always jokes about how Nico should come with a warning for cavities because he’s “so damn sweet”.

Big spoon/Little spoon? Nico is usually the big spoon. It’s not easy for Jenson to come down from the adrenaline high that comes from races (on two and four wheels), and the only thing that seems to work like a charm and make him relax and fall asleep is having Nico’s arms wrapped around him. And Nico has zero objections to that.

Most common argument? Nico would say that they mostly argue about Jenson being jealous of him being a bit of a tease to everybody, and Jenson would say that they mostly argue about always being late to events because NIco spends FOREVER in the bathroom getting ready to go out. What they actually fight about the most is Jenson eating Nico’s chocolates.

Favorite non-sexual activity? Gossipping. These two are a nightmare. Like two old ladies. They go for a spin on their bikes and then sit down in some quiet cafe in Monaco and exchange all the paddock gossip they could get their hands on. DC would love to be a fly in the wall to hear those two talk.

Who is most likely to carry the other? Nico has the bad habit of falling asleep on the couch whenever he and Jenson spend the evening watching a movie, and Jenson ends up having to carry him to bed because he doesn’t have the heart to wake him up and make him walk there.

Nicknames? For all the “Princess” and “Britney” and “Cupcake” that Jenson throws in Nico’s direction in public, he sticks to “baby” whenever they are in private… He’s not that big into other nicknames because Nico is already a nickname and he loves it. And Nico loves calling Jenson “Hase” (bunny).

Who worries the most? Jenson. Especially when Michael retires and Lewis becomes Nico’s teammate. He knows of their shenanigans, but he also knows how stubborn those two can be while fighting on track. And man, Jenson worries, A LOT.

Who tops? Jenson may be the one who tops most of the times, but Nico… well, let’s say that Nico manages to get on top of that even when he isn’t the one technically topping. #yeehaw xD

Who initiates kisses? Nico. He always finds an excuse to kiss Jenson, and if not, he just kiss him out of the blue, in the middle of a sentence, leaving Jenson half confused, half amused, and 100% lost about whatever he was saying.

Who wakes up first? Jenson always wakes up 5 minutes before the alarm goes off because he secretly loves watching Nico sleep those few minutes before he wakes up (and sometimes Nico wakes up earlier too, but he pretends to be asleep still, because Jenson is not really that subtle about enjoying watching him sleep and Nico loves indulging him).

Who says I love you first? Nico, after his maiden win in China in 2012. Up to this day, he thinks the bubbles in the champagne went to his head and made him gather up the courage to face Jenson and tell him. They weren’t together yet, and Nico panicked for the following two weeks until he saw Jenson again, thinking that he had completely blown it. Little did he know that Jenson had been crushing on Nico for a while but kept it to himself because he didn’t think Nico would feel the same. Idiots.

I hope you like these, and that it makes your day/week

(see, just as I promised… all happy, no angst, I was a good girl)

#what's the name for this ship? Princess Cake? xD #edelfan #princess cake #f1 headcanons #eva writes

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fabricati-diem-pvnc · 7 years

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A.J. Raffles and the performativity of gender

Note: Over the course of #rafflesweek, I will post five excerpts from my master’s thesis on E.W. Hornung’s Raffles stories. While each part can be read on its own, I recommend reading them in the order they are posted.

This is Part 1.

(Please see the end for footnotes and works cited.)

Introduction: How the English Gentleman Came to Be

[This introduction is a condensed version of a much longer chapter about Victorian roles of masculinity.]

My analysis of A.J. Raffles and Bunny Manders was based on the main concept behind Victorian middle-class masculinity: the gentleman. The original definition of a gentleman (dating back to the late Middle Ages) was a man of aristocratic birth with land ownership. When the feudal system was overturned as a result of the Industrialisation, the emerging middle class not only gained political and economic power but also began to appropriate the gentleman ideal. This appropriation shifted the meaning of what a gentleman ‘is’ from an inherited privilege (one was born into it) to an aim to strive for, thus making it accessible to non-aristocratic members of society.

The middle-class ideal of a ‘true’ gentleman was based on moral virtues (courage, honour, integrity, self-respect, etc.). However, it was still tied to wealth, as the best means of achieving gentlemanly status was through public school education. Apart from instilling moral virtues into its pupils, public school education also fostered athleticism through team sports such as rugby and cricket. The philosophy behind this was called ‘Muscular Christianity’: only in a sound body could a sound mind (and moral character) thrive. Public schools were designed to prepare their pupils for an upper middle-class life: these young men would either pursue a profession (law, military, church) or live off inherited wealth / investments. Both options afforded the gentleman a great amount of leisure: whiling away his days at clubs or house-parties, he was able to display his disinterest in economic matters by eschewing a life of thrift and manual labour.

