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coffeeandcalligraphy · 4 years

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Blood Sister | Feeding Habits Update #5

Hey People of Earth!

Are we back for another Feeding Habits update? Today let’s chat chapter six!

Blood Sister is the first chapter in Harrison’s POV and also the longest chapter in the book (a little over 8k words). It took me about a month to write!

Scene A:

Harrison gets back to the NYC apartment he shares with his mother after running errands to ward off either the spirit that haunts their walls or to rescue whatever is stuck in them. His mother preps for a dinner as Harrison has invited his old pal Reeve over.

Scene B:

Harrison removes a litter of kittens from behind the drywall. One of the kittens is dead. Strangely, a German Shepherd puppy is also in the litter.

Scene C:

Reeve appears in a glamorous blur and makes an interesting first impression on Suz who seems slightly stunned and endeared by her.

Scene D:

At dinner Reeve confronts Harrison about his “straight-edge” lifestyle since moving to NYC and he realizes her judgements about his life being monotonous are very true--he lacks purpose.

Scene E:

Harrison and his mother clear the dishes and Suzanna confronts him on the fact that he hasn’t told her that Reeve is in fact Lonan’s sister. Suz knows the boys’ relationship is complicated, and plays Devil’s advocate by outright asking Reeve how her brother is. Reeve, who hasn’t seen Lonan longer than Harrison, has assumed Lonan lives with them or is close by, and feels semi-betrayed that Harrison has kept his whereabouts a secret.

Scene F:

Reeve and Harrison drive to a garden and he’s reminded of the event that lead to him and his mother’s return to the east coast.

Harrison meets Winona outside a convenience store, the same woman Lonan meets in ch.6 of Moth Work. She takes him to her mansion where she’s hosting a party and introduces him to her husband. Harrison makes multiple bad decisions which you can probably figure out for yourself!

Scene G:

Harrison wakes up in Winona’s house and is confused to see her and her husband standing over his leather jacket. If we remember what happened in ch. 6 of Moth Work, Lonan gets beat up by Winona’s husband and has Harrison’s jacket & angel chain stolen. We can assume from this scene that Winona has a) recognized the jacket and b) chosen him to come back to her house for the purpose of also beating him up (which happens).

Scene H:

Reeve and Harrison jump a fence into a garden to give the dead kitten an unorthodox “water burial” in the garden’s fountain. Reeve confronts him on why no one has seemed to care about her whereabouts for the last year, and also suggests the only reason he wanted to see her now is because he misses Lonan. Harrison miserably drinks too much wine.

Scene I:

Harrison wakes up in the cold, very drunk, and Reeve is gone. A security guard looms over him. Harrison asks the confused man if he thinks he was separated at birth. Harrison isn’t referring to feeling like he’s been removed from a sibling bond, like the kittens, but a deeper, “indissoluble bond” formed between two people (like the kittens and the puppy). This connects to the title “Blood Sister” as Reeve suggests she and Suzanna may be connected in this way, to the kittens, and to Lonan and Harrison.

This idea of “indissoluble bonds” was reinforced when I listened to Stephanie Harlowe’s coverage on the Parker-Hulme case, and this was the title of her video! This idea of an immutable connection between two people who are forever separated, like the dead kitten despite its death, still being connected to its siblings, was very relevant to how Harrison feels about Lonan.

Excerpts:

Here’s the entire first scene <3

Something has died in the drywall. Suz insists there must also be a ghost—she hears cries when she sleeps—so when Harrison returns to their apartment with both a handsaw and a bottle of holy water, she’s more than pleased.

Today, it snows in New York City, and no amount of brushing off his hair and jacket rids him of the snowflakes he tracks in. His face stings with the bitter early March air, and he’s resettled easily into the east coast grit; he likes the taste of instant coffee and the smell of gasoline.

Harrison shoulders off his jacket, the leather rigid with frost, and undoes the loop of his scarf one-handed. The apartment smells overwhelmingly of cloves and apple peel, and he is unsurprised when his mother rushes over to him, flushed from the kitchen heat, her #1 Dad apron bunching at her hips, and pushes a highball glass into his palm in exchange for his findings.

“It’s a secret recipe,” she says, twiddling through his errands. Suzanna lifts the bottle of holy water to eye level, unscrews its cap, and daps two soaked fingers to her lips just as he dips his fingers into the glass, around its rim, and then into his mouth. The hot mull of liquid bursts against his taste buds, citrusy. “Wish I believed in this shit as much as I believe nutmeg is my new holy saviour.”

Harrison downs the rest of the glass’s contents, the cider’s spice grafting down his throat. Its heat clings to the roof of his mouth, a subtle burn that numbs his tongue, but he likes it, its sweetened acid like a rucking back to life.

“Is that the secret?” He runs his pinky along the base of the glass so the last drops of liquid climb up his fingernail.

“The Lord?”

Harrison laughs and accepts the holy water she hands him, rescrews its cap in place. “Nutmeg.”

Suzanna takes his empty glass and whisks toward the kitchen. On the stove burbles two saucepans and one Dutch oven, the fan whirring like the pleats of an accordion.

“Maybe it’s both,” she says.

You asked for the entire second scene? Here Harrison finds the litter of kittens:

The first thing Harrison removes when he saws through the drywall lining the two-prong outlet is a dead kitten. Its body shifts onto his hand with damp weight, like an overripe pear, its silver hair glass-like under the beam of his flashlight. Though it sits comfortably in the pit of his palm, though he knows he cannot kill or revive it, his first instinct is to lay it on the beach towel Suzanna laid out because he fears he’ll crush it with just one pulse of his thumb.

Its eyes are the size of his pinkie nail, gently shuttered like it’s drifted to a lawless sleep. The animal will remain in this state—only death, but as he looks at it, braying its hairs back with his forefinger, he considers alternative options. Harrison knows little of necromancy, but considers anointing it with the holy water, lighting a red-cased candle in front of it, chanting a verse from Revelations.

With the flashlight secured between his molars, Harrison pulls out four more kittens, all that mew as they cling to his fingers, their noses twitching against his skin like it’s feed. They burrow into the beach towel, trampling over one another with blind fervency, all shimmery silver. In comparison to their deceased sibling, they wriggle, pink-nosed, and don’t settle against the grain of the towel, always wagging, like earthworms.

Harrison believes he’s done—removed the dead animal and rescued four more. Good work which he’ll take to a farm just outside the city—Suzanna has a friend. He’s nearly clicked off the flashlight when he sees it, just a subtle glint of something else—an animal that isn’t silver, but a dry brown.

At first, he thinks it’s a rat that’s raked through the walls to where it is now, but the longer he shines the flashlight, the more he sees it is not a rat, or even a kitten. What sits, jittering behind the outlet, is a pup.

Like the kittens, its nose twitches back and forth, its eyes small enough to be the ovular black beads on Suzanna’s rosary which hangs, decorative, above the front entrance. “It’s a cleanse for the spirit,” Suz said when he questioned her reasoning for bringing religious memorabilia into a house of two atheists. “Dianne from church told me.” Dianne is a beer-bellied schoolteacher, proud pothead and mother of four who frequently volunteers at the church’s weekend functions with his mother. “She’s into that kind of thing. Seances. Jesus Christ. I think she mentioned they had something spicy going on in college.”

“Something spicy?”

“Spicy. Like hot wings. Habaneros. One-night stands. I don’t know Harry, it sounded illicit.”

They both grinned.

Harrison does not know when him and Suz began getting along. There was no one date or time, no anniversary to look forward to for their official reunion. One moment he struggled not comparing her face to the one he knew in his early teens, and the next, they crouched over a salad bowl of burnt popcorn, taking turns painting each other’s fingernails with the same shade of red nail polish—Crazy for Carmine

The dog can’t yet focus its eyes on anything, but Harrison swears it stares at him. It fidgets from its position crouched on the outlet, so when he extends his hand, an offering, he’s surprised when it crouches onto the tip of his finger, shimmying into his palm. It’s even smaller when he holds it, plum-sized, and velveteen. Its eyelids flicker like the apartment’s bad TV signal, and when it opens its mouth to cry, its teeth, no larger than the tip of a toothpick, prick up.

“You’re not a tabby,” he says, drags his fingers through the suede-like gloss of its fur. The pup curls against his knuckles, murmurs languidly until Harrison pets its head again.

“Did you say something, Harry?”

Harrison stands from his crouch when his mother materializes from her bedroom, the animal still pared delicately in his palm. When he glances at her, he’s surprised to see she’s changed out of her usual loungewear, a tank top and bell-bottoms, and into a patterned shirtdress that sways to her knees. The Matisse-like design, organic shapes, all the colour of a celery stalk, drapes to her knees, flounces when she twirls for him.

“I thought we agreed on business casual,” he says, but smiles wider the longer he looks at her. Tulle gathers in a funnel down her waist, pluming her so she looks less like his mother and more like a fairy.

“I’m taking the business side, and you’ll take the casual.”

“She’s just a friend, Mom. She’s not expecting anything.”

“She’s got an English last name,” Suz says. Her eyelids glitter with gold pigment, her lips tacky with rouge. “Of course she’s classy.”

Harrison thumbs the back of the pup’s head and shifts closer to Suzanna when she cocks her head toward it.

“I think Reeve is more than classy,” he says. “Maybe stylish. Exclusive. Superior. Glamorous.”

Suzanna shifts the pup from Harrison’s hands to her own, neatly patting its head with her pinkie until its murmurs soften. When she holds the animal, it’s like he no longer stands behind her. It’s just her in her Matisse dress and the dog, comfortably blinking in her hand. “You found a puppy in a litter of kittens?” she says, less of a question, and more of a declaration of wonderment. She lifts the animal to eye level. Its nose wrinkles, like the skin of a fig. “Looks like mama picked up a stray. A beautiful stray. You’re absolutely beautiful.”

Reeve making only iconic appearances:

Reeve appears in their doorway wearing cat-eye sunglasses, a bottle of pinot noir slatted between her arm and chest. Though it’s been storming since early morning and there has been no sun in the city since the week previous, her appearance is so believable—cheekbones subtly tanned like she’s mastered the timing for a perfect sunlike glow, the sunglasses teetering neatly on the tip of her nose and staying there, like they’re a dog she’s taught to sit and stay—that Harrison’s almost convinced she commissions the sun to come out twice daily for a private show, just for her.

“We booked an appointment,” she says, letting herself into the apartment in a faux-fur blur.

Harrison swivels as she unzips, tooth by tooth, the red skin-slick vinyl of her gogo boots. Her hair falls in an untamed fringe around her forehead, the front sections pinned back by an array of rainbow-coloured butterfly clips. It mimics the fray of her jacket, fluffed around the hood’s perimeter.

Reeve dusts snow off her corduroy culottes, readjusts the collar of her black turtleneck. “When I moved to the city, I forgot how gruelling the winters can become.” She taps the heels of her boots onto the welcome mat so slush flakes onto the rubber before slipping her feet out elegantly, like Cinderella. “I almost believed New York City existed in a fictional bubble where everything remained dry and hot, like in Egypt, or the Mojave. When I asked for a hellish climate, I was hoping for sun and the occasional forest fire. Not ice and more ice.”

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” Suz speaks where Harrison’s words shrivel. She steps from the kitchen to the entrance, her dress flouncing when she extends a hand toward Reeve. “William Shakespeare.”

Reeve looks up. The cold has pinched her cheeks pink, drooled water to her eyes so when she blinks, tears sprout to her jawline. “Suzanna,” Reeve says, and embraces his mother with willful ease, like they’ve been girlfriends for a decade, like they purchase pavlova from the same patisserie at the same time on Thursdays, like they help each other whip perfectly fatty meringues at the same baking class so they can master the same pavlova and never buy it again. “I’ve heard nothing about you and yet I feel we’ve known each other for years. What do they call that? Blood sisters.”

So here’s the whole third scene lol:

At dinner, Reeve pops the cork of a bottle of pinot noir with her teeth before Suz tells her she and Harrison don’t drink. She’s in the middle of saying she’s a prophet, the bringer of wine, her lips parted around the cork, traces of her lip gloss gumming around its circumference.

“No alcohol?” Reeve says, spitting the cork into her palm so a glob of red transfers onto her skin.

Suz stirs a serving dish of clams with an olive wood spoon, their shells phosphorescent in the artificial light. “Harry and I have taken a break from spirits. Except for the holiest one of course.” She points to the roof as if signaling to the man upstairs and dishes a spoonful of clams onto Reeve’s plates, the shells chiming against the ceramic.

“That’s so reverent.” Reeve pricks the edge of a clam with a toothpick and swallows its frill into her mouth. “So virginal.”

Harrison accepts a spoonful of clams from his mother and adjusts a sprig of rosemary so it lies perpendicular to the plate’s edge. Olive oil gums under his fingernails and soaks into the fibres of a slice of bread he rips at the crust.

“I always assumed you’d be a partier if you ever moved back to the city,” Reeve says, and it takes Harrison a moment to realize she’s speaking to him. “Disco. Karaoke. Cocktails. Men who buy you cocktails.”

“Has that been your life in New York, Reeve?” Harrison sucks a lobe of clam between his lips. Its brine coats his tongue in a burst of salt and cilantro.

Reeve tips the bottle of wine to her mouth, its red gift bow shifting, silverish with light. “You could say that. I just expected more. Not that your life now is boring. But I assumed there would be more glamour.”

Harrison sops up a dribble of oil onto a shear of bread, and says something like, “I thought so too,” before swallowing.

“We have glamour,” Suz says as Harrison absently eats more clams. She points to the chandelier the two found at the bottom of a New Jersey dumpster, yet to be installed, sitting in its crystal glory on the floor. She explains the story of how it came to be as Harrison eats and listens for the mewing of the kittens, thinks about their one dead sibling that now lies curled inside a shoebox, separated in eternal rest.

