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#men who have had more of an impact on me than my own dad
ninapi · 3 months
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- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ Family ❜┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌
Premise: Raising someone else's child is one thing, but raising your own while dealing with your insecurities could be quite a task, especially for a man like Satoru, but the moment he saw the baby his life turned upside down.
Word Count: 3104
Note: This is the third installment for a short series of mine, they all have different titles because I'm weird like that lol, but you can read the first part here, and the second one here.
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When Satoru took Megumi in, he didn’t have to do much besides giving him financial support and make sure he had everything he needed as a growing child.
He was already the person he is to this day, and Saturu had very little to add to this. So when he realized what having his own baby was going to be, his already existing demons started to kick in.
While is normally the mother the one who tends to spiral into despair thinking of the future of their newborn and the changes impacting daily life, Satoru had more than one reason to feel uneasy.
He loved his girl and his unborn child, there was no doubt there; but the implications of being a parent were heavy for a man like him.
Dealing with the elders was one thing, but being a good dad was a very different one.
All he was good at was fighting curses, that’s what he came to this world to do, but having to think of how to be a good dad was definitely more scary than a special grade curse.
Megumi was way more ready than he was, in fact, without Megumi your pregnancy would have been quite the nightmare. But he was always checking up on you, helping you with tidying the apartment, even took you to the hospital check ups and went in the doctor’s office with you.
Some even thought he was your son, to Megumi’s displeasure. 
Satoru on the other hand tended to flee when things like this came upon, excuses were easy to come by when you’re the strongest sorcerer. But in reality he was beating himself over and over again for his own behavior while sitting on a cliff.
He wanted this, he wanted to be with you, wanted to have a family with you. Or so he thought at first, but what does it even mean to have a family? His was anything but conventional and he had no idea where to start.
You were his life now, he didn’t care about the future of this world if he was being honest, he never did really, all he wanted was to take you to a Polynesian island and live in a fancy luxury tree house with you, the baby and Megumi. But life wasn’t as easy, he had to deal not just with the damn old men hunting his every step, but also his responsibilities in the school, he couldn’t just disappear, not with another teacher and a top tier student tagging along.
He wanted to do better, be a good husband, a good dad, not just to his baby but to Megumi as well, he felt like he’s been failing everyone he truly cares for and that was a feeling like no other, one he could live his entire life without encountering it ever again.
But time for cowarding around ended sooner than he expected as time runs extremely fast when you don’t want to deal with your problems.
He got a call from Megumi, he was at the hospital, water came out of you and you were tugging on his hair while screaming in pain, you were certainly dying so he had to come fast. It all sounded like a nightmare to Satoru, he truly thought you were dying, he’s never seen a pregnant woman on the later stage of pregnancy deal with it, and Megumi either, so they were both panicking on a bench this very same moment.
“I can’t lose her, Megumi…what am I going to do if she dies? What if the baby dies too? What if I have to raise the baby on my own? I can’t do this…I would rather be killed by a curse…maybe I should turn off my infinity…yes, someone would come and kill me as well, then we would all die together…” a loud smack could be heard rumbling over every wall of the hospital. He’s never seen Megumi this angry before, “Can you stop and be a god damn adult for once in your life? (Y/N) needs you. She’s in labor right now, delivering your baby! She’s in so much pain, things are coming out of her, she’s probably so scared right now, and all you’re thinking about are ways of getting yourself killed!”
Satoru’s cheek was quickly getting red and swollen, how did he even manage to touch him that easily? 
Zenin’s are truly a terrifying clan.
“Why does nobody care about me being scared? I can be scared too you know? I know I’m the strongest sorcerer, but that doesn’t make me the strongest husband or the strongest dad…”
Megumi was left speechless, he never thought the great Gojo Satoru would admit being scared, “Do you think I’m not scared? I love her ok? She might be your girl, the mother of your child and what not, but she isn’t just a crush to me, she’s also the only mother figure I’ve had, the only person who truly understands me and cares for me. I don’t want her to die!” tears were falling down Megumi’s cheeks as he vented all his worries out of his very constricted chest. He’s the one who’s been by your side during your whole pregnancy, what if this was his fault? What if you were in so much pain because he didn’t take good care of you? Those words kept flooding his head and Satoru was just as lost as he was in that moment, he didn’t know how to reassure his adoptive son and was in need of reassurance himself.
That was until loud cries could be heard coming from the room you were being kept in.
“What was that-“
Megumi’s ears perked, he couldn’t hear you at all, why was it so loud, he needed to confirm you were fine. “I don’t know, who’s crying? That’s not her, I’m sure…”
“Of course is not her, you idiot…” the door opened up to a very tired looking nurse, her gown was covered in what looks like blood wiped out not long ago, Satoru’s face paling the moment he saw her.
“Is…I-Is (Y/N)…” his voice was cracking, all his memories with you going into his brain like a movie.
“She’s fine, she’s currently holding your son, would you like to go in? She’s asking for Megumi, I assume that’s you?” 
“No, that’s me! Can I go in too then?” the nurse was very confused but nodded anyways. Megumi ran inside the room, falling down to his knees when he saw you smiling, holding a little bundle to your chest, “Oh thank god….” 
“Gumi, my love, come meet your baby brother!” you looked so tired, yet so happy, he thought he’d never get to see your beautiful smile ever again.
“Are you ok? Is the pain gone?”
“She’s fine kid, giving birth is no easy fit, hope this experience helps you respect women for what their worth. Men would never be able to give birth, they’d die within minutes.” the nurse’s words made you chuckle, it was true after all, especially for your spoiled boys.
“Toru? I didn’t know you were here, I thought you were at work! Come meet your son~” Satoru was still by the door, he thought he’d lost you, the very same feeling he felt that one day you almost die in front of his eyes, just that this time felt even more real as he saw the dried blood on the nurse. He didn’t know how to react, relief was present that’s for sure, but he was also terrified, he was happy to hear you were fine, but you were holding his son right this moment. He had a son now, officially, he is a dad now.
“Babe?” the confused look in your face made him move from his spot, he couldn’t put more stress on you, not after you had to deal with all that just to bring his son to this world.
“So a boy, huh? I thought it’d be a girl…” Megumi really wanted the baby to be a girl, to look just like you so he could snuggle the baby’s cute cheeks and spoil her rotten.
“Mhm, I haven’t named him yet, I wanted Toru to see him first…” Satoru was now standing beside you, his eyes not going down just yet, though his range of vision was so wide, he could see a tiny hand moving out and about and it made it so hard for him to keep ignoring him.
Once he finally got the courage to look at his son, his brain released a triple shot of dopamine right to his heart.
How can a newborn be this cute? They’re usually all red and wrinkly, not at all pretty. But his son…he got his blue eyes and silvery hair, but his face, he looked just like you. The cutest thing he’s ever seen. “Is he…” the moment he opened his mouth the baby started wailing loudly, startling his father.
You were rocking the baby from side to side making him know everything was fine, “Sweetie, c’mon hold your son.” 
“But he’s crying (Y/N)! How do I make it stop?” you set the child in his arms, once their eyes met the baby stopped crying, a lil yawn leaving his lips, this causing Satoru to smile. “Oh, I think he’s just tired…aren’t you my beautiful son?”
“It’s a combined effort of both sides after all, he did have to help mama a lot during the birthing process.” The nurse was finally ready to leave you to rest and needed to take the child with her. “He needs to come with me, Gojo-san. But I need a name so I can set him in the room with the other newborns.”
“I was thinking of naming him Suguru…you know…to honor your frie-“
“No.”
“But baby…”
“I said no.” his stern tone of voice made your heart sink, you thought he’d be happy about this, it was some sort of a surprise even.
Megumi saw darkness loom over Satoru’s eyes and thought of intervening. “Shion.”
“What was that, love?” 
“Shion, my brother’s name I mean..” the fact that he referred to the baby as his brother made you feel so much love, even Satoru’s face softened at his words.
“Gojo Shion it is then.” the nurse took the baby from Satoru’s arm and he’s never felt this empty before. “Do you really need to take him? I mean he’s a newborn, is not like he needs friends right now. Wouldn’t it be better for him to hang out with his family than with other babies?” his reasoning was beyond cute, even to the stoic nurse. 
“Look sir, the child isn’t going to a baby party, he needs a check up and that’s the process in general. If everything goes out well you’ll be able to take them home in a couple of days. Now if you excuse me..” The baby was half asleep and his little hand was out of the blanket still and Satoru felt like his life lost all purpose, his son needed him so much right now, he needed to be tucked cozily under his blanket and there was nothing he could do to help him…he felt completely useless…
Megumi was cleaning your face with a wet towel, making sure your pillow was all fluffed properly, while Satoru spiraled into sadness.
“Can you get the blanket in her baby bag? There’s also some warm socks in the front pocket.” 
Satoru could feel Megumi’s murderous stare and that made him go back to earth, “Yeah sure. Socks…socks…here.” 
Megumi just stared at his hand with so much hate, yet he didn’t know what he did wrong this time. “What?”
“(Y/N)’s socks, not the baby’s socks…”
“Oh! Right…” he needed to get himself together, you needed him just as much as his son did.
“Here, my love.” he got your feet covered with your favorite fluffy socks, then leaned to kiss your head lovingly. Megumi covered you with the blanket he brought for you and went over the snacks he packed to replenish your strength.
“Isn’t he the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen?” you sounded so tired, exhausted even, but to him you were the most wonderful and beautiful women in this universe. The mother of his son.
“Of course he is, he’s my son~” that made you chuckle. 
“We are parents now…how does that make you feel, Toru?” that question hunted him for months, but now he was ready to answer it truthfully. “I’m scared…I don’t know if I can be a good dad…But I’m also the happiest man alive…you’ve given me so much…I want to be the man you and my son need me to be…” his face wasn’t one of happiness, it was more one of realization. 
He felt so much…it was overwhelming. 
But the moment he locked eyes with his son, he just knew it, this was it, this was the real reason he came to this world, to bring his son to life, to give you and his son a happy life full of beautiful memories.