Victorian middle-class society was strictly divided into a public, ‘male’ sphere and a private, ‘female’ sphere. The men were supposed to display vigour, initiative, moral rectitude and self-restraint, while the women were expected to be tender, nurturing and submissive. In the 1890s, the gentleman ideal was contested by the newly-emerging role of the dandy. The dandy was a fundamentally theatrical being: he combined lower-class bohemian aspects (dress, lifestyle) with aristocratic archetypes (artificiality, posing, masks). This was based on the ideas of Aestheticism (art for art’s sake) and Decadence - the rejection of social institutions (e.g. marriage) and the embrace of hedonistic self-indulgence. For the Decadents, the meaning of life lay in the intense experience of moments through great passions. The dandy’s performative identity and his ridiculing of morality was perceived as a direct attack on the integrity of the gentleman ideal. As the dandy’s aristocratic attitudes were also associated with effeminacy, his presence threatened the gender stability of the middle-class gentleman as well. Indeed, the dandy would soon be associated with homosexuality, the most famous example being Oscar Wilde.

“You Must Not Make the Criminal (Gentleman) the Hero”

By the time the first volume of Raffles stories was published in 1899, the idea of what constituted a ‘gentleman’ was highly contested. Half a century earlier, the concept of a ‘gentleman thief’ would have been anathema to people like Samuel Smiles, who praised moral integrity and truthfulness as the core characteristics of a gentleman (Smiles 1997: 317). At the turn of the century, however, a writer of stories depicting the idea of the gentleman as “essentially weak and vulnerable” (O’Brien 2015: 658) did not have to fear censorship or moral outrage any longer.

While there were some critics of The Amateur Cracksman who voiced moral concerns1, the overall reception of the stories by critics and the public alike was very positive. On one level, Hornung’s stories about a cunning and egotistical, public-school educated gentleman pretending to be a man of leisure while secretly robbing the houses of the upper (middle) class, were merely cashing in on the late-Victorian craze for sensationalist stories (both fictional and non-fictional) (Fox 2007: vii-viii). Accounts about ‘forbidden’, immoral and possibly violent subjects were in huge demand by the late-Victorian reader (Seeber 2012: 335); tales about secret identities, guilty secrets and transgressions of moral and social boundaries abounded in sensational journalism as well as in popular fiction and high-brow literature2 (Freeman 2007: 73). A notable nonfictional example was the nation’s fascination with Jack the Ripper. One major thread running through the public discussion at the time was the assumed respectability of the man: for instance, the skillful removal of organs from his victims led the Illustrated Police News to speculate he was a doctor in everyday life (Godfrey 2011: 116). [Even Raffles voices his own theory about the murderer’s identity at one point: “[…] it’s my profound conviction that Jack the Ripper was a really eminent public man, whose speeches were very likely reported alongside his atrocities.” (Hornung 2013: 31).] In a world where a serial killer was believed to be a respected gentleman, the scandalous potential of depicting a fictional gentleman burglar was consequently not that high.

Playing at being a gentleman

While the choice of a criminal gentleman as protagonist may not have been that controversial in itself3, the way in which E. W. Hornung characterises A. J. Raffles challenges the common-held notions about what a gentleman was by blurring the lines between gentleman, dandy and the common criminal. When the reader is first introduced to Raffles in “The Ides of March”, his status as a gentleman is quickly established. As a boy, he attended a public school where he excelled in team sports, especially cricket (Hornung 2013: 6). As the reputation of a public school during this time4 depended in no small part on the quality of its sports teams (Holt 1992: 82), Raffles’ performance of his role as captain of the school cricket team can serve as an indicator of his gentlemanly character. This is pointed out by Bunny when he comments: “Everybody knows how largely the tone of a public school depends on that of the eleven, and on the character of the captain of cricket in particular; and I have never heard it denied that in A. J. Raffles’s time our tone was good, or that such influence as he troubled to exert was on the side of the angels.” (Hornung 2013: 6-7)

After Raffles left public school, he joined the ranks of amateur cricketers, playing in matches both at home and in Australia (Hornung 2013: 47). His being an amateur is another trait that characterises Raffles as a gentleman: “an amateur is as proficient as a professional, but plays the game for its own sake rather than for money” (Green 2003: xxxiv). Spending a great amount of time playing cricket without actually being paid for it implies that Raffles is wealthy enough to not have to pursue actual work. Bunny assumes as much when, desperate for help after signing over worthless checks to the winners of a baccarat game, he visits Raffles hoping to get a loan from him: “[…] I had dared to look for kindness from him now; because I was ruined, and he rich enough to play cricket all the summer, and do nothing for the rest of the year […].” (Hornung 2013: 3; emphasis added).

However, the true source of Raffles’ income is soon revealed. Having promised to help Bunny, Raffles drops several hints as to how he will secure the necessary money. When Bunny, overjoyed that Raffles will come to his aid, proclaims that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for a friend, Raffles asks: “Not even […] a crime?” (Hornung 2013: 7). He then proposes to visit a jeweller friend of his in the middle of the night. When Bunny expresses doubts, Raffles assures him he has “the run of [the] place and a latch-key all to [himself]” (Hornung 2013: 8). As naive as Bunny is, it takes him until he is actually standing in a room above the jewellery shop to realise what’s truly going on:

“He had given me a dozen hints, and I had taken none. […] ‘A burglar!’ I gasped.

‘You – you!’