Reeve is not wrong. Life in New York City has been far from glamorous. He shares this apartment with his mother who pays for all of the rent—it’s been months since Harrison could hold down a steady job. He tries with odds and ends—repairing a neighbour’s bathroom sink, tacking sconces up outside the apartment for a hundred bucks. His room is a décor-less box that smells like wallpaper even though it’s sanded smooth and painted with two coats of an eggshell-finished oatmeal white. There is no dancing, no music, no colour, no partying, no alcohol or men with alcohol. Not anymore, at least. Her statement should not sting—this is the utter truth. The apartment is repetitive shades of indistinctive creams, furniture he and his mother pick up off the curbs of wealthy homeowners, incomplete, yet his home, nonetheless. No matter the story Suz tries to spin—look at the exposed brick, look at the counter space, look at the custom-moulded baseboards the previous renters installed—he knows what Reeve has said is true. Life in the city is comfortable but monotonous—an unrelenting kind of normal.

“We found kittens,” Harrison says, promptly interrupting the women’s conversation that has quickly moved away from the apartment to their favourite places to eat gelato. Suz’s clam drifts off her toothpick; Reeve almost chokes on a gulp of wine. Harrison swipes a chunk of bread through olive oil and chews. “That’s glamorous.”

Reeve sets the wine bottle back onto the dinner table and folds her hands over the other. Her manicure is chipped, just the remnants of a tortoiseshell marble. “What kind? Calico?”

“They’re just kittens. And a dog.”

“You found a dog in a litter of kittens?”

Harrison eats one last clam and finishes his portion of bread. “Glamorous,” he says, his mouth half-full.

The beginning of scene 4:

While Suz and Reeve discuss room décor and clear the plates, Harrison checks on the kittens. Dishes clank rhythmically as they’re soaped, rinsed, dried, the ceramic whimpering in time with the kittens. He hasn’t named any but understands their differences. Though the quadruplets share the same silver coat, one has a slightly larger nose than the rest, one has a fleck of gold in its blue eye, one has pinstripes scrolled across its forehead like a branch of lightning—small details like this differentiate them.

In his palm, the one with the golden eye crawls, its underbelly sateen. Tomorrow, he’ll make the drive just outside Brooklyn where he’ll drop the kittens off at an old farmhouse. Suz’s friend from rehab is selling it, some Theodore Harvey, but his wife fosters animals, and was delighted to have the new additions. Though he hasn’t spoken to his mother about this arrangement, he also knows tomorrow he will keep the dog. Juniper, he’s named her—June with the eyes like a solstice.

When his mother pokes him, he jumps, and the kitten shimmies off his palm.

The sounds of dishes clinking morphs into the filmy mutter of a talkshow Reeve watches, sipping absently at her gifted bottle of red wine.

She nudges a pastry into his hand, where the kitten once sat, the skin of the pasteis de nata oiling his hand. He crunches into it as she watches patiently, as if waiting for a review, and its caramel flavour ruminates on his tongue.

“This is good,” he says around a mouthful of pastry.

“$4.99.” Suz smiles and takes a nibble herself. “For six.”

Together they stand over the kittens, passing the tart back and forth until Harrison gives the final piece to his mother. The apartment whirs with the calculated singe of automated laughter and the purr of the kittens. He knows one sits dead in a shoebox on his bedroom dresser. The ground too hard to dig, a burial still necessary.

Suz licks a crumb from her thumb and wipes her palms along the skirt of her dress. Their focus shifts to Reeve who lies sprawled against the two-seater, yelling something at a contestant on the show who’s gotten an answer wrong—tulip, not two lips. That’s fabulous. You are fabulously a failure.

“You didn’t tell me she was Lonan’s sister.”

Harrison pokes at a flake of pastry and wipes his hands on the front of his jeans. Reeve’s bangles clatter in a cyan jangle as she applauds at the same contestant she previously ridiculed. There are so many things he could say to his mother—he knew Reeve first, Reeve isn’t just Lonan’s sister to him, more like his own, but when he adjusts himself, swallowing and tidying the hem of his shirt, all that comes out is, “I didn’t think you needed to know.”

“I would’ve like to,” Suz says. “Does she know? That you don’t know where he is?”

Harrison’s fingernail catches on a loose thread, and he yanks it out so even Reeve glances back at its upholstered plink. “I know where he is, Suzanna.”

Reeve and Suz being icons (direct continuation from the above):

Harrison turns back to the kittens who plow over one another like ants. Heat flushes his throat, prickles his cheeks and ears and suctions like a vacuum. Though Suzanna eventually leaves, joining Reeve on the couch, propping her feet on the same coffee table so their polished feet touch, toes pink like raw cherry tomatoes, though he knows they’re both right in knowing and not knowing where Lonan is, though he knows it should no longer matter to him, he finds himself leaning against the table where the kittens encase each other in a plastic shoe bin, ticking his fingers at his side.

He does not know what the reality television show is about. From the blots he hears from the TV’s can-like speaker, he concludes it’s something about botany, love, vengeance, fertilizer. No one theme—it does not even know what it is itself. Suz has materialized with another tart, and she and Reeve nibble at it with fervency, so close, their tongues almost touch as they dart across the custard. The sight is almost viper-like, their teeth notched forward, and it should be venomous, or at its worst—friendly, but all Harrison sees is girlish, maternal intimacy.

Suz and Reeve laugh at a contestant who wears a tartan printed jumpsuit and mismatching earrings—one the shape of a pineapple, the other an urn-like bead she claims holds the ashes of her great aunt. They outline her figure with their pinkies. They clutch each other’s hands. They flush like beets and wipe crumbs from each other’s mouths.

Reeve’s momentary lapse into delicacy:

Harrison turns his back and pretends to tend to the kittens. They all know he does nothing but thumb the backs of their heads, let them suckle against his fingertips—they all know, and yet, he continues doing it. Silence cuts through the apartment like hot glass.

If Reeve and Suzanna still touch toes, it’s because neither want to loosen the other’s pride. The only sound in the room belongs to the television which has moved away from dishwashing to a watering hose—four for four, as if this is a discount, as if anyone will truly need that many watering hoses.

“I haven’t seen your brother since late August,” Harrison says once the commercials simmer back to the gaudy laughter of the reality television show. At first, he doesn’t look at Reeve. He knows what he’ll see—some form of betrayal. She didn’t come here looking for Lonan. She hasn’t even asked for him, but he knows what he’ll see when he looks at her. Best friends do not keep secrets.

When he concedes, he is right. Reeve looks at him from under a thick smear of kohl, her eyes focused, like slate beads. Her lips are pink from wine and she unhinges a fleck of opal nail polish from her thumb. Her mouth does not move, a straight line that cranks with her jaw.

“Where is he?” she asks, fluttering her lashes when Suz pats her arm. If Harrison is right, Reeve hasn’t see her brother since she peered in on him when the two shared the tent, pearled a few smoke rings from Harrison’s cigar, and left for the east coast. Before he left, Foster filled him in on the details of her eventual cross-country desertion, though there weren’t many. How he’d last seen her at the motel, a margarita wobbling in her palm, what she’d said to him, to stay special, that there weren’t many people like him left, and how she had vanished like vapour by the time they realized to check. While Reeve hiked across the country by herself, he and Lonan swam through nighttide and badly waltzed in a four-by-four bathroom. She made an anonymous life in New York City, hailing cabs with just her eyes, and learning the easiest ways to shoplift. Alone. Her last memory of Lonan one where he pretended to sleep so he didn’t have to say goodbye to her.

“Las Vegas the last time I saw him,” Harrison says. He feels the urge to apologize for something, to hug her, or cry. Though her expression unbends from severe back to her perfected mould of glitzy conviction, her momentary lapse into delicacy startles him. He looks back to the kittens who seem more interested in themselves than him.

Reeve tightens her grip around the neck of the wine bottle and tactfully sips, her pinkie erect, her lips pursed just the right amount. “What happened?” she asks and sets the bottle onto the coffee table. She lets a dribble of wine fall from her mouth so she can dab at it like a wounded animal.

Harrison and Reeve in the car:

Harrison brings the box with the dead kitten and Reeve brings the bottle of pinot noir. Together, they settle in her red Beetle convertible, a car she insists she pawned for a quarter its listing price, though he figures from the way she settles in it, carefully placing the wine bottle in the cup holder, wiping her hands on her thighs as if checking for grease, that it must belong to a roommate or boyfriend, if she has either. The car smells faintly of pineapple and vanilla, a scent not unfamiliar to him, the waft strengthening as the tree-shaped air-freshener swings closer to him with every turn.

Reeve asks vaguely of his time in the city, how life has been for him and his mother since they moved from Vegas in mid October. Her mouth flutters with speech, each word like the hull of a hard candy she specially tastes before sharing. Has it been marvellous, just as you thought? Don’t you ever wonder how a city could become so brilliant? Isn’t the weather maddening? Don’t you adore it? She asks about Foster, what living with him was like, what saying goodbye to him the week previous was like—was it tragic—and he could tell her his move in with him and his mother wasn’t much of a plan—not a last resort either, but a salvaging. A necessary resuscitation. Reeve’s lips as dubious as shadow puppets.

Here’s some of the flashback with Winona at the convenience store:

The woman stood under the hex of the convenience store’s light, spooling her in a feverish blue. The sun had been down for hours, but its residual heat clung to Harrison’s arms in tacky gusts that wound up his fingers. Like the woman, he reached for his cigarettes. Vehicles spun across the highway just beyond the gas station, and when he raised his head after lighting the cigarette, the woman was staring at him.

“Aren’t you too young to be out without a parent or guardian?” she asked. Her hair was the colour of his mother’s candlesticks, a waxy boxed red. Her rings waggled in the false light.

“Maybe,” he said, a curl of smoke looping out of his mouth. “Can’t remember which life I’m on. There are so many. I could be ninety-seven. Tomorrow might be my birthday.”

It was September in Las Vegas. White licks of car exhaust laced the black sky, and though it wasn’t cold, Harrison pulled his jacket tighter around his chest.

Winona tries to figure out whether or not Harrison is a local by getting to know his eyes/face lol:

Harrison dropped the butt of his cigarette and stomped out its embers. When it was fully out, he fit his hands into his jacket pocket and approached the woman. Up close, her trench coat was pebbled with lint, a bead from her charm bracelet missing. She crushed her cigarette too, and when her hands were free, she stepped toward him with both palms out, and pressed them to his cheeks so he felt both the heat of her skin and the watery bite of her jewelry. She examined each plane of his face as if they were sides of a prism. Her perfume, a vinegary sort of citrus, stung his eyes the closer she got, the fur of her jacket’s trim brushing his chin when she pressed to her toes for a better look.

“You could be so many things,” she said, tilting his jaw at the same moment her pinkie slid from the jab of his nose bridge to his top lip. She pushed her face closer to his and inhaled, her plastic nail marking his skin with a pixel of glitter. “You’ve got the face of an angel. Which means you’re good. You’re sacred. You’re discreet.” When her finger poked into his mouth, her knuckle snagged on his canines. “Could also mean you’re a fraud. A criminal. You know, Lucifer wasn’t always the fallen angel.”

A bit of the party:

Winona’s front lawn was manicured, cropped neat at its soil scalp. Clusters of people huddled in different places—four gargling in the stone fountain just before the iron gate, two drinking from three martini glasses at once, a group of on their backs, arms wound like a wicker basket, shot glasses teetering between their teeth like human serving tables.

Winona parked opposite the house that pulsed with light. Harrison got out when she did, and with ease, she punched into the gate, leading him past her perfect lawn, her party guests, as if they were simply garden statues.

Inside, more people concentrated, all stopping Winona for a moment to say hello as she passed. She moved in a way only the owner of a house would, her strides easy, like she knew exactly where to take him and when.

“I know it’s busy,” Winona said, adjusting her volume for the holler of party guests. “I promise it’s always like that. Who is it that says we need partners for life? God or my therapist? This is that but every week. You meet so many people.”

Harrison listened to her haphazardly. Though he’d been in Las Vegas for a month, he hadn’t been out except for a few errands at the grocery store or for cigarettes, despite his mother’s insistence he quit. The party was overwhelming. Bass from the stereo caught him by the throat and held him there as he and Winona threaded through her house that seemed closer to a mansion. The interior smelled like cleaning bleach and fruit cocktails, and he could hardly walk without someone rearing into him. He should’ve left, known better, done better, but it thrilled him, every moment of the party’s chokehold.

When Winona pushed through her French doors and out to the back pool, Harrison tailed her closely, unsure he’d be able to keep pace if he lost sight of her, even for a moment. The backyard smelled artificially floral, like orchids, tuberose, the grassy melt of citronella candles.

Some of my fave Harrison dialogue:

“You should’ve told me you were into vintage. Cheap but chic. I like it, angel.” Her ring finger smushed into his jaw, and then against his hairline.

“What’s vintage about me?”

Winona laughed, though her eyes remained glass-like. “Your jacket, of course. You’re thrifty. Into second-hand.”

~~theme makes an appearance:

It was only later, when he stumbled, bloody knuckled, through their front door, stepping over partygoers and martini glasses, that he understood. He hadn’t come to the party thinking about Lonan but managed to attract the same people. He hadn’t drunk the magenta liquid thinking about him but managed to exit the house stumbling, as he did, his knees knotted like a newborn lamb. There was something inconceivably indissoluble about them—their bond mirror-like, one making one decision, and the other mimicking it with vigour, unknowingly inseparable.

God tier denial:

“What do you miss about him?”

Harrison blinks. He hasn’t expected her to speak to him again, in fact he’s pictured the night whittling into gauzy silence, them setting the box afloat in the fountain, and then leaving once more, wordless. Reeve drinks another sip of wine. Its scent stings, like earthy cranberries.