“Gojo-sensei…I think she needs rest…” you were giving him a soft loving smile, your thumb rubbing the back of his hand while he processed what just happened. 
“I’ll stay here, you go back to the school.” he wasn’t there for you when you needed him most, when you were confused and in pain, when you needed his love and care. But he was here now, and he wouldn’t let that happen again. 
He grabbed one of the chairs by the wall and brought it next to your bed, his hand reaching for yours once more before dimming the lights, “I’ll stay here with you, baby. Just rest.”
Megumi left after making sure you had everything you needed with the promise of coming back next morning with a fresh change of clothing for his guardian.
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Having a newborn baby in the house was a whole adventure, at least according to Satoru.
He had to learn everything about babies in a couple of days and lets just say books aren’t as reliable in the subject.
Babies cry a lot and figuring out what the problem was isn’t as easy as he had hoped for.
Not only that but your nipples were sore from breastfeeding causing you to frown all day, Megumi was in a bad mood because the baby didn’t let him sleep at night and he ended up stepping on a dirty diaper this morning, twice, barefoot.
While to others this might sound awful, Satoru was living his best life.
His son was just as in love with him as he was and he was livid. Putting him to bed was his self assigned job and his favorite part of the day. He’d go on talking forever explaining how his technique works and all he had to do to perfect it, of course his son didn’t understand a thing, but his voice really soothed the child so they both loved their bonding time.
Megumi would sneak in your room and sleep while hugging one of your legs while Satoru took the child out to get some sunlight in, even if he denied it, he was very much jealous of his baby brother, he just didn’t get as much time with you as before and he had no excuses to be babied like the infant was now. He wanted more and didn’t know how to ask for it, so even if you and Satoru were aware of his sneaky nap times, you both appeared ignorant to the teen.
Being a mother suited you so beautifully though, there was nothing Satoru loved more than seeing you with his son in your arms. The way your loving eyes landed on his little face, the kissy sounds you made at him to make him giggle, it was all just so perfect to him.
And being a father suited him just as much. The baby carrier he had hanging from his chest daily and the way he would always hold one of his tiny feet in one of his hands as he walked by proudly was the cutest thing this world had to offer. 
He was a happy man.
Of course, him parading around with his child made the elders realize what was going on pretty fast.
Thankfully the child didn’t display any sign of inheriting infinity, at least not yet, something he had shown almost since birth, which made them back off quite fast with the promise of him trying to conceive further children with you.
Of course, he didn’t want this. Not because he didn’t want more babies, but because it terrified him knowing one of them could very well have it and be taken away from you. The thought of his son being exploited the way he was as a child was a constant nightmare for him.
But reality plays dirty tricks on you when you least expect them..
You being such a cute mama and having those swollen breasts full of milk caused…unexpected results…getting you pregnant once more before Shion even turned four months of age.
For someone who didn’t understand the concept of family, he was quite good at making one.
His first family member being the lovely teenage boy who loved the mother of his children more than anything in this world, more than him to be quite honest. But he regretted nothing, Megumi was as important in this family as little Shion was and the little baby girl inside your growing belly.
The family kept growing at an exponential rate, and this world was anything but safe. But having the strongest sorcerer by your side did help quite a lot, specially now that he’d gotten the titles of strongest dad and strongest husband to the list as he very much wished and thought never would.
His family was not conventional, it was broken even, starting with him.
But it was perfect the way it was.
He chose his own family after all.
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Masterlist
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aconflagrationofmyown · 6 months
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Marie Presley, interview for Rolling Stone Magazine, 1997, introducing her film TLC: The Presley Way
A Sarge & lil Mama blurb, 2nd generation: Marie. word count 2k, PG rating, mentions of divorce
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Marie: “You know, I’m used to being asked how it impacted me being the child with the least ‘parental involvement.’ But I really don’t get it, not even when my siblings joke that Elvis was more like Santa to me than dad, a merry-making stranger who showed up once in a blue moon to spread love and cheer before rushing back to the workshop to make more goodies the rest of the year.
“Maybe there’s some truth in that but how was I to know? I didn’t know anything differently than what I had, just like lots of kids you don’t know what else you could’ve had, just like I didn’t know anything different from being very privileged, um, just as my dad didn’t know any different from being very poor.
“But what I do know is that I was very loved, I have been my whole life, and what I have are a treasure trove of memories, extensive amounts of time spent with him at all ages. I look at it this way, we wouldn’t say someone is fatherless just because their dad is gone every day of their life from seven in the morning to six in the evening, that’s a whole lotta time to be gone.
“Whereas I had months on end where I saw Dad from sunup to sundown, slept in my parents bed, ate and played and read with them. Spent time on homework and perhaps most personally impactful, I had my own interests nurtured by them. Dad spoiled me, there’s no question about it, but it wasn’t in the way of rich men giving their kids toys and telling them to then run along, leave them alone.
“Dad engaged with me on everything and anything interesting to me, anything that interested my siblings he would spend hours on it, not even the fun part of say -photography. But the boring details, too. If there was a new camera he would get it for me and together we could figure out how to make it work, how to develop the film, how to get the perfect exposure.
“We’d pour over artists' work and do our best to mimic them. It was play but it was always constructive, and when I think back on those late Vegas afternoons that were his mornings, that he would spend tirelessly engaged with me and my siblings, only to then have to go out and perform multiple times into the night, the adult in me is exhausted and grateful that he took the time. That he did it all so cheerfully that I had no idea how worn out he was.
“The divorce years were hard, I was an eight year old and definitely attuned to the different dynamics in my family. I was very close with my sister Ella who was extremely unhappy at the time, maybe more so than most of my siblings. So her discontent rubbed off on me a little, confused me. But for the most part I didn’t notice a big change, mom and daddy really tried to keep it under wraps, multiple times they insisted there wasn’t a team to pick, and maybe that was too nuanced for the older kids but I got it, I chose not to pick teams.
And before it had lasted very long, we were all back together again.
“Daddy didn’t have a tour, what with Colonel Parker being under investigation, and he stayed home because of Danny, and Daisy and then they got remarried. It was a blip for me really. I got to live with Ella, I got to travel around with Jesse and dad, I got to visit Rosalee out at college. It seemed more like a vacation bouncing than banishment. I was really fine with it, maybe I’m just built that way, it wasn’t as devastating as it might’ve been for another child.
“I do remember my ninth birthday being the single bummer of it all. Or at least, the day started off going decidedly down hill.
“I was the baby who made it after the tragedy of them losing Jo, and you beat believe dad always made a huge deal of my birthday. He’d always tickle the Angel kisses on the back of my neck and remind everyone how Jo and Gladys sent me, mama would recount the story of my birth and my siblings would recall how they laid hands on mama’s belly and prayed I’d come out safe every day for eight months before I was born.
So after nine years of this, when I came downstairs in ‘77 to find that the earth and divorce proceedings hadn’t screeched to a stop just to celebrate me, I was pretty miffed.
I remember just feeling like the vibes were really off at the house, even though dad had come back to celebrate, it was obvious he was very upset with mom. I remember Jesse took me riding on his bike that day, we got out of the house and had fun and I remember when he put me on it, mom and dad were in a deep discussion on the porch, apparently about the fact that I was having a meltdown over not being treated special enough. I've already admitted I was very spoiled, OK folks?
“But the real big thing for me was that by the time I came back from that ride and opened my presents and we ate dinner, things seemed perfectly fine, normal and natural. That night we went through our usual routine and I climbed in the bed with mom and dad like old times. Now that I think about it, that was probably the first time in months that they slept together, and they did that for me. And they did it so naturally and it was really a happy evening, even for them, I think.
“It’s funny how professional you can get at getting along when you’ve had to endure so much like they had, one night of harmony in the middle of a divorce wasn’t a big hurdle for them. There was so much love still there and so much practice, just a lotta confusion. You can see why I wasn’t very surprised when Mama showed up with a baby and a wedding band back on her finger. It might sound bizarre to outsiders, and it’s certainly been portrayed like that by some of our closest friends, but in this film I’d like to set the record straight. It’s what I saw lived out.
Love can be very chaotic sometimes, complex and bizarre but it tries its best. It seeks the good of others. It’s the catalyst for great things and produces generous hearts. And my family certainly did just that.”
Thanks for letting me bug ya with a blurb, and slowly but surely I’m putting faces to the kids, and their stories too. So much thanks goes to my girlies who hash this out with my for hours on end in the chats. The chats are the new trenches, ok? It’s where ya make your Bestest buddies.
@paradsol000
@eliseinmemphis
@prompted-wordsmith
@ab4eva
@foreverdolly
@powerofelvis
@butlersxbirdy
@crash-and-cure
@elvisabutler
@heartbrake-hotel
@stylespresleyhearted
@thatbanditqueen
@crazymadpassionatelove
@myradiaz
@ash-omalley
@arianatheangelgirl
@steph-speaks
@burningloverdoll
@angelface-555
@lookingforrainbows
@missmaywemeetagain
@coolgirl462
@kingdomforapony
@18lkpeters
@richardslady121
@from-memphis-with-love
@lillypink
@artlover8992
@pennyroyalcreep
@notstefaniepresley
@ellie-24
@renaissingle
@waiting4brucewayne2adoptme
@presleyenterprise
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@i-r-i-n-a-a
@obsessedvibee
@peskybedtime
@goth-cowgirl-03
@stephthestallion
@fav-fanficssss
@loving-elvis
@honeyorangess
@soloangel
@xenaspace3-blog
@60svintage
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b4n3n4 · 8 months
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Gone Girl
"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. […] And what’s inside it. I think of that too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?"
1. Roleplaying ♡
Since meeting her future husband, Nick, Amy knew what she had to do, portray herself as, a "cool girl,” a fake persona used in social events, slightly changing and adapting depending on the situation. Breaking that illusion slowly, changing to a more authentic Amy as Nick started to become lazy on his own, the marriage collapses day by day until she snaps and executes the crucial part of her plan, running away.