‘I told you I lived by my wits.’” (Hornung 2013: 10-11)

The reason Raffles gives for leading a double life of respectable gentleman by day and skilled burglar by night is quite illuminating: “Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger and a decent living were all going begging together?” (Hornung 2013: 16). In essence, Raffles wants to enjoy the leisure and privilege a gentlemanly life affords without having to endure a boring profession to finance it. Additionally, he pursues a profession that presents him with countless moments of thrill and excitement, which is reminiscent of the Decadent argument that life should contain as many “pulsations” and moments of ecstasy as possible (Pater 1980: 190). While Raffles loves playing cricket, turning professional would not be an option for him. The earnings of professional cricketers were not nearly substantial enough to finance a life of leisure (Holt 1992: 290-291). A gentleman was expected to dress a certain way and his apartment had to belong to a respected neighbourhood (Waters 1997: 31); both of these requirements were not sustainable on a professional cricketer’s salary. It is precisely because Raffles plays cricket just for fun that the doors of higher society are open to him.

The status of gentleman was only accessible for people with a certain amount of wealth. While burgling houses certainly provided a way to attain the necessary income, it being a crime went straight against the idea of moral integrity that was so engrained in the gentleman ideal. Thus, while Raffles certainly knows how to act like a gentleman (Larance 2014: 106), he doesn’t share the moral convictions commonly associated with the role. While Bunny repeatedly expresses compunction about leading a life of crime, Raffles does not share this view. For him, crime is an exciting game (Hornung 2013: 364). He does pay lip service to it being “wrong”, but he immediately brushes that aside by saying, “we can’t all be moralists” (Hornung 2013: 16). This nonchalant dismissal of moral concerns is also one of several elements in the stories that tie Raffles to the aesthete and the Decadent dandy.

Well isn’t this just Dandy?

The Raffles stories abound with references to Aestheticism and Decadence. Firstly, the stories establish Raffles’ keen interest in art and literature. In “The Ides of March”, the reader learns that Raffles fills his home with exquisite furniture and heaps of books: “It was charmingly furnished and arranged, with the right amount of negligence and the right amount of taste. […] Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn bats, a carved oak bookcase, with every shelf in a litter, filled the better part of one wall […]. The man might have been a minor poet instead of an athlete of the first water. But there had always been a fine streak of aestheticism in his complex composition […].” (Hornung 2013: 6; emphasis added)

Bunny also points out several Pre-Raphaelite paintings adorning Raffles’ walls, naming works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Hornung 2013: 6) and reproductions of paintings by George Frederic Watts and Edward Burne-Jones (Hornung 2013: 381). That Raffles’ stacks of books aren’t merely decorative is apparent in the amount of quotes he readily intersperses in his conversations. First, the stories are peppered with Shakespeare quotes. To name just one example, Raffles quotes Julius Caesar prior to his and Bunny’s first felonious undertaking: “‘The Ides of March, the Ides of March, remember.’ Eh, Bunny, my boy? You won’t forget them, will you?” (Hornung 2013: 8). Raffles also references the works of John Keats several times, especially his poem “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Hornung 2013: 15). In “The Fate of Faustina”, the story which chronicles his tragic dalliance with a young Italian woman named Faustina, Raffles quotes two poems by Algernon Swinburne. While Shakespeare and Keats can be readily explained by the classical education Raffles enjoyed during his schooldays, his profound knowledge of Swinburne may be seen as indicative of his “streak of aestheticism” (Hornung 2013: 6) – the Pre-Raphaelite poet was much admired in Aestheticist circles (Freeman 2007: 83).

Crime as an art form

Apart from being a consumer of art and literature, Raffles also uses aestheticist ideas to explain his philosophy on crime. In “A Costume Piece”, Bunny doesn’t deem Raffles’ plan of robbing a South African millionaire necessary as they still have enough money at their disposal. Raffles is aghast at this statement: “Necessity, my dear Bunny? Does the writer only write when the wolf is at the door? Does the painter paint for bread alone? […] You pain me, my dear chap; you needn’t laugh, because you do. Art for art’s sake is a vile catchword, but I confess it appeals to me.” (Hornung 2013: 20; emphasis added). Many of Raffles’ schemes are based more on the beauty of the objects he intends to steal than the money he actually gets for them when selling them to a receiver of stolen goods. For instance, after he has stolen a golden cup from the British Museum in “A Jubilee Present”, he doesn’t sell it, but keeps it on his mantlepiece for days. When Bunny suggests he should melt it down to at least get some money in exchange for the gold, Raffles vehemently disagrees with him: “Taking it was an offence against the laws of the land, Bunny. That is nothing. But destroying it would be a crime against God and Art, and may I be spitted on the vane of St. Mary Abbot’s if I commit it!” (Hornung 2013: 139; emphasis added). Whenever Raffles does have to commit a burglary out of pure necessity – which happens more frequently than he would care to admit –, he considers it “a vulgar sort” of crime (Hornung 2013: 35)5.

