#every single time i’ve been committed it’s been voluntary

[transfemsamwinchester]

saw a tiktok about a schizophrenic man committing a violent hate crime and a lot of the comments were fearmongering about schizophrenic people in general, not the specific situation. and it just got me thinking about how schizophrenia is treated in media and the news, how you only hear about schizophrenic people when they’ve committed a violent crime, how society says these people need to be locked up in mental institutions for their own good, and like. i feel like people don’t understand that bodily autonomy applies to everybody. yes, even truly awful people. and truly awful people who happen to be mentally ill are not awful because of their mental illness, the two are totally unrelated. obviously, someone who’s committing violent hate crimes should not be allowed to continue to do those crimes. but just because a person poses a threat, the way to neutralize that threat is not involuntary commitment. because when you start to shove the “bad” crazy people in mental institutions against their will, that opens the gates for all mentally ill people to be institutionalized.

#the word of chuck #ableism tw #like. as someone who has schizophrenic friends #and who might very well be schizophrenic themselves (i’ve definitely got something undiagnosed) #it’s scary to see how quickly people will jump on the involuntary commitment bandwagon #every single time i’ve been committed it’s been voluntary #bc i’ve known that if i didn’t go voluntarily they’d involuntarily commit me #and i know that when my chart says voluntary commitment i get treated more like a human being #tiktok is evil obviously but there’s this one user w bpd who talks abt her experiences with involuntary commitment #and the shit she says is absolutely bone chilling #like. involuntary commitment cases are treated as so inhuman. the commitment is the tip of the iceberg #when it comes to their bodily autonomy being violated #did you know that if you get admitted for a 72 hour stay weekend days don’t count towards those 72 hours? #so if your times up and you want to leave you can’t. bc the doctors have the weekend off #sorry abt the essay in the tags. involuntary commitments are treated so terribly and it’s scary to see ppl advocating for it #edit: the tiktok user who talks about his experiences in the psych ward is @yamumsatryeduns and uses he/they pronouns #or possibly they/he. they have it in a different order on his bio than they do at the top of his page

[vergess]

Is “from the river to the sea” inherently an antisemetic dog whistle or can it be used in good faith in a similar vein to Free Palestine?

I’ve been hearing conflicting viewpoints

obviously if you feel uncomfortable you don’t have to answer

It's... complicated.

Personally, I don't believe most people saying "from the river to the sea" are actually calling for the immediate dismantling and re-refugeeing of Israel's entire population.

Nevertheless in absolute terms, that is EXACTLY what the slogan is demanding. See, a lot of people don't actually look at a map:

The area highlighted in red is, approximately, what "the river to the sea" refers to in its most conservative terms. Note how almost every single population center is within that range.

In practical terms, it's straight up a demand that Israel stop existing and Palestine be returned to local control.

And normally, being a fucking sensible person, you'd think, "Well, land back! Give it back!!"

Only you're assuming Israelis are colonizers.

Which IS. NOT. TRUE. Just because Israel is operating as a US colonial project doesn't make Israelis colonizers themselves.

Israelis are better thought of as refugees. People who were successfully genocided out of EVERY SURROUNDING NATION:

This map shows the expulsion or genocide of Jews from the area surrounding Israel over the last century.

Black-coloured countries have eliminated over 80% and up to 100% of their Jewish populations. That is to say, countries in black successfully committed genocide against their Jewish populations in the last century.

With any surviving refugees sent where?

To Israel.

Red represents greater than 60% population loss. In a century.

Blue represents 40+%, and yellow 20+%.

Remember: population loss over 10% is considered a strong indication of genocide, and 30% population loss is proof.

And remember that these number include the entire span of time between the holocaust and now.

IF it were possible to genuinely negotiate in good faith a peace treaty that allows Jewish refugees to Israel to stay in the Jewish Homeland that they've only barely even been sent to.

Then maybe "from the river to the sea" would not be a threat to finish off the last survivors of genocide.

But between US interventionism in the region, existing racial tensions, and the last century of genocide?

Good faith negotiations simply are not possible right now, and they won't be possible until the US and European powers make it possible by dialing back the imperialism and instead using their massive global power to support genuine negotiations of peace, that actually strive to develop a healthy, equitable society for both Jewish refugees returning to their historic homeland AND the people already living there.

Which, let's be realistic here. The EU is so busy crowing about how it's less racist than the US that they deny having even participated in these forced expulsions, claiming it was all "voluntary." And the US is literally still enslaving BIPOC in prisons.

So! That's just not going to happen!!

Which means we have to look at the phrase "from the river to the sea" not in the context of peace where it would be harmless, but in the context of, unfortunately, more wars over the last century than you could even give names to.

Where it calls for the expulsion of Jewish refugees from their homeland.

To where?

Well, most likely to death. After all, it's not like we're raring to take in ~7 million surviving Israeli Jews here in the US.

And that's the quiet part, I think. The part that people don't realize is being implied.

If Israel is gone, as the chant demands, then where do the 7 million Jewish Israelis go?

"Back home"? To the nations that killed off their entire families?

Because this isn't like land back movements in North America, where it is widely accepted that there would be no expulsions or relocations because they're inhumane.

The expulsions and forced relocations are already underway and currently ongoing.

That's the distinction that I think a lot of gentiles in the west don't grasp.

This slogan isn't "turn Israel over to Palestinian governance to achieve freedom" it's "turn Israel over to Palestinian control to complete the last century of genocides."

Like. Okay. In my ideal world, Israel as a state would never have been founded because the UK wouldn't have Done That To Palestine. But we live in this world, with this history.

To clamour for the dissolution of the Israeli state is to clamour for the slaughter and expulsion of 7 millions Jews. Bro that's half the global population.

Now, do I think "from the river to the sea" is an evil phrase and everyone who says it is genocidal?

No.

I think it's a poetic chant that works well in English and gets a decent message across to most listeners that they should support Palestinian humanity in the face of that genocide.

But I think that if I catch your ass shouting it after a ceasefire or during peace negotiations instead of during actual war crimes?

I won't be likely to trust you. Either you're well intended but uninformed, or worse, you know damned well what you're doing and its vile.

So, I don't know. I guess I would say it's not inherently antisemitic now, at this moment in time.

But give it a few months, and it will be, just like it has been before.

#Asks #Answered asks #opabinia-777 #IP main #From the River to the Sea #Palestine will be Free

[weareyour4]

5 ways I’ve minimalised my life and why - BonnyBirdNerd

Minimalism is a great idea. But bringing this way of life from your Pinterest board into your home, appearance and habits can be tough. It requires commitment, concentration, and consideration - three Cs that, for some, can be chores. Everyone’s ambitions and appetites for change are different. Rather than doing your utmost to imitate a single minimalism guru (as lovely as they are), it may be more helpful to consider one or other of these entry points - and if you’d like to dig deeper, I’ve linked my supporting research.

Reinvent your inventory

Decluttering! Easier said than done in a world chock-full of pretty, shiny, purchasable things. But if you’re looking to improve self-esteem, it’s worth jumping in - recent research from Japan (Aso, 2018) shows that people aged 12-54 who took part in four weekly workshops about health and living spaces improved substantially on clinical self-esteem questionnaires.

Aso, Y. (2018). An educational program for young people who have difficulty decluttering and organizing. European Journal of Public Health, 28(suppl_4), cky214-137.

Redirect the debits

Financial trouble is a ditch everyone should avoid falling into in the first place, but if you find yourself in it, there are significant steps you can take to get out. If your spending habits easily get out of control, ask your bank about a basic bank account. Basic bank accounts are designed for people with bad credit scores, or other vulnerabilities that make it harder to preserve money. They’re similar to any other account - you can make withdrawals from ATMs, set up direct debits and standing orders, and use online banking, but you won’t be eligible for perks like overdrafts or cashback. If you’re on good ground financially, it’s still worth keeping track of your direct debits and regular spending, even just by keeping them in a note on your phone.

Keefe, J. (2011). Guidance to help tackle mental health debt. Mental Health Nursing (Online), 31(2), 10.

Try being timeless

The practice of living in a minimalist way has also been called ‘voluntary simplicity’ or ‘deconsumption’. But is achieving ‘voluntary simplicity’ simple? According to Błoński & Witek (2019), it can be as straightforward as slowing down and honestly considering purchases. What does this look like? Investing in one high-quality dress as opposed to eight terribly-made pieces, using local sharing and freebie apps, and most pressingly, resisting the pressure to impulse-buy - a superpower the shops don’t want you to gain! Personally, I combine this with strategy 1 by thinking ‘one in, one out’ when I’m about to buy something - have I recently done sufficient decluttering to sensibly allow this new shiny thing into my life? I know it sounds harsh, but I’m happier for it.

Błoński, K., & Witek, J. (2019). Minimalism in consumption. Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio H–Oeconomia, 53(2), 7-15.

Switch the socials

In his book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Cal Newport advocates taking an audit of your technology use, including social media. Digital minimalism, he says, means that “you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else”. So if you want to get away from Facebook’s toxic echo chambers and creepy ads, but can’t bear to miss out on the latest scorching memes, perhaps a more focused platform is the answer. I’ve found Pinterest to be an ideal replacement space for inspiration, useful tips and mindless amusement, without the constant badgering to ‘connect’ and ‘share’ my every thought. Alternatively, you could simply try a day or two without any kind of scrolling. See what strange and wonderful things are waiting around the corner!

Janssen, M. (2019). A Guide to Digital Decluttering: A Review of Digital Minimalism.

Make more moments

It’s worth asking, why the surge in minimalism’s popularity? Has the whole world decided to become an Ikea? Uggla (2019) notices that people living minimally in the USA and Europe lean towards conscientious, activistic, even radical justifications for their choices. Polish minimalist bloggers express wanting the greater freedom that comes from owning few material possessions, while Americans adopt minimalism out of wanting to save money and time. One common theme in people’s self-reported minimalist journeys is being able to find a deeper sense of self and meaning after they have offloaded their unnecessary stuff: the fast pace of a life built around constant consumption and novelty is destabilising to a person’s identity. In other words, after stepping out of the rat race and saying no to keeping up with the Joneses, it’s easier to move towards the things you really wanted all along.

Uggla, Y. (2019). Taking back control: Minimalism as a reaction to high speed and overload in contemporary society. Sociologisk forskning, 56(3-4), 233-252.

[vonnart]

The Hanged Man · Major Arcana XII 



I’ve decided with each card to also write an interpretation with the art and the card’s meaning both upright and reversed. These will all be compiled into a book I’m writing about how to read Tarot yourself alongside being an art book with every card illustration! So below is a snippet of my own condensed interpretation of “The Hanged Man” card’s meaning:“While morbid sounding, "The Hanged Man" is not at all tragic but rather represents a moment of intentional stillness. He is suspended in time and in thought to view the situation from a completely different angle. There is a calmness rather than strain to his expression. He seems to have freely tethered himself in this position ultimately for sacrifice in order to gain insight. You may need to temporarily suspend your typical way of going through life and reanalyze your actions. This can be done by pausing to view the situation with fresh perspective to calculate how best to move forward. It can be seen as a form of mediation or voluntary surrender. Through this you may achieve enlightenment as shown by the halo rays. As for the artwork, at first glance this card appears strange because although he is hung upside down from a single leg, he appears calm and stoic. His face shows that he is almost glad, knowing this break in time will likely benefit him in the near future. His hands, which represent the ability to act, are behind his back. He is not focusing on taking action but to commit to gaining insight. I removed his shirt leaving him bare chested to further emphasize this state of vulnerability and the implied temporary loss of ego. In some tarot decks, there are coins falling out of two crescent moon shaped pockets. I wanted to include this as I enjoy the loss of ones connection to perceived wealth and success or the symbolic loss of ego in order to think more clearly. The tree is alive and grows life however there are twelve branches that have been cut clean. Twelve also representing the number of this card in the major arcana lineup. Sometimes in order to grow more healthy and strong, you must lose something in the process. Similar to having to prune sick or damaged branches in order to prevent the rest of the tree from suffering. Once again, showcasing the importance of sacrifice. His hair falls freely as if to root himself back to the earth and ground himself from this position."