After running away, Amy modifies her illusion again to that of a weak innocent white woman who was kidnapped while pregnant. On the other hand her husband, Nick, also portrays himself as someone different, the perfect husband, this was achieved and perfected by Amy since they meet, his illusion was slowly broken until the point of no return (Amy finding out about the cheating with Andie), after Amy is reported missing Nick is suspected as Amy's killer due to his lies being exposed, he finds himself shape-shifting back to the "perfect husband" for his own sake.
2. Following the steps ♡
Nick mirrors the image of his dad, growing up with the fear of showing emotion or any kind of "feminine" characteristics, showing himself as self-centered and uncaring, constantly reminding himself of his father's words "Men don't cry" his daddy issues also make him a chronic people pleaser. Here comes into play the Madone-Whore complex we see in Nick: women are either saints with every virtue and a pure soul or prostitutes; it is the complete lack of empathy for the female gender, regarding women as objects of admiration or utter disgust, stripping them away from their complexity and humanity.
During the search for Amy Nick realizes how much his upbringing impacted his life, stating "I needed a child. I had to know that I could love a person unconditionally […] That I could be a different kind of father than my dad was. That I could raise a boy who wasn't like me". He understands that he has been behaving subconsciously like his father and ends up giving up his freedom(staying with Amy) to protect and raise his baby(unlike his father). On the other hand, Amy's parents marriage mirrors her own, a mask marrying a mask, their marriage was all built around the image of perfection for outsiders, having the same standards applied to Amy since her birth, her whole childhood being compared to the ideal version of herself(Amazing Amy)and the fear of not meeting those expectations "I can't fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right.”
3. Estrangement ♡
The big move from NYC to North Carthage had a deep impact on Amy, growing in the fast-paced, crowded, and cosmopolitan Big Apple. Amy's whole life shifts mood when they move back to Nick's hometown, marked by economic devastation and recession. Amy feels left out, like she does not belong there, reminding herself of the cuckoo clock she was gifted, something bustling with life and noise that belonged back in NYC that now feels trapped in their new home's quiet and depressing ambiance. This change in the environment also marks a shift in the tone of their marriage, with Nick becoming lazy, depending on Amy, as he used to depend on his mom as a kid, and Amy getting so fed up that her illusion starts to crack.
4. Unreliable narration ♡
The whole novel explores this idea of media sensationalism: everyone is an unreliable narrator, in the story and out of the story, even what is told to us. While characters often lie to each other throughout the novel we also get lied to, Amy's diary is a perfect example that fiction is not only written in Amazing Amy's books but also what information is given to us about what is going on, both Amy and Nick present their story in an untruthful way, This narrative technique not only adds suspense but also highlights how easily perceptions can be manipulated in relationships.
The media in the novel also does this; while Nick is not the culprit of Amy's disappearance, the whole country is led to believe so, media warps and shifts the focus of some aspects to press their point. Like Punch and Judy, the story is played by everyone like a puppet show; everyone is a mask on stage, portraying a certain role. Our life is a show, and the book is very much aware of this, making a satire of itself and media awareness.
5. Masks ♡
As stated before, everyone focuses on illusions and what the outside thinks. As Nick is portraying himself as the perfect husband again so the media believes his innocence, Amy sees a glimpse of the old illusion in him and regains faith in the relationship, don't get this wrong, she doesn't believe he changed his ways, all that matters to her is the illusion she is trying to portray, the perfect married couple
6. Cool Girl ♡
Like Amy describes it:
"Cool girl. Men always use that, don’t they? As their defining compliment. She’s a Cool girl. Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrin-loving manner and then presents her mouth for fucking."
Amy knows that she plays a role, changing herself for others, having no actual sense of self (which is ironic since she writes personality quizzes for a living), shape-shifting, and dumbing herself to fit the role until she can no longer do it. The breaking of the cool girl is the unleashing of female rage; the unfairness of having to maintain a fake persona in a new place where she feels lost, while her husband broke his fake persona long ago, cheating and disregarding all of her emotions; and the gender roles that pressure women into being hollow objects in fear of complete disregard for their humanity, unable to speak her mind, and forced to accept the sheep mentality as their gender is only viewed as worthy when it is seen as pure.
Amy has become a small icon in the subculture of femcels, focusing on a deep dislike of males and the gender roles pressured in society. She reversed the predator/prey dynamics to benefit herself, using her white female status to seem innocent after committing such crimes.
Although her actions have caused deep pain to some unfortunate innocent characters like Go, her unborn baby, and even Desi, we have to take a look at the overall story as a sort of manifesto and not so literal. Amy represents the perfect female power fantasy to many readers or viewers of Gone Girl, being able to snap and take revenge when we cannot.
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i might be insane
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frostyreturns · 1 month
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Frosty Ruins Leverage S5 E2 "The Blue Line Job"
Shows like this have a habit of dipping their toes into worlds they don't understand and come across as ignorant to people who are a part of it. Within the first minute I can already tell this hockey themed episode was written by someone who doesn't watch hockey. Think the gamergate episode of law and order svu if you want to get an idea how out of touch it is. There's also some very subtle propaganda to their description of the scenario the episode covers. To begin the episode they talk about a hockey player having concussion issues and in just a few sentences nail a few bullshit talking points that the media and the anti-violence in hockey crowd like to spread.
The first is that fighting is a major cause of concussions, it just isn't, while concussions are a serious risk in hockey…(and part of the reason players are paid millions of dollars to play the game professionally) they are almost never because of a fight, the amount of hockey players concussed in a fight is statistically zero. Concussions typically do not result from blunt impact and hockey fights tend to only last a few dozen seconds at most, and they are normally wearing a helmet, though they sometimes take them off because there is a greater risk of injuring your hand in a fight than your head. The risk of concussion in a hockey fight is significantly lower than in say boxing or UFC where they hit each other in the head repeatedly over a longer period of time and each combatant trains exclusively for fighting... and yet even they can have long careers of being pummeled before any serious concussion issues arise and sometimes they don't at all. In hockey you are far more likely to be concussed by being body checked or simply falling or crashing into the boards. This is because concussions are more likely when the brain is being shaken by a sudden and rapid change in momentum, which happens when you are travelling at high speed on skates and come to an abrupt halt. It's why helmets don't really help all that much when it comes to concussions and why with zero fighting at all it's a big concern in football.
The other lie is that players are forced to fight when they could otherwise be good talented hockey players. They say this with a line about how fast the player was and how he was good until they saw how good his punching was. If you know who typically filled the role of fighter/enforcer you would know these were very large men who typically were too large to be very quick, with some exceptions of course. And if an enforcer was really good at hockey it was utilized and celebrated because the best kind of hockey player was someone who was skilled and tough, the problem is those guys were rare and are virtually extinct now. This idea that skilled players are wasting their potential by being tough guys is a fantasy of the violence averse. The reality was that most of the guys whose job it was to fight and protect their teammates…they would not be playing hockey at all if not for fighting. Fighting was a way to make millions playing a game they love, it had risks and downsides of course but most all of them say they loved it and would do it all over again if they could, while there are complainers who are mostly looking for a payday now that their careers are over, the biggest advocates of fighting in hockey are the guys who do it and the guys who did it their whole career. The line at the end says it all and speaks to an issue larger than sports or tv. "I need you to save my dad from himself" The idea that people can't make informed decisions on their own behalf is repugnant to me. Here's a quote from current NHL tough guy Ryan Reaves which I think more accurately sums up the opinion of the people most effected "Make hockey violent again."
The other thing they get wrong is really serious concussion issues don't crop up until much later, you don't get punched and start forgetting that people died. The other problem I have is they key on this notion of a hockey where its mostly fighting with hockey in between, based on a joke "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out." Which is just that..a joke… an exaggeration. Most games even at the peak of fighting in hockey typically have one or two fights or sometimes none at all…as I mentioned before these took up 2 minutes of time maximum…the hockey game takes 60 minutes. Yet they present this joke as a reality.
I will give them credit though they did accurately depict both sides of the debate for the most part, the problem is one side of the debate is largely fostered by retards who know nothing about hockey…mostly the media. The issue is hockey is not as popular as other league sports, so most journalists who cover it are people who would much rather be covering some other less violent sport but took whatever job they could get…and tend to have nothing else to say about hockey..and concussions and violence is a good click baity way for these know nothing sports newspigs to have something to say. It's why despite other sports being 100% fighting you don't hear as much controversy about them. There is zero hockey in boxing and yet fighting in boxing is okay, there is zero hockey in UFC and yet UFC is okay…so why is some fighting in hockey a big fucking deal? The players like it, the fans like it and the teams making money like it. Oh but sorry there's somebody we forgot to consult to see if it was ok…journalists and soccer fans.
My other issue is they are simply blanket believing this lie that the league is hiding medical information. The fact is up until fairly recently the medical information was that concussions were not as serious. The issue wasn't that it was hidden it's that the research wasn't there yet and we didn't know what we do now. They act like a simple MRI shows what they are looking for but even in the most severe cases of CTE you need to do an autopsy to be able to determine what they claim can be shown by an MRI.
And even that being said, now that we know that concussions are more serious…there are still hundreds and hundreds of elite players willing to take those risks, and tens of thousands maybe millions more who wish they were good enough to be able to take the risks and play professional hockey. These are people, they have agency they can make their own choices and they are compensated handsomly. It's nobodies business to step in and remove their ability to make those decisions.
The acting is also terrible across the board, the comically strawmanned owner who claims the fans don't come to see hockey but blood on the ice just hammers home the point that no hockey fans were involved in the making of this episode.
They also show at one point that the enforcer in question has some kind of secret contract where he doesn't make money unless he fights in every game…totally illegal totally unenforcable, no league major or minor would have a contract stipulation anything like that at all. That on its own is so ridiculous it's laughable…but they take it a step further and have the owner pay other teams players a bounty on his own player so he doesn't have to pay contract bonuses.
Things then get retarded when one of the main characters in an attempt to protect the aforementioned tough guy convinces the owner to sign a friend of his and play him in a game…absurd and impossible, there are rules about when players can be added to a roster it is illegal to add a player game 6 of the playoffs and that's assuming I buy the owner being convinced to play some random guy he's never met because a guy trespassing in his building challenged him to a bet a day ago. Deadline for adding players was months before the playoffs even start.