“I don’t,” he says, which is a lie, and they both know it. Harrison has never been a good liar, but especially a bad liar around Reeve who’s always managed to snuff out the truth. She looks at him in absolutes, like she sees his every answer scraped into his cheek and doesn’t need to check his work. Her eyes are feline and rimmed with kohl and aquamarine mica—she doesn’t need anyone to tell her the truth because she holds it in her fist. “He has a girlfriend. He’s happy.” Harrison rations more wine down his tongue, three times as much as he’s intended to drink.

“But what do you miss about him?”

Harrison misses nothing. He sleeps little and smokes too much because he misses nothing. He walks by himself, eats by himself, talks to himself because he misses nothing. He jumps from job to job, person to person, place to place because he misses nothing. He wakes up in dazes the colour of blackberries because he misses nothing. He blinks dreams from his eyelashes like they’re bad spells because he misses nothing. He holds himself, he drinks himself, he leaves no company for anyone because he misses nothing about Lonan. He misses absolutely nothing.

Harrison sits up and lifts the dead kitten’s box. He feels Reeve’s gaze when he lowers it into the fountain, the box giving into the slosh of water, and feels her gaze once more when he sits back and drinks more wine. The moon makes him miserable, its silver gloat like a reminder, of how easy it would be to look at it and see Lonan’s face appear in its dime. He doesn’t register how much he drinks, just that it feels better than not drinking. He doesn’t register that Reeve never takes the bottle, that it’s just him and its open gape of wine. As the kitten swirls around the fountain, he tries not to think of its siblings back at the apartment, all mottled over each other like burrs. An unbreakable bond, and what that means, even as one of them sits alone, gurgling along the current of a fountain.

If you didn’t ask for angst before, you sure did now:

He does not remember falling asleep, and so waking up feels illusory, shimmery, like a mirage. He focuses on dart of yellow light and a man wearing a security uniform telling him he can’t be here, here being the garden, past the fence, under the fountain. Snowflakes have clumped against his eyelashes and he blinks twice to dislodge them. The man must ask him if he’s intoxicated, never noticing the shoebox floating in the fountain, because Harrison says, “Who’s to say? I miss so many things,” and isn’t talking about the bottle of wine or Reeve that both seem to have vanished, as if they were never there. Harrison blinks again, searching for Reeve’s outline somewhere in the crisp bushel of dead foliage, but she never reappears—has he imagined the entire thing, or is she magical, effervescent, invisible? What was the last thing she said? Drink it all. It’s good for you. It’s like your own personal healing tonic.

“Do you think it’s possible I was separated at birth?” Harrison asks the security guard, who leads him by the elbow out past the iron gate and into the parking lot where he stumbles over a patch of glazy slush and onto his knees.

“Are you a twin?”

Harrison draws his index finger through the slush, doodling nonsense—letters of his name, an eyeball, a singular, faceless nose. “I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“Your twin?”

Harrison shakes his head.

Snow and slush dredge his jeans and the hem of his jacket; a streetlamp filters him and the security guard in foamy yellow. His skin has numbed from sitting out in the cold too long, and in some places, prickles with heat, like the fritz of pine needles. Reeve has dissolved in the fresh spatter of snow that settles on the pavement, his fingers. The fur fringe of her hood gone, the slick of her boots. She will not be here tomorrow. He may never see her again, and yet this is not what makes him ache in the way he does.

His hands move for him. Dividing the snow in slopes, curves, lines—letters. When he’s finished, he rests his chin on his own shoulder and dries the slop of slush from his nail. The security guard leans over, bends down to get a better look, but Harrison doesn’t have to look to know what he’s written. Chiselled so the flurries fill its gaps, like cement. His name will be erased by dawn. Lonan.

So that’s it for this very, very long update! See you for chapter seven!

--Rachel

#writing #amwriting #writeblr #writerblr #writingupdates #fostered #mothwork #feedinghabits

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profiler-in-courage · 4 years

Text

I am humbled 16 people have read my Claes Bang detective bullshit lol. Here is Ch. 2 & 3. Long af as always.

(I have yet to think of a title. Someone send me suggestions plz)

Chapter 2.

The 7th Precinct was a media frenzy when Emerson pulled up. By 8 am, all the local news outlets had received some tip about the latest murders and it looked like all of them had sent a reporter.

Emerson scanned the outside of the building, trying to find an entrance that wasn’t guarded by media. He stuffed case files he had taken home into his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder, ready to walk-sprint.

He lowered his gaze to the ground. Eye contact was what got you.

As he reached the sanctuary of a door, he mentally congratulated himself on avoiding the bombardment of questions he quite frankly, wasn’t prepared to answer.

He sat his bag on his desk and headed over to Burnham. His sarcastic best friend of seven years always made the morning after a murder less dark.

“Hey Emerson,” Burnham sipped through a mug of milk.

An unusual quirk about him was that Jacob Burnham simply drank plain milk. Never coffee.

Whole, 2 percent, 1 percent, nonfat, whatever was in the back office fridge was good enough for him.

Forty or seven-years-old? Nobody knew Burnham’s true age.

“Forensics came in,” he waved a file at Emerson. “No prints or DNA of any kind, same as always. Christ.”

Burnham shook his dirty blonde head and handed the papers over.

“Fuck Em, we are never going to catch this guy unless he leaves us something.”

Emerson flipped through the forensics report. Like Burnham had described there was nothing of significance.

“He will eventually slip up, they always do,” he said, trying to be the positive one.

“Did the families have anything to offer?”

His friend shook his head, “Just the usual. Victims never got into any trouble, well behaved, no enemies. Nothing out of the ordinary. Can’t imagine why anyone would want two 15-year-old girls dead.”

Emerson’s mind flashed to Abigail. He was afraid for her. She was smart, but he was sure Halley Reece and Melanie Myers had been smart too. Hell, they may have even known his niece. Same high school.

The image of Abigail lying in a ditch somewhere creeped across his mind. He shut his eyes.

The feeling of dread was slowly worming its way back into his stomach.

He went back to his desk, dropping the very thin report onto it.

It barely made a sound.

He pulled his phone out of his bag. It was the first time he was checking it this morning.

He was bad at that.

One text from his sister and one message from Gwyn.

He opened his sister’s first.

Emerson, the girls they found last night went to Abigail’s school….this just became a little too close for comfort. I almost made her stay home today.

He sighed, not knowing what to say to Eve. Obviously she couldn’t lock Abigail up in the house, the girl had to go to school and have a life.

You can’t stop living just because of horrors, he thought.

He sympathized with his sister though, he was just as worried for his niece as she was.

He scratched his eyebrow and opened up Gwyn’s message next.

G: 203-637-1366

Was that her phone number? He scrolled to see if she had said anything either before or after, but she had not. It was just her phone number. Or so he assumed.

Quite bold, he thought. But he oddly liked the cut to the chase showing.

“Any luck in that department?”

Burnham was standing over his shoulder looking down at the open Tinder app.

Emerson slipped the phone into his front pocket, “Not really.”

“I told you to go on that date with Kate’s sister. Who knows, you could be getting laid every night.” Burnham shrugged.

Emerson scoffed, “Your wife’s sister is 59 remember?”

A stupid smile flashed across Burnham’s face, “Hey but she’s single! And how do you know you don’t like older women?”

Emerson blinked, at a loss for words.

“All I’m saying is we could be brother in laws. Take one for the team Em!”

Emerson swiveled to his computer screen.

“I see you enough already,” he grumbled.

Burnham slapped him on the back, laughing softly.

Emerson poured over the photos on his desk. One of a woman with the soles of her feet skinned to the point where you could see the bone, another with such horrendous strangulation marks around the neck the purple coloration was almost black. Both were women who had been killed by the Creekmore Serial Killer.

He was deep in thought, trying to see some connection between all the victims, something he did routinely with no success for this case.

It was like looking at a math problem he didn’t have the formula for.

The pocket of his dark blue wool button-up buzzed. It was a text from Gwyn.

G: So what are you looking to get out of a dating app?

Emerson paused before answering, trying to find sufficient words to make “looking to date” sound less horrendous.

E: Looking to date. What about you?

He figured he may as well just tell the truth.

G: I’m looking to get absolutely wild in the bedroom. Nothing more, nothing less.

Emerson’s eyebrows sprung up. Maybe he had misjudged Gwyn. He wasn’t looking for just sex.

Burnham always joked that Emerson should be a priest.

He figured he would wait to respond if he responded at all. The excitement about his new match had been all but snuffed out after her proclamation.

He pushed his glasses up so they rested on the top of his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt the pang of loneliness he sometimes felt when thinking about his love life.

He missed his wife. He missed having someone to come home to, talk to, feel beside him as he slept. He missed how he was before.

Ever since Lyla had passed he had been different. Not as cheerful, not as funny, he actually used to be somewhat of a practical joker.

He had thought his old self would return after the grieving process was done, yet here he was years later and no relief.

Lack of female interaction certainly wasn’t helping either.

Emerson sighed. Maybe he should try the one-night-stand thing. Though the thought of it had always felt awkward.

Why have sex with someone you hardly know?

His phone vibrated, pulling him out of his thoughts.

G: Did I scare you off? I was joking btw.

He let out a small sigh of relief. Ashamed that he was so bad at the whole dating thing that this one match seemed to be the end all be all.

E: Sorry, was working. He fibbed. But I am glad to see you won’t objectify me for my body.

G: Well, that’s only because I haven’t seen your body.

Emerson chuckled. He liked her witty remarks.

How soon was too soon to ask someone on a date? Were there Tinder rules? Did he care?

Not really.

E: How would you like to see it? Fully clothed of course.

He felt his heart rate pick up. He hadn’t felt excited like this in a long time.

Of course, that’s when Burnham decided to interrupt.

“Those photos telling you anything yet?” he asked.

Emerson shook his head, “No unfortunately.”

His friend sat on the edge of the desk, “This fucking bastard leaves no trace. No DNA. Nothing.”

With the lack of info they had that was all Burnham really ever said about it.

Hard to do, thought Emerson.

He saw his phone vibrate on the desk.

Burnham’s eyes followed his friend’s.

“So…you sure Tinder isn’t working out for you?”

Emerson rolled his eyes, “Oh Christ.”

After enduring more teasing from Burnham than he would’ve liked, his fellow detective finally left to go bother someone else.

Despite the torture that had felt like he was being waterboarded, Emerson had not let anything slip about his potential date.

Not all things were meant to be shared among friends, not yet anyway. Besides, he had only started talking to her last night. Everyone needed to relax, him included.

He opened her message.

G: I would love to. Name a time and place and I’m there.

Chapter 3.

Coffee. That wasn’t too casual and not too formal right? Or so Emerson hoped.

So here he sat at some local place downtown. Waiting and a bit nervous.

He heard the door open and he saw her. His eyes followed hers as she looked around for her date.

He lifted his finger slightly.

“Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” she said as she sat down across from him.

Emerson tilted his head in confusion, “What do you mean?”

She smirked, “That you look exactly like your photos.”

“Oh,” he chuckled. “Have you been on many dates where that wasn’t the case?”

She ran a hand through her long hickory colored hair, “More than I’d like.”

Gwyn looked exactly as she had in her photos too. Emerson hadn’t even considered the possibility that she wouldn’t.

Which he probably should have considering he met her online.

He studied her. She was staring at him, looking him up and down. He smiled, amused.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“I would,” she said.

Emerson waited for her to say what she wanted. A few seconds went by.

This is awkward, he thought as his eyes darted from side to side.

He cleared his throat.

“What would you like?...” he asked.

Gwyn smiled mischievously, “You're a detective. Read me. What do you think my order is?”

Interesting, he thought.

He tilted his head slightly, finally drinking in everything about the woman who was across from him.

She was wearing a tight black turtleneck, dark blue jeans, and a silver chain-linked bracelet.

Her makeup was simple, she didn’t need much of it. She was naturally beautiful. Her hair had a shine to it and it curled into a slight wave.

She had with her a plain black satchel. Big enough to fit only a wallet and a phone and possibly a few other womanly essentials.

She was simple. But, sophisticated. At least that is what her appearance told him.

Emerson remembered that her bio had said she was an artist. Which must mean she was somewhat serious about coffee. Not the frappuccino type.

But, there was a softness to her. She didn’t appear to take herself too seriously, judging from her text messages.

So probably not black coffee.

Gwyn waited patiently for him to finish his assessment. A hint of a smile on her lips.

“I think I got it,” Emerson said as he turned to walk towards the counter.

“Hi, can I get one iced hazelnut latte and one hot Americano with cream please,” he told the barista.

Emerson turned to look back at Gwyn. She was far enough away so she wouldn't have heard the order.

He wanted to see her shock when she found out he was right. He was certain he was.

He smiled to himself.

He walked back to their table with the drinks. Gwyn was sitting looking bemused. Her legs crossed, her eyes following his every move.

“So, what did you decide for me?” she asked.

Her voice was soft. He liked it. It reminded him of the way a stream sounds in a quiet forest.

Emerson said nothing. Just simply handed her the drink.

Her eyes sparkled as she took it from his hand. Her gaze holding his.

For a moment, he thought he might have gotten her wrong.

Gwyn took a sip of the Americano and raised her eyebrows.

He could tell she was trying to hide her amazement. She didn’t want to give him complete satisfaction and he liked that. She was fun.

“Well Detective Woods, I suppose you are very good at your job then,” she smiled.

Emerson beamed.

“Only a little,” he said as he took a sip of his latte.

Gwyn let out a small laugh, shaking her head, “Is it too soon to say I already want to see you again and this date has been what, 10 minutes?”

He looked at her over his straw. He felt the same.

He felt something. For the first time since his wife.

“Now let me do you,” she said.

Emerson paused, “What…”

“Let me read you,” said Gwyn, sipping her coffee.

He sat back, trying to hide a smile, “Alright.”

Gwyn rubbed the bottom of her chin with her thumb as she studied the man across from her.

He was handsome, that much was obvious. Rugged around the edges but not sharp, which was good. It made him look kind.

He was wearing a grey quarter-zip pullover sweater, the beginnings of a burgundy collared shirt peeking out. His tortoise shell glasses made him look like he could be walking the halls of Oxford and be at home.