#vonnart #tarot #tarotcard #hanged man #drawing #draw #art #artist #sketch #illustration #tradtional drawing #traditional art

[angelicichor]

Okay, here we go again, hope y’all ready.

Slashers dealing with their S/O having a mental break down pt.2 in which I’m a horrible person and Bubba baby I’m so sorry.

TW: self-degradation, mental trauma, mental break down, depression

Michael Myers (OG):

♦ The very moment the infamous Shape of Haddonfield had spared your life on that fateful Halloween night you knew that your existence would get a whole lot harder.

♦ You’ve read Doctor Loomis’ book, it created a clear image of this being before you in your head, this devil, who took people’s lives to satisfy some gross urge inside himself, some repressed emotions, some perversion, who knew.

♦ Yet as the man with the devil’s eyes moved into your house and you got to spend time with him, willingly or not, you learned there was more to him than the psychiatrist claimed. It was hard to tell what exactly you saw in him, it might’ve been pure Stockholm syndrome after being forced to stay indoors for a week just after meeting him, but you grew a bond with this murderer.

♦ It clearly wasn’t love, but rather adoration, maybe friendship, it was impossible to decide, really, somehow you doubted there was a title for what you two had, so you just decided to call it a voluntary hostage situation.

♦ It was stupid and Michael just sighed heavily through his mask when you’ve told him about the name, but it was SOMETHING.

♦ And you needed a lot of somethings to deal with him, with who he was and what hiding you at your place made you. 

♦ You’ve suffered sleepless nights because of it, all too aware what was going on when Michael was gone, noticing all the missing knives, the axe from your shed, the rope, even the blade from your lawnmower. You’d stand up in the morning only to find his bloody coveralls on the top of your dark clothing, ready for washing, while he was walking around in your ex’s pants.

♦ But even though your mind told you of all the atrocities this man committed, you couldn’t pull away from him. Something keeping you in place and you feared it was the anxious awareness that if you betrayed him, he’d know, he’d find you and he’d end you in a heart beat.

♦ Each day your sane mind told you to call the police and get under witness protection, get away from this soulless monster, start anew and once you’re old and already satisfied with the life you’ve led, you can write a book about it and live the rest of your days in luxury from your sales.

♦ But it wasn’t that easy, because the twisted part of your self was attracted to this now familiar danger. His body, his touch and his voice, only sounding for you, dark and raspy, making you tremble whenever he called out your name.

♦ You craved his dark affection, his toxic touch and those piercing eyes gazing into you with a primal possessiveness to them. He had marked you his way too many times.

♦ And within the walls of the house you used to feel at home in you felt lost, starring into the pool of red beneath your feet, still shuddering from what happened, your gut clenching at the realization that it had been the second time, too.

♦ He killed someone in front of you. 

♦ Yet this time you felt nothing, an empty, raging void sucking your heart in, as you zoned out of everything, not even able to think, an empty husk.

♦ There was some distant sensation, something dark pulling forward, a part of you tried to push it away, but it was weak and as you heard the floor boards behind you creak, it lost.

♦ “Michael… Can you… kill me?” you asked, voice devoid of emotion, cold and distant, lost, without purpose and sitting before a window you didn’t notice his reaction, the way his body stuttered, head tilting and brows furrowing under the mask. He never had it in him to take it off in front of you for longer than a minute.

♦ And you noticed it starring back at you, unmoving and that brought a tired half-smile towards your pale face, a breath of a broken laugh leaving your chest, but not mouth, giving your body a single shake. 

♦ Of course he wouldn’t take it off, why would he, for some stupid play thing like you? You were too stupid to even understand why he wore it in the first place, with his looks he could have anyone he wanted, but he settled for you, why? You were pretty sure it was only because you hadn’t annoyed him that much when he tried to kill you, he just thought you were simple and stupid, perfect to use and throw away once he got bored, but now you wished so hard that he’d get it over with and move on.

♦ “Michael, I’m tired.” you murmured, and if listening to your words your brain let the wave of exhaustion wash over your face, body and soul, letting that one feeling go, your hands grasping at your hair, again blind to the twitch in his hands.

♦ “I’m grateful that you let me live then and… I adore you in a way I guess, though don’t ask me why, I don’t really understand myself.” you didn’t see him, but heard his footsteps, coming closer, but slowly, almost hesitantly. But you were sure he was just mocking you for being weak in front of him, drawing out your anxiety, the other feeling that slipped through the iron curtain your mind had set.

♦ “I just can’t handle it anymore, I know I’m pathetic, a coward, but I’ve been bearing with your… tendencies for so long… I’ve accepted you because there’s some fucked up part of me that wants to be with you but… I can’t handle being your toy, Michael… not anymore. I have feelings, too many of them, and they just… “ you didn’t get to finish, as The Shape pulled at your shoulder harshly towards him. 

♦ His throat clenched when you didn’t even make a sound, your tired, blank stare welcoming him instead. “Please, Michael. I can’t risk everything for someone who can never care for me.“ you spoke still, the darkness in your heart leaking, drop by drop, filling you to the brim as you smiled still, letting tears run down your cheeks. And at the angle he held you at you couldn’t even see the anger his eyes conveyed, but you could sense it. “I know this isn’t your fault.” And all too suddenly it was gone. “But I need you to let me go now. You’ll find someone better, prettier, maybe smart enough to give you enough stability to take get rid of this mask… Because god, you know I’m just a dumb little thing.” you huffed a laughter and yet he was still, unmoved, just like he always was, so you risked it, grabbing his hand and pushing your neck into it, anger overtaking your eyes. “Just fucking finish the job, Myers.” you cried, closing your eyes the moment his fingers tightened around you neck, squeezing tight. 

♦ And the feeling of relief in your gut was just sickening.

♦ Yet as you waited for your pipes to close, for a snap of your neck, for the stinging pain of his knife, nothing came. Instead your head spun with the sudden sensation of both of your cheeks being grabbed, painfully, but almost gently.

♦ You dared to open your eyes and froze instantly.

♦ “No.” Michael spoke from above you, digging his nails into your soft skin, his expression fixed into pure rage and you gulped. “You’re mine.” The growling of his voice made you tremble, eyes tearing up once more, landing on his rough fingers. “And you will be till the day I die.” He pressed his forehead against yours, his blue eye making your very souls shiver as it’s gaze connected with your own, letting you soak in the pure obsessiveness of it’s nature.

♦ And you nodded gently, struggling to catch air, clawing at his dark shirt in a desperate attempt to ground yourself to something, anything.

♦ And for once, Michael reached out to you without the intent to harm, pulling you into his chest and sitting still, letting you steal just of tiny bit of his emotion.

♦ And you whimpered in joy, realizing just how horrible of a person you were.

Bubba Sawyer:

♦ You didn’t mean to scream.

♦ Or at least not at the person you did.

♦ Both Drayton and Nubbins looked at you appalled, as their sweetest family member let his head lower, taking in your words.

♦ This whole day was horrible from the start, you waking up with a headache, no motivation, the old man calling you down to trick you into feeding grandpa, then Nubbins came, insisting on showing you his knife and attempting to cut you with it, much to Drayton’s disapproval. 

♦ You’ve been walking around irritated as all hell the whole day, but once dinner rolled on, everything was just too much. Four screaming, kicking people were shoved towards the table and sat down, much to their protest, muted by the duck tape around their heads.

♦ Then Nubbins decided that it would’ve been a great idea to rip the gags off! With a knife! Laughing maniacally through the whole thing and the screams that mixed in with it soon after really didn’t help your migraine, neither did the ceremonial smashing heads in with a hammer, as Drayton missed on purpose to scare the poor, poor girl that was chosen to be first.

♦ And of course somebody had to wiggle out of the rope and hold a knife to your back, not realizing that you could, in fact, defend yourself by grabbing a plate and smashing it in his face.

♦ Then there was that chainsaw, oh, it was family, alright.

♦ Family of loud, annoying noises swearing to rip your poor brain to shreds, because there were no pain killers ANYWHERE in the house, of course there wouldn’t be! Drayton took them almost every day to ease his back pains, even though everybody knew damn well he was just tense and needed to find somebody to massage him, because neither you nor Nubbins would do it and Bubba… was a wild card.

♦ The poor boy.

♦ He just caught you at your worst moment, when you were about to tip over, having noticed that you were agitated the whole day and babbling to you in his sweet, darling voice, asking if you wan”ted to go rest.

♦ And that high pitched series of noises was enough for you to raise your voice.

♦ “CAN’T YOU FUCKING SHUT UP?!” You shrieked, not even pointing the complaint at him, but with the whole situation, it landed right at his heart.

♦ And you were god damn heart broken the moment you realized what you’ve just done.

♦ “Oh no…” he shook slightly, eyes focused on the ground as you stood up from your chair and fretted towards him. “Bubba, baby, I’m so sorry I-I didn’t…” you started, reaching out towards his masked face, but his sudden hold on your hands stopped you, making you look up at him in worry.

♦ He was pouting, but in that way that let you know he was angry and this time it was your turn to hang your head, pure shame flooding your heart.

♦ Bubba’s big, meaty and incredibly warm hand shifted to somehow fit into yours and with annoyed grumbles he pulled you to follow him and you did, ignoring Nubbins singing about you being in trouble.

♦ The big man brought you to your shared room and lightly pushed you onto the bed, making you exhaust a small huff as you hit the springy mattress. You sat up and to your shock you found Bubba kneeling down in front of you, lips still pouting, but head forcing it’s way onto your lap with a dissatisfied whine.

♦ You immediately started stroking his head, giving him small kisses in the process, calming him down as you explained your day to him, hoping he could forgive you.

♦ And when he took his boots off and climbed on the bed with you, pulling your small frame into his strong arms, you felt your whole body soften and tears ran down your cheeks, your whole being getting pulled into the worst crying fit you’ve ever had, even as a baby.

♦ And being the sweetheart that he was, Bubba was soon joining you in your messy love confessions and needy attempts at cuddling, which just ended with you sitting up, legs wrapped around each other’s waists (which was mostly just Bubba’s body making your disappear, like a true magician) and falling into a fit of crying, kisses and mumbling.

♦ When Drayton finally came to check on you, you were both asleep, eyes red from all the crying, but grinning like damned fools even while deep in dreams, hugging as much of each other as you could.

♦ And somehow three hours later your migraine was just a thing of the past, your new found motivation leading you to stand up and make everybody a tray of cookies.

♦ They deserved it, those beautiful bastards.