Raffles’ artistic views are not confined to the objects of his desire but extend to the method of stealing them as well. In “Nine Points of the Law”, Raffles and Bunny are enlisted by a somewhat corrupt lawyer to steal a painting from an Australian legislator. Instead of being content with simply snatching the painting, Raffles scours all over the country for a convincing fake so he can steal the painting without the legislator noticing it (Hornung 2013: 82-83). When a club of criminologists invites him to one of their meetings in a later story, Raffles realises they suspect him to be the gentleman thief, so in order to get them off his scent, he stages an elaborate break-in that looks as if it took place while he was at dinner with the other club members; the only thing he actually steals, though, is a pair of parliamentary robes, which he returns to the owner anonymously at the end of the story (Hornung 2013: 286-288). Finally, Raffles’ sense of artistic flair is also applied to his tools. He keeps his drills and skeleton keys in “a pretty embroidered case” originally meant for razors (Hornung 2013: 12), and a rope ladder designed by him for the heist at the Criminologists’ Club is disguised within a cane with a polished knob (Hornung 2013: 287).

This conflation of art and crime was not a concept that Hornung had invented himself. Rather, it was indebted to Oscar Wilde’s theory on “crime as art” (Freeman 2007: 76). In several of his works6, Wilde had experimented with a new form of criminal protagonist: “the gentleman-about-town, exploring the gulf between appearance and reality” (Freeman 2007: 77). The concept of a gentleman with a dark secret was thus directly indebted to the writings of one of the most eminent Decadent dandies.

The Wilde Card

The link between A. J. Raffles and Oscar Wilde is not restricted to the overall construction of the narrative. In fact, the Raffles stories are riddled with references to Oscar Wilde’s life and his works7. Firstly, there are several parallels between A. J. Raffles and the characters of The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Raffles’ place of residence, the Albany, is also the place where Ernest Worthing lives while he stays in London (Wilde 2000: 16)8. In “Nine Points of the Law”, Raffles excuses himself from a dinner obligation with the Australian legislator by claiming he was “called out of town” due to a “sudden illness of [a] near relative” (Hornung 2013: 79); this is part of his plan to sneak into the apartment and steal the painting. When Bunny is quizzed by the host on what relative that would be, he confesses that he doesn’t know Raffles’ family because he knows Raffles “[o]nly in town” (Hornung 2013: 79). This scene is a nod to the concept of ‘Bunburying’ thought up by Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest: “I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.” (Wilde 2000: 19).

Concerning the character’s personal tastes, Raffles only ever smokes Sullivans, an exquisite brand of Egyptian tobacco (Hornung 2003: 141, note 4). His consumption of this type of cigarette is so well-known that, when he later has to live under an assumed name in London, he is too scared to smoke them for fear of being found out: “I can’t even smoke Sullivans, because no one man was ever so partial to them as I was in my lifetime […]” (Hornung 2013: 122). While Oscar Wilde himself was known to enjoy “consuming large quantities of expensive Egyptian cigarettes” (Freeman 2007: 83), the pleasure Raffles takes in smoking Sullivans is also reminiscent of one of Lord Henry Wotton’s aphorisms in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): “Basil, I can’t allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?” (Wilde 1994: 93-94).

There is also the parallel between A. J. Raffles and Oscar Wilde being forced to keep parts of their identity hidden from society: “the man-about-town playwright who leads a secret life (one that was at the time, a criminal matter), the man-about-town cricketer who leads a secret (also criminal) life” (O’Brien 2015: 660). Freeman adds another level to this when he points out that, apart from being a gentleman thief, “[…] Raffles is already leading a double life in some respects by alternating between the supposedly antipathetic roles of aesthete and sportsman.” (Freeman 2007: 83).

Finally, the parallels between Raffles’ and Oscar Wilde’s later life, while not exact, are quite startling: In 1895, Oscar Wilde was charged with having committed an “act of gross indecency with another male person”9, found guilty, and sentenced to two years in prison (Rowland 1999: 76). After being discharged in 1897, he was forced to leave England and spend the last three years of his life as a semi-invalid in France (Rowland 1999: 80). During his time there, Wilde had adopted the assumed name of “Sebastian Melmoth”; the name was a reference to Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), a Gothic novel written by his great-uncle Charles Maturin (Sedgwick 1985: 94-95). In a striking parallelism of dates and facts, Raffles’ cover is finally blown in 1895. Charged with stealing a priceless pearl aboard the SS Uhlan, he manages to evade capture by leaping overboard; as the ship is at this point ten miles from shore, Raffles is believed to have drowned (Kemp/Mitchell/Trotter 1997: 33). Meanwhile, Bunny is arrested, tried for burglary and sentenced to eighteen months in prison (Hornung 2013: 128). Two years later, Raffles returns to London as an elderly, invalid Australian called “Mr. Maturin” and meets up again with Bunny, who has recently been released from prison (Hornung 2013: 122). Raffles spends the next three years in hiding, with Bunny as his only companion, before he dies on an unnamed battlefield in South Africa in the year 1900 (Hornung 2013: 232).

Performance art of the self

While the references to Oscar Wilde are indeed striking, it would do the stories injustice to reduce A. J. Raffles to a mere fictional amalgamation of Wilde and his characters. Displaying character traits, styles and opinions of both the athletic gentleman and the aesthetic dandy, Raffles cleverly subverts both gender roles by exposing their inherent instability: “In Raffles the effete, passive, superficially charming manner of the dandy clothes-horse is subsumed within a powerful body that is in sly and subversive alignment with contemporary masculine paradigms.” (O’Brien 2015: 661). Once the essentialist notion of a ‘natural’ masculinity is discarded, the character is free to perform his masculinity (and, more generally, his identity of self) in whatever way he wishes.