Faded dark green pants with...were those cowboy boots? Interesting.

So he wasn’t from Connecticut.

The eyes behind the glasses were dark yet welcoming. A few days old stubble coated his face.

His hair, thank god he had a full head of it, was dark. Perfectly styled in the ever popular comb over.

It was too long for him to be ex-military but short enough that she could tell he liked things neat. Gwyn couldn’t quite tell if it was black or just a very dark shade of brown.

Luckily they were seated by a window and he moved ever so slightly so that a ray of sunshine hit him.

Midnight brown, was that a color? It was now. Silver bits were beginning to show their glint throughout Emerson’s hair.

If she was being honest he didn’t look like a police detective. They usually were only this good looking in movies. He could have been a writer or a professor that female students day dreamed about.

The cowboy boots were throwing her off.

Was he Texan?

She didn’t remember hearing an accent, but then again they had only said a few sentences to each other.

And yet, she knew she wanted a second date. She needed to impress him. She didn’t know she already had.

“Judging from your boots you aren’t from here, I’ll be generic and guess Texas?”

He nodded, waiting for Gwyn to continue.

“You’re smart, otherwise you wouldn’t be a detective and you most certainly would not have gotten my order right. You're patient, you would have to be to be willing to sit here right now and listen to me.”

Emerson chuckled, taking another sip of his latte.

Gwyn continued, “Your eyes are hard but your face is gentle. You have seen and been through monstrous things but you don’t let it affect your character. You’re quiet, which leads me to believe you’re polite. Which is good because I can’t stand loud boisterous men.”

Emerson leaned forward. He hadn’t expected her to be this good.

“Between the way you look and my expectation that you are a good man, you must be single for a reason. So, I am guessing your ex either was unfaithful or died.”

Gwyn was blunt. Emerson didn’t know how he felt about that.

He scratched his cheek, “She passed away.”

Gwyn looked down at the table, confidence leaving her for only a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Emerson shrugged, “But you were right.”

Gwyn smiled softly.

He could tell she enjoyed being right. Though not with a haughty arrogance. He respected that.

“And how did you learn to read people so well? Are you an ex detective?” he asked, amused.

Gwyn twirled a strand of hair in her fingers, “It’s not hard to see what people project.”

Emerson smirked, nodding.

Oh she’s very smart, he thought.

They talked for hours after conducting their own way of breaking the ice. Gwyn could now hear the hint of an accent.

They discussed movies, music, food, books, especially books.

She liked nonfiction. He preferred fiction.

Emerson was entranced with the way Gwyn spoke. Her words were light but intelligent. And she held eye contact.

She had already assessed why he was single. So why was she?

He continued to study her.

Her posture was welcoming, her sentences were flirtatious, but her expressions were guarded.

Guarded meant she had been hurt before. Most likely multiple times.

Though with an open posture, not physically.

He couldn’t detect anything to signify she was nervous. She hadn’t been the entire date. She was confident. She could have anyone she wanted.

So why didn’t she?

“Figured me out yet?” she asked, pulling Emerson out of his thoughts.

He looked down, embarrassed.

“Not quite,” he smiled.

“Good. I need you at least intrigued enough for a second date,” she said.

“Possibly more,” said Emerson, playfully reaching.

“Possibly,” Gywn responded, her eyes dancing.

She leaned forward on the small circular table.

“Emerson Woods you are something.”

He winked. It made her laugh.

“As much as I would love to talk with you all day, I should be going,” she said.

Emerson nodded. He probably should too. They had spent nearly three hours in this coffee shop.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said, wanting every second he could with her.

She turned to him, placing her hand lightly on his shoulder.

“Oh there is no need. I took an Uber, car’s in the shop after a very nasty old woman felt the need to rear end me.”

Emerson laughed. He could offer her a ride. Should he?

“Would you like me to track her down for you? I could probably find something to pin on her,” he said, glancing down at where her hand had just been.

She giggled, rolling her eyes, “Could you please? She’s costing me 400 dollars.”

They walked outside. It was overcast and there was a slight breeze. Emerson watched her hair lift in the wind.

Before she could take out her phone to call an Uber, Emerson walked over to the passenger side of his car that was parked along the curb. He opened it.

“I promise you’ll have a more enjoyable experience with me rather than someone you don’t know. If you’ll allow me.”

Gwyn bit her bottom lip, raising her eyebrows, “But I don’t know you. Not really.”

Emerson paused. She was right. Three hours of conversation didn’t exactly mean they knew each other. And with the Creekmore Serial Killer making headlines for months, she was probably wise to refuse him.

“I suppose that’s true,” he said. “Though I am a policeman,” he kept his hand on the door handle.

She bopped her head from side to side, feigning weighing her options.

“Can I rate you if you're a bad driver?” she joked, stepping over to the car.

Emerson chuckled, “I promise to be extra careful with you.”

#claes bang #tinder goals tbh #what do i call this shit?#i need a title

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q--uee--n · 5 years

Text

Presenting Part 2 of my Post-Zero Requiem headcanons/notes! I’m so happy the others were well-received, and I hope these will be, too. Enjoy:)

Nunnally

• never for a second contemplates hating Suzaku for his role in her brother’s death. Though she was admittedly bitter, those feelings are later targeted toward Lelouch for leaving her behind in a “perfect world”. So long as he isn’t around, the world will never be perfect in her eyes.

• is one of the youngest ever rulers of Britannia. This, coinciding with the fact that she actively used F.L.E.I.J.A. in the past, leads to questions about her competence and fidelity. However, she proves herself an effervescent, warm-hearted empress who is determined to make up for the many, many faults of her predecessors. She starts by improving Britannia’s egregious foreign policy and establishing a stable Parliament. It’s hard work, but that’s how she prefers it since it’s also her own way of repenting for her past sins.

• never regains her ability to use her legs, and she hates being patronized due to her crippled state. War and politics have hardened her some, so she rarely hides her feelings to make people comfortable when she isn’t and doesn’t hesitate to tell others when they’re acting condescending. In the earlier stages of her reign, she frequently has to remind Suzaku that she isn’t a glass doll or a helpless little girl.

• her official residence is in Japan. She remained there during Pendragon’s reconstruction, and though she knows she’ll more than likely have to move back to Britannia someday, she can’t help but consider Japan her true home. It was where she and her brother lived and made their first friends, and despite the circumstances, some of her happiest childhood memories are there.

• becomes close friends with Kaguya due to their being so young and so involved in the affairs of the world. They meet for lunch whenever they can find the time and host pajama parties where they gossip about their older contemporaries and how nonsensical they behave. The Tianzi joins them once she gets a little older, and she has dirt on everyone. Seriously, the girl has ears everywhere. Do. Not. Mess. With. Her. She will destroy you with what she knows alone.

• bequeaths hefty amounts of money to humanitarian organizations each month, despite being advised to donate less, and was key in helping Kallen and her mother's charity get off the ground.

• develops a guilt complex. It's why she overcompensates to the point that she does, even though she's accepted that no matter how hard she works, nothing she'll do will make up for the lives she's ruined.

• goes to therapy sooner or later to sort out her issues, but it's at Kaguya's behest because "my cousin doesn't even vilify himself the way you vilify yourself—and pardon me because he absolutely does. But my point still stands." She's reluctant to share her feelings at first, but once she does, she doesn't stop. She reaches a point where she stops blaming everything wrong with the world on herself, which is a huge step-up from where she started.

• takes an interest in fashion. It starts off as a means of distraction from her less pleasant thoughts, but she quickly embraces it. She vigorously designs and sews in her free time, and it isn't unusual for servants to find sketches of gorgeous ensembles in the most random places in the palace. She's also quite efficient at styling, Suzaku being her favorite model due to her finding his fit physique the most fun to work with.

• visits her brother's grave once a year, on his birthday. Suzaku and Arthur are her lone companions. It starts off as a morbid affair, but as Zero Requiem grows into the distance, it gets significantly more lighthearted as she allows herself to let go. Her favorite thing to do is "show" Lelouch her designs, as well as update him on the progress the world has made in wake of his sacrifice.

• never quite accepts Lelouch's death as much as she just moves on because she knows he wouldn't want her to spend the rest of her life mourning him. Still, anniversaries of his death are hard for her to get through since she has to pretend she hates him as much as the rest of the world does. Kaguya's kind enough to let her cry into her lap when it all gets to be too overwhelming.

• the first person she falls in love with is a commoner and is unattainable for multifarious reasons. The second person she falls for is more accessible but oh-so oblivious.

• her moniker is the "Champion of Peace".

Kaguya

• mellows out considerably and loses a lot of her fangirl tendencies. Her straightforward attitude, though, is still intact, and you either like her or you don't—at least that's the case for her fellow politicians. Her charisma and natural appeal guarantee that's she's well-received by the public.

• figured out Lelouch's motives the second he was killed and is irritated that the world hasn't and likely never will. As a result, she holds the few memories she has of him as a child close to her heart.

• difficult to work with, but that's only because her adult peers should know better than to underestimate a teenager who runs three-fifths of the planet, and Kaguya never backs down when challenged. The most irking thing is said to be that she does it all with a smile.

• though she's grateful she and Suzaku are on speaking terms again, she is every so often overwhelmed by his affection and attention. She wonders if that was how Zero felt in regards to her.

• finds every opportunity she can to make Nunnally smile. She can sense the sadness permeating her being and thus makes it her life's goal (one of them, anyway. Never let it be said that the girl isn't ambitious) to maintain her friend's happiness.

• is a contributing (anonymous) writer for Zero Weekly, because duh. Her articles are popular due to their being quality garbage, and she once wrote a think piece alleging that Zero was the second coming of Christ that generated so much controversy, it was denounced by multiple religious sects. The situation got so out of hand, Nunnally herself had to come out and declare that there were more important matters to discuss than whether or not Zero should be worshipped as a deity. Kaguya regrets nothing.

• is eventually introduced to Milly, and they hit it off immediately, something made possible due to their peculiar senses of humor and mutual love of gossip investigative journalism. Kallen tries in vain to keep them apart, but they prove too incorrigible to manage.

• forms an unexpectedly close bond with C.C. Often times she doesn't even understand it, but there's plenty of wisdom to go around, which is why they work so well. She discovers C.C.'s name by accident but doesn't disclose it out of respect, no matter what Kallen does to try to get her talk.

• remains petite even into her adulthood. Unlike Nunnally, who doesn't grow much in terms of height but does fill out some, she is forever tiny and diminutive. She isn't overly happy about it.

• fully anticipates Suzaku's reaction the first time she tells him, " I love you". Hence why she ensures they're in private when she says it.

Milly

• quits anchoring and becomes a full-fledged journalist. She loves the thrill of research and investigation, especially when it comes to digging up information that shouldn't be accessible under any circumstance.

• discovers Zero's identity after launching a months-long investigation into Zero in general and the events leading up to Zero Requiem. She's not surprised so much as she is relieved, because she could never quite bring herself to hate Suzaku or Lelouch as she should have, and once she learns the full truth, most of it, that is, she's ecstatic. Confused ("I get making up for his sins and all, but couldn't he have become the Emperor of Justice or something elegant like that instead of, say, using a contrived dictatorship as a means to force the world to unite? I mean, there were other ways to accomplish that") but ecstatic nonetheless.

• chooses to make Japan her permanent home, defying the wishes of her parents, who wanted her to move back to the homeland with them. She learns fluent Japanese and extensively covers the decolonization of Japan and other states formerly under Britannian occupation.

• is the proud(ly anonymous) founder of the infamously hedonistic Zero Weekly. It starts as a jocular thing she uses to entertain herself, but when the subscribers come pouring in...Well, she still uses it to entertain herself, but it's a very beneficial source of entertainment.

• one of, if not the most controversial name in journalism. Her work has sparked outrage from just about everyone, and her most debated project was one that revealed a good chunk of the stories circulated to emphasize Lelouch's wickedness to be false. However, the one thing that people can agree on is that she never excuses his wrongs so much as she puts them into perspective.

• after revitalizing their friendship, if you can call it that, her favorite pastime is teasing Suzaku. It astonishes her that despite everything that's happened, he can still be so easily flustered if she pushes the right buttons (such as when she brings up Kallen being his supposed "paramour"). Seeing glimpses of the Suzaku she knew reminds her of the short but pleasant time they spent together at Ashford Academy.

• met C.C., once upon a time. They sat beside each other on a crowded bus, and Milly couldn't shake the familiarity radiating off of the other woman in waves. The incident bothers, even after she's officially introduced to C.C. through Suzaku, because she knows this girl. She just doesn't know how or where from.

• begins a matchmaking business as a side job—aka what she does whenever she's suspended from the real thing, which is often (some people have no sense of humor). She initially does it because she's bored and nosy and needs an outlet, but she quickly discovers she likes meddling in others' love lives. Unfortunately, no one else seems to be as appreciative of her newfound hobby, but hey, at least Rakshata and Cecile seem happy.