#michael myers x reader #bubba sawyer x reader #slasher x reader #slashers x reader #slasher community #virgo writes #halloween #texas chainsaw massacre #bubba sawyer #michael myers #break down #I AM A DAMNED FOOL #AND THIS TOOK SO LONG BC I'VE BEEN DISTRACTED BY WONDERFUL PEOPLE #Bubba is baby ok #and mikey is bastard #angst #fluff #angst to fluff

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

The Catch {4}

Summary: Losing his CIA job is only one of the reasons why Ethan is feeling lost and hopeless, but it doesn’t stop him from looking for the reason behind his misfortune.

Warnings: angst

The Catch - Series Masterlist

If there is anything that would drive a man crazy, it's a woman with a charming smile - something Ethan had fallen victim to as well and something he would never recommend to other men.

There used to be a time where he was a top agent with a flawless streak and a beautiful woman to come home to - that all disappeared when he realized that same woman was the secretive assassin he had to kill and he failed so miserably.

He lost everything, starting with an unexpected suspension his superior imposed on him once Ethan refused to get the job done, but he didn't lose just a job - he lost her too.

"What is a guy like you doing at a bar like this?" The playful tone was enough for Ethan to turn around and abandon his drink, curious as to who would be brave enough to strike up a conversation with the brooding man he had become. His latest mission drained him, but when he turned around and faced her? He felt life seap into his body once more.

"Needed a drink, this was the first place I found." With a smirk, he beckons her to sit next to him, eager to talk to the beautiful woman who looked like she could use a drink too.

"What can I get you?" Ethan tilts his head slightly, his eyes focused on her red lips so he wouldn't miss a single word that passes the gates of heaven.

"You." Her lips stretched into a sweet smile, her hand finding a way to his knee and while Ethan didn't expect anything of the angel before him, he realized she isn't quite an angel after all.

"That can be arranged. But only if you have a drink with me."

He should have know there was more to her than she presented herself as, but she was so easy to love, to crave, as if he inhaled her on that very first night and he's been holding his breath ever since. And it's not like he is forced to love her, to dream of her, it's a voluntary captivity, a commitment he makes every day he wakes up and every night before sleep.

Maybe that's why he couldn't give up on her. Searching for a woman in a dangerous line of business isn't easy, but Ethan had to find her. He had to fight for what they had to continue and flourish.

Make no mistake, Ethan has no delusions of them working out if she refuses to stop with her job and he had every intention of finishing the job in case she failed to choose him over her sniper, but he had to try to save her, even if it kills him.

"What's a guy like you doing at a bar like this?" She whispered in his ear and his fingers coil around the glass before him and his heart beats again. She had paralyzed him that night and while every other muscle in his body worked just fine, his heart felt the aftermath of losing her strongly.

Occupying the spot beside him, Y/N glanced around to ensure no one was near before turning to him. His hoodie still in place with a beanie right under, she raised an eyebrow to his less than Ethan look before clearing her throat.

"You've been looking for me." She states, leaning closer. "I need that to stop." Finishing, she let her hand rest atop his knee lightly, still trying to adjust not seeing him in a suit and tie.

Chugging his drink until he saw the bottom, Ethan filled up with liquid bravery before turning to her - his arch nemesis, just as beautiful as he remembered. While he seemed haunted, she looked...free.

"You don't really expect me to stop, do you pretty lady?" His voice is raw and deep, something she loved in the bedroom and while it made her heart jump inside her chest, Y/N knew she couldn't give into her feelings.

"Because I'm guessing I wouldn't have found you if you didn't want to be found, so why are you here? Missed me?" Ethan teased, his smirk making an appearance, something she always had a weakness for, especially paired with a cocky eyebrow raise he made sure would follow the smirk.

"Maybe. Or I could have just decided to end that pesky little task I've received few months back...you know? The one that ends with a bullet in your head." She sneered, her eyes narrowing and while she would scare a lesser man, Ethan found it entertaining.

"If you wanted me dead, I'd be dead." Repeating the words she once used on him, Ethan allows himself the freedom of leaning in, closer than she expected and maybe even closer than he intended.

"Come home with me." He whispered, voice laced with despair, a complete contrast to who he presented himself as only moments ago. His hand touched hers and his lips ached for a taste of hers, yet he waited. He waited for her to make the first move.

"I can't. Not until I'm done. I'm so close to uncovering something big."

"Like?" Ethan challenged, wanting more information because if he can't have her back, he had to know why he lost her again.

"I found a mole in your agency and I have reason to believe it's your supervisor. Ethan you've been working for the bad guy all along."

Tags: @mendesficsxbombay​​ @beinscorpio​​ @peacedolantwins​​ @godlydolans​​ @dolandolll​​ @heyits-claire​​ @ethanhes​ @tadadolan​ 

#dolan twins #ethan dolan #ethan dolan x reader #ethan dolan au #ethan dolan angst #ethan dolan fanfiction #ethan dolan fic #ethan dolan fluff #ethan dolan fanfic

[thanksjro]

Eugenesis, Part Four Scene One: A Brief Aside On a Dude Who Was Nothing More Than A One-Off Joke At The Time Of Publishing

We’re starting a new Part, and I’d like to take the time to think about Rung for a moment.

In his singular mention all the way back in Part Two, he was brought up by Soundwave, in which he discussed the eventual fate of Galvatron in relation to his mental health.

This seems to imply that Rung is close enough to Soundwave that he would be able to speak candidly at all. Rung just might be a Decepticon in Eugenesis, and a well-respected one at that. It doesn’t really mean anything, since he’s not so much a character in this story as he is a brief, humorous poke at the history of psychology, but it’s still kind of a neat idea.

Okay, aside over. Let’s get back to the plot, which kicks off on the Ark. Wow, it’s been a minute since we checked in with the Earth Autobots!

Death’s Head is recording his verbal entry log. It’s been slow going on the Ark- something’s wrong with the engines, probably from ramming into the Quintesson warship- and they’ve been in hyperspace for roughly two days now. Death’s Head is bored bored bored. He’s also apparently not great with names.

He’s made a deal with Ultra Magnus, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t sell all of these Autobots out for the right price.

In the background of this little diary entry, Ratchet’s hard at work turning anything that isn’t nailed down into a makeshift medical bay. There are a lot of wounded, so it’s somewhat necessary.

Death’s Head then threatens Rewind with death for sneaking up on him. Rewind, who is actually very small compared to the peacekeeper- yeah, he’s a proper Transformer’s size, I was thinking he was about as tall as a human man- was sent to grab him and bring him back to the bridge. Ultra Magnus is about to make an announcement.

The two head for the bridge, passing by several victims of battle who probably wish they weren’t still functional, to where everyone’s huddled up and trying not to think about how many folks have died.

Are we to believe that there are Autobots out there who would do unsavory things to the dead? Between this and the aftermath of the suicide bombing, the Autobots might want to rethink their recruitment strategy, if they’re attracting this many necrophiles.

Magnus calls for everyone’s attention. They aren’t exactly sure why the Quintessons attacked Autobot City, but seeing how the last time they tried something like this went, they’re heading for Cybertron, to hopefully tip the scale in the Transformers’ favor.

Dang, Mirage, I’d nearly forgotten how much of a dick you were in this. Thanks for reminding me, buddy. Appreciate it.

Then Magnus brings Death’s Head into it, so he can explain what all he saw on Aquaria. Which he does.

Okay, so there’s a Quintesson onboard the Ark. He’s messing with the engine, messing with the comms, planted a tracker for Rodern to find them- just being a genuine menace to the ship. He overhears the announcement on the bridge, and he’s far too happy about it.

Back with the boys on the bridge, where Magnus has suggested something brilliant, if it weren’t going to get every single one of them killed- voluntary systems shutdown, so they can conserve their energy for when they get to Cybertron.

Meanwhile, back on the nightmare hellscape that is Cybertron- I mean New Quintyxia- Jolup’s being a dick to POWs. He stops in front of cell 1220, which holds two Transformers, one with an “A” branded on his forehead? Blitzwing? I dunno. Jolup wishes he could take him Downstairs- another horrifying proper noun- but can’t, because A-grades aren’t allowed.

It wasn’t Blitzwing, by the way.

He notices another, lower-ranked robot acting strangely.

Oh, this better not be who I think it is.

The poor ���bot’s trying to self-destruct, but it just isn’t happening. The Inhibitor Chip also makes that impossible. They really thought of everything, didn’t they?

It’s fucking Wheelie. Roberts has Wheelie in a concentration camp trying to commit suicide.

Wheelie was a spy on the the Quintesson homeward before it got eaten by the time-rift, so he knows exactly what these guys are capable of in the torture department. Which is why it’s all the more terrible when Jolup choose him to take Downstairs.

Sunstreaker sees this go down from his own cell and starts screaming for Jolup to fight him. He gets really into it.

Really into it.

Jolup, not very much appreciating being spit on, orders for Sunstreaker to be taken to his personal quarters, so he can be taught some manners.

This part of the book isn’t very fun. Not that it’s badly written. It’s just not very fun.

Let’s check in on Prowl.

He’s holed up in First Aid’s office. Everyone else is either getting ready for a fight or trying to break into Rodimus’ room- it’s locked up very well, you see.

Prowl’s trying to figure out just what to do with their braindead Prime. If they let him go, the energon rations saved would assist in the recovery of a dozen troops. However, the Matrix would have to be surgically removed, and their resident medic is currently strung up in the operating theatre, making it look like a Saw franchise Christmas special.

He reflects a bit on the Matrix, and just how ridiculously mysterious it is.

I’ll do a more in-depth analysis of the religion-based critique in Eugenesis later on, in its own post, when I’ve read the entirety of this bloody thing. I feel like there’s enough of it to warrant that.

All that remains of First Aid are the messages he sent Prowl, and he briefly wonders how many other ‘bots are the same, living on through the recorded data in the comms and minds of the Cybertronian race. He doesn’t know if Ratchet and Magnus and Mirage and Bumblebee are alive or dead. We do, but it’s not like we can reach into the narrative and tell ol’ Prowler what’s going on.

Okay, to be fair, I still have no idea if Bumblebee is dead or not. I don’t even know if he’s still stabbed on that ship back on Earth, though my gut tells me he probably is. Poor Bumblebee.

Prowl muses on the nature of time for a bit, in an odd and decidedly not practical meditation on temporal planes, how every moment is continuing on forever. It’s very poetic. Prowl must be very stressed to be thinking in this fashion.

Through the glass of First Aid’s window, he can see more dead piling up in the ward that they’ve chosen to house their bodies.

I mean, yeah, that’s a little narcissistic, but I can kind of see how the stress could get to someone in his position-

Prowl, I’ve about had it with you.

In Prowl’s defense, Kup had started the screaming match I’d covered in Part Three, Scene Seven- which, since we’re on the subject, I should mention that these should really be labeled as Sections instead, but it’s a bit too late for that now. They’d thrown down in the middle of the waiting room, with everyone watching, which certainly didn’t help with Prowl’s standing with the troops. He’s in a bind here. The best option- stay and defend their little bolthole in the AMC- still sucks.

Prowl makes a decision. We aren’t told what it is, only that he makes it.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the AMC, Quark and Rev-Tone are ignoring the military drills, talking. They’re in the part of the AMC that’s still under construction, where it’s dark and dank and creepy, and oh this couldn’t possibly mean anything bad’s going to happen, right? Quark keeps throwing sand at the wall. They talk about how Prowl isn’t fit to lead, how they aren’t sure who really is, how their deaths are looming ever closer.