This makes it notoriously difficult for the reader to get a hold of the ‘real’ A. J. Raffles. While society knows Raffles mainly as amateur cricketer, Bunny’s position as his close friend and partner in crime gives us insight into the more secretive aspects of Raffles’ life. The reader learns that Raffles is incredibly skilled at disguises, an ability essential for balancing his double life: whenever Raffles has to make business with other members of the criminal class, he turns into “the professional Cockney villain who, to reduce the risk of blackmail by his receiver of stolen goods, ‘drives[s] all [his] bargains in the tongue and raiment of Shoreditch’ […].” (Freeman 2007: 84). Raffles’ disguises are so immaculate that he manages to fool Bunny with them every time. In “A Costume Piece”, for instance, Bunny is dumbfounded when “the dark scowl and the dirty clenched fists of a dilapidated tramp” (Hornung 2013: 22) turn out to belong to his friend. Raffles then leads him to the place where he keeps the props necessary for his disguises – an apartment in Chelsea, which he has officially rented as an artist’s studio10. To make his posing as an artist believable, Raffles keeps a canvas in the room: “[…] there’s the canvas I’m always going to make a start upon. I tell [my landlords] I’m looking high and low for my ideal model.” (Hornung 2013: 24). When Bunny first enters the room, Raffles asks him, “Looking for the works of art?” (Hornung 2013: 23). This can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, he is of course referring to the lack of actual paintings in the room; secondly, the question could also be pointing to the disguises Raffles constructs in here. As Raffles sees his criminal exploits as artistic endeavours, the disguise is a crucial part of performing the art of crime. By transforming himself into the perfect image of a London tramp, Raffles essentially becomes a work of art himself.

A. J. Raffles has constructed his life as a web of alternate identities and disguises. His character is made up of conflicting traits: the aesthetic dandy vs. the athletic gentleman, the upstanding citizen vs. the skilled thief, the charming society man vs. the cunning and egotistical criminal. What part of his identity is presented to society, Bunny or the reader is wholly Raffles’ choice. This has led Larance to remark that, “[…] because his entire life is essentially a performance piece, it is frequently difficult to know which Raffles is real and which Raffles is the performer.” (Larance 2014: 107). However, the point of the Raffles stories is that there is no ‘real’ Raffles. The ease with which the character switches between different gender roles exposes that there is no essential, ‘natural’ masculinity or femininity. As gender is a major constituent part of identity, the performativity of gender implies that a person’s identity is also not absolute, but established through the very act of performing it (Butler 2007: 34). This, more than anything else, makes A. J. Raffles a precursor of modern notions of gender and personal identity.

Footnotes:

1For example, a review in the Bookman reproached Hornung for having written “‘the greatest incentive ever penned to spirited youth to make a brilliant living by the burglar’s art’”.

2Both Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) explored the destructive potential of secret identities and the fragmentation of self.

3A view apparently not shared by Arthur Conan Doyle, who commented on the “rather dangerous” suggestions of the Raffles stories in his memoirs (Haining 1984: 16). He also claimed to have cautioned his brother-in-law: “You must not make the criminal the hero.” (qtd. in Larance 2014: 100). This runs counter to Hornung’s claim that Doyle actively encouraged him to pick a public-school villain as the protagonist for a new series (Green 2003: xxi).

4Assuming that Raffles was about 28 years old in “The Ides of March”, which is set in 1891, he probably would have attended public school between 1876 and 1881, a time when the importance of high-quality team sports for the reputation of a public school had already been firmly established (Waters 1997: 74).

5It is only during his life in hiding, when stealing for money has become a necessity after all, that Raffles changes his mind: “The older I grow, Bunny, the less I think of your so-called precious stones. When did they ever bring in half their market value in L. s. d.” (Hornung 2013: 131).

6Most notably in The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the painting enables Dorian to indulge in ever more baser exploits while retaining his innocent and beautiful looks.

7A possible explanation for these references can be found in the personal connection that existed between Oscar Wilde and E. W. Hornung. They were friends and close neighbours in the early 1890s, and Hornung christened his only son ‘Oscar’ in May 1895 – at exactly the same time as Wilde was being tried for homosexuality (Rowland 1999: 76).

8The Albany was also the place where Hornung’s acquaintance George Cecil Ives, a cricketer and criminologist, lived (Green 2003: xxiv).

9The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 had made sodomy punishable by two years’ hard labour. This was actually an improvement on the former legal status of homosexuality: up until 1861, homosexual acts had been considered a capital offence (Purchase 2006: 126).

10Chelsea was one of several parts of London where dandies and artists tended to mingle in coffee-houses and restaurants (MacLeod 2006: 33-34).

Works cited:

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Fox, Paul. “No Respecter of Class: The Ubiquitous Appeal of Late-Victorian Crime Fiction.” Formal Investigations: Aesthetic Style in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Detective Fiction. Ed. Paul Fox and Koray Melikoğlu. Studies in English Literature 4. Stuttgart: ibidem, 2007. vii-x.