Then in the game the guys friend and last minute addition in an attempt to prevent a fight does something way more dangerous and way more likely to cause injury…he either slewfoots/knees a guy at full speed who doesn't see him coming. In hockey that is considered a very dirty play and is one of the reasons enforcers exist in the first place… to beat the shit out of guys who do stuff like that. Then the play just continues. In reality there would have been an immediate major penalty maybe even an ejection from the game and likely a series of fights as every guy on the ice would be after him. But because this is retarded fake hockey he just goes oops skates away and play continues…and the audience is supposed to see him as a hero. Then yet again this moron in his quest to put a stop to fighting executes yet another highly illegal dirty play, by charging/boarding a player on the other team who does not have the puck, this play is literally 3 penalties in one and again would likely warrant a five minute major or a double minor and would put his team shorthanded for 4-5 minutes…these two plays alone would get him benched by his coach for the rest of the game...assuming he wasn't given a game misconduct and ejected... because he's undisciplined and is costing his team penalties.
The rest of the episode that isn't hockey related is just generic cheesy heist cliches. Chick swipes id badges as she walks by, girl pulls bobby pin out of her hair to pick a lock, if you've seen a heist movie imagine that but worse. Cheesy ending…terrible episode of a show that is not for me.
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i-got-da-rubes · 1 year
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Welcome to my masterpost, because I can’t keep track of my own garbage anymore
Hi! I’m Rubes, but I can also go by Snirkish. I use she/they pronouns, heavy on the they/them parts, and use masculine terms like “bro” or “sir.” I draw, write, and I really like turtles. :]
Where to find me
@i-got-da-rubes on Tumblr (you are here)
@i-got-da-rubes on Instagram (unused)
Snirkish on Ao3 (why is the name different? I dunno, I was feeling quirky)
My tags
TMN'T' - Posts about my TMNT iteration!
My art - Including digital art, sketches, edits, and writing
My writing - Specifically my writing-relates stuff, likely all fan fiction
My edits - Specifically my edits
Turtles - (most of) My posts and reblogs relating to TMNT
Garbage - Raves, vents, goofing off and general stupidity
Reblogs - Need I say more?
Art junk I wanna save - Yeah
Asks
My TMNT fan fictions:
Full Grown - Mystic Breakdown [Rise Raph]
-Short Summary: In the midst of the apocalypse, the boy’s powers get a little out of hand.
Lavender Blood Runs - Mystic Breakdown [Rise Donnie]
-Short Summary: Donnie’s shell gets a little attached and he has to face a new kind of pain.
Call Me Crisis Jones - [General media TMNT]
- Short Summary: Casey begins to discover that his relationship with April isn't what either of them wants anymore, his dad may have had more of an impact on him than he realized, and Raph has been looking at him a little funny. Who knew sexuality could be so complicated?
Indeterminism - [ROTTMNT Post show pre movie] Tag
- Short Summary: Cassandra screams at the men who were supposed to be her fathers.
Thank you for getting this far in my post. Have a wonderful day.
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coochiequeens · 7 months
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Of course in pandering to the TQ+ cult the article dismisses sny risk to the fetus frpm developing in a woman who took cross sex hormones beforecgetting pregnant and makes no mention of the impact on the kids she already has and how being raised by a woman so eager to not be a woman or a mother.
If you have the “working parts” to achieve your goals, you might as well use them! At least, this is something that one pregnant father is preaching after he was flooded with questions about why he chose to carry his child while undergoing his gender transformation. 
The pregnant dad chose to answer these questions in an educational TikTok video where he explains how the experience saves him money and that it does not cause him to suffer from constant gender dysphoria. 
The pregnant father chose to be a surrogate for himself.
Maxwell (@ledpaintsoup) is already a father of two and carried his children himself. His third pregnancy is no exception, and in a video that has been viewed over 380,000 times, he is shutting down those who are rudely assuming that he cannot carry a pregnancy since he is a man. 
Maxwell shares that he has received his fair share of questions from other TikTok users regarding his gender and pregnancy. Many people ask why he is choosing to be pregnant himself instead of turning to surrogacy since many people associate pregnancy and childbirth with womanhood.
According to Maxwell, not only is being pregnant cost-effective in his case but he also does not view his pregnancy as a process that is exclusive to women. 
“I would first of all like to say, that it [pregnancy] is free for me,” he says. “I feel like I’m doing surrogacy for myself. If I have the parts… I’m gonna get my well-use out of them.” Maxwell also plans on breastfeeding his baby since he is still able to produce milk. 
The dad also does not view pregnancy as an exclusively feminine process. 
Secondly, he shares that pregnancy is not a “womanly” experience for him. “Do I feel connected to women who share their pregnancies [online]? Yes, but I also feel connected to other trans men who share their pregnancies and non-binary people who share their pregnancies,” Maxwell says. 
“Pregnancy in itself is not a feminine, woman thing for me.” 
Maxwell adds that taking testosterone has not affected his fertility, although he does not take it while he is pregnant. 
He also recognizes that his own experience and feelings toward pregnancy do not take away from those of mothers who go through pregnancy. 
“For them, that is a woman thing,” Maxwell says. “For me, it’s not… I’m not a woman and when I’m pregnant, I’m still not a woman.” 
In another video, Maxwell says that he came out as transgender when he was 14 years old, and when he became pregnant with his first child at 18, he admitted to having feelings of gender dysphoria throughout the pregnancy. However, his feelings changed after he became pregnant with his second child. 
By the time I had my second, I realized that I was more of a ‘they/he’ than a ‘he/him’... it made me come to terms with myself and my body,” he shares. 
While Maxwell claims that he still has moments of dysphoria during this pregnancy, they are few and far between. 
He also reveals that his transition does not affect his relationship with his husband, whom he met after he began his transition. The two lost touch for a few years, during which Maxwell met his ex-partner and had his first two children with. After reconnecting, they got married and Maxwell is currently pregnant with their first child together. 
Like Maxwell, there are people who do not identify as a woman who have also successfully gotten pregnant and have given birth.
Most of them are born with a uterus and identify as transgender male, gender fluid, genderqueer, Two-Spirit people, etc. 
The exact number of transgender people who have carried pregnancy is unknown, however, a 2019 news release from Rutgers University claimed that their research suggests that up to 30% of transgender men have had unplanned pregnancies. 
Contrary to the popular myth, taking testosterone does not make one unable to conceive, nor has it been proven to have detrimental effects on an unborn baby’s health. 
Trystan Reese, who transitioned in his early 20s was told by his endocrinologist that he would become infertile after taking testosterone and would never be able to carry a child. In his early 30s, Reese carried and gave birth to a healthy baby. 
“I am not a fluke,” Reese wrote for Family Equity. “Hundreds and maybe thousands of transgender men all over the world have successfully given birth or otherwise contributed their eggs to a pregnancy.”
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships. 
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Fucking cis men, I swear to God...
"Dad’s voice at my door spun me out of a deep sleep: “The labour’s started. Contractions.” I bolted out of bed and hurried over to my sister’s house. She was sitting in her living room, bouncing happily on an exercise ball. “Has it happened yet?” I shrieked. The question betrayed the first of many misconceptions I had about birth: that it’s quick. If you’ve watched enough TV, you could be forgiven for thinking the whole thing takes place in a five-minute medical hurricane punctuated by screams and tears. It turns out labour often begins quite slowly and peaks over hours to days." - some fuckwit whose ignorance we're meant to handwave because he's gay
Let me just break this down, because I am tired of this mentality...
No! I'm not fucking forgiving him! I've never been pregnant, or involved in anyone's birth besides my own, but somehow as a grown-up (hell, I knew as a teenager already) I managed to work out that labour is... what the name implies, usually hours-long, and sometimes on the order of a day or more, rather than minutes or hours.
And it's so disingenuous to blame TV - or are we also supposed to forgive all the homophobes who have gay people in their everyday lives but still choose to view them, in this 21st century, as dictated by the most ignorant, unrealistic programming?
Plus... I don't really recognise this five-minute medical hurricane he describes as the norm. Yes, it may take only five minutes of screentime, but often, TV actually makes it obvious that labour can be slow and long. It often draws on on real-life first-time birth stories, and besides, there's a lot of dramatic potential in a long labour, and writers and directors are not slow to exploit its tensions.
Or did our guy just not notice all the scenes of exhausted, sweat-drenched birthing parents, doctors urgently conferring about Caesarean sections, and tired families gathered for hours in hospital waiting rooms? For all its faults, even vintage cinema (expectant father pacing, celebratory cigar peeking from his breast pocket, a man excluded from the process by Propriety and the Mysteries Of Womanliness) often emphasised The Duration because it wasn't allowed to portray the more intimate or messy aspects.
I guess it's easy to only notice the bits of TV that affirm your biases, but "TV failed to spoon-feed me" is a bit pathetic, as a justification for wilful ignorance about how we come into the world, and the impact it has on the people who got us here. And around that, everything about our reproductive systems has either silencing or dismissal attached to it. I realise I'm not saying anything new, but this article just really got to me.
He's saying good stuff too, I know! It's genuinely lovely that he realised how wonderful babies and young children are to watch and engage with, that he has such a good relationship with his niece, and that he is an out gay presence in her life. So many of our lives - especially those of us who turned out to be queer or trans - would've been infinitely better if we'd had that, or if our cis het relatives had been conscious in a positive way of their relatives who were not.
But the sheer dismissal of the mentality that announces itself with a breezy, "forgive me for not knowing very basic things about how the bodies of roughly half the people around me theoretically work, or about the process that, regardless of how textbook it was*, brought me into the world," sums up so much that sucks about dealing with an awful lot of men.
And then you consider that they also vote, and that the presence or absence in them of a basic working knowledge of how obstetrics and gynaecology figure in all our lives, whether or not we conceive or birth children, is a political issue, but one where the most politically vulnerable people in light of that issue struggle to be heard...