Quark, you’ve fallen for an idiot, and I’m so sorry for that. Ah, to be young and in love, and also a giant robot! 

Quark throws another handful of sand, and there’s no sound of impact. They go further into the tunnel to investigate.

Not a ton to analyze here, just a lot of set up for shit to go down.

#transformers #jro #eugenesis #part four #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing

[kemeticcalloutsfromthepublic]

To Light A Magic Fart

We have been made aware that our latest commentary has elicited a rant.

https://web.archive.org/save/https://smarmykemeticpagan.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/liminality-divine-intervention-and-other-heresies/

We would like begin by saying the first half of this rant is not only a misdirect but a lot of personal stuff that is outside our targeted topics of commentary so we shall be skipping that.

“As I type all this, I feel a strange sense of bewilderment. I’ve read very little on liminal spaces, magical theory, mythic time, or Dionysus; and yet I’m sitting here, trying to tell my own story and no one else’s, and finding myself describing something that I somehow, recognize as being intimately connected to all of these things at once. “

We must inform you this is very doubtful.  As someone who has crusaded against actual knowledge and those who teach it, study it, and understand it, you suddenly valuing any knowledge you are adamant against giving any sense of importance, this is a contradiction.  We would like to remind you, you have spent years demonizing those who are academically minded, who would possess the best supply of these topics of information.  We need to remind you, you have chased, and guided newcomers away from these very informed and academic individuals with a very glib and dismissive expressions that they are somehow morally and emotionally defective.

We need to remind you, you have spent more posts declaring how unimportant and meaningless academic resources, information, and knowledgeable people who covet such information, that it boggles the mind how you can sit here now and suddenly have an appreciation for information and knowledge.  We must say that is highly convenient, almost like you are a bag of contradictions and hyperbole.

“ I don’t know. Maybe I can’t know. Maybe knowing how and why this is happening isn’t the point. “

We would like to mention that in every occurrence that knowledge is passed on from a deity it is made obvious that it is given by them.  We would like to remind you, this would be conferred as a minor miracle and the god that granted it would not do so with a cloak and dagger delivery.

“Maybe no matter how strange and fantastic my real life is...“

We can not believe you, as you complain constantly about how you are incredibly oppressed and put-upon by the evil capitalist misogynistic patriarchy, holding you in a death grip of poverty...strange and fantastic is not the picture you spent years painting.  If you’d like to recant those lies and give a more accurate depiction of your life, feel free, no need to keep up the pretense.

“... there will always be some way that I and everyone else can convince ourselves that there must be a perfectly mundane, scientific explanation for everything, that nothing truly magical could ever possibly happen in our actual, physical lives. “

We would like to say this is a gross generalization that disturbs us greatly.  We would like to mention that, something can be scientific and still be magical.  Magical events do not have to be beyond scientific involvement or divorced from the world in a separate sphere.  They are part of the same world, they occupy the same space.  Magic is everywhere, and science just helps us understand how that natural magic works.  We understand the gist of what you are attempting to say but it’s so mushmouth muddled with it loses cohesion.  We would like to simplify, you’re wrong.  --Memphis

Not familiar with the idea that magic is only science we don’t understand yet, are you?  The world is as magical as you make it. --Cairo

“In fact, if I had done what nigh on every single Hellenic polytheist told me, 3 years ago, that I absolutely must do before I was allowed to even talk to any of the Theoi; i.e., devote far more time, money, and energy than I even had... “

You’d have a functional well structured and meaningful religious practice that you can easily make a habit to exercise, in order to have an actual religious practice and not just invent it on a whim while screeching “muh poverty lack of resources”, in a religious practice that has its ancient methodologies of worship and practice well outlined with a knowledgeable community that could inform you of them and help you?  We can see how dreadful that would have been!  Better you avoided any of that ACTUAL respecting the gods with their own religious practices which are time tested and just dump a can of wine on the ground, belch and in tone “amen, bro”.--Memphis

If every single practitioner of a religion is telling you that you do something, perhaps that’s how the religion is actually practiced?  Just saying.--Cairo

”I would still be refusing to accept the very possibility that the Theoi are real, and trying to communicate with me, and weren’t just trying to kick the shit out of me because I ‘m not “humble” enough to be allowed to even casually worship them, or even think about wanting to worship them. That is the extent to which I have been gaslighted by an ableist, sexist, queerphobic world...”

We must inform you this is not gaslighting, and none of this is true.  You’re so buried helplessly in the twisted murky interior of your own ideology that you have bought into all the lies and fables it has generated.  Snap out of it!

“It’s because polytheists are, for the most part, every bit as closed-minded and self-righteous as the Southern Baptists who told me I was an abomination and a Devil worshipper and a degenerate for being a queer witch who talked back to pastors and smoked weed.“

We must inform you, you are confused.  These are your actions which you committed upon every community you attempted to infect like herpes.  Anyone who didn’t bow down to every word of your vapid ideology was to be summarily purged.  You created an entire callout blog (which we parody), to bully, harrass and purge people you deem morally corrupt and a heretic to your divinely sanctioned and holy edicts of social justice that must be obeyed to the letter.  You terrorized this community for years with it, dividing it, polarizing it and demonizing our gods, twisting them into these token puppets you can make spit out any words you want to give yourself the squishy feels. 

The only ones who act like southern Baptists or medieval catholic inquisitors, are you and your friends.  Don’t try to backpedal that YOU are the victim here, you are the bully, the aggressor, the one causing harm. 

Some sects of polytheism have actual ancient records detailing proper practices to how their religion is followed.  While following them in personal practice is largely voluntary, they are the methods espoused to have been prescribed by the gods of their own religion.  It’s just respectful to those gods to follow such practices.

”Because of all this, polytheists are perfectly willing to bully, threaten, gaslight, and otherwise abuse young, vulnerable people in their midst who even for one minute threaten their perceived “respectability” in the eyes of the mainstream and of their favorite Big Name Pagans. They are perfectly willing to ignore the real problems in our community -bullying, toxic groupthink, overwhelming authoritarianism, rape culture and misogyny, TERFS and other assorted trans/homophobes, bigots of every kind, ableism to the point that the first thing anyone says to discredit me is that I’m “obviously hallucinating” when I talk about astral stuff or magic (that’s not how hallucinations fucking work you fucking morons! Read a book every now and then, for chrissake), and goddamn actual Nazis- in favor of whining about how Pop Culture Pagans or “fluffy” people or “loudmouthed brats” are OMG THE REASON NO ONE TAKES US SERIOUSLY!1!!11!!! They do all of these things, and simultaneously fancy themselves particularly enlightened, superior to followers of “”Abrahamic religions””, by virtue of simply “following the old gods” and “being connected to nature”, or whatever.”

We are touched, this is clear vagueblogging about us.  What was it you said...

Seriously though, you left this on our post as if you don’t care, and then wrote this thesis of how much it bothers you and you do care.  You’re pathetic.

“Because of this shallow, petty, and toxic paradigm that permeates basically every single official pagan and polytheist space, it is almost impossible for most of us to really, meaningfully connect and communicate with our gods. “

We must inform you, this is fundamentally untrue.  You’re reaching again.--Memphis

Citation needed.  This mod has actually heard more complaints that name you, Devo, and your friends specifically as making it difficult to practice, than heard such complaints about other online spaces.--Cairo

“Because of this shallow, petty, and toxic paradigm that permeates basically every single official pagan and polytheist space, it is almost impossible for most of us to really, meaningfully connect and communicate with our gods. Human beings are intimately social creatures; we are constantly, consciously and subconsciously, affected by the social environment that we are in, whether we like it or not and whether we know it or not. It’s basically impossible not to be drawn in by the assumptions everyone around you makes and operates on, even if we’re ignoring thoughtforms and energies and other woo stuff. Polytheists have convinced ourselves that anything we experience that’s in any way out of the ordinary; in any way not exactly what the historical record we currently have portrays…in other words, anything that might realistically be a part of interacting with actual deities and doing actual magic, absolutely will be called a delusion, an attention-seeking stunt, an idiotic act of hubris, an attempt to “start a cult” or gain coercive power over others, an evil and sacrilegious act, or all of the above, by anyone and everyone in our community who wants to discredit whatever it is we’re saying. No wonder even people who have fantastic experiences doubt themselves, or refuse to go public with it; I’m not a particularly sensitive person by a long shot, and I often have to steel myself to be honest online because of the (attempted) bullying and public shaming that I know for a fact will result from it.“

More about us.  You must love us dearly.  We must inform you, again you are entirely wrong.  You literally told Set in that interview post, you would start a cult.  You adhere to a collectivist ideology that operates on the concept of original sin and so everyone of that group must atone for the sins of the group for every instance in history.  You follow an ideology that abhors individual worth and thought over the group opinion and the group’s collective thought, in which any dissent and the individual will be sacrificed to ensure purity of the group.  You operate like a wanna-be cult leader who wants a cult.

You have done alot of evil in this community and you called it righteous because your ideology decrees it must be.  Your every action is dictated by it, your every thought is shaped by it to the point you declared that a god who historically always supported a theocratic monarchy...suddenly fell in love with socialism/communism...an inherently destructive and genocidal form of government and philosophy.  One that has claimed over 100 million lives, and more?!  That is alot ot buy, smarmy, a LOT to buy.  We didn’t even mention how he just outright confirms all your political points, thoughts, beliefs, and heralds them as divinely sanctioned?!  We don’t have to know how the stove top makes the coil red hot to understand touching it will burn.--Memphis  

Others have said it, and this mod will say it again:  It is not that you are sharing your personal experiences that is the problem; it is that you are stating them as being as factually true as peer reviewed historical sources.  You can believe what you want, but it is absolutely dishonest and disgusting to expect and insist that the rest of the community treat it as fucking holy scripture.--Cairo 

“I’m not a particularly sensitive person by a long shot...”

We would like to say, considering you felt the need to write this dissertation of drivel, you most certainly are sensitive.

“If you say you worship Set, but then spit in the face of his ideals in almost every mundane action you take -from the way you treat people traditionally associated with him to the way you think and talk about mundane, real-world chaos, riots, criminals, and political violence- are you actually worshipping Set, or are you just worshipping your own assumptions about Set?“

We are amazed at how unironic you write this and yet, it’s like you wrote this looking in a mirror.

“And if the very fact that someone online who you don’t like has posted UPG about Set condemning your actions and behavior…causes you to post frantic, histrionic paragraphs about how the person in question is an evil, power-hungry, lunatic aspiring cult leader who is “evidently” crazy and lying and trying to manipulate the entire kemetic community and also is in league with the Sn/ake that wants to destroy existence itself, are you really prioritizing your devotion to Set? Or are you prioritizing your own ego, because you refuse to even entertain the possibility that you could be wrong and ought to change your behavior in some way in order to better honor him? “

Wow again, you gazed in the mirror.  None of our commentaries, nor those of any of your critics, are frantic, nor histrionic, but it is apparent that you are and you do.  They are not the ones fueled by such deep seething hatred and rage for anything outside your own myopic and narrow minded views.  They aren’t the ones demanding slavish devotion to an ideology that history has proven is murderous and dangerous.  They aren’t the ones who profess to be ‘on the side of the angels’ and in the same breath long for violent rebellious war to shred the country and slaughter millions.  You are a hateful person devoid of compassion and an enemy of anything resembling freedom. 