Freeman, Nick. “Double Lives, Terrible Pleasures: Oscar Wilde and Crime Fiction in the Fin de Siècle.” Formal Investigations: Aesthetic Style in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Detective Fiction. Ed. Paul Fox and Koray Melikoğlu. Studies in English Literature 4. Stuttgart: ibidem, 2007. 71-96.

Godfrey, Emelyne. Masculinity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature. Crime Files. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Green, Richard Lancelyn. “Introduction.” Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman. E.W. Hornung. Ed. Richard Lancelyn Green. London: Penguin, 2003. xvii-xlvii.

Holt, Richard. Sport and the British: A Modern History. 1989. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.

Hornung, E.W. A.J. Raffles – The Gentleman Thief Series: The Amateur Cracksman; The Black Mask; A Thief in the Night; Mr. Justice Raffles. Leipzig: Amazon Distribution GmbH, 2013.

Kemp, Sandra, Charlotte Mitchell, and David Trotter, eds. Edwardian Fiction: An Oxford Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Larance, Jeremy. “The A.J. Raffles Stories Reconsidered: Fall of the Gentleman Ideal.” English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 57.1 (2014): 99-125.

MacLeod, Kirsten. Fictions of British Decadence: High Art, Popular Writing, and the Fin de Siècle. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

O’Brien, Lee. “Wilde Words: The Aesthetics of Crime and the Play of Genre in E.W. Hornung’s Raffles Stories.” English Studies, 96.6 (2015): 654-669.

Pater, Walter. The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry. 1893. Ed. Donald L. Hill. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Purchase, Sean. Key Concepts in Victorian Literature. Palgrave Key Concepts. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Rowland, Peter. Raffles and His Creator: The Life and Works of E.W. Hornung. London: Nekta, 1999.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Gender and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Seeber, Hans Ulrich. “Vormoderne und Moderne.” Englische Literaturgeschichte. Ed. Hans Ulrich Seeber. 5th, updated, and expanded ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2012. 327-388.

Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help; With Illustrations of Character and Conduct. 1859. The Collected Works of Samuel Smiles 24. London: Routledge, 1997.

Waters, Karen Volland. The Perfect Gentleman: Masculine Control in Victorian Men’s Fiction, 1870-1901. Studies in Nineteenth-Century British Literature 3. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. 1891. London: Penguin Books, 1994.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. 1895. Ed. John Lancaster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

#rafflesweek #crime and cricket #raffles #a.j. raffles #delicious meta #my stuff

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beingamommeans · 4 years

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It’s almost a new year….a new decade…which means…

DECADE REFLECTION!

2010

I started the decade with a horrible haircut I didn’t know how to take care of but I was over putting my hair in a funky ponytail…AGAIN. I was still trying to “find” myself (whatever that meant at the time). I got to witness my brother graduate High School (go ‘head Black Boy Joy!). We started our “celebration of life” BBQ to honor my dad’s first year of transition. I celebrated my 21st on a pole (I’m telling yall…It. Is. The. Life. For. Me). And during my last year of eligibility and our school’s return to the CIAA, I was apart of our Cross Country Team winning our first championship!….

2011

2011, my teammates and I kept the winning streak up and won another championship during the Indoor season. By the end of the school year, it was evident I wouldn’t be able to go back to school to finish up my final classes. And that led to my depression. I was feeling like a failure. Like I let my family down. In addition, my dad’s side of the family wanted to take his ashes back to his birthplace to “bury” him; making it my first time back since I was 5 and the last time I had something left of him. 2011 was hard year. And what do women do when they’re going through a hard time? You guessed it. I cut all my permed hair off.

2012

Towards the end of 2011, I left/was kicked out [kind of] from my mom’s. And started living with my dad’s side. I was watching everybody on social media [pretend to] get their shit together and I was jealous. So I got a job working at a childcare center and realized that teaching was something I wanted to do. In the mist of my depression, I started praying and eventually went on a journey to find a church home. I found it in FCBC and rededicated my life to Christ (I know it doesn’t seem like it by the way I cuss , but the Lordt is working on me! Lol). I witnessed my best friend graduate from college and really wanted to be happy. But I still had so much jealousy in my heart…Still trying to also seem like I’m starting to get my shit together…

A little note from one of my student’s mom

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A little note from one of my student’s mom

2013

I was still trying to get back into school and building my faith. I stepped out of my comfort zone and danced & mimed at my new church. I picked up a second job [because why not]. Still keeping myself busy so I didn’t have to focus or be jealous of my peers succeeding. And then I got the email: I was reinstated back to school. I moved into my first apartment, worked part time on campus, kept up with my church family to still have that spiritual connection/team and my mom & grandmother helped with rent. I was busting my ass to finish on a high note and save anything that I could…

2014

2014…I made it! After all my dramatics, long assignments, late nights on the bus, and with a HUGE support system, I graduated….WITH honors! AND had two teaching offers away from NY. Things were looking up and I was feeling hopefully. However, towards the end of 2014, I was hit with a BIG surprise…

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One of my supporters!

Graduation

EDU. Convention

2015

I kept my pregnancy a secret for months–did the whole no posting thing, didn’t tell a majority of my family, friends, or the people I worked with. I talk about it in my first post here! This was also the year I witnessed my best friend get married (took an almost 24hr train ride while 8 months pregnant to see her!). 2015 started off great….until daycare fees and postpartum attacked me like a bish that owed it money. I ended up NOT ok by the end of it…

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oh.