#code geass #code geass: hangyaku no lelouch #code geass r2 #nunnally lamperouge #nunnally vi britannia #sumeragi kaguya #milly ashford #headcanons #my notes #long post

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book-of-ryker · 3 years

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Billie Eilish Pirate Baird Quackenbush

Her hair glistens gold like a pony. Yeah, that’s about the best that I could come up with. Today is 22September2021. A lot has happened. I’m not sure if I or anyone really reads this, but I do need to get my thoughts out more frequently and this always served as as a good outlet. Let’s see what I can write down. My name is Ryker Quackenbush. You’ve probably never heard of me or you have. What do I care? I’m almost thirty and my life has been a lot of treks through hell. There’s only one way out of hell, but it’s too early for me to be ranting about that. My mom died when I was a kid and I like to smoke a lot of pot because of her still following me around. She is in the clouds and in the trees and in the rain and in the flowers and everywhere to me. And we all know that there is no one true church. In walks Durzo Blint and Bobby Pendragon. The land of Midcryu is dangerous for a young man like Bobby, but he prospered in the lands of Zadaa. I was having nightmares that Kelsey Richards was cheating on me. Billie Eilish was the inner voice inside my head. I know it sounds like a lot, bt I’ve become quite accustomed to having her around. I checked into the Behavioral Health Intensive Care Unit (BHICU, for short) and I ranted and raved about how I’d discovered the Theory of Everything. I wont get into that right now. I started to have dreams about Billie and I getting married. I just started to workout when Kelsey Richards and I started to see each other, and when I moved in and lived with her family. Kelsey was overweight, and I wasnt really attracted to her, so I understand why she cheated on me with her old boyfriend. But it cut deep because she caught me watching cuckold pornography and was devastated. I learned that my pornographic addiction is what was allowing for the relentless nightmares to be endless. I was put on an antipsychotic, and I hated it. I knew I would have to fight my way through this. I called my parents and asked if I could live with them. I was humbly aking for the support system I needed. My stepmother denied me. I journeyed across the county to live with my older brother, Keith Scott Quackenbush II. I took a train out of Sacramento, California. It brought me all of the way to Lincoln, Nebraska. I was kicked off of the train there for being drunk when I didnt want to antagonize a person sleeping in my seat. I found the nearest homeless shelter. I then went and spent my last dollars on a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska. Sex trafficking is everywhere. Riker’s Island is a nightmare for sure. The next day, I find a young black man at a gas station and we smoke a blunt together. On whatever this day was, I made fully telepathic contact with Billie Eilish. She hated me and wanted me to die. God put us all on autopilot. It was bizarre and miraculous. I board a Greyhound and almost get kicked off for smoking some stranger vape pen. The bus driver could apparently “smell what we were doing.” The entire time that I was in the military, I never once brought up the fact that I knew martial arts and could severely hurt someone if I put my ol’ college try in. In Lincoln, Nebraska, I check into a crisis center. It was very abusive, but I did get to meet even crazier people and eat even crazier food. I watched a lot of Game of Thrones and did a lot of pushups and read a lot of books. When I made it to Pensacola, my dad picked me and my older brother up and drove us to his 450 square foot apartment. I began to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and I still went to the gym on a bike. I havent stopped lifting weights. It’s the one thing I have that saves me as much as it does. I tell Scott not to bother fighting me, or even attempting to fight me. He throws a fit and starts to attack me. Eventually, he is on top of me and tying to gouge out my eyes with his thumbs. Unhappy with this, I take control of the situation and get him into a chokehold, making him submit and squeal like a baby pig. I check into another suicide watch unit. I eventually go back and have my father pick me up from my brothers house. I live with my father and my stepmother for months at this point and I even managed to hold a job and go to college. It was not good enough in their eyes and they abuse me more in this time period than they did with all three of us children collectively. Roshi and Son Goku. There was was a monkey man and a goat boy. The goat boy would later become the Alpha superhero for Earth-001. I get evicted, officially, from my father’s home. All of my friends abandon me. All that I have is Christ. I get word that I can be hired on over at MGM Grand with a friend of mine from high school. I drive my 2014 Chevrolet Spark across the country. At this point in my life, that’s the fifth time. I get to California and we meet Niekko and the lady that own Nate Harrison’s Ranch on Palomar Mountain. We rent a van for Niekko’s transcendent festival, Zen Awakening. We drive this completely stuffed van across the country, my sixth time. We make it to Zen Awakening near Orlando and I had the time of my life. When I left my parents’ house, I was in the best shape of my life.

I could do a million exercises and not get tired. Creatine and preworkout were my potion of choice. I hardly touched the CBD or the THC as much as I would have liked. I get to this festival, and after all of our work was done, the fun began. Firstly, the was the biblical Nathaniel that showed up. He’s a bud trimmer now and he is 934 years old. Then there was the tall and powerful Sharon. We fell in Love at Home Depot where I slipped a ring on her finger. And last but not least, the lovely and little McKayla. I will never forget you. I took four hits of LSD, some Cacao, some pot and some American Spirits. I jogged around the festival that night, blurring the lines of a Jedi, ninja, samurai and a Velociraptor.

I go into my glampin, trippping happily. I grab my Bible with Nathaniel’s turquoise ring I fond in the shower and cant get off of my finger and I flip it open to see the word LORD glowing on the page. I have never believed in magic until that very moment. My consciousness shifts to the greater Sol in me. I tell Billie that I’m moving on. Let the record show that this is when Billie begins to follow me in this dance of life. JERUSALEM also glows off of the page, indicating the direction in which I should travel. After leaving Florida again, we drive back across the country to Palomar Mountain. I live there and even did some construction work. My tent ends up battering my car and then being destroyed by ninety mile an hour gusts.

I move to Sacramento again. I live on U street, near little Japanese church. Rian didnt pay his half of the rent and stole my half. I had nowhere else to go, so I called Nation’s Finest. I brag about how Billie is my soulmate, like a child. I turn evil. I choke a guy out that was stealing from People, including me. I get checked back into the exact same BHICU I was in earlier. I do not lose it. I calmly explain the situation. I went to therapy twice, loving Billie EIlish. That’s what I think the song Male Fantasy is about. Thank you for reading.

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alli-howard · 3 years

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“Christianity Will Have Power”: Thoughts on Christian Nationalism

A few days after the attack on the Capitol building, I was talking to one of my friends about what happened. I mentioned how bothered I was by the Christian imagery that was present, from crosses to Jesus Saves flags. “Do you think they were trying to be ironic?” she asked. “Was that supposed to be a joke?” While we can’t know their intentions, I don’t think the people holding these symbols meant to be ironic. Despite Donald Trump’s failure to exemplify Christian values, he has drummed up a significant amount of enthusiasm from white Christian faith communities over the years. This blog post is my attempt to explain why that is the case.

For years, many white Christian churches have aligned themselves with the Republican Party. I have often found myself concerned about that alignment, not because of policy, but because I believe that coupling faith with a political party is damaging to our witness for Christ in the world. Sometimes the alliance is implied in a way that makes others feel like they do not belong in a particular church if they are not a Republican. Other times the connection is made more explicitly, by a pastor from the pulpit or in church-wide communications. Either way, Christians with different political views can often feel like they don’t belong.

Rather than going back through history to explain where and when this phenomenon started, I am going to start instead with the way it escalated during Trump’s 2016 campaign. On a campaign stop at a Christian college, Trump gave a speech in which he said, “Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it… Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”

Of course, as Christians we know that Christianity already has power. Paul says in Romans that “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to anyone who believes.” 2 Corinthians says “[Jesus] was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God,” and the Bible says in Acts, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.”

Clearly, that isn’t the kind of power Trump was referring to in his speech. Instead, he was referring to political power – he was telling Christians that he would treat them favorably and enact policies that they like while he is in office. The idea that Christian faith should seek political power to achieve its goals is called Christian nationalism.

It can be easy to confuse Christian nationalism with patriotism, so I want to pause here to say that loving your country is not a bad thing. We need to keep in mind, though, that this is not ultimately our home. We are called to live as aliens and strangers (1 Peter 2:11), and in America, that is hardly the case. White Christians enjoy benefits that people of other races, ethnicities, and faiths do not. Some even try to maintain those benefits by standing in the way of others who seek to pursue equal rights. Let me be clear: that is not the way of the cross.

Jesus came to Earth, lived, died, and rose again to free us from our sin and selfishness. Rather than holding on to His own power and status, Philippians 2 reminds us how what Jesus did:

“[Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!”

Our Savior, whom we seek to emulate, willingly gave up His power to be with us. Then, He allowed Himself to suffer for our benefit. While we were still our enemies, He died for us.

Let me ask you an easy question: does this sound like something Trump would do? No, it does not. Although Trump has at times presented himself as the saving figure that white Christians have been waiting for, he bears no resemblance to our Savior.

By now we all know that 81% of white Christians voted for Trump in 2016, and the number was similar in the last election. I am concerned that some white Christians who were moderate Republicans before are now following Trump towards political extremism, in the form of conspiracy theories or the alt-right. If four out of five white Christians believed him enough to vote for him, will they believe him when he says that the election was rigged? Will they believe him when he says “you have to fight like hell or you won’t have a country anymore?” I am afraid that some will, and many of them will be in our churches.

So how can we live as faithful, American Christians without adopting the beliefs of Christian nationalism? And how can we help our brothers and sisters in Christ from drifting into political extremism? Here are a few of my suggestions:

1. Learn what is true. The world is a lot less scary when we’re centered in Scripture. Similarly, politics is a lot less overwhelming when we understand how government works (@sharonsaysso is currently my favorite resource for understanding how government operates). For example, I imagine that January 6th might have played out differently if the people who wanted Mike Pence to overturn the election results knew that the Constitution didn’t allow him to do so.

2. Ask yourself: who is discipling me? Are you being formed in the image of God through His word and other Christians, or are you being shaped by news outlets and political commentary? Bible studies, mentoring relationships, Christianity Today, and the Quick to Listen podcast are great ways to make sure your heart is being shaped in ways that are spiritually healthy.

3. If you think Christian nationalism is a problem, say so. Being white and a Christian doesn’t mean that you need to defend everything that white Christians do. Similarly, being an American doesn’t mean you have to defend everything about America. James Baldwin once said, “I love America more than any other country in the world, and, for that reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” We can only build a more perfect union if we are honest about our faults.

4. Check on your brothers and sisters in Christ. I recently heard a quote that said, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” Many people are feeling like they aren’t being heard right now, and that is causing their fears and anxieties to skyrocket. Ask people in your faith community how they are doing and listen to understand what they are going through.

5. Pray for your “enemies.” Our neighbors are not our enemies. Our political opponents are not our enemies. We are all Americans, but one good way to start reminding ourselves of that is to pray for people we disagree with.

As our country increases in diversity of faith, race, and ethnicity, we have the opportunity to ask ourselves a few questions. Do we want to be people who hold on to Christian nationalism, with its talk of God, guns, and freedom, or do we want to follow the way of the Jesus, and sacrifice ourselves for the good of others? Will we be people who seek to hear what we want to hear, or people who cling to the truth? In other words, given the choice, will we cling to Old Glory or the cross?

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luckylq48-blog · 4 years

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bthenoise · 5 years

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Track By Track: Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Wolves At The Gate’s Powerful LP ‘Eclipse’

For nearly ten years now, Ohio post-hardcore outfit Wolves At The Gate have been providing some of the most consistent and thought-provoking heavy music around. From 2012′s scorching debut Captors to today’s fierce eye-opener Eclipse, Wolves At The Gate continue to churn out melodic yet hard-hitting records that make you want to both sing and scream along to.

Take the band’s latest LP, for example. For 13 straight songs, the Solid State signees are able to give listeners a wide range of emotions embodying the perfect balance of heavy and soft. Talking about the motivation behind blending these two contrasting styles together, vocalist/guitarist Stephen Cobucci says it all ties into the album’s name.

“We named the record Eclipse because of how well it encapsulated the relationship the light and the dark can have,” he says. “An eclipse tells you that it's dark, but it takes truth and faith to know that the sun is still shining. All of this revolves around my walk of faith in believing the truths of the gospel message, seeking to help others find hope and peace in the love of God, as well as how to come to grips with various social/political/personal issues.”

Giving fans an even further look into the brilliant work of art that is Eclipse, Cobucci sat down with The Noise to explain the meanings behind each and every song on the album. To check out the singer’s honest and open track by track rundown, be sure to look below. Afterward, make sure to pick up a copy of Eclipse here.

The Cure

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We're excited that this is the first track people hear on the new record because it truly captures the wide dynamics sonically and lyrically that we wanted to deliver. Both musically and lyrically it's a roller coaster of darkness, tension, and release. The whole album revolves around the idea of the light being obscured by the darkness and creating a “different reality.” This song is about how when that darkness comes, it creates a different reality that seems so real but is just a lie. This song cries out for help and grace in times of doubt and fear.

Face To Face

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“Face To Face” probably went through the most changes to its structure. It was rewritten more times than I can remember. Our guitarist Joey believed in it from the first day he heard it and worked hard to help it get to its final stages. Regardless of all of those changes, the lyrical content remained the same. We so often fear having our weaknesses and flaws revealed, going to great lengths to ensure they are hidden from everyone to see. ... This song is about how I was forced to come to grips with many of my sins and weaknesses in order for me to see that there is forgiveness in the love of God. Even though accepting my own guilt seemed like death to me, it was the very thing that led me to trusting and resting in God's grace.

A Voice In The Violence

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This song carries a lot of weight and emotion in it for us as a band. It's so easy to identify with feeling the burden of darkness in our hearts and minds as we wrestle with the sins and addictions that plague us. The lyrics carry a dialogue that goes back and forth between thoughts of falling into despair and then hearing the voice of truth calling me away from running headlong into the things that are killing and destroying me. We so often entertain this love affair with the sins, addictions, and vices that ruin us whether it be mentally, physically, or spiritually. These pursuits are always irrational and cause us to drown out the voice of God. The voice of truth. A voice that carries messages of hope, grace, and mercy. Yet the beauty in all of this comes in the fact that there is no hell too deep for God to pull us out of. It is in these darkest of times that God shows even more grace and love.

Drifter

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Songs like this one are so important to us as a band because they've come from real heart-to-heart conversations. We're brothers. We bear each other's burdens. A lot of the time when you just bury away the pain, the hurt, the lies, the emotion, it tears you apart on the inside until it eventually begins to manifest on the outside. As an outsider looking in, I could see how Nick was being torn apart and was stuck spirally down the same road. Numerous songs throughout our career have come from these sorts of situations where Nick just spilled his heart and we were able to build him up in the truth reminding him of the greater love he has in Christ and how all his failure and sin was erased at the cross.