We see you have again mistaken UPG for something provable.  If you had written that interview and stated that you wrote Set’s dialogue intuitively, or you interpreted them, rather then composed the transcript verbatim...we’d have been more lenient with our criticisms.  We point out, every word of his dialogue was verbatim your own, that you have ranted about for the years.  Every bit, from his diction, to his syntax, from tone to word choices was entirely from your own and not from an external source.  The fact it entirely vindicates every word of your political tripe, your beliefs and ideology, to the decimal place, is evidence that it’s not from any external source, or external spiritual entity but from you.  This was a complete fiction.

To state that “anyone who disagrees with smarmy, Set and his people gunna git’ya”, is such a colossal over reach that it strains believably.  We are certain that any god who loves their devotee would say they will defend them against attack, but this.  We must inform you this is something else entirely.

We are quite certain we don’t need to change our behavior to profess your ideals as our own and bow down to accept communism and socialism or even anarchism as the true path forwards.  We don’t need to throw away any sense of actual morality to support systems that have led to more destruction and death then any others in history and recorded memory. 

We are also not above admitting if we are wrong, but when it comes to you and how you abuse the name of the gods for your own twisted ends, we aren’t.

We are however, certain you are.  You are so in love with your own ideological puppetry that you not only profess that a god has endorsed you 100%, promised to smite all who oppose you, promise you power and prestige as his precious prophet of his ideals (which you forced into him).  So deeply entrenched in this ideology and stances of no matter what the cost, no matter how ridiculous, you can never admit to being wrong when facing any dissenting voices or else it instantly negates all of your teachings, beliefs, and words (which it only does because you made them so absolute), that you cannot admit you are wrong and can only dig deeper down this endless trench of foolishness and madness. 

We have no doubts the S/na/ke influences you, it praises you, it agrees with you, it gives you whatever you want, the sense of righteousness that you’re never wrong and always on the side of purity, everyone else is evil, everyone else is impure, everyone else is wrong, everyone else is at fault...That is the danger of isfet and the parasitic spirits that serve it, and you let them in.

“ I believe that gods are huge, ancient, and multi-faceted, so sure, it’s possible that there’s a version of Set out there that likes racist bootlickers and encourages them to follow the law no matter the human cost“

This is among the most offensive things you’ve ever said.  Historical record cannot be dismissed and hand-waved away of how these gods have acted in the past and expect they did a full 180.  We would like to mention, that once again, like any good cult leader, you degrade anyone who dissents.  We would like to state you are completely off the mark, you have no understanding of this god if you honestly think he loves communism and loves nazism and loves racism because ‘there MUST be an aspect of him that likes it’.  We need to remind you, that would make him evil.  This is a complete insult to a god you claim to love and worship.  This is a damning and horrible thing to say about a god you claim to respect.  This shows us you have nothing but sheer contempt for the gods, so you invent a twisted and corrupted idea of them.  We need to remind you, it’s bullshit like this that makes us say your a delusional child aspiring cult leader who is aligned with the sn/a/ke, if you honestly think this about Set.  We are disgusted, you do this noble god, so much dishonor.  --Memphis

How dare you.  How dare you insult a god you claim to be even an outlaw priest of with such a foul misunderstanding of his character?!  Even for hyperbolic rhetoric?!  Can you not have even the barest smidgen of respect for the god you claim to serve or worship?  Or are the words that describe the most basic relationship of priesthood too uncomfortable for you?--Cairo

“ ... to “keep it real” by regurgitating tired and ignorant bigoted stereotypes and acting as though the fact the stereotype exists at all is somehow evidence that you’re right to be a bigot; and believe that “illegals” seeking asylum so that they and their families won’t fucking die are inherently dangerous enough to justify putting them in motherfucking concentration camps. But just because it’s possible doesn’t necessarily mean it’s very likely, now does it? “

We would ask if you ever get tired of making sweeping incorrect generalizations that make you look stupid but we already know the answer.  If you’d like to discuss what we believe regarding various political situations, we at KCFTP would be happy to chat, but do stop shoving words and beliefs into our and everyone mouths that do not apply.--Memphis

Who the fuck is Smarmy even talking about here?--Cairo

“No wonder people react to anyone showing historically common, textbook behaviors of a person being called to spirit work or reacting to being in a liminal space or state of mind, with derision and scorn and bullying. Genuine liminality, one of the main historical requirements for communicating with gods or using magic, is almost universally despised and cursed by modern-day polytheists as heresy.“

We would like to say this literally never happens.  This is a bold faced lie.  We knew you could not help it!--Memphis

That is really fucking weird, every discussion I’ve had with other polytheists and pagans has touched on how to communicate with gods, spirits, and other entities, magic, or other things that require having a foot in multiple worlds.  Everyone usually seems pretty eager to talk about such things.  Unusual for something “universally despised and cursed.”--Cairo  

“LGBT+ people are stereotyped as “special snowflakes” and yelled at about “assigning modern labels to gods” when we say that deities who canonically act as multiple genders or sleep with same-gendered-beings, are queer like us. “

We would like to clarify, no smarmy, that’s just you and your ilk...and it’s by other LBGT+ people...Stop trying to be some martyr, you aren’t.  Go outside, get off the internet.

“ Young people are bullied and publicly shamed on a regular basis if they run afoul of the wrong “Big Name Pagan”, and people smugly tell themselves and each other that it is, somehow, for the kid’s own good because they have to be “taught a lesson in humility” and “being the bigger person” or some other fucking nonsense that sounds like it fell directly from the mouths of actual child abusers and predators. “

So anyone who disagrees with you are child abusers and predators now too!?  We would like to say that is astounding, almost like it’s entirely fiction.  We’d also like to mention, the only BIG Name Pagans around here are you and Devo, and you guys are constantly a problem.  Maybe its you who needs to “be taught a lesson in humility” because you are no where near humble and you are among the most abusive individuals in this community.--Memphis

Said it before, will say it again.  We have seen you and your crew bully and publicly shame far more people in this particular community than any of us.  We’re not the ones who started the Kemetic Callout war, only the ones who have arguably been more successful at it.  And your callout blog only has the people who talked back and wouldn’t bend, it doesn’t count the many who bowed and broke before your bullying or those who left here altogether.--Cairo  

“Until sharing UPG that goes against the more popular narratives no longer makes one a social pariah among their polytheist peers, nobody should be surprised that it’s almost exclusively the heretical, disrespectful punks who are constantly being publicly snubbed and dismissed by their peers, who ever seem to talk about seeing any results or evidence that anything out-of-the-ordinary is actually going on. “

Translation: “Until I can share my UPG and it is believed as absolute fact without any question, and be heralded as the divine truth, the community is a shitshow!”--Memphis

As long as your UPG agrees 100% with your own personal and political beliefs, it will and should be questioned.  Whatever your stance, the gods have a wider experience and knowledge base than we do and will always have a different perspective.  Any spirit that tells you everything you want to hear and flatters you shamelessly is no god and has no good intentions towards you in the end.--Cairo

“Until we all accept that it doesn’t matter if Christians and mainstream secular people think we’re weird and so we don��t need to constantly jump through hoops to seem Academic™ and Serious™ and Normal™, nobody should be surprised that the only public discussions that don’t devolve into nasty name-calling matches are ones facilitated by a handful of holier-than-thou assholes who treat having a PhD in Philosophy as though it’s a permission slip from the gods themselves to be a self-righteous, know-it-all douche, and never really allow any disagreement with them on anything important.“

Translation: “We need to continue being edgy punk teens who disrespect gods and culture and snub actual belief systems by turning them into comical satires of themselves, until the people smarter then us give up and let us have all the power, while we use our UPG to try and seem way more divinely important then we actually are by assigning ourselves flashy titles and divine endorsements!!! Cause if the gods support US, then we can’t be wrong!”

We would like to remind you that history is fraught with oppressive regimes who used this tactic, one example is the Spanish Inquisition.  Did you agree with them torturing and killing people to force them into conversion?  Another example we would like to mention is the North Korean regimes.  The ones who still have ACTUAL concentration camps. 

We would like to mention, China now has concentration camps where they hold and torment innocent Muslim citizens, and Chechnya who still have death camps where they send gay and LGBT citizens. 

We would like to mention these go entirely against your belief and political structures about LGBT+ issues, oppression, and gay rights.  We notice you never mention those.  We notice you never complain about them and how evil they are. We wonder, is it because it goes against your narrative of “communism is the truth and the way” or do you just not care? 

We would like to point out it would seem like those are true injustices you could fight against and for...not...how everyone needs to behave and believe how you want.

We would like to set the snark aside for a second and say, we’re always up for discussions.  We need to clarify that you always reduce the conversations to insults and calling everyone who disagrees with you “racist bootlickers”, so the issue is not on our side, but with you, so stop lying that we and all your critics are the unreasonable ones.

“And until we care more about taking care of each other than protecting our deities’ reputations, nobody should be surprised when our community remains a toxic, misogynistic, homophobic, Nazi-infested shithole, while everyone is more than happy to spend hours arguing about the particulars of shrine setups and deity name pronunciations and whether or not it’s okay to offer potato chips and Netflix binges to ancient deities who, ultimately, realistically are not that likely to give a shit either way. “

Literal Nazis wandered into our community and your reaction was “meh so what” and continued bullying other innocent people, who you labeled as nazis and racists.  You’re a one tune piano smarmy, and you just keep tooting the same tune.  It wasn’t believable when you were “the holy ambassador, ordained by Jesus, to the hellenics” it is not believable now.

“Until we fix the problems with our collective paradigm, until we fix the way we treat each other, until we genuinely value wisdom, compassion, humility, and courage over our reputations, we are all gonna have to accept that the gods we worship are not all that interested in revealing their actual, authentic, awesome, strange and unexpected powers to people who are determined to believe they are either incapable or unwilling to do so.“

We agree, you should start treating people better, starting with inatier and all the other people you’ve spent YEARS defaming, bullying, berating, harassing, snubbing, and demonizing.--Memphis

Actions speak louder than words Smarmy, and based on yours none of these are your values.  We have seen you bully and cast aside community members who did their research and were willing to share, we have seen your utter lack of compassion throughout your time here with anyone who has the nerve to disagree with you, and the idea of you having humility is a joke.  You worry more about being seen as your edgy, antifa, communist [insert additional labels here} self than about having the courage to suck it up, show some compassion, and value the wisdom of trying to mend the fences you have broken so badly over the years.

Additionally, we have had no problem seeing the many wondrous and varied faces of our gods because we are not hell bent on forcing them into tiny boxes that fit only our own personal beliefs.  If this is a problem you have been having, perhaps you should take your own advice.--Cairo

My colleagues have added much to these particular points of your diatribe, but I’ll add my bit here. While it seems like you may be in a better place physically (despite claiming you know more about psychology and medicine than your previous doctors do), you seem to be going down a dark, dangerous road mentally. You might just find yourself in jail yet, or worse if you don’t reevaluate your thinking.

“The insomnia is what caused my other symptoms to get so bad that they become delusions, paranoia, mania, and once, auditory hallucinations.” So you’re admitting to having breaks from reality, along with your emotional instability. Yet, you get butthurt when people are skeptical to your religious experiences. I’m no psychologist, admittedly, but I don’t automatically trust random people’s religious experiences, much less someone with a history of psychosis. Whether it’s you or anyone else. 