WILF’N & MILF’N

forever pooping face

2016

So what have we learned that Ash does when things are a bit stressful and she needs a change? You guessed it! I cut my hair [AGAIN]. The real reason being that postpartum shedding was a bish and I couldn’t handle it anymore. And I started this blog to fight all of the postpartum I was going through. Between the financial struggles, I took a friend up on an offer to rent a room in her house so I could save up for a car (ya girl had to do what ya girl had to do!). I prayed one big prayer to the Homie that I would find a church home where I lived (because at this point I had lost touch with everyone back in NY)….ONCE I got the car….my usual bargaining skills with our Lord and Savior. But He pulled through….and then some! Got the car. Found a church home. Got a part time job. Even got Ky and I an apartment! Our village was growing. Ky turned a year old terror….and met T.O.P for the first time….

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2017

I told myself I needed to get out of my comfort zone. I became more involved in church, took on leadership roles at work, road tripped with a toddler (check out that post here), stayed away from the kiddo for longer than a weekend, and even started dating again! (Catch those antics here and here).

2018

I was feeling myself…just a bit. Traded in my car, took a couple of road trips (to see a couple of mommy friends and my very pregnant cuzzo), and was out here trying to get “chosed” (mega fail, but I was still cute in the process). 2018, I needed to build up my confidence and own this MILF [AND did!].

2019

I turned 30 and celebrated….at work. Lol because…..money. But then took an amazing cruise through Spain, Italy, and France! THE best experience of my entire life (and I secretly wish to move there now). Ky and I also started new grades; Ky started PreK and I moved up to teaching Kindergarten (which is all tiring me out before I can finish my glass of wine!). I also fell for someone…and maybe fell out with this same someone…but I think we can discuss that all in 2020…let’s see if he makes it past the last few hours of this decade…

Well folks, I never make my posts this long. So if you made it here, go you! But seriously I hope you enjoyed our Decade Reflection and was able to get a sense of who I am and the beginnings of the Being A Mom Means… blog.

I hope you celebrate the fudge (because I’m slowly limiting my cussin) out of what’s left of 2019 and whatever came out of this decade and go into this new decade…go into 2020…ready to fuck it up!

[i tried.]

-Ash

…Decade Reflection! It's almost a new year....a new decade...which means... DECADE REFLECTION! 2010 I started the decade with a horrible haircut I didn't know how to take care of but I was over putting my hair in a funky ponytail...AGAIN.

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malaysiankpopfans · 7 years

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EXO Embraces Singapore with EXO Planet #3 – The EXO’rDIUM – in Singapore

SINGAPORE, 2nd April 2017 – Much to their fans anticipation, world’s top Kpop group, EXO is back in Singapore for the third tier of their world tour EXO Planet #3 – The EXO’rDIUM – in Singapore!

As soon as the lights went off, the eight members of EXO emerged on stage with explosive charisma rocking the stage with a remix of their hit title tracks “MAMA”, “Monster” and “Growl”.

The Main Rapper of EXO, Chanyeol greeted their Singaporean EXO-L’s with Singaporean accent, “Long time no see!” while the group’s Main Dancer, Kai hoped for the fans to enjoy the concert that they have been preparing for a long time.

“I could barely see any space. Seems like you guys really miss us”, the eldest, Xiumin referring to the crowd that filled up the venue wholly during the show.

When the Main Vocalist of EXO, Baekhyun, expressed, “I am always happy whenever I’m in Singapore”, the confetti pops out on stage out of sudden so he jokingly said, “Perhaps the machines are happy too.” (MKF: LOL Baekkie boo)

Meanwhile, the leader showed his credibility by interacting with fans all in English, “Hi guys! I’m Suho from EXO. Do you miss us? (MKF: Yes oppa, sooooo much although we watched you in Malaysia like couple of weeks ago XD) Long time no see. We’re ready! Are you ready?”, which turned the crowd all hyped for the next performance.

Up next, EXO got themselves all wet for “White Noise”, “Thunder” and “Playboy” stage followed by an exotic performance of “Artificial Love” with the members grinding on the canes just like what we saw on the DVD! (MKF: We can’t believe our eyes too ><) We heard that fans from surrounding countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei especially came here to see the rain stage live in Singapore. It’s a special stage where the EXO members get rained on literally for their “White Noise” performance as the song relates to the rain.

너는 비가 되어 내려와

(Don’t you worry baby)

조금 더 세차게 내려 줄래

복잡한 내 마음이 다 씻겨지도록

Trans:

You become the rain and fall down

(Don’t you worry baby)

Could you fall down a little harder?

So my complicated feelings will all be washed away

After that, the members were back on stage with angelic white outfits which completed their look as the prince of the night to perform an adorable rendition of “Unfair”. During a part in which a member picks up a phone call, Suho lovingly wished through the phone call, “Hello Singapore, I just wanna say I LOVE YOU.” (MKF: awww~)

They also prepared a ‘special gift’ for their fans with Chanyeol playing the guitar during “My Lady”, “My Turn to Cry”, “Moonlight”, “Call me Baby”, “Love Love Love” and also “Lady Luck” medley complete with SeKai’s dance duo. Chanyeol even teased their Singaporean EXO-L for being shy, “You guys are following well but why when I give you the mic you didn’t sing?”