Most of all, this makes me angry because of the politics of abortion, in which the kind of people who think labour is the gynaecological equivalent of preparing a pop tart still have more power than the people they reduce to metaphorical toasters.
And the sheer vast fucking ignorance of what women and AFAB people deal with in lots of contexts, often from people who claim to love and ally with us, shows up in intra-community tensions around gender politics in queer settings ALL THE DAMN TIME.
"Oh, I didn't know that! For you see, I am a man, and also gay, which makes it so irrelevant to me as a human being, even though politically I will have more sway on issues affecting said birthing parents! Lol!"
Fuck all the way off.
*I know Caesareans happen sometimes, but come the fuck on.
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justekasmindx · 6 months
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Mood
09/18
Two weeks ago, I was heartbroken, after more than a year of not liking anyone else that much. This one's different, it made me surrender, it made my body feel so weak all through my veins up to my head, had a tension headache which I know I can manage but my poor soul didn't allow me to. I promised a year ago that whatever I felt for a person, I would never let it affect my daily life, especially my career, or maybe my career is not important as I see it before.
I stood up and let myself absorb and process each strand of emotion, but this is getting out of hand, my decision-making is affected already and causing me troubles in my daily life.
They said I should not always have to interpret each experience I have but these past few days, aside from being called out by the people around me, I know I have to get past this as quickly as possible. It's time to ask the question, "What is this situation trying to teach me?" (because it's not letting me go). Simple processing of emotion and executing coping mechanisms are just band-aids and I know that I need a long-term solution for this, which is something that has to do with my attachment issues.
I know it's funny, but doing my daily routine makes me focused on the present. So I was in the shower, and as the cold water ran through my whole body, it made me ask, "Why do I feel mad at people who don't agree with me recently, those who neglect my emotions and refuse to understand what I am going through?" This is not the usual me because I already know how to take care of myself whenever I am going through an emotional breakdown, I no longer seek for other's understanding but here I am upset about it just because I felt broken.
Sooner or later, I cried, because clearly the universe just hit me in the face and told me "Girl, you have daddy issues, go damn face it."
To give you a bit of the background, I was a daddy's little girl, for me, my dad was the ideal man I could think of. His love language to me was acts of service, he literally took care of me in every possible and sensible way, in my eyes he was the most hardworking man and a great leader wherever he went. He has one of the most impacts on how I behave today, my love language for receiving is acts of service and I always perceive myself as a great leader if I decide to become one. It was great until I stepped into college, we moved to another city, and he's been influenced by his colleagues, unfortunately, I lost my dad since then. He's there in our home, but he's no longer my dad who cared for me. I mourned for it for months, until I finally accepted that I was already on my own, making my own decisions, and from this point, chaos started in my life.
I didn't realize until this very moment, that the reason I was roaming around looking for a boyfriend and companion in my early 20s was because I lost my father figure during those years. All along I thought my mom was the issue because she's the one who's always nagging me and neglecting my feelings about how I run my life, but the real root cause was my dad. This is not to blame them, no parents are perfect, I just really needed to figure out why I was feeling this way, I needed to go back and check the key to move forward.
It breaks my heart right now, the memories of my young adulting consist of me chasing men to stay, accepting toxic behaviors because I no longer want to be abandoned, trying to escape the feeling of being neglected, begging for people's attention and validation by being successful in my career and business, just to prove them that I can stand alone and I am strong enough and I have my life figured out because I thought to have an ongoing life supposed to be treasured for me to achieve the society's standard and ideal life. I was not able to control myself and my mistakes because I did not know what was happening. I remember myself reaching out to my friends, different life coaches, even psychologists or counselors, and people who I know looked after me, for me to figure out what was going on with my life. Their advice has helped me a lot with my current situation at the time but never has anyone taught me that I have to look past way behind each detail so that I would be able to figure it out.
The norm is people will say to stop looking at the past, free yourself from regrets, and forgive those people who hurt you. Damn, people, I don't even know what happened, who or what caused these. People will say just go with the flow, and let people and experiences come and go. Again, damn, I don't even know what to let go or what to attract because my mind is still messed up and in chaos figuring out which pieces fit my puzzle.
I am a woman who can't just move forward to another unless something huge is resolved, I need to sit and talk about it so it will give me peace of mind and prevent it from happening again to lessen the damage that it may cause. This may be toxic to others but that's how I keep myself on track, I need to focus on what I can control. I know not everything can be controlled, so I let go and accept the fact that I can't, especially others' decisions. But if I feel like I need to figure something out in order for me to be better in the upcoming situations, I really need to get to the root cause of it.
Last night, I intentionally went to work late, because I was processing my realizations during that shower, I cried, and I felt bad about the fact that I was mad at people around me for invalidating my feelings where I was the problem all the time, it was my daddy issues took over me because I can no longer handle my own emotions so I tended to look for the validation of the father figure I currently have.
Oh yes, I frequently cry these days because I am having PMS and I'm about to have my period, my hormones are overflowing.
Moving forward, I now have to start to heal this early adult of me, I am safe now, I now have people who listen to me and if there are not, I know I understand myself more than anyone else, so I don't have to worry, I no longer have to prove myself to anyone. I am accepting the fact that life wouldn't always give people it's ideal family, I may have lived with parents and a whole family technically, but I know they're not the kind of people who can be leaned on, I am part of the percentage of the world that has to treat myself as my own home and my loyal friends as my family, too. I feel like an orphan now, but that's how life works.
And, you know what, I guess one of the most important lessons here is, knowing that the universe is sending us people, not to intentionally just hurt us, but to teach us lessons we need to learn, in preparation to receive this something bigger blessing that is coming soon. That guy who got my heart broken is a blessing, if it didn't happen, I wouldn't be able to realize that I have this part of me that I have to heal before I move forward. Recently, I have been feeling lost, but I know there's an incoming path for me to take on, I am about to leave my current situation.
I am now letting go of this guy. It was never my feeling of regret that was a problem, it was about me experiencing the feeling of abandonment and being neglected again, it was my issue, and now I got to do the work to heal it.
To my future husband, you're going to have the healed version of me. Just wait for me, I'm already working on it.
This piece of journal helped me a lot to get my head cleared out, if ever someone read this, hope you learned something out of it.
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oatbrew · 8 months
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olympia soiree review after 100%-ing the game... general consensus of my brain worms is that the premise, its themes, the japanese cultural context, and the lore are its biggest strengths. but it needed a heavy editing hand. writers gotta trust their audience more bc we really do not need flashbacks to a thing that happened three minutes ago. it just felt like some great solid bits that were bundled up way too much w superfluous padding. as such the pace suffered and what should have been devoted to developing further why byakuya and her li would fall in love is spent on filler and revisiting info we already know
the spiciness and the sheer romance of the cg scenes are so good but sometimes it was whiplash when byakuya and her li were suddenly in soulmates mode. the individual scenes were chefs kiss but the relationship development overall felt less earned which made those scenes less impactful than it should have been. i know it's just the two weeks but cmon ive been sold less believable absurdity in less that time
anyway in terms of each route:
himuka - tbh he really didn't leave a lasting impression besides his place in the lore. my fave thing is his character design and i spent most of the route pretending this was a yuri game lmao i think his was the one where i rly questioned why byakuya fell so hard and fast (and she does that in every route but his especially i was like.... but why are you suddenly so ride or die??)
tokisada - cute! but im not typically a fan of the little bro type. when he talks about walking into the ocean tho i did cry 😢 his bad ending main menu speech is so good. i love it when men break down despondently 😌
yosuga - loved him up to That Scene. i love possessive dubcon stuff in otome but this was a character who was established to be someone who prioritizes consent and safety for the female citizens of yomu so it just seemed so out of left field and uncharacteristic. did enjoy the hades and persephone analogue vibes tho
riku - such a fan of this nerd. for some reason i felt his angst more than i did the others perhaps bc his biggest obstacle in returning byakuya's love was his own self. rly related to his desire and anxiety to live up to other people's standards and his general ineptness in romantic situations. bc it often ends w byakuya being the most forward one which i always enjoy whenever the mcs take the lead in otome. had fun w him but he and byakuya felt the most whiplash along w himuka
kuroba - enjoyed his personality for most of the game and was honestly thrown off that he ended up being the most yandere of the bunch. which is interesting considering the reveal of who his birth father actually is. was not a huge fan of how they treated sexual assault in this route. like i intellectually understand why the good ending is like that but they rly should have let that motherfucker choke. handkerchief callback was adorable tho
akaza - BIG FAN of bbq dad. his was the one i was looking forward to the most bc he was the one byakuya was the most resistant in giving a chance. and im just a sucker for decent men who give off a bad first impression bc they take things too seriously. i love his insistence of asserting himself and byakuya as singular entities and not bound by the fate of their roles which is a deft way of tying the relationship with the game's overall themes. his route felt the most believable in selling why they're compatible and why they fell in love because they went to intentional multiple dates where it truly felt like they were learning about each other. i would have liked some room to explore his faults and fears outside of byakuya but i enjoyed his route the most so i can't complain too much
other scattered thoughts
the short stories are great esp the memoirs by the supporting cast. made me appreciate them more bc it gave them nuance and complexity
SHURA 🥰 complicated women my loves. wish tho that her bitterness against byakuya wasn't also rooted in her infertility. not that the motivation is inherently bad but as one of the few female dynamics byakuya has it isn't great
hairi devolving to villainy was understandable but disappointing. wish tho that there was one character based in yomu who wasn't on byakuya's side but wasn't also a villain either.
douma reveal just doesn't sit right in the end like they're trying to establish this grumpy dad vibe when douma spent the majority of the games not just being grumpy and stoic but actively being an asshole and almost resentful
kanan i was generally annoyed with until i got through the bad endings and read his memoir and i did a complete 180 on him. earnestly really enjoy this asshole now and i find him fascinating as a villain
tsukuyomi's memoir is my absolute fave "now i water the cherry tree" just the existential resignation of it all....
don't have much thoughts on the obvious allegory and how it explores oppression as a theme namely bc im missing the cultural and historical framework w my largely western lens and i think context here is absolutely imperative to do this justice
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wikagirl · 1 year
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ayooo girlie completely forgot to post her pics from comic con stuttgart. I slept over at my friends place from friday to saturday so we could get going extra early and this is what I woke up to
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I got up and did my hair and makeup while my buddy snoozed for a lil longer
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I went as random member of camp halfblood on day 1 and on day 2 i just couldn't be bothered and just went in casual. We drove up to stuttgart and picked up some homies, then drove to the con and got in, our first stop was at a crepe shop, those crepes kept us fueled for more than 8 hours
On day one our buddies were there as characters from Rainbow Six and we had an iron mouse with us, sadly our boys are really camera shy so heres a pic of iron mouse sitting by herself and eating a crepe
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We spent our first day mostly just walking around taking pics with others and for others. You have no idea how many gorwn ass men came up to us going "OMG TACHANKA" and looking at our two tachanka cosplayers like they just found their long lost dads that went to get milk and never came home.