I would also recommend you be very, very careful using THC. I don’t know what medications you’re taking, but THC can interact with several different drugs, including Prozac. High levels of THC can cause paranoia and psychosis as well. 

You’re trying to act as a leader and activist when you’re still dealing with some very serious conditions. This is why so many people recommend to not use magic or occultic practices when dealing with mental health. People are not being elitist or ableist when they do this. The whole purpose is to encourage others to first attain treatment for their conditions. You’ve been claiming your own voice as Set’s, threatening violence to attain your desires in regards to politics, and using magic to harm your political enemies. You refuse to understand the motivations of people who don’t hold the same political opinions - even “centrists”, so that even the politically moderate are your enemies. This is even a symptom of borderline personality disorder, which you say you’re diagnosed with. Clearly, your symptoms aren’t completely managed.

https://www.webpsychology.com/news/2015/09/01/dangers-black-and-white-thinking-228391

You have a long way to go in terms of healing. You can blame the outside world all you like for not getting treatment or for a lack of progress, but your mental health is YOUR responsibility and you need to take responsibility and fix yourself before you’re in any position to try and “fix” the world with your ideology.

I highly encourage you to take a break and get some further professional help; wherever you are and however you can get it. Your writings are extremely troubling to us here. The last thing you need is to get arrested or committed trying to “punch a Nazi” or “take down the system”. You’re going to really screw up any chances of getting on your feet, getting treatment, and doing something actually meaningful with your life if you continue down this road.

--Karnak

#kemetic #kemetic fandom #kemeticism #Kemetic community #The Epic Tale of Smarmys Insanity #A Shadow Over Tumblr #The Call of Cruelty #Today on Dr. Phil...

[crimethinc]

Between the Sun and the Sea: Icarus at 12th and L–A Voice from the J20 Black Bloc and Kettle on the Practice of Anarchy

Several blocks before the L & 12th Street intersection, I was already feeling that the march had run its course. At each cross street, we met a line of police, sirens blaring. A few brave souls still managed to fell some final windows on the periphery. Yet while the Bank of America windows had crashed in triumphant cacophony, these windows struck the pavement with an urgency that reflected our increasingly dire situation. We had no destination, no end goal. It felt as though we were running solely to evade police. I knew that it was time to break from the group, yet I still held a kind of separation anxiety.

Leaving has always been hard for me. Dispersing consistently feels liken a haphazardly unthought-out ending tacked onto an otherwise compelling novel. A novel that begins with, “Collectively, anything is possible—you can do whatever you’d like” and ends with, “Everyone goes their own way and pretends to be normal.” Leaving the bloc means leaving the safety of a powerful mass of people, often to wander the streets immediately adjacent to crime scenes, alone, with police looking to single out suspects. There was a rumor circulating that, given their history with lawsuits, the DC police would be unlikely to mass arrest. This false prediction spelled doom for us unlucky rioters, as the police did just that. It was with these thoughts circling my head, alongside memories of past dispersals gone awry, that I decided to stay with the march.

I was with a few friends. We stayed together. We kept track of each other. As the march shrunk in size, we paired off and prepared to jettison ourselves from the bloc. We turned to face an alleyway on L Street between 13th and 12th. I knew very well that this could be my chance to safely exit the march. My friends bolted down the alleyway, not knowing what lay the next street over. For a moment, I thought to follow suit, but decided that too many of us in one place might attract police attention. A few minutes later, I was trapped between a wall and a riot shield. Facing the corridor that had offered safe passage just moments earlier to anyone brave enough to step down its halls, I contemplated the hesitation that had led me to this fate. If there’s anything I can say from my experience being pinned against that wall, it is that a split second of intuition in the street is worth more than weeks of prior planning.

The kettle was where I made my biggest mistake. It was there, and the moments just before, that I put almost no effort into escaping. The police had us sardined together so tightly that I gravely underestimated our collective potential within the kettle. I thought that I was about to be arrested with at most seventy people, less than a third of our actual numbers. I was primarily among strangers. In my heart, I felt that I would participate in a second attempt to charge the police line. It was my fear of being cast as a leader, in a film produced by live-streamers and on-duty officers, that kept me from voicing my intent. Yet if there was any time to risk collective trust and courage, it was there, where we were most vulnerable.

There was larger reason I was compliant in my own captivity. I felt myself above persecution. There are two reasons why one would go willingly to their arrest. The first, they think that they haven’t committed any crime. The second, that they committed a crime so flawlessly that they could not possibly be convicted of it. Both of these presumptions involve a false sense of security; neither save you from prosecution. Though I did not delude myself with the pretense that I had performed a perfect execution of black bloc tactics, I considered myself “high-hanging fruit.” I was counting on the prosecution to be lazy, to lack the funding or time to convict me. When I was in the kettle, I was convinced that I wouldn’t actually be arrested. At worst, I would be charged with a misdemeanor, slapped on the wrist, and eventually end up with a check from a class action lawsuit. Instead, I had to navigate the next year and a half with looming felonies.

I had not come to DC innocently. I knew the risk, the potential repercussions. I chose to look them in the face. The pepper spray and stun grenades were terrifying, but not unexpected. In some ways, they heightened my senses and fortified my convictions. My heart races when I look back on the march—but not from trauma, nor from anxiety. It drums in vigorous reverie, recounts the last time it beat with purpose.

Over the following year, I was forced to tame my heart. In court, I stilled my breathing, attempted to hide my guilt. I kept a caged life. The legal procedure left me fraught with anxiety. I clung to the safety and certainty of routine. I denied every passion, every risk, in hopes that I would be able to convince a jury that I was simply not the adventurous type. My heart sat and sulked. I came to learn that, as a friend so elegantly put it, “The process is the punishment.”

Felonies change things. I catch glimpses of understanding in the eyes of my friends who have faced prosecution to this degree. One of the beauties of black bloc is that I might be anyone under this mask; a restaurant server, a designer, a nurse. Once donned, the mask allowed me to act in ways a nurse can only dream.

To be unmasked is to be held in purgatory between selves. I was no longer the person I was in the streets, yet I could not return to being who I had been just days earlier. At its core, the bloc hinges on the moment when we shed our black clothes and return to normalcy. While there have been times where I’ve de-bloc’ed with a profoundly different understanding of the world, I was still banking on returning to work with only one less sick day. As time passed after J20 and my charges remained, I realized there was a possibility that I might never return to being the person I had been before my arrest.

During the interim awaiting trial, I chose a course of action that seems common among anarchist pending-felons. I applied to college.

For me, college was an attempt to regain some agency in two different ways. In one way, I was trying to influence my potential sentencing. If I could convince a judge that I was an upstanding citizen, then he or she might be a little more lenient in punishing me. Going to college was also an attempt to salvage my future, a future I felt was starting to escape my grasp.

At the time I was arrested, I did not consider myself to have a clear vision of the future. Yet in the wake of my arrest, all successful futures seemed out of reach. Success felt like a mirage, shimmering, hazy, always on the horizon. My case continued and evidence mounted against me. I scrambled to claim any sort of successful future I could before a conviction made one unobtainable. I raced towards the horizon without drawing any closer to it, meeting the same scene in every direction. My charges sent me spiraling and forced me to examine my feelings of helplessness.

When I did so, I realized that all along, I had held within me a concrete image of success after all. It was not the unimaginable utopia I had believed myself to be pursuing. On the contrary, it was all too familiar; I had simply kept it intentionally obscured from myself. When I honestly consulted myself about what constituted my image of a successful future, what I found was indistinguishable from the world I already knew—only in the future I had been imagining, I had a little more money, a better presence on social media. I had been so disgusted by this vision that I had I banished it to the horizon of my mind.

The anarchist canon has changed dramatically over the past decade. Today, we are not as steeped in subculture. Our politics rely a lot less on consumer choices. We’ve come a long way from the cornerstone pieces of the early 2000s. Early CrimethInc. texts took the Situationist exhortation “Never Work—Ever” literally, proposing a sort of exodus that often looked more like voluntary exile; today, as work becomes more and more a part of our social as well as professional lives, the proposal seems unthinkably absurd. We have largely escaped the cultural pitfalls of the punk scene, expanded our access to funding for our projects, even created our own platforms so that anarchist ideas can proliferate. Along with these conscious efforts to grow and develop nuance with age, for me, something has shifted silently in the background.

I gave up my resistance to work—even took up office at some of the same companies I believed were bringing about an apocalyptic nightmare. I closed my eyes, clicked my heels, and repeated “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.” I justified my increasingly indiscriminate use of money, sought to tally up my influence on the world. I became obsessed with power, quantifiable power. I searched for any sign that the anarchist movement was gaining traction, that one day way we could finally make “The Switch.” My measurements for success had paralleled social norms; now they began to overlap with them. Soon Anarchy was just something I believed in. Aside from sharing meals and resources among friends, it was not something I practiced.

To some, the black bloc is a tactic, a means to an end. For me, having lived through a myriad of outcomes, black bloc is a practice. Black blocs are a practice in timing: when to return teargas to the police, when to leave an intersection, when to smash windows, when to disperse. As in all practice, some days are better than others. To be in bloc is to experience what can be possible when the laws that typically govern us are momentarily superseded and how to act when our adversaries try to reassert them. When we participate in black blocs, we are attempting to learn the balance between exercising an otherwise impossible freedom, at the cost of our safety, and maintaining a modicum of safety so that we can continue to act freely.

Every night as I mulled over my legal predicament, I would ask myself the same questions. “Are black blocs a pertinent part of the way we do Anarchy today? Are they just hollow tradition from a bygone era? Are they worth risking the world you inhabit daily for a fleeting experience, however ecstatic?” I think of my friends who are a little older than I, who have better jobs, who were noticeably absent from the march on January 20. For many people, their little ration of worldly success is not worth the risk.

When I look back to the texts that inspired me as I was coming of age in radical politics, I trace a common thread binding them. Travel logs, accounts of underground healthcare, epics of animal liberation—at their core, all of them conveyed the same story. They told that There is a Secret World Concealed Within This One; a world that I had long since forgotten. The once-common anarchist saying “Another world is possible” is no longer spoken between friends. It is not overlaid on images of riots, nor commonly held as an anarchist truth. I mourn it’s absence. There are those who would say there is no life outside of capitalism, that we are bound to this world by birth. Only recently has the premise emerged that being born into a position invalidates your ability to transcend it.

The truth is that we alone are the visionaries of our success. We define our values, sculpt our objects of beauty. If we build from the blueprints of power and safety laid out in this world, then we will make more of the same. But I believe that we are capable of breaching the precedents of modern life. We can imagine less abhorrent futures, create lives worth living—but to do so, we must abandon the worldly successes we seek for validation. If we want to continue to experience the transcendental, unbridled ecstasy of black blocs, the practice of anarchy and experimentation, then we must create and maintain worlds in which the consequences of a felony rioting conviction are not so dire—worlds worth leaving this one to get to. Another world is not only possible, it is waiting for us. We must believe in our ability to reach it so we can find the strength to depart. We have to let go of our attachments and truly believe that we are capable of taking flight.

In the kettle at 12th and L Street, I felt like a young Icarus, hurtling towards the sun, only to plummet into the sea. All exercises in freedom have these risks. To those who dare to soar, may we also learn to swim, and never fear the consequences of singed wings.