The cheerful EXO members didn’t miss the chance to sing and dance together with their EXO-L’s during “Tender Love” performance in which a special choreography was made by the members so that fans could dance while waving their L’s.

Despite the absence of another Main Dancer, Lay, EXO-L’s cheered for him with all their heart during one of the members’ units clip. Fans continuously chanted “Zhang Yi Xing” earnestly showing their support for all 9 members although only 8 of them were present.

The crowd was turned on by “Overdose”, “Transformer” and “Lightsaber” performance. “Lightsaber” performance is truly iconic as EXO members performed with lit up lightsabers since the song was specially made for their collaboration with Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens movie.

Kpop idols are known for their interaction with their fans. This time round, Suho shared that they tried Chilli Crab. Baekhyun added, “But I like the bread that comes with the chilli crab,” and asked the fans to choose which one they like more. “I can still smell the chilly crab on my hand. Actually, you guys are lazy to peel the crab, right? I can help you to eat it!” the Main Vocalist, Chen, suggested that he can help the fans to peel the crab skin and they shall eat together! (MKF: How romantic of you huhuhu) D.O simply said he love the chilli crab while Suho tried his cheesy pick up line on his fans, “I like chilli crab, but nothing is better than you.” (MKF: #CiaCiaCia)

Baekhyun adorably whined for being on stage for long in the wet condition, “Hands, feet, smol” which Suho explained that Baekhyun said his hands and feet ‘shrank’ since they were wet and it was cold on stage. Good try Baekhyun.

Xiumin, Chanyeol and Sehun also chatted with their fans while the other members went for a change. The hyungs asked Sehun what does he want for his birthday which falls on April 12th. Sehun answered he needs food supply for his beloved little puppy, Vivi. Chanyeol said he could supply 2 million won of them while the bratty maknae demanded for 5 million instead. Xiumin said he could provide it for him, that’s if he would eat the dog food together with Vivi. Sehun sulked and asked the fans how shall he react to this hyung. Meanwhile, Chanyeol happily shared that he scored 207 points while playing bowling recently and he will try to become a pro within 3 months. (MKF: All the best Chanyeol!) Xiumin asked Chanyeol to show how he played bowling so he acted like one of the bowling pins and rolled on the floor when Chanyeol acted like he threw a ball.

The whole arena went wild during “Together”, “Full Moon”, “Drop That” and “Keep On Dancing” performance soon as they drop the EDM beat with incredible lighting, effects, and even pyrotechnics to turn up the crowd. They continued to play with their fans with “Lucky” followed by “Run”.

Before they ended the show, all the members shared how they feel to be back in Singapore. Chen shared that it’s regretful that they could only perform for one day in Singapore as they really enjoyed it here. Suho shared that he felt apologetic for not dancing as much during the EDM performance as he got leg cramps which earned loud chants from the fans saying “gwaenchanha” which means ‘it’s okay’ in Korean. He also added that he’s glad to enjoy the event with their fans prior to EXO’s 5th Anniversary which falls on April 8th. It marks the five years since they released their first official single “MAMA” on April 8, 2012. Kai hinted that they will be back with a brand new album while D.O expressed his relief that nobody was seriously injured throughout the show.

They pretended to end the show after the last speech before they returned for the encore performances with "Growl”, “Lucky One” and “Angel”. By that time, the stage was filled with cute little stuffed animals and soft toys thrown by fans. Baekhyun advised the fans that throwing items onto the stage is actually dangerous and was not allowed, but he secretly likes it. (MKF: yeah you keep playing with all the toys that you were the last to leave the stage lol)

Held by One Production, the concert went smooth following the schedule accordingly at Singapore Indoor Stadium and was attended by over 8,000 enthusiastic fans. Kudos to One Production and Singapore Sports Hub for handling such a huge amount of crowd successfully which makes it one of the best concert we’ve ever attended!

Terms reference:

Main Dancer - Their main role is as the dancer of a particular Kpop group

Main Rapper - Their main role is as the rapper of a particular Kpop group

EXO-L - EXO-L is the Global Official Fanclub of EXO, short for EXO-LOVE

Main Vocalist - Their main role is as the vocalist of a particular Kpop group

SeKai - How EXO-L refer to Sehun + Kai

mic - microphone

L - Referring to EXO’s Official Lightstick (Plural: L’s)

Zhang Yi Xing - EXO member Lay’s real name

Chilli Crab - A Singaporean seafood dish. Mud crabs are commonly used and are stir-fried in a semi-thick, sweet and savoury tomato and chilli based sauce.

CiaCiaCia - A term usually added by Malaysian at the end of a pick up line

hyung - Elder brother

maknae - The youngest

Article by: Rain

Photo Credits: ONE Production/Marcus Lin

#EXOrDIUMinSG #EXO #Singapore #coverage #Kpop #Suho #Chanyeol #Baekhyun #Kai #DO #Xiumin #Chen #Lay #Sehun

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