Enemy

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We tend to think that the great enemies in our lives are “out there” while ignoring a certain truth that we ourselves tend to be our greatest enemies. The song begins with an arrogant and misguided fight against the "enemy" that is soon realized to be myself. This has been a humbling experience that I have been through many times in my life. I figured it was about time that I cataloged how this progression tends to go for myself and ultimately how my hope of escape from this is in the power of God.

Evil Are The Kings

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This was the first song that came out when I started writing for this record and helped set the tone for quality and level I wanted all the other songs to be on. Our guitarist Joey played a big role in helping this song come together in the way that it did. He helped me restructure it in a way that really took advantage of the strengths of the song. In writing this song, I immediately knew what I wanted it to be about. As a society, we have amassed a world of knowledge, but it hasn't moved mankind one step further to making peace, stopping wars, curing racism, etc. If “knowledge is the power” then we are to be considered evil kings. Politics haven't moved the needle of solving any of these issues and all that has been revealed is that while there may be shifts in power and policy the greatest need we all have is for our hearts to be changed.

Eclipse

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The music of this song was something I had written a long time ago but was never able to put all the pieces together. While on tour last year I was finally able to get all the pieces to fall together. Our drummer Abishai was critical in helping me structure the format of the song in its early stages. When I sat down to title all of these songs, I realized that an eclipse was the imagery that best encompassed the heart of this song. As I continued to think about this imagery and concept, I realized how it touched all of these songs in one way or another. Songs like this are very personal for me as I use them as outlets to be vulnerable with myself and with our fans for them to be encouraged by the fact that I often have the same doubts and fears that they may have. Yet while also having these same doubts and fears, there are still certain truths that we all can rest upon for peace and comfort.

Response

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This song is a response to the Ghandi quote, "I like your Christ, not your Christians." The truth of this statement is not lost on me and to be honest, it grieves me. I can understand why people's view of “American Christianity” puts a bad taste in their mouth and am sadden by the fact that the name of Christ gets dragged through the mud and applied to people and organizations that do not represent what true faith is. When people hear that we are a Christian band, it immediately conjures up all sorts of thoughts, generally negative ones, yet I can understand why. I can see how it is really difficult for some people to separate emotional pain and damage caused by some wearing the name “Christian” from the one they claim to follow, namely Jesus. I say that in the lyrics of the song, “You find a lot of fault in me - I find it hard to disagree with you - I’ll own my crimes - My guilt has shut my mouth.” I'm not here to talk about myself, there isn't much good to say. But I believe in a good Savior. This strikes at the very heart of what we want people to see in our lyrics. Christianity is not about a person's ability to be perfect, but imperfect people trusting in a perfect Savior. Our guitarist Joey summarized the song well by saying, “The presence of hypocrisy does not equal the absence of God.” This song is a call to take your eyes off of messed up people and to take a look for yourself at who Jesus is.

History

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I wrote “History” in light of all of the racial tension I see within our culture. I have dear friends that have been on the receiving end of this prejudice [and] it's sad that even after all this time and all we know this still is very present in the heart of our society. It is because we have tended to turn a blind eye to our past that we are ignorant [of] the present issues. Our culture does not have a healthy relationship with this issue and therefore it causes serious strife and conflict. Everyone is fighting for their side of the argument and in that fight there will only be victims. It's a wake-up call that identifying with political parties, the color of your skin, etc. puts you further into bondage and perpetuates this cycle of hatred and violence.

The Sea In Between

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This song is an imagery of my salvation. I knew God existed and I knew I was separated from Him. I was on a shore and an endless sea separated us. The sea was a metaphor for my sin and my attempts to live self-righteously. I tried to live a perfect life and make up for all my failure and sin. Every time I navigated those seas, I failed, was destroyed, and was washed back to shore left with nothing. Yet in the goodness of God, Christ came and saved me, trudging through the sea that separated me from Him by dying the death I deserved.

Alone

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I remember writing this song really late one night in my studio and how it all came together so quickly. Sometimes a song just seems to fall into place all in one sitting and that was the case for this song. Every piece of it came together that night including the vocals, but to no surprise, I struggled to figure out what to write about. It wasn't until many months after that I was thinking about the idea of how differently we all view this journey of life. For some, it is a terror. For some, joy. And I thought about the fact that however you view the destination of the journey affects how you experience it. If all you have to look forward to [is the] temporal aspects of life, then that can be incredibly bleak for many. And to others it may not seem like that big a deal but nothing we have here can be kept forever. If I can quote one of our older songs called “Morning Star”: I know this is a voyage, it's not my destination. My hope is not in what I can gain out of this life regarding physical things, but that in the fact that all good things I enjoy here are just a shadow of the joy it will be to know God and see Him face to face.

Counterfeit

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There are a lot of voices out there vying for our attention. Voices that don't have our best interests in mind. Voices in the media, politics, and sometimes even our own minds that push an agenda based upon lies. This track was written as a sort of fight song against those things to give a voice back to those that desire to push back against those lies. I love how the pace and rhythm of this song perfectly fits the content. Hopefully this song can help give the listener a voice and words to say [and] combat these lies.

Blessings & Curses

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It was actually our drummer Abishai who created the core of this song. He wrote a drum groove that he was really into and so he put a simple chord progression down to go with it. He showed it to me while we were on tour and it just clicked with me. As soon as I heard it I knew it needed to be one of our songs and we started working on it right then and there on tour. It has a crazy time signature and then at the end the time signature bounces back and forth, but you'd never know it, which is really cool. This is a song about betrayal, namely my betrayal. It puts me in awe of the fact that all I ever offered God was my betrayal and my curse and yet in return He gives me the blessing of His forgiveness and love.

#Wolves At The Gate #Track By Track #Eclipse #Solid State Records #interview

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anguianoj-blog · 5 years

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Final Thoughts

My worldly identity at this time is best described as leader. As a father, husband and manager within my organization I have a great number of people constantly looking to me for direction. In my personal life I am responsible for providing for my family and influencing the mind of my three boys. I play many roles in my children’s lives by acting as a coach and mentor. I also serve as a motivator and supporter for my wife in our daily lives. At work I am much of the same but in a different capacity. I lead a successful sales team on a daily basis so I am responsible for the teaching and coaching that comes along with an ever-changing industry. I not only act as a decision maker for my team but also as a safety net to ensure they’re successful. I understand that I am always on stage in the sense that I am always looked at as a role model for my colleagues and will always be my children’s first super hero. I aspire to be a successful leader and role model not only in industry but also to my family, especially my children. I have a goal of finishing my degree which will allow me the opportunity to continue my leadership journey in my career. My ultimate objective in life is to raise three God fearing, loving young men who serve a greater purpose for this world. The challenges I face, like most, revolve around the day to day tasks that are expected by the roles we fill. With the numerous hats I wear in my life, the biggest battle I face is time; time to make a meaningful impact on those that rely on me, time to make memories with my family and, time for self-reflection on who I am and how I continue to grow in my journey.

In Chapter 31 (XXXI) of the Rule of St. Benedict, it states, “Above all things, let him be humble; and if he hath not the things to give, let him answer with a kind word, because it is written: "A good word is above the best gift" (Sir 18:17). (Verheyen, 1949) I find myself entrusted with the development of others in both my personal and professional life. It is something that I do not take lightly and wear a great badge of honor in this responsibility. I continue to remind myself that it is not always about me but for the betterment of those around me. I can use this Rule of St. Benedict by always remaining humble and seeking the kind words with those I am teaching. This chapter also states. “Let him provide for the sick, the children, the guests, and the poor, with all care, knowing that, without doubt, he will have to give an account of all these things on judgment day.” (Verheyen, 1949) This particular passage hits home with me because I have found in my life that I find gratefulness in helping those in need. It is important to note that The Rule of St. Benedict does not serve as a path to getting to Heaven but as a “guide to living a life in balance, a life of virtue and true happiness” and this is something that I am in constant pursuit of. (Verheyen, 1949)

In the TED Talks “Want to be Happy? Be Grateful” by Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast, he reiterates that it is not happiness that makes people grateful but it is gratefulness that makes people happy. As Steindl-Rast goes onto explain how we can find gratefulness in our daily lives, he relates it to something that we learn as a child when crossing the street when he says we simply have to “Stop. Look. Go.” (Steindl-Rast, 2013) This very simple process reminds me of the Benedictine Hallmark of Prayer where we simply stop to reflect on the blessings we have and find gratefulness in what He has provided us with. In Rabbi Sharon Braus’ TED Talks “It’s Time to Reclaim Religion” she speaks of differing theologies and although independent, they often share common core beliefs. One that she speaks of is interconnectedness and she goes on to tell a story about a soccer ball that washes up on shore in Alaska from a tsunami that occurred in Japan and how that ball made it back to its owner through a post on social media. (Braus, 2016) Braus writes, “How small our world has become. It's so hard for us to remember how interconnected we all are as human beings.” (Braus, 2016) This is a prime example of the Benedictine Hallmark of love of Christ and neighbor by using the universal language of love through faith. We are all interconnected through faith and the love of Christ.

In considering Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory and how it applies to my life, it is clear in identifying my microsystem that supports my development. My microsystem is comprised of various people or groups that I hold dear to me and look to them for guidance as I continue to grow as a person. The first and most important people to me are my wife, Linda, and my three boys, Dominic, Elias and Roman. In acting as their provider, they have the greatest impact on the decisions I make and what I make important on a daily basis. Next, I would have to identify my parents as they are the ones who raised me with the morals that I carry with me to this day. My father was in the Marine Corps for twenty-five years so naturally, the values of loyalty, honor, and respect are important to me as I raise my own children. My colleagues also hold great value to me at this point in my life. I lean on my direct leader for guidance and feedback on my performance and that has created a special relationship for me built and trust and personal growth. Lastly, my friends' group gives me an outlet to escape the day to day responsibilities that come with the many focuses I have. All of these groups make up my mesosystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory because, at times, these groups all interact with one another. The best example that I can give is the connection between my friends and family. Over time, my friends' circle has diminished as we all focus on our own personal microsystems. But, I do have many friends that I have known since my childhood that play an important role for my family. My best friend Ryan and I met when we were just twelve years old and have followed each other across the country and back over the course of the last twenty years. He is like a brother to me and is known as Uncle Ryan to my children. Another example of my microsystems interacting to make up my mesosystem is the relationships that I have created through work that has turned into friendship outside of work. Many of my colleagues have similarly aged children so it is easy to find something in common and thus, personal relationships are born between our families. Overall, one correlation that I made in learning about Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory is that sometimes people can fit into two separate microsystems depending on the setting in which the interaction is occurring.

In considering Daniel Goleman’s five components of emotional intelligence, I can narrow my personal emotional intelligence down to two areas of focus. The first area is one that I am very confident in and I do not have to focus on as it comes naturally to me. The element of internal motivation as defined by Goleman is, “A passion to work for internal reasons that go beyond money and status” (Goleman, 1995). I have found that I find joy in helping other people succeed and with that, this area of my emotional intelligence really helps with the relationships that I form. This component specifically helps me with maintaining the relationships in my micro and mesosystem because the people around me can see the internal motivation I have and it helps build a greater trust in the relationship. When people can see your true self and the genuine pride you take in what you do, it allows for deeper roots to grow within that personal relationship. The other area of focus is something that I have worked immensely on over my life and continue to be cognizant of within my microsystem relationships. As summarized by Peter Salovey and John Mayer in the psychological theory of emotional intelligence, “…to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth." (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) Self-regulation is an area that I have strived to improve upon in my emotional intelligence journey. I tend to be very impulsive with my decision making and it has proven to significantly impact my microsystem relationships at times. In learning more about my own personal emotional intelligence over time, I have identified this as an area of opportunity for myself and have grown in this component. Understanding one's emotions and what our tendencies are can greatly benefit the micro and mesosystem relationships that surround you. I strongly believe that my emotional intelligence will never be perfect but my hope is, as Goleman states, “As people become more effective, they pick up strengths in areas that they need.” (Goleman, 2012)

In “Chapter IV” of The Rule of St. Benedict, Benedict of Nursia uses scripture to create a list of responsibilities for every Christian. I can tie many of these duties to the way that I strive to live within my own micro and mesosystem. (18) To help in trouble, (28) to speak the truth with heart and tongue and (18) to put one’s trust in God, greatly represent the virtues that I strive to practice every day. By focusing on these values, it ensures that the people in my microsystem see my transparent self. Transparency is critical in relationships as it serves as the foundation for trust to be built. In considering the Benedictine Hallmarks of Stability and Conversatio and how it impacts the relationships in my own ecological environment, they can be tied together in several ways. The Hallmark of Stability can be represented in my life by the way that I embrace and navigate change. As Dr. Elizabeth Kubek states in the Benedictine University Hallmarks video on Conversatio, “There is room for stability within change.” I believe that my microsystem acts as my stability throughout the changes that I go through in my life. Every day I reflect on what I have accomplished and one thing that I ask myself is, have I impacted someone’s life in a positive way. To me, that is not only living in a way as laid out in The Rule of St. Benedict but also I am aiding in the stability of someone within my microsystem. Within my own ecological system, I am surrounded by some intelligent and diverse people that have lots of value to add to my personal development. By being open to others way of thinking and understanding their perspective helps define the Benedictine Hallmark of Conversatio. I believe that this is not only important for me personally but others could benefit from allowing people to share ideas without fear of rebuke.