Despite its abrupt end and unfortunate outcome, the march on January 20, 2017 was one of the most inspiring, vitalizing moments of my life. Despite its obvious challenges, I am thankful that facing charges has given me time to reflect. Let me take a moment here to explicitly state, with a clear mind and certain heart, that—having eluded conviction—I would 100% do it again no questions asked. I hope someday to share an experience of elation similar to that of J20 with the readers of this piece. If and when that day comes, may we both avoid arrest and get off scot-free.

With love,

a CrimethInc. ex-defendant

[miss-musings]

The Similarities between TBL’s Red and Mr. Rochester, a.k.a. A Classic Byronic Hero

Several in the Blacklist fandom, myself included, have compared our protagonist “Raymond (Red) Reddington” (James Spader’s character) to the likes of Edmond Dantes and Mr. Rochester.

The reasoning behind this, other than sharing some parallel plot points (such as being a sailor, being labeled a criminal by his government, going into exile, wanting revenge and/or relief, etc.) … Red shares a lot of the traits of a Byronic hero.

According to the Wikipedia entry for the Byronic hero, various iterations of the character-type are described as:

“a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection …a solitary figure, resigned to suffering … the “fallen angel” … [with a] violent temper and [capable of] seduction … [has] occasional outbreaks of remorse [that] reveal a tortured character, echoing a Byronic remorse … a remarkable blend of both villain and hero, and exploration of both sides of the Byronic character.”

Here are some other slides I found that give descriptions and examples of Byronic heroes. I take no credit for any of these slides:

Now, obviously, the Byronic hero is a bit fluid, meaning that not every single example of one fits every single characteristic in each description. But, I truly see Red as a Byronic hero. (I bolded all the traits in the description that I think fit him.) The Byronic hero is sometimes seen as the predecessor or primogenitor or at least the “cousin” of the modern-day anti-hero, which Red DEFINITELY falls into. He’s by all accounts a “bad guy” and yet we love him and we want him to win.

But in a recent post, I used the similarities between Red and a very early example of a Byronic hero, Mr. Rochester of “Jane Eyre,” as evidence for why I think Red is the romantic lead in our story, and why he and Liz getting together in some form or fashion (a.k.a. Lizzington) is the endgame.

Looking at it more closely, if we assume that Liz is Red’s love interest, as Jane is Rochester’s, more similarities and parallels become evident:

His love interest works for him in some regard

He is about twice her age

He sees her as his “second chance,” etc. (we’ll dive into that more in a second)

In comparison to the female protagonist and the other characters, he is considered to be very worldly and well-traveled

He travels, in part, to escape both his inner and outer demons

He was previously married and had several trysts and relationships with various women until meeting the protagonist

(Seemingly) flirts with his female acquaintances to make the protagonist jealous

Once meeting her, he becomes completely devoted to the protagonist, and has eyes for no other woman

One thing that has always struck me about Red on TBL is that, while we do get references to him being in relationships and having sex with women in the past, we REALLY don’t see Red engaging in relationships or trysts since meeting Liz in the pilot. Maybe he does it off-screen, and there is that shot of Luli in 1x05 where she walks through the room in one of Red’s shirts… but, other than that, NOTHING! Yes, he flirts. Yes, he makes sexy comments and allusions. Yes, he dances with Madeline seductively and closely in 1x14. But, for a man who admits that he views sex as a drug, and his FAVORITE AND GO-TO DRUG at that, he has been relatively chaste on-screen.

The show clearly has no problem showing couples hooking up so long as its “family-friendly”. They showed Ressler and Samar getting together. They’ve shown Liz and Tom having sexy times on several occasions. They insinuated sexual activity between Aram and his shitty girlfriend. …So, why have James Spader, who once played a character that said “Everything is sex,” be relatively celibate and not get in on the action???

If the show wanted to quell the whole “Lizzington” uproar, all the showrunners would have to do is have Red tell Liz he’s her dad or relative or father-figure or whatever, and then give him a nice, steady, likable love interest. Piece of cake.

Anyway, back to the Byronic hero.

While their backstories differ greatly, Red FEELS and SOUNDS a lot like Mr. Rochester, or other Byronic heroes in general. Like Dantes, he seems to have some kind of elaborate “long-game” of revenge that targets the people who did him wrong but who are also legitimately evil and are doing the world harm; while at the same time, he’s intent on protecting the lives of the innocent. Like Dantes, maybe Red has or soon will become too wrapped up in his mission of revenge and will need others to show him the light.

But, as for his similarities to Mr. Rochester, as I pointed out in the other post, Red has these long, grand monologues about what he has become, who he used to be, and who he wants (Liz to help him) to be again.

(EDIT: I previously had tried to embed videos before, but they didn’t come up on either mobile or desktop, so I’ve just added links to the YouTube videos instead.)

Examples include:

The Ugly Fish monologue in 2x09

The North Star monologue in 3x02

He also tends to wax philosophical about the guilt he feels, and how he is making or has tried to make amends, and how the life he leads has caused him to feel less-than-human, etc.

Examples include:

The “…just a nice gesture” monologue in 2x16

The “I’m a violent man” monologue in 3x12

And because of all this, he feels very much like a wandering, tortured soul… as we learn very vividly from the infamous “Parable of the Farmer” in 1x04.

All of these is, of course, very much like Mr. Rochester from “Jane Eyre.”

Here are some passages from “Jane Eyre” where Mr. Rochester is talking about the woman he loves. At the time, Jane is in love with him, but she believes he is in love with someone else (Blanche Ingram). In reality, though, Mr. Rochester has been in love with Jane since he first met her, and decided that jealousy would be the best way to 1) see whether Jane loved him, and 2) if she did, to make that love grow and become more apparent.

(BTW, just gonna put these two completely random pictures here:)

Here’s the first one, in which Rochester is talking to Jane after she saved him from a fire in his bedroom.

(BTW, the narration is written from Jane’s first-person perspective.)

[Rochester:] “But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life!—snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands.”

He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, them in both his own.

“You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is different;—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane.”

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but his voice was checked.

“Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case.”

“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily) “strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!”

And, now, in this second passage … this is after Rochester has been (sort of) “courting” Blanche in front of Jane, and Jane and he are sharing a quiet, peaceful moment together after a very strange and stressful night.

Here, Rochester starts talking VERY VAGUELY about the shitty things that have happened to him, how he’s tried to find solace in worldy things and ultimately, only now, has he found happiness and peace with the woman he loves. Jane ~assumes~ he’s talking about Blanche, when in reality he’s talking about Jane:

“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don’t say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom—a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?…

“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?”

“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.”

“But the instrument—the instrument!  God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in—”

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling.  I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes—so long was the silence protracted.  At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?”

Now…

(SPOILER WARNING FOR JANE EYRE)

What Rochester is ACTUALLY talking about, in reference to what he experienced as a young man, was – about 20 years before the events of the novel – he traveled from England to the West Indies and was convinced by his family and others into marrying a woman whom he later discovered was clinically insane. He tried to live with her initially, but later brought her back to England and paid a servant to watch her and not tell anyone about it, never told any of his friends or other servants he was married, and then runs off and roams about the world for 20-ish years having trysts and trying to find solace where he could. And then – after he meets Jane – he tries to marry her without informing her that he’s already married.

So, after Jane finds out during the ceremony – through the providence of someone outing Rochester for his treachery – the two have a discussion about where their relationship will go from here. Rochester wants to “marry” her or at least have her live with him, away from people; but, she’s not down for it. This is what he says as part of his long-ass explanation as to why he did what he did:

“Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. … After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

Just in these four phrases I bolded from Rochester’s monologue to Jane about what he did, I saw parallels to four very notable Red quotes: (in order) when he tells Fitch “you cannot possibly fathom how deep that well of my truly goes” in reference to his desire to protect the things and people he loves in 1x20; the “I have you” in 1x03; his description of Liz to Sam in 1x08; and the “love is having no control” moment in 2x08.

(End of Spoiler Warning)

This is all a very long way of saying that I have no idea whether the writers intended for Red to have parallels to the Byronic hero or to Mr. Rochester specifically.

But, he does.

Red is clearly keeping secrets from Liz the way Rochester kept them from Jane. We’re not yet sure what these secrets are (many, including myself, believe it’s that he stole the identity of Raymond Reddington, who is Liz’s biological father).

And, despite a very large age gap, these two have been set-up as the romantic couple of our show, as Rochester and Jane were. Right now (in S5a), Liz believes Red to be her dad; and, in Jane Eyre, Rochester remarks to Jane how he’s old enough to be her father. (He’s like 40 and she’s around 18-20.)

And, just as with Rochester, Red is hoping to find some kind of re-humanization with Liz... that she will restore him to what he once was. People don’t say things like that to friends or family members, so it becomes very strong evidence that Red and Liz are meant to be our end-game.

Another quick thing I’d like to point out is that, in the novel, Jane has very few friends, and as of S5a, the only friends Liz has ever had on the show… consistently … are people from work. (And I guess you could count Tom.) She’s an orphan, like Jane. She doesn’t really have anyone to call “family” or “home.” (Other than Tom, but he’s dead now.) In S1 through S2a, we saw how alone and isolated and tricked and manipulated she felt, just as Jane does throughout various points in the novel.

Now, obviously, there are PLENTY of differences. This is a crime-drama procedural after all. Liz is a full-grown woman with a child of her own. She’s not an 18-20 year old governess who has never gone beyond her schoolhouse and childhood home. She’s not completely naive; she’s not completely without family and friends. When compared to Jane, she’s seen and done plenty.

But the fact that Red and Liz have these strong individual parallels to Rochester and Jane, respectively, and the fact that there are so many parallels between them as couples – ie, he’s keeping secrets from her; he’s besotted with her and sees her as his redemption, etc. – makes me wonder whether this WAS intentional to some degree.

Even while many TBL fans have been watching and screaming at the screen, “JUST SAY HE’S HER DAD ALREADY!” and then breathed a long sigh of exasperation and annoyance when the question was finally answered in 4x22... I’ve been sitting over here with these weirdly intertwined images stuck in my head:

#mr. rochester #rochester #jane eyre #raymond reddington #elizabeth keen #masha rostova #red reddington #james spader #byronic hero #megan boone #the blacklist #nbc the blacklist #charlotte bronte

[adodoconsultancyserviceslimited]

The founder and chief executive of fashion chain Ted Baker, Ray Kelvin, has resigned following allegations of misconduct, including "forced hugging".

Mr Kelvin had been on a voluntary leave of absence since December last year following the misconduct allegations.

These, which Mr Kelvin denies, are being investigated by the company.

In a statement, Mr Kelvin said the company had been his "life and soul" but "the right thing to do is to step away from Ted".

He said the past few months had been "deeply distressing" but he would support the team wherever he could offer "helpful advice".

Mr Kelvin, who owns 35% of the company, will not receive any severance pay, and any bonus payments he has earned for the past three years' performance will lapse.

In December, employees launched an online petition accusing him of inappropriate comments and behaviour.

The petition, on the workplace website Organise, said that more than 200 Ted Baker staff were finally breaking their silence after at least "50 recorded incidents of harassment" at the fashion group.

Staff claimed that as well as engaging them in unwelcome embraces, the brand's founder had asked young female members of staff to sit on his knee, cuddle him or let him massage their ears.

At the time, Mr Kelvin said that it was "only right" that Ted Baker's committee and board should investigate.

Mr Kelvin founded Ted Baker in 1988. It now has around 500 outlets in the UK and overseas.