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I sadly couldn't take as many pics on day 1 mainly bc I get anxious a lot in big crowds so my buddy and I hit our hotel pretty tired, but on day 2 we got to the con before our friends and thus I was able to go on a little spending spree and also take pics of all these cute mushrrom folks and nature witches
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We also met up with a friend of mine back from school who was there with her own group, at that point I split up from my buddies who on day 2 were there as CoD characters, SCP soldiers and Maid Keqing from Genshin Impact. My adventure with my schoolfriend started out great, one of her wings from her toothless armor broke off and it took us about an hour to hunt down some hotglue for her, but the people at the hydro forge were there to save us and thus some more fooling around happened. Look at her slaying big time.
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but sadly all good things must come to an end and so at around 4 pm we all gathered back up at our meeting spot to take some last cringy pics like the weebs and nerds we are
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And took one final group picture
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and thus headed home. Needless to say, I was starving once I got back, I only ate like one proper meal throughout the entire weekend and besides that I mainly ran on boba-tea and anxie-tea.
also now I have this thing
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also for everyone that plans on going to comic con in stuttgart next year, here's some advice: DO NOT SIT ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF THE BIG DARK WALLS WITH THE HOLES IN IT THOSE ARE THE VENTILATION SYSTEM YOU WILL GET A COLD can't believe it took us several hours to figure that out.
Oh yeah I also came down with the rona a few days after which made me big angy but at least noone else in the group got sick and I had it out of my system within a week of aggressively overheating myself, inhaling steam to declog my nostrils and eating a ton of spicy chicken soup.
And now here's a list of the instagram accounts of my sweetboos so you can go and check out their stuff.
Ironmouse/Keqing: @suppymeggy
The hella cool toothless armor: @linahri
In our big group pic in the back row, the second scp soldier from the left: @max_.kraft
aaaaaaaand that's it the others never gave he their tags but go check out their stuff and don't be like me and bring extra water and eat food or bring your own if you're going.
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papirouge · 1 year
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what you said really resonated with me, about not having a father but having a healthy look on men. i do have a dad, but ive never lived with him and only see him once a month or so, while i live only with women (mom, sisters and grandma). ive never really cared about male attention or whatever, and tend to prioritize women and myself, and i think its because of the heavy female influence in my life.
ive never hated or idolized men, and see them for what they are, im realistic and can judge each individualy, yet still knowing that there are certain attitudes and ways of beings in men more common than in women.
i dont understand people who say that women who grew up without a dad are either man haters or man pleasing, because in my experience it tends to be women who grew with fathers (usually bad ones)that have quite the issues with men. weirdly, i think that women that have complicated relationships with their moms are the ones that either dislike or put men on a pedestal, usually due to having moms suffering from pickmeism. Many of these women just learnt from their mothers to tolerate too much from their men, or saw their mothers suffering and decided to never let themselves become what their mothers are, so they scorn men. but this is just what ive observed.
Yeah, I mean, growing up with a shitty father seems more damaging than growing up without one, so I don't get this culture of shaming single mothers. Hardly any mom choses to educate their child alone - if she did, the father was a bum. But interestingly, there's Hardly a culture of shaming baby daddies like there ks one shaming baby mama.....🤔
My dad was abusive, and my parents separated when I was still a baby so don't remember anything, but my eldest sister do and I can see how different we are when it comes to trauma regarding his abuse (mine is non-existent at this point).
I also agree with you that mothers are the "cornerstone" of their daughters emotional imbalance. As women we project onto each other, so a shitty mom might have a bigger emotional impact onto their female children (and that's the opposite for male). My mom has her fair share of abusiveness too (still not as bad as my dad) and I came to term with forgiving her bc she definitely had to deal with lots lf trauma herself + having to educate several children alone...
But yeah, growing with such a mom really made grasp early on the importance of levelling up and working your ass off. I know what being poor is, and poverty is the best leverage for motivation. My mom was smart: she refused to live off welfare all her life and instead educted herself to get a new job, get promotions, etc Even though she didn't explicitly tell us that way, by the way she educated us, l quickly understand that as a Black woman, I'll have to work twice harder than a White woman, and 4 times harder than a White man. I never felt like competing "against Whites" though, I just understood what were the "rules" of the game we were stepping a foot in as poor immigrants from Africa.
I'll never buy into determinism. Sure, social inequalities are a thing and it's harder when you're a Black women than rich White man, but ultimately you can make it out as long as you don't spend your time comparing yourself and complaining about your own social condition.
I might not have grown with my dad but I think I am much more balanced that those people who grew up with both of their parents thinking women not wanting to have a child is a sin, or wanting a husband looking like their dad... The most asinine shit I've seen on this website didn't come from people with a broken family lmao
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Text
Arcane Was Missing Some Love
SOME MASSIVE SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON, PROCEED WITH CAUTION
Okay. I just finished Arcane. I know, late to the party but I have a habit of not watching popular shows when they're popular. I usually wait for them to fizzle out, or rather, to see how it takes for that to happen. I have issues with the show, and I have things I liked. More cons than pros but I've never played the game so maybe I missed out on things? Don't murder me. I loved the art style, that goes without saying but I really did like it. It had gorgeous character design, setting design, and The lighting in scenes made them shine beautifully. This is why everyone watched the show and the big thing that people like about it, so I'm done talking about it since it's old news. My issues stem from the characters themselves. I know there were only 9 episodes, but I feel like more could've been done with the dynamics between characters; more scenes and dialogue that show how much they care for one another, or their malice, or frustration amide love. This is particularly with the scenes between Jinx and Silco. We're meant to believe that they cultivated a close father daughter bond in however many years it was between the timeskips. But as much as I could get the base idea of what the writers were trying to get across I think this relationship, The relationship between Viktor and Singed, between Mel and her mother, between Vander and all the kids, could've been cultivated more with a few well placed lines of dialogue. or small scenes. What Silco wants to get across is that he see himself in Powder/Jinx, and she finds sanctuary in him. In all their interaction the fatherly love is missing, and his favouritism of her is also missing. She's a valued employee, one who he trusts and who trusts him, but while he does stick his neck out for her, that relationship in close proximity is not there. Nowhere in his dialogue, except for when he's dying, does he really praise her or speak about her fondly, which I really would've liked. I know we're not supposed to like him, but I did. He wanted to give Jinx all the power that he could, and that's what a father wants to give his children, simple as that. That much is clear, but I just feel like a few more lines of "you're perfect" "I believe in you" "I want to give you everything" "You are the greatest accomplishment of my life" etc. etc. would've been great. I know those lines are cheesy but in moments like Silco's death, they make the whole scene so much more impactful. He sees her as his daughter, she sees him as her father, but, and stick with me on this, in the scene where he dies she doesn't cling to him, we don't have a little skip where it's just her sobbing into his corpse, she doesn't call him dad, there's no desperate "daddy please don't leave me", which yeah is a bit cliche but I wouldn't have minded. Jinx is struggling in her own mind to pick a side, there should have been more of an indicator that she had chosen Silco, and that his death hurt her so much that they would've do what she did. I mean maybe I read into that wrong, I'm just a huge fan of father daughter relationships in media, because there's nothing more heartbreaking than a father who wants to give his daughter the world, and then fails to do so.
I started talking like I was goin to speak about all my girvancees, and I still might, but really I just wanted to say that first and foremost because I really wanted more of that. Her hanging off him, them eating together, maybe something where she gets hurt and he wraps up her wounds and calling her an idiot but he was worried, maybe a scene where in his office one of his righthand men opposes him and she points a gun at them, and when you'd expect Silco to side with his advisors, he instead takes Jinx's side saying "I'm inclined to trust my daughter's opinion" or something, I dunno. Something where it's clear that he's replaced the father figure and protector in her life. He now exists where Vander and Vi were and isn't only someone who gave her freedom, but is someone who truly cared for her and believed himself to be her father.
They wanted to make the show lighthearted at times, but never gave chance to any truly ridiculous scenes. How nice would it have been if for whatever reason, Vi had to dress up to meet the counselours so she and Cait do a makeover and there more of a romantic relationship could've been cultivated for them. I know I know, only 9 episodes, but I can wish.
If we saw baby Viktor go to Singed's house a few more times to play with Rio, and cultivated that relationship so that seeing her in pain would've hurt us more as an audience. Yea she's cute, but if she and baby Viktor played together, or cuddled with one another, if she, in her animal ways comforted him about his illness/disability, it would've hurt so much more in both the scene where he initially sees her hurting, and when he comes back to Singed.
More time was needed in the soundtrack, it wasn't good. Sorry Imagine Dragon's fans. It didn't give what the show needed in order to have the impact they wanted it all to have. Some of the best scenes (ex, Jayce in the theatre with the violin guy, and Vi fighting at the bar with western music) were because there wasn't a voice to take us out of it. I think the scene where there is a physical band playing the track was interesting, but the sound design didn't account for the location. Grungy drums and beat up guitars and basses don't sound so clean. Atmospheric music with more lyrics would've lent better for the tone and mood that certain scenes were trying to convey.
I feel like this was a skeleton of a show that could've been groundbreaking and like, perfect, if it just gave itself more time. If it was able to savour the relationships it introduced, written exclusive music for the show, and threw in a few happy scenes to make the harsher ones have a miraculous impact on us.
Overall I liked the show, solid 7/10. I watched this instead of the ATLA live action because I watched maybe 2 episodes and wanted to cry because it was so horrid.
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krystalevette · 5 months
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(this ended up being a lot longer than i had anticipated, but here we are)
for a while now, i’ve wanted to talk about how ethel cain has impacted my life. considering i made this account to keep up with hayden, i feel like this is the best place to tell my story when it comes to discovering her music and how it resonates with me. i’m not really expecting anyone to read this, i just want it to exist outside of the walls of my mind.
i’m going to talk about some potentially triggering topics, but if you’re familiar with hayden’s music what i'm going to be talking about is the same subject matter. however, it’ll be my story and how i connect with the music. plus, i’m autistic and kind of want to go on and on about her music and i’m too shy to go down rabbit holes with people in my life. so, a tumblr post it is.
i guess i’ll start by talking about where i was in life when i first heard preacher’s daughter. i was deep in the healing process when it came to childhood trauma, but my main dragon to slay was a man who had came into my life like a hurricane. i’ll go into more depth once i go more in depth when i get to the music. but, as a short summary introduction, i met a man who had schizophrenia, homocidal thoughts as well as cannibalistic ideation. i’m sure you can see where this is going.
looking back, i followed hayden on instagram in (i’m guessing late) 2022, but i first listened to preacher’s daughter in march of this year. i was staying at my friends’ house and i had stumbled on a twitter thread talking in depth about the album and i was immediately intrigued. so, i decided on the hour long drive back from their house, i would listen to the album. granted, i wish i had sat down with the lyrics and was able to fully immerse myself in the story. i remember saying to my friends as a joke “i’m going to listen to an album by a trans woman talking about religious trauma. so if i crash my car from sobbing, it’s been real”.
once the album and the drive started, i knew that this was going to be something special. as i was behind the wheel, i couldn’t read lyrics and to a degree hear all of them. but, it was the feeling i got listening to the songs that made me realize as soon as i got home, i needed to listen again with lyrics. at this point, i still was unaware of the lore or the actual story of the album. but, as time went on and i kept listening, i started processing what she was saying. and once i did, i became fully engrossed in the story.
when it comes to the religious aspect, as a trans woman, being dragged to church as a child took its tole on me as i began paying attention to what was being said. i had just begun exploring the idea of being attracted to men. and once i was outed as gay, i felt free enough to start experimenting with feminine clothing. and it all just kind of fell into place after that. other than my dad and step mom, my family weren’t accepting and as a minor i was restricted in some aspects when it came to my gender expression. once my dad and step mom dipped out of my life when i turned 17, i was stuck with the restrictions. once i turned 18, i was more free to explore. my immediate family on my mom’s side was religious, my mom being the most religious. fast forwarding a bit, now that i've been on hormones for three and a half years, gotten a breast augmentation as well as bottom surgery, my relationship with my mom has been a little rocky, but she still loves me in her own way. and though she’s not able to be there for me on an acceptance level, she shows her love in other ways. and i’m grateful to still have her in my life. i know some trans people aren’t as lucky.
when it comes to the childhood sa, i had a lingering suspicion as well as every therapist i met telling me i was repressing a type of childhood trauma. and though i didn’t know what it was, i knew in my gut that they were right. last year, through trauma therapy, i uncovered that i was molested by my uncle before the age of four. i don’t know too much about it because once things with the guy i had mentioned previously had a horrible ending, the focus of the sessions shifted to healing from that.
now, as for that man, i found myself extremely drawn to him. we met in the psych ward (red flag number one) and we developed a close bond quite quickly. he had always been extremely open with me about his homocidal thoughts and cannibalistic urges. he would send me extremely graphic messages about his thoughts and fantasies. i was one of the only people who didn’t show fear when it came to them. and in a twisted way, us being close and him being somewhat protective over me made me feel safe. like if anyone were to hurt me, he would “take care of it”. it got to a point where i would basically be his crisis hotline and almost daily i had to talk him down from snapping and acting on his urges. i’ve talked him down from driving to people’s houses with guns in his front seat. as we got closer, he preyed on my vulnerabilities. i was a virgin at the time, he changed that and then never touched me again. my guess it was a level of control he wanted over me.
i unfortunately let him move into my one bedroom apartment and he had his bed and belongings in my living room. facing his constant neglect made me feel a level of lonely that caused me to spiral and develop a sex addiction. whenever he would hurt me emotionally, i would go meet up with a random guy. he eventually left my life, but stayed in my town. he still lives here. and somehow i’m supposed to watch out and he better not see me in public when he’s in my town. and if i didn’t have the amount of tattoos i have, i very well could have ended up his first victim and his first taste of flesh.
i’m sure you can put the pieces together of where i relate when it comes to certain songs. the heartache of religion feeling like somewhat of an enemy, songs like the two family trees and sun bleached flies spoke to me. when it came to my childhood sa, hard times was there. and when it came to this man, strangers was obviously very poignant. however, the idea that i could have easily ended up meeting the same fate as ethel made ptolemaea, august underground and televangelism as well as strangers run deep. and when it comes to my sex addiction with men who didn’t give a fuck about me, i felt like gibson girl spoke to me on that level. i was constantly intoxicated and in sexual situations, feeling like i was pimping myself out (though i wasn’t getting paid).
when it comes to thoroughfare, i feel like it encapsulates meeting him and feeling like everything was going to be okay, that he was different. and being further in my healing process at the time, a house in nebraska and western nights was a testament to how though he took everything from me and drained me of my strength and will to survive, i still loved him. in particular, in a house in nebraska, the lyric about his mother calling and asking if i'm doing fine when i’d kill myself to hold him one more time. and in western nights, the lyric about saying i was never going to leave him even if he lost what was left of his mind. this album felt like an album that was a biography of my life without me writing it. it’s how i could have ended up.
as time went on, i started diving into the rest of her discography and found comfort in finally finding an artist who not only encapsulated how dark my mind can get, but i related to on such a deep level. as time went on, my fixation with the lore and with the music grew stronger and stronger. in late september, i had bottom surgery. a week and a half after was hayden’s pittsburgh show. i was determined to hear these songs live because with her concepts being so intricate, i didn’t know if she would perform them moving forward. i didn’t ask my doctors, i stopped the painkillers as soon as i was home and i risked my health to see this show. it being sold out, i was fully prepared to sit outside just to hear the music. but, the day of the show, i managed to get a ticket. i cried when that happened.
experiencing these songs live and feeling them radiate around me was one of the most special things i have ever experienced. not to mention, the event was beautiful with the trees lit up in different colors, it being in the middle of a park (literally on top of the bricks on the ground i'm the stage being like a small tent. it felt intimate in the sense that i wasn’t worthy of being there. when it comes to my health, i was doing a lot better than i had expected at that point and made sure to take the most safety precautions i was able to. i sat in the handicap section, had my donut pillow and tylenol and ibuprofen in hand. i had no medical complications and ended up being fine the entire show.
if anyone has read this, i appreciate you for listening to me go on and on about hayden. and if by some miracle hayden sees this, thank you for your art. i know it resonates with so many, but i don’t think i would have made it this year to experience the blessing of my surgeries without your music there during my healing. your music truly saved me and is still a lifeline to me whenever i’m struggling. i can’t wait for the b-sides / new ep as well as the novel.
but, until then, i hold the songs we have close to my chest. there’s a magic to the story and narrative of ethel cain that is extremely rare and i truly believe that it is the greatest album of all time and that thoroughfare is one of the best songs ever written. the story telling is insane.
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turtlemagnum · 9 months
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look. i'm a big guy. i'm nonbinary, yes, but insofar as presentation and how i live my life, the only ways my daily life differs from a cis man's is that i'm viscerally disgusted with my body hair and i don't subscribe to the gendered bullshit that impacts men to be insecure about their masculinity. in my own way, i'm pretty fuckin secure in my masculinity insofar as me presenting how i want to present and not really caring too much either way. but for all intents and purposes, i'm a big tall scary man who small people get scared around when i'm walking by them on like, the street or whatever.
i'm also kinda fucking weak given my size. mostly because i never work out and spend most of my days fairly sedentarily. people assume i'm strong because of my size, but i can guarantee you that if somebody even half my size started working out and training, they could probably kick my ass. i was actually in quite a few fights back when i was in school and i never really lost to another kid, but in all honesty that probably reflects more poorly on them than it reflects positively on me.
all of this is just to say, i genuinely don't get why sports and shit are segregated anymore. i absolutely feel like if a woman who was either my general fitness and size were to pick a fight with me, we'd have pretty even odds. hell, i feel like if a woman who's significantly smaller than me but put literally any effort into fitness tried to fight me, she'd also probably kick my ass.
so like, why do we care if trans people are in their preferred sports teams? i absolutely feel like any strength imbalance between men and women on average probably has more to do with average size and social conditioning to be active than it does with any other innate sexual characteristics. one of the first girlfriends i ever had absolutely wrecked my shit in when we play-fought, and we were about the same damn size too. i absolutely feel like fitness should probably be divided in terms of weight and skill rather than bullshit like gender. ESPECIALLY if it's in a competitive setting that has NO FUCKING BEARING ON PHYSICAL STRENGTH, like for instance, competitive shooting! or competitive video games, chess, even! people bemoan cis women having to compete against people who are supposedly far bigger and stronger and faster than them, but like... you ever see some cis women??? like have you ever seen most women's olympics teams?? those women are bigger and beefier than me!!! they could probably kick my dad's ass back when he was in his prime, and i'm pretty sure he's like, actually killed people!!!! for legal purposes that's a joke and this cannot be used as evidence in court!!!!!!
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threethirtynine · 2 years
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Jun 15, 2015 at 7:34 AM
Death is never easy nor kind. And no matter how prepared you try to be, you never really are. You don't always understand the impact a person has on your life until they're gone. You begin to wish you'd appreciated the simple things more. You realize how much you took for granted the words they spoke, the joy they brought to your life, or the lessons they taught you along the way. 
Before I started writing this I found myself wondering repeatedly, "how can you sum up 59 years of life in a few mere words?" The truth is, you can't. There's nothing I could possibly stand up here and say that would even hold a candle to the life that was My grandpas. the life he led was nothing short of extraordinary. Most of you knew him as George. My sisters and I knew him as papaw. My mom knew him as dad. He was a husband to my grandmother. A hard worker. A provider. He was called many things throughout his life, But he was more than any title. He was strong. Courageous. And even in his last days, he was a fighter. He never gave up on any of the things he loved, and he loved many things. He loved his family, his dog buddy. He loved drinking coffee under a nice shade tree. He loved traveling to beautiful places. Watching Animals. Driving trucks. Following the moon. Watching the sun rise in the morning.Taking his granddaughters fishing. Falling asleep next to his best friend, his wife, every night. He loved getting to see and spend time with his brothers and sisters. And often reminded me how important siblings were. He loved to work. He taught me that you could have anything in this world, as long as you are willing to work for it. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He wasn't afraid of many things at all. For instance, he was never afraid to speak his mind. He was a caring man, who would give the shirt off his back without asking for anything at all in return, but he wouldn't hesitate to let you know when you were in the wrong or as he would put it, "being a jackass" he had the kind of sense of humor that you couldn't help but laugh at. He was also a very consistent man. Once he found something he liked, he'd stick with it. He liked his coffee a certain way, his jeans starched until they could practically stand on their own, his cornbread in a cast iron skillet, as well as many other things. Even with all of his consistency, He never failed to surprise me though. Whether, it was over stories of his youth, or us sitting in the drive way blaring old country music with all of the truck doors wide open, or us just having long talks while we sat outside on the back porch. And despite the different lives we all lead out here, I believe one thing is certain for all of us, George Baker was one of the greatest men we all knew. He touched each of our lives in some way or another. He was loved and adored by many. And no words could possibly explain how much he'll be missed. He once told me that when God was ready for him, he would be ready. And Last Thursday, God was finally ready to bring him home. I'm so grateful that he's no longer suffering although I find myself feeling selfish for wishing I could see his smile or hear his laugh just one last time. But I was unbelievably proud of the fight he gave. And I will always be grateful for the time I did have with him. For him choosing to be the dad to my mom that he didn't have to be. For all of the choices that were made that led him to be a part of each of our lives. He was an extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life. he will never be forgotten. And I believe with all of my heart that he's watching down on us right now, drinking another cup of coffee awaiting the day we'll meet again.
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sacredcynic · 2 years
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Needs To Be Said
    Once again it has happened, and this time it was in our own backyard.  A frustrated loner dealing with demons decided to make a name for himself and as a result 6 families, and a community will never be the same. This is a time for good words and wisdom, but none are forthcoming. Why pause for wisdom when there are political points to be made, and adversaries to link to the horrific crime? After all, why waste a crisis? This is what sadly passes for wisdom among our political leaders. Yet words are needed. The reality of our current time is that no one is listening. No one is listening in times of great division.  Perhaps no one is listening because no one want to address the problem.  
   I think that is the real reason. Why listen when no one even addresses the issue? Instead of addressing the issue, we revert back to our political bunkers, find a way to use news to attach “them,” and we hurl accusations across the board.  So let’s address the issue. Not the fake issues we hear but the real reasons stories like this happen.  Let’s have a real conversation.  A real conversation means you have to let other people talk. We have trouble doing that. Perhaps we can refrain from calling people names and hear their perspective. Let me throw out the first pitch in this discussion.  Rest assured, I will make you mad.  Everyone.  The truth of the matter is that we are all to blame.  Here is a first pass list of all the ingredients that have created our particular, tragic stew.  
    First, this should be the elephant in the room.  40% of all children born today are born into a fatherless environment.  Showing up once a month with a check is not what a father does. A father is there every day.  A father sometimes has to rather aggressively and strongly take down anti-social or troublesome behavior. Many young men have to learn how to overcome an anger or brooding response that often troubles them. The best teachers are those men who have wise advice that flows from winning the battle themselves.  Besides that 40% there are many other homes where the father has mentally checked out. It is equally the father’s responsibility to raise the kids, and dads play a unique role with young men and how to govern their impulses. If you are a mom who steps in when your husband does something differently than you – you better stop.  And dads, step up to the plate now. This is our fault. 
     One other thing.  I hate to remind us about what was common knowledge until about 10 minutes ago historically – boys and girls are different. They see the world differently, they react differently, and they are impacted by sex and hormones in different ways.  The perpetrators of these acts are young men. We need other men to intervene in their lives earlier, and it would help if we do this without someone jumping from behind a bush to yell “Patriarchy.” This is your fault.  
     To those that insist again and again that the sole issue is the gun, many of us remember a time when kids were excused from school during hunting season and had their guns in their car, and we were not troubled by these events. The gun did not wander into a public place on its own and go off. Collectively we held more tightly onto the notion of values and morals more closely in other times. Collectively, we have spent the last generation or two decrying any values as somehow oppressive and so we have thrown them off. This is the other side of that coin.  This is our fault. 
     There are others who want to confer a near sacred status to the gun. We must admit that we have a societal problem when troubled young men possess a weapon.  The easy thing to do is expect the government to do something.  It is all of our responsibility. Even among those see the value in having a gun, my hope is that we have at least as much investment in the words of Jesus about peacemaking, and turning the other cheek as we do the right bear arms. When we have the right absent some very important language, we become imbalanced.  I do not want to make the mistake of equating gun ownership with a failure to value peace, but we must choose our words and language carefully.  When we elevate the gun – it is our fault.  
     There is a common thread to these crimes, and that is an anti-social aspect to those who commit them.  Young men need socialization. My heart goes out to teachers who labor in impossible situations. They are caught between administrations, parents and their own expectations. Yet in these past few years we have seen leadership of teachers and school administrations work very hard to keep schools closed.  Then we are shocked at a rise in anti-social behavior.  At the same time, we expect a certain level of behavior and etiquette in the classroom while at the same time tossing out the foundations for these behaviors.  We no longer teach civics and the mere mention of God in schools sends school administrators to the fainting couch. We no longer hold up people as examples. We apply hopeless 2022 standards back onto people who could not have even comprehended our time, and if we find any supposed fault, we tear them down and tell every student how awful and bad this country is. We fill them with such disdain and then we are again shocked that some strike out against it. If not this place and time, when else would you choose to be born if you had your historical choice?  And yet we ruthlessly tear this down with all of its benefits and blessings. Perhaps it is time to expect leadership from those who see themselves as leaders.  It is your fault. 
   There are also certain parents we should address. There is an epidemic of parents who try to protect their child from every slight and harm.  Johnny didn’t fail the test because he did not know the answers, but because the teacher didn’t like him.  Your kid doesn’t disrupt the class, the teacher picks on him.  Nothing is ever your child’s fault, which might be a trait he learned from mom and dad. Right now, it seems the responsible parents are pulling out of the school system.  Is this a recipe for success?  Keep standards high and enforce those standards.  Do not lower them for anyone. When a teacher is tough on our kids, we should see that for the learning opportunity it is, and not something that I have to protect my child from.  To every teacher that was tough on me, who expected more from me than I did from myself, who made me push hard and yelled at me when I did not hustle – THANK YOU !! When we pull away from a challenge – it is our fault. 
   I can’t believe that this needs to be said, but it does.  To those who produce video games that feature and dramatize violence and shooting others – this is your fault. I do not want to make a law, but I appeal to whatever shred of morality and decency that you may yet harbor – stop doing it. This desensitizes people to death. And while you may be right that these “games” do not harm a normally functioning person, they undoubtedly affect those who commit these crimes. We know from previous cases the level of involvement that many had in these games.  Just because you can does not mean you should. There is something higher to aspire to than another dollar of profit. 
   The same goes for those who continue to produce music that both glorifies and normalizes violence against women, police and other societal figures. You cannot continue to produce such content and then decry the acts that are downstream from the content you produce.  This is your fault. 
  Even more people will not like me now.  There is a mythic story that most of us like to hear.  While the details are different, the plot is the same.  The lone figure enters a situation and makes things right by themselves. In a previous era that figure might have been Atticus Finch, but now it is Liam Neeson with a particular set of skills, or Denzel Washington with an accurate nail gun. As the body count goes higher and higher we cheer more and more, even as we shake our head at the news where body counts are a grim reality. The truth is we have grown far too comfortable with fictionalized scenes not that different from the reality we saw yesterday.  Perhaps our own choices add to the profit of those who create that content and adds to a calloused culture. What we tolerate, we will get more of.  It is our fault.   
        To our political leaders, and I use the term “leader” very lightly, start to lead.  Leading is not what is done in the aftermath of an event, but every day. Stop using every news cycle as a chance to win the news conference and be a leader of all the people. Stop demonizing others in the vain attempt to score points. Stop seeing every event as the chance to fund raise for your campaign. This is time to take a breath and take a larger look at our culture and your role in the dialogue. This might be a good time to lower the temperature instead of raising it so your fund-raising can increase, and incidentally you get to keep what you do not spend on the election. When you decry a pet issue while engaging in legalized graft you should see this is not the best look, and people notice. This is your fault. 
     To our churches, it is time to step up and not because we choose to engage in one end of the political arena. We have too much politics already and not enough engagement. We need to step in where there are no fathers. We need to not only hear love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness and self-control, but see it in action. We need to keep our own standards high and lead from strength.  There are some who like their Christianity muscular, and this is a time to flex.  This is not the time for another political voice, but physical presence in homes and neighborhoods. To the extent that we have not, this is our fault. 
     If I have any friends left this is where I lose them. We hear the word “safety” far too often.  The reaction is pull back and think solely about safety. This is exactly the opposite of what is needed. We need to engage more, not less.  We need to meet more people, not less. We need to love more, not less. With each engagement, and each new person we meet the odds for loss and hurt increase, but so do the odds for redemption and grace.  Grace always requires a risk. This is something that Jesus knew, and went anyway.  Now it is our turn. 
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