In considering the elements of positive psychology and appreciative inquiry, I can identify several key areas that fascinate me. First, in looking at positive psychology, I am intrigued by Martin Seligman’s explanation of the three happy lives in the TED talks, The New Era of Positive Psychology. Seligman explains the three lives as the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life. In specifically examining the research done on the psychological good life, we have learned that “Happiness is a cause of good things in life and not simply along for the happy ride. People who are satisfied with life eventually have even more reason to be satisfied, because happiness leads to desirable outcomes at school and work, to fulfilling social relationships, and even to good health and long life” (Peterson, 2008). This leads us to understand that the good life can provide self-sufficient happiness, in that, having genuine happiness; you can guide yourself in a direction that will provide a gratifying outcome in your life. Also, both Seligman and Peterson reiterate, we can teach these three different happy lives through positive interventions. Understanding where your strengths are can greatly enhance your happiness with your life, which can have a significant outcome on your optimism in life. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a philosophy that focuses on the individual’s strength rather than a problem-based approach. AI ignites engagement through sharing ones positive experiences to raise participation in making positive change commence. In my leadership journey, I have learned that focusing on the individual strengths within my team can have a greater impact on the overall performance of the team. In my workplace, we use a mixture of problem-based and strength-based approaches when dealing with initiatives and change. There is a lot of power in best practices or storytelling but just because it was successful for one person or team, does not mean that it is the only way to accomplish said goal. My mentality has been creating an environment for people to feel respected, connected, and protected while they develop professionally and personally. Allowing one to be autonomous in their role helps build a culture of passion and trust and ultimately helps one in their pursuit of a happy life.

In watching “Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone” by His Holiness Pope Francis, I was reminded of something that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Dr. King writes, “In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…this is the interrelated structure of reality” (King Jr., 1963). Pope Francis does a great job at reminding us that we all need each other and although we are all separate, “we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone” (Francis, 2017). In considering these two great leaders’ words, I can relate these thoughts into the way that I interact with those I meet on a daily basis. There are great insights and commonalities that we all share and the only way to really see that is if we are open to engaging in dialogue with those we meet. I interact with individuals of various backgrounds on a regular basis and I have found we all have one thing in common, we all want to be appreciated for the talents we have. Taking time to understand someone’s background and what they hold important to them goes far beyond their socioeconomic status. I believe that diversity is a gift and we all have the opportunity to go beyond our bubble to learn about others and in turn, we end up learning more about ourselves.

Being open-minded to new ideas and worldly views can expand the way you see the world and the ability you see in others. This relates directly to the Benedictine Hallmark of Humility and is best summed up in the statement, “It is our intent that individuals discover what they are good at doing and what they need others' help to achieve. Rather than fostering competition for status and eminence, we strive to engage the insights and expertise of a wide variety of persons in our collective purpose” (Benedictine, 2019). When you put these words into practice, you open yourself up to growth and a greater vision of the world. Everyone has unique talents and we cannot learn everything on our own. It is up to us to discover what we need help with and seek others’ guidance in learning. Although it is not always easy to do, this is how we create a common purpose in this world. In others seeking the wisdoms of our strengths, we allow ourselves to be hospitable to those in need of our assistance. The Hallmark of Hospitality serves as the platform to accept one another with open arms and demonstrate humbleness while doing it. In reflecting on these learnings, I believe that we can all create joy for those around us; we just have to be willing to do so. As Pope Francis states, “Allow me to say it loud and clear: the more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on the people, the more responsible you are to act humbly” (Francis, 2017). We all hold power to the individuals we surround ourselves with and it is our responsibility to build each other up.

In understanding the concerns that impact the environment in which we live, I have a duty to teach my children the importance of the decisions we make that impact our world. There are several environmental issues that warrant our attention such as, climate change, sustainable energy, and ocean pollution. The concept of Community that is described in Benedictine Hallmarks can help with this teaching by “focusing on the nature of responsible living” (Benedictine, 2019). The Hallmark of Stewardship serves as the “awareness that we are part of a larger ecology and that the environment- human as well as non-human - has been given by God for the sake of all” (Benedictine, 2019). In living a responsible life and focusing on what we have been provided with, we can help raise understanding in our local communities on how we are impacting the environment. These two focuses remind us that we all have a part in the greater impact on the macro system phenomena that impact us today. After all, “it is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live” (Lama XIV).

The environmental focus that is most important to me is goal 14, ocean conservation. “Oceans contribute to poverty eradication by creating sustainable livelihoods and decent work. Over three billion people depend on marine and coastal resources for their livelihoods. In addition, oceans are crucial for global food security and human health. They are also the primary regulator of the global climate, an important sink for greenhouse gases and they provide us with water and the oxygen we breathe. Finally, oceans host huge reservoirs of biodiversity” (Nations, 2017). As you can see, there is a lot at risk if we do not protect our oceans. In 1989, there was a massive oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska that killed hundreds of thousands of animals that inhabit those waters. This was not the only impact that this caused, several companies that rely on the marine population in that area also suffered economic loss. Not only does the ocean provide all above mentioned but it also makes up 97% of the earths water. With the amount of waste that ends up in the ocean and risk of accidental pollution, it is important that we make an effort to protect it for the longevity of all that depends on a clean, sustainable ecosystem.

I feel as though Appreciative Inquiry has already begun in the community around me. Living in Madison, WI, we are a very green community and the environment is an important topic just about anywhere you go. The University of Wisconsin has an Office of Sustainability that “strives to be a living model for sustainability by exemplifying values and actions that demonstrate our commitment to stewardship of resources, respect for place, and the health and well-being of the broader community, now and for the future.” (Wisconsin, 2017) I can further integrate Appreciative Inquiry into my life by being more involved in the programs that my community already offers. In turn, I will set a positive example for my kids, so they understand the importance of community development and will become good stewards for our environment.

Although these causes are important to me, they are not my primary focus. The causes that I am passionate about and would identify myself with revolve around teaching and development. Specifically, by inspiring our youth into becoming leaders within their communities, we can reach towards a more sustainable world. We, as society, have done a great job at teaching our children the knowledge they need to be functional members of society but we lack in the ability to teach leadership skills. In being a parent and coach, I have seen this knowledge gap first hand and have harnessed my attention in a very different way. Giving children the autonomy to make decisions and learn from the consequences of their actions will go far beyond anything they will read in a book or online. I am all for love and support of young minds, but I believe tough love is something that a lot of people shy away from. In helping children with decision making skills, we are enabling our children to use their creative minds to change the world, one young leader at a time.

Through the reflections I have learned in this course, there are two Benedictine Hallmarks that really hit home for me. The first one that I will expand upon is the Hallmark of Stability. Stability is currently the most important in my life because it is the one that I constantly need to practice and be mindful of. As mentioned before in my writing, I believe that Dr. Elizabeth Kubek sums it up quite beautifully by saying, “There is room for stability within change” (Benedictine, 2019). This defines my life at this current time in the many things that I have going on during any given day. I work in an ever-changing environment, have three growing boys, am currently going back to school, and have a wife who needs time with me as well. Some people call it stability but I refer to it as organized chaos. Due to my career, my family has relocated three times in the last six years with the most recent moves only being two years apart. It is clear to see how all of this constant change could impact ones pursuit of stability but, I thrive in this type environment. It has brought my family closer together because we depend on each other more, it has made me appreciate my wife more because of all of the slack she picks up for me at home, and it makes the time I spend with my children more meaningful. I believe my family is my stability and they serve as my reminder that our lives will not always be chaotic, but through balance, it will always be meaningful.

The second Benedictine Hallmark that has always been an important part of my life is the value of discipline. I truly believe that, “Discipline is a way of focusing energy and attention on what matters” (Benedictine, 2019). People often ask me how I balance all of the things that I have going on in my life and my answer simply put is discipline. Being able to “sacrifice short-term benefits for long-term goals” is important to me (Benedictine, 2019). If I could go back in time and finish school before entering the workforce, I probably would have taken things a lot more serious. I would probably have more time to spend with my family and maybe even more money to create experiences for us. I think it is easy for us to think of the what-ifs but for right now, I just enjoy being grateful for what I have been blessed with. I hope that someday, when my children are older, they can look back at how hard I have worked and the sacrifices I have made and be proud of what I have done. At times when I think, “I should just take the easy way out” I remember who is looking up at me as an example and that is where my discipline kicks in. Holding myself accountable and reminding myself that this is a temporary sacrifice for a long term gain, that is discipline to me.

Being raised in a Christian household, I have carried over some spiritual practices as I have creating my own home. The one that stands out to me is the practice of prayer. My family prays at meal time, times of thanks and need, and I pray with my kids in the morning before we all leave for the day. I feel as though this brings us close together and closer to God. One spiritual practice that I have recently starting using more is the practice of reflection or meditation. I believe it is important to “stop, look, go” throughout the day to be reminded of all the things that I have to be grateful for as Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast reminded us in his TED Talks “Want to be Happy? Be Grateful” (Steindl-Rast, 2013). Through starting this practice, it has done two things for me. The first is giving me a small break in between completing tasks throughout my day. Normally, I would complete one task and immediately move to the next without a second to think. In practicing this method of reflection, even though brief, it has helped me recollect my thoughts before moving to my next task and in turn has actually made me more productive because I am resetting before I move on. The second benefit is the ability to find something to be thankful for, no matter how small or sometimes obsolete. Looking down and being thankful for the ability to walk, closing my eyes and being thankful for the ability to see, or even stepping outside for a second just to be happy that it is finally sunny have all been realizations that I have had during my reflection time. I found it hard to believe at first but if you want to truly be happy, find a reason to be grateful.

I can group the people in my micro system into two categories at this time in my life and they each serve a very important role in my success. The first and more important is my immediate family. My wife, children, and parents are an unbelievable important support system for me as they act as my stability. They encourage me when I need it the most, love me unconditionally, and pick me up when I am down and for that, I am grateful. The second group are those who are not related to me but choose to be an active part of my life and those people are my friends or as I call them, my brothers. I have a few friends that I know if I just need someone to call and vent to, they will always answer. They check in on me if they have not heard from me in a few days and always know how to make me laugh or see the silver lining in tough situations. Whenever we spend time together, it is like nothing has ever changed and we pick up right where we left off last time.

When I pass on from this world, I would like to think that these people will continue to celebrate the love and loyalty that I have shown to them as well. I want my legacy to be built on memories that I have made and not necessarily the things that I have provided. I want people to use words like loyal, fun-loving, caring, compassionate, leader, and always willing to help when they speak my name. I want to leave a piece of me with my children when I my time comes in the sense that I want them to carry on those same characteristics that I have shown them in my time with them. More than anything, I wish that when I pass it is a joyous celebration rather than a day of sadness. Anyone who knows me understands that I enjoy laughter and joy and do not like to see people sad or down for any reason, especially if I am the cause. My biggest fear in death is to not having anything to show for the life on this earth and I don’t mean that in a monetary sense but as a term of the love that I have spread. I have always been told to leave a place better than you found it and my goal is to do that with those people who I have been lucky enough to call them my family.

At work, I have strived hard to get to the position that I am currently in. I lead a fairly large sales team that has had some consistent success and have really made a name for myself as a respected leader in a great organization. I am quite content with the identity that I have formed for myself at my organization but I always know there is room for growth. If I could change anything about the way that I am perceived, it would be that it has not always been easy for me. I have worked hard to get where I am at and have never had anything handed to me. I believe that people see or meet me and because of my performance they may think that I have it easy and that is the farthest from the truth. One characteristic of a great leader is the ability to go through tribulations and not have it affect the performance of those they lead. That is a learned skill that is only mastered through experience and failures. This is a big part of my emotional intelligence that I have worked on towards the better part of a decade and have often had to learn the hard way. I always tell people that it is ok to make a mistake because at least you made a decision and when you stop making decisions, you stop growing. I have had the fortune to work for great leaders who allowed me the autonomy to make my own mistakes and were there for me if I needed to be picked back up. I have chosen to be the same way with those that I lead because I believe it is the only true way for people to learn through experience.

The one true social cause that I am passionate about is helping children learn values such as work ethic, respect, and discipline. As a society we have allowed media to raise our children and I have yet to see my kids learn old fashioned values from a YouTube channel. I firmly believe that there is a necessity for technology in our society but I don’t agree that we should use it as a babysitter when we don’t want to deal with our children. Walk into any restaurant or grocery store and count how many children are sitting there glued with mom or dad’s phone to their face. Having grown up playing sports, these values were reiterated to me on the field as they were at home. With my experience as a football and baseball coach, I have learned that for some kids out there, this is the first time that they are learning about these values. If I can help a child be more successful at athletics and in turn, they learn more about work ethic and respect, then I consider that a win in my book.

My personal mission statement can be summed up into the values that my father taught me as a child and has almost become a family trademark. My father spent twenty five years in the United States Marine Corps and retired as a Maser Gunnery Sergeant which is the highest enlisted rank that someone can get. I know these values come from his time in the Corps but he used them as a man who came from nothing, to raise three very self-sufficient and successful children. The values that he taught, which is also my mission statement revolve around loyalty, honor, and respect.

Loyalty is important because it involves trust and constant support to one another. It is hard to find true loyalty in people and I am blessed to have several devoted people in my life. Being loyal to God is something that I often heard growing up that really resonates with me to this day. Having unwavering faithfulness to another human being is the ultimate sign of love and isn’t freely given.

Honor, by definition is “adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct” (Google, 2019). This would holds synonyms like integrity, righteousness, and principle. Finding honor is who you are and what you stand for is something that I hold near. Standing up for what is right and just, no matter how you appear to others, shows your true character. If I can lead a life of honor and people see that as an impact, then maybe more people will too stand up for a just cause.

Respect is by far the most important of these values to me because I believe this is the greatest thing lacking in today’s world. The idea of living a respectful life is mimicked in the video “Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone” by His Holiness Pope Francis when he speaks of how our interconnectedness is more important than ever. If there is one thing that I would like to remind everyone of that we learn as a child, it is the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do to you.”

Blog: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/anguianoj

Works Cited

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Salovey, P., Brackett, M. A., & Mayer, J. D. (Eds.). (2004). Emotional intelligence: Key readings on the Mayer and Salovey model. Port Chester, NY: Dude Press.

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idealisticrealism · 7 years

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Blindspot 2x15 recap

(aka the one where the team does their own version of WifeSwap and also takes down a trafficking ring)

So I don't know if anyone is still interested in these (other than the couple of anons who have been gently reminding me about getting this done haha) but in honour of the new ep this week, here's my recap of last ep aka ~The Dream Team Reshuffle~

Okay so are these Kurt/Roman sparring sessions a spectator sport?? Because if so, seriously sign me up right now for a lifetime membership haha. Goddamn. And I just-- I mean, the level of trust here? The kindness? Weller understands that Roman needs both freedom and an outlet, so he gives him both, under the guise of 'triggering memories' for information on Sandstorm. Sure, that's the official explanation, but lbr he really just did it because he knows how he would feel being in Roman's shoes. And plus, what better way to get to know the brother of the woman he's in love with? ~Brother-in-law bonding time~ Aaww yeaahhh. I also love that he actually pins Roman-- Roman may be a trained warrior, but Weller's no slouch either. Just because he wears a suit most of the time doesn't erase the fact that he's literally one of the best agents the FBI has. And then ughhh Jane comes in just as he's got Roman pinned and I love that the vibe is instantly like "uh-oh, busted" haha. I love the shock in Jane’s voice though and the way she says 'Kurt'-- tbh I think it's both a "Kurt don't hurt him" and "Kurt is everything okay" because in that split second she doesn't know if this fight is just sparring or has turned real and there's just a flicker of panic where she doesn't know what to do and then Roman is all "we're fine" (aka ‘chill sis we're just engaging in manly bonding’) and she just stares, even more shocked, as Weller grins and pulls Roman to his feet. Like literally this scene has been going for like 30 seconds and I just love everything it has achieved-- Roman is proving to Weller that he can be trusted, bc he didn't try to hurt him or escape while they were sparring, Weller is proving to Roman that he understands and respects his needs and that they can be allies despite coming from opposing sides, and Weller's proving to Jane that he's good hubby material :P and obviously that he cares enough about her to go out of his way for the people she loves. Ugh. And when she suggests Roman going out into the field, he's so gentle and apologetic about why they can't allow that. And then he leaves her to take Roman back to the cell, showing trust in them both. Ugh. What a genius scene, to be so packed with meaning in such a short space of time. I also appreciate Roman trying to convince Jane to tell Weller the truth about Emma bc it’s the right thing to do (seriously woman he’s right, hurry up with that! I'm so annoyed about the lack of learning from past mistakes that's happening here like seriously this can only go badly ugh)

Wait Nas' source-phone is ringing?? Good thing she remembered the code phrase after all these months haha. Also considering that I'm still on the 'Remi was the source' bandwagon, I feel like this meet-up is a trap...

Naw Jeller walking to the lab together and then WAIT WHAT HE ASKED ABOUT THE DATE. Omg. The awkwardness level just shot through the roof (and probably continued up several floors) and Jane is staring at him bc lbr the ~thing~ between them is like the elephant in the room that goes carefully ignored and then suddenly he's asking about something that's directly elephant-adjacent and it's like is this really happening? and then she's still speechless and he assures her she doesn't have to talk about it with him (while looking like he's practically about to cry jesus christ what are you two doing to me) and then he tells her that her whole date thing got him ~thinking~ and her eyes go wide and she stops breathing because is he about to acknowledge the elephant and lbr she's so stunned at even the possibility that this could be happening but she's SO READY for it and ugh I bet her heart is racing rn and ugh ours certainly are because we're all like YES TELL HER ADMIT YOUR LOVE KISS HER KIIISSSSS HEERRRRRRR, and then--- "we need to be careful. Sandstorm is everywhee" and oh man. All that buildup just goes poof! and disappears. Goddammit, Weller, you stupid boy. Couldn't you see how loudly her eyes were screaming 'kiss me'?? Or maybe you could, and that's why you look so sad, because you believe that you two can/should never be together again. But more likely he just assumed that her stunned look was her being uncomfortable about discussing her love life with him. Ugh you two are IDIOTS. Idiots, I tell you. But lbr I do love the fact that Weller is telling her to stay away from Oliver to protect her, which I'm sure is entirely genuine-- or at least, he's convinced himself of that. I wonder if he's aware that he also just wants her far far away from any other man. And then omg Nas appears, interrupting their private moment (I love the look they exhange like they're not quite ready to let go of their connection just yet) and lol I just love that this single moment is like a total metaphor for Nas' involvement in this show, her very presence interrupting their progress back towards one another. Ugh. But anyway sidenote, it looks like when they head to the lab they actually all head back in the direction they had just come from in the first place?? Unless I got all turned around while I was focusing too closely on Jeller's intense eye contact lol, I mean that’s certainly a possibility

Anyhow they head into the lab and there's a conspicuous absence-- Reade is nowhere to be seen, which is no surprise to us, because that dude has become flakier than old paint, but it is to Weller, who has been a little too distracted in the recent weeks to have the team totally in grip like he used to. And luckily for Reade, he has Zapata to cover for him, who gives a hurried excuse of train delays. Ah, transport troubles. An oldie but a goodie. Patterson unwittingly helps by just getting straight down to business, directing all their attention to a photo of Jane's hip and thigh, meaning that they all have a clear view of the curve of her butt as well. I wonder if Jane is so used to this team seeing her body that she just doesn't even register the invasiveness of it anymore? Does Weller ever feel weird about looking so clinically and professionally at something that he would very much like to look at in a non-work setting?? But anyhow. I love that when Patterson's talking about the tattoo being a coin that has the date 1776, a hint of sarcasm creeps into her voice as she says 'the birth of our great nation'. I hope Ashley herself put that slight inflection (and social commentary) on it. Also yay Rich gets a small shoutout since he recognised the symbol from the center of the coin, which relates to some smuggler dude. I hope he’s happy back in whatever prison he’s in. And then there’s some complicated puzzle-solving involving another related tattoo that points them to some fancy medical clinic/heatlh spa thing. Jane reads the Greek off the tattoo because of course she can, and when she asks how it all ties together, Patterson quips, "It's all Greek to me!" and looks at big bro Weller with like an 'eh? eh??' expression. He's not amused, but dw Patterson, because we are. You're the cutest and it's great to see you getting your humour back. And then Weller decides they need to all split up-- a team to talk to some dude that has a connection to the smuggler, a team to check out the medispa, and a team to stay behind and coordinate everything and chase other leads as they arise. Naturally Patterson is the latter, and he pairs Jane and Tasha (yaaaaaasssss) to talk to the dude, but then rather than taking Nas with him to the medispa, he says he'll be taking Roman instead. I love that everyone's like 'whaaaaa?', especially us lol. And then he says that he got a call from Pellington threatening to give Roman to the CIA unless he starts giving them useful info and ugh I so want to know if that's true or if he just made it up so no one would try to fight him on his decision to take Roman on the mission?? Zapata's kinda against it but not firmly against it like she would have been a couple of weeks ago, and I'm super interested to see how she and Jane will work together given their conflicting opinions over Roman and their rocky relationship in the past. I have high hopes for some quality bonding time so please don’t let me down, show

Ooh we're doing another timejumping episode like the college shooting one back in S1. Tasha is leaving a (well deserved) angry voicemail for Reade while Jane delivers Roman to Weller and tells Weller to be safe out there. Which is her telling him to look out for both her brother and for himself and ugh I love being back to a place where these two are allowed to openly care about each other again rather than pretending like they don’t. And then naww speaking of caring, Jane checks to make sure Zapata is okay when she hears her sounding upset on the phone. Ugh yaaaayyy at them being friends aain. And then ugh they work together so well as they interrogate the prisoner guy (sidenote, I love the way Zapata says her own name. It’s hot.) and they're just so in sync and so great and just ugh. And then when they come out of the room Jane tentatively asks about Reade-- she knows something is going on and she wants to help because she cares. But she also knows that Zapata is protective of Reade and might push her away for pyring and ugh my little baby Jane just wants all of her family to be safe and happy and ughhhh she's the sweetest. I'm glad Zapata doesn't lash out, she just plays it off as no big deal, saying he just slept in. Jane knows it's not true but accepts it anyway (after making it clear she would help if help was needed). And then a new lead comes in and so they head out-- and omg Zapata is the one to reach out first, admitting it's kinda nice having Jane with her instead of Reade for a change, and then making sure she knows that she doesn't have anything against Roman anymore, she’s just worried about his former Sandstorm ties. Whaaaat. Zapata noticing that Jane is quiet/possibly upset and makes an effort to sort-of apologise to try to make her feel better? Amazing. And then Jane is honest with her about what's really bothering her-- that Weller (who is almost exclusively 'Kurt' to her these days ugh) warned her about trusting Oliver and risk of ties to sandstorm. And omg Zapata's immediate response is 'ooooh you're seeing someone?" and ugh I KNEW the ~supportive girlfriends~ connection between them was still in there. My beautiful supportive lady friends are back. She's happy for Jane, though she acknowledges that it's possible Weller has a point. And then omg they bond over the impossibility of having a life outside the job and Zapata tells Jane about her grandparents’ love story and how she has being single down to a science (me too girl, me toooo) and UGH THE BONDINGGGGGG THIS IS EVERYTHIG I'VE EVR WANTED. Anyway they arrive at the auction house place and tbh I love how small Zapata looks in this ep?? She's such a teeny pocket rocket haha. Then the blonde lady who just sounded very stressed on the phone shows them through to the back area (literally guys it's hard for anyone to believe that you're just two random peeps looking for a coin for Jane's 'dad'. You both have ~Badass Warrior Woman~ written all over you. But lucky they are so badass, because now they're in the middle of a gunfight. Which Jane has literally broguht a knife to. Help, I'm dying over the subtle comedic genius of this writing loll. Also Jane just used that knife to make a dude stab himself in the chest and then she threw him through a window. Good lord, have I mentioned lately how incredible this woman is?? Of course Zapata has held her own very well too, taking out the other dude with a crack shot before the two of them regroup and are like 'what the hell just happened??' lol

Oooh okay we've jumped back to 9am now, where a gorgeous woman is creeping out of Reade's coke-palace, while he pretends to be asleep til the door closes then groggily listens to Tasha's voicemail. Meanwhile, Patterson has been working hard because she's amazing and not flushing her life down the toilet despite the horrible things she’s gone through, and she cracks the tatt just as he gets there. She knows he's lying about his dentist appointment but she’s just like 'whatever bitch let's go, we got bad guys to hunt'. And then lol I love the fact that she's the one driving. She looks so tiny in this huge car. It's probably a good idea though-- are we sure he's sober enough to drive? But anyway she fills him in, and then gets interrupted by a call from Dr Sun, which makes me nervous. No one should be trusting Dr Sun ever. Therapy is great and I fully support it, but please honey go find a nice therapist faaaaaar removed from anything to do with Sandstorm or the FBI or Nas. Like how about my mother?? She'd love to go back to NYC for a while lol. But anyway I appreciate that Reade actually asks her how she's doing and genuinely cares about the answer. He might be living in an emotional trashcan at the moment but he still loves his team. But sigh, for a moment I was hopeful that Patterson's healthy approach to trauma would inspire him but instead he just tries to tell her she needs a night out. No Reade, your form of therapy is not good for anyone. Though I would be supportive of Patterson and Jane and Zapata having a nice little girls’ night in at some point... but anyway my genius baby can tell Reade's off but there's no time for that bc they're at the bad guy's house. But of course he walks up, talking on his phone to the blonde coin lady, just as they're at his door. So now we know who she was talking to just as Jane and Zapata got there... Also man everyone's life would have been so much easier rn if this was the 80s and no one had mobile phones to coordinate with haha. Still, if Reade had been keeping a proper lookout... and then he gives chase and catches him, but somehow the guy mesmerises him with an emotional speech on hating himself and oh geez. Come on, Reade, you’re better than this. But nope, like an idiot he lowers his gun and is about to get shot when Patterson saves his ass (yeahhh, girl!). Back at the lab, he awkwardly thanks her and she responds by asking him if he's okay and trying to get him to get help with his problems. But of course he's not interested, and then someone comes and interrupts anyway, and now they have info on the smuggler person helping a cartel with something. Also lol Reade shows her a bill he found in that dudes apartment for some building, and its printed on perfectly clean, unfolded paper. Idk how you guys get your bills, but they sure don't look like that after being through the postal system. But anyway they send a raid on the building, finding a bunch of empty beds with handcuffs attached-- and then we see the people chained up in a van with the smuggler guy watching over them. Right, human trafficking it is...

Back to 9am (lol it's like a mini groundhog day for us) and Weller runs into Nas in the corridor, telling her to take backup to her meet while she's all 'yeah, nah' then tells him to watch his back with Roman. Bitch, he's much safer with Roman than he is with you! Ugh. And then Roman and Jane are in the elevator and he's so worried about letting Weller down and not remembering anything and being sent to the CIA and ugh my poor baby puppyyyy. And then naww Jane promises that she won’t let them take him away from her. Also it's interesting that the camera followed Jane there for a minute, showing us what we've already seen, rather than just following directly after Weller and Roman after Jane hands him over. Seemed kind of like unnecessary doubling up. But anyway ugh Roman and Weller getting into their cover outfits and talking about the plan and just overall working together and I'm so happy about it. But not as happy as I am about these GLASSES omg. Weller. Be still my heart. Lol but I’m laughing at “No weapon for me?" "Just act like you have one" bc now I'm picturing Roman with his hand hovering over his hip like a gunslinger, and like a balled up pair of socks shoved under his belt to make a bulge under his jacket hahaha. But then omg Roman thanks him for bringing him out and giving him a chance, and Weller says it's all about getting them closer to Shepherd so they can take sandstorm down and move on, but lbr that's only part of it. Part is that he feels for Roman and what he’s going through. And a big part is his feelings for Jane :P And aww I love that they made up a backstory for Roman, aka the bodyguard who is not even meant to speak. Who's gonna quiz him? Other than Weller, I mean lol. I love these two getting along. And lol "you're security, open the door" haha, he's already behaving like a pampered rich guy. Oooh this place has exactly the same security as the auction house, and the guy has the coin displayed on his desk?? Seems kinda arrogant when it's apparently the symbol of your shady dealings. And then Mr White Teeth gets all distracted by