Who is Ted Baker's Ray Kelvin? Born in 1955 in north London Started work in uncle's shop aged 11 Founded first store in Glasgow in 1988 Expanded to Manchester and Nottingham, then to London in 1990 Married twice Awarded CBE in 2011 Moving forward

Ted Baker's acting chief executive Lindsay Page will continue in the role and the board has asked David Bernstein to act as executive chairman to provide additional support.

Mr Bernstein has indicated that he will continue in this position until no later than 30 November 2020, by which time a successor will be appointed.

In a statement, Mr Bernstein said: "As founder and CEO, we are grateful for his [Ray Kelvin's] tireless energy and vision.

"However, in light of the allegations made against him, Ray has decided that it is in the best interests of the company for him to resign so that the business can move forward under new leadership."

Mr Kelvin's statement said: "Difficult though this decision is given that Ted Baker has been my life and soul for over 30 years, I've decided that the right thing to do is to step away from Ted and allow the business to focus on being the outstanding brand it is so it can face 2019 with fresh energy and renewed spirit.

"As a shareholder in the business I'll support Lindsay in his leadership and be available to him and the team wherever I can offer helpful advice.

"I'm extremely proud of what we've achieved in building Ted Baker to the global brand it is today. Thank you to every single colleague, customer, supplier, and investor for your commitment to the business. We couldn't have done it without you and I'm so grateful.

Stockbrokers Liberum said Mr Kelvin's resignation was helpful to the company, describing his departure as "unfortunate but understandable". It added there would be minimal disruption to the business, which had "a strong team".

Shares in Ted Baker fell 4% when trading began on Monday, but quickly rebounded.

The company's shares had fallen sharply last week after it issued a profit warning, which it said was due to currency movements, product costs and a writedown on unsold stock.

It said full-year profit for the year to 26 January would be about £63m, compared with forecasts of £73.8m.

The firm's shares were also hit late last year by the hugging controversy.

Are you a current or former Ted Baker employee? Share your experiences by emailing [email protected].

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:

WhatsApp: [phone] Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay Send pictures/video to [email protected] Upload your pictures / video here Text an SMS or MMS to 61124 or [phone] Please read our terms of use and privacy policy

[sciencespies]

Five reasons COP25 climate talks failed

https://sciencespies.com/environment/five-reasons-cop25-climate-talks-failed/

Five reasons COP25 climate talks failed

Five years after the fragile UN process yielded the world’s first universal climate treaty, COP25 was billed as a house-keeping session

The climate summit in Madrid earlier this month did not collapse—but by almost any measure it certainly failed.

Five years after the fragile UN process yielded the world’s first universal climate treaty, COP25 was billed as a mopping-up session to finish guidelines for carbon markets, thus completing the Paris Agreement rulebook.

Governments faced with a crescendo of deadly weather, dire alarms from science and weekly strikes by millions of young people were also expected to signal an enhanced willingness to tackle the climate crisis threatening to unravel civilisation as we know it.

The result? A deadlock and a dodge.

The 12-day talks extended two days into overtime but still punted the carbon market conundrum to next year’s COP26 in Glasgow.

A non-binding pledge, meanwhile, to revisit deeply inadequate national plans for slashing greenhouse gas emissions was apparently too big an ask.

The European Union was the only major emitter to step up with an ambitious mid-century target (“net zero”), and even then it was over the objection of Poland and without a crucial midway marker.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres labelled COP25 “disappointing”. Others were more blunt.

“The can-do spirit that birthed the Paris Agreement feels like a distant memory,” said Helen Mountford of Washington-based think tank World Resources Institute (WRI).

“The world is screaming out for climate action but this summit has responded with a whisper,” noted Chema Vera, executive director of Oxfam International.

So what went wrong?

At least five factors contributed to the Madrid meltdown.

‘Chile played a bad hand poorly,’ noted an insider at COP25

Amateur hour

To an unsettling degree, the outcome of a UN climate summit—where 196 nations must sign off on every decision—depends on the savvy and skill of the host country, which acts as a facilitator.

The stars were not aligned for the chaotic Copenhagen summit of 2009 and the Danish prime minister’s less-than-deft manoeuvering did not help. By contrast, the 2015 climate treaty was in no small measure made possible by France’s diplomatic tour-de-force.

This year, Chile’s environment minister Carolina Schmidt wielded the hammer after the conference was moved at the last minute to Madrid due to massive protests on the streets of Santiago.

From Day One, when Schmidt’s mishandling of a request from the African negotiating bloc mushroomed into a diplomatic incident, veteran observers worried that she was not up to the job.

For Greenpeace International executive director Jennifer Morgan, “an irresponsibly weak Chilean leadership” enabled Brazil and Saudi Arabia to push agendas destined to derail the talks.

“Chile played a bad hand poorly,” noted another insider.

A marginal factor, perhaps, but not a negligible one.

Fox in the henhouse

Among the nearly 30,000 diplomats, experts, activists and journalists accredited to attend the summit were hundreds of high-octane fossil fuel lobbyists.

They are collectively the elephant in the room: everyone knows what causes climate change but it is considered impolitic within the UN climate bubble to point fingers.

Even the Paris Agreement turns a blind eye: nowhere in its articles does one find the words oil, natural gas, coal, fossil fuels or even CO2.

“We need to engage with them,” UN Climate executive secretary Patricia Espinosa told AFP when asked whether it was time to exclude such lobbyists from the room.

Difference between recorded temperatures and the 20th-century average for the corresponding month

“There is no way we will achieve this transformation without the energy industry, including oil and gas.”

But the incongruity of their participation in a life-and-death struggle to wean the world from their products has become harder to ignore.

“Is there no space free from greenwashing,” asked Mohamed Adow, director of climate think tank Power Shift Africa.

“The UN climate negotiations should be the one place that is free from such fossil fuel interference.”

The Trump effect

On November 4, 2020—the day after US voters will renew Donald Trump’s mandate or turn him out of office—the United States is set to formally withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

It will be the second time that a Republican White House has plunged a dagger in the heart of a climate treaty nurtured by the Democratic administration that preceded it—the Kyoto Protocol was the previous one.

From the moment Trump was elected—on Day Two of COP22 in Marrakesh—advocates of climate action have played down the negative impact of the world’s largest economy and second biggest carbon polluter pulling out of the Paris deal.

But the corrosive “Trump effect” was palpable in Madrid, as was the anger at Washington for twisting arms even as it walked out the door.

“There are one or two parties that seem hell-bent on ensuring any calls for ambition, action and environmental integrity are rolled back,” said Simon Stiell, Grenada’s environment minister.

Poor and small-island nations exposed to climate-addled weather—drought, heatwaves, super-storms, rising seas—were especially incensed at behind-the-scenes US efforts to block a separate stream of money for “loss and damage”.

Rich nations have promised developing ones $100 billion (90 billion euros) annually starting next year to help them adapt to future climate impacts, but there is no provision in the 1992 bedrock climate treaty for damages already incurred.

No one, it seems, imagined that climate talks would drag on for 30 years.

The corrosive “Trump effect” was palpable in Madrid, as was the anger at Washington for twisting arms even as it walks out the door

The US withdrawal has also crippled the coalition that delivered the landmark Paris treaty, said Li Shuo, a senior policy analyst for Greenpeace East Asia.

“The US-China-EU climate tricycle has had a wheel pulled off by Trump,” he told AFP. “Going into 2020, it is critical for the remaining two wheels to roll in sync.”

China at the wheel

When it comes to climate change, Beijing holds the fate of the planet in its hands.

China accounts for 29 percent of global CO2 emissions, more than the next three countries—the US, Russia, India—combined, according to the Global Carbon Project.

Its carbon footprint has tripled in 20 years from 3.2 to 10 billions tonnes in 2018.

The core commitment of China’s voluntary carbon cutting plan, annexed to the Paris treaty, is to stabilise its CO2 output by 2030.

Experts agree that China could hit that mark earlier and more countries are asking Beijing—ever so gingerly—to promise it will.

Granada’s minster Stiell called out half-a-dozen rich and emerging economies—including China and India—for not revising their voluntary plans in line with a world in which warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Failure to do so, he said, “shows a lack of ambition that also undermines ours”.

“China’s emissions, like the rest of the world’s, need to peak imminently, and then decline rapidly,” for the world to stay under 1.5C or even 2C, according to the Climate Action Tracker, a consortium that analyses climate commitments.

But Beijing has been coy about its intentions. Going into Madrid, it hinted at a revised target ahead of COP26.

But during the Madrid meeting, China dug in its heels and— backed by India—invoked the principle that rich countries must take the lead in addressing climate change, calling out their failure to deliver on promises made.

Perhaps the most daunting headwind facing UN climate talks is rising nationalism, populism and economic retrenchment

“Ambition of Parties is measured first and foremost by the implementation of its commitments,” said a joint statement from China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

The statement said commitments made by developed countries in the pre-2020 period—especially for money and technology—must be honoured.

China’s lack of enthusiasm is also rooted in changes on the domestic front.

“When an economy slows, it is more difficult to be as single-minded about leadership on climate change,” said WRI’s Andrew Steer referring to China’s position.

China is only likely to follow with measures of its own if the European Union confirms its mid-century “net zero” goal and vows to slash emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, several experts said.

“If the EU doesn’t come through, we’re screwed,” said one observer with more than 20 COPs under her belt.

Spitting into the wind

Perhaps the most daunting headwind facing UN climate talks is rising nationalism, populism and economic retrenchment—all at the expense of the multilateralism.

“The stalemate over carbon markets is a symptom of a more general polarisation and lack of cooperation among countries,” said Sebastien Treyer of the IDDRI think tank in Paris.

Street protests, meanwhile, against the rise in cost-of-living in France, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt and more than two dozen other countries in 2019 have given governments already reluctant to invest in a low-carbon future another reason to baulk.

“These cases highlight how sensitive populations are to change in the price of basic commodities like food, energy and transport,” noted Stephane Hallegatte of the World Bank.

“This is the context in which most countries have committed to stabilise climate change.”

Even the diplomats and activists deeply invested in the UN climate process have begun to wonder if it is fit for purpose.

World carbon emissions in 2018 and changes from 2008

Negotiations are transactional by nature, and may not be suited to an emergency situation, some noted.

“We are standing and watching our house on fire,” said Steer from the WRI.

“I’ve got a fire hose, you’ve got a fire hose, but I’m not going to turn mine on until you do.”

But nations with the most to lose have few alternatives.

“It is the only space where poor countries—who have done the least to pollute and yet are suffering first and worst from its destruction—have a voice,” said Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow.

“But, sadly, it is proving inadequate.”

The key to unlocking the diplomatic deadlock may lie within civil society, said Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who wonders whether a wave of moral outrage could push governments toward more decisive action.

“Are we approaching a tipping point where it will no longer be acceptable to shorten the lives of people with fossil fuel pollution?”, he asked, noting that breathing the air in the Indian capital New Delhi is like smoking 10 cigarettes a day.

The Fridays for Future youth movement sparked by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg saw millions of people spill into the streets demanding climate action.

If their numbers rise to tens or hundreds of millions, maybe leaders in democratic and autocratic governments alike will begin to take note.

Explore further

Anger, relief but no joy as UN climate talks limp to an end

© 2019 AFP

Citation: Five reasons COP25 climate talks failed (2019, December 25) retrieved 25 December 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-12-cop25-climate.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

#Environment

#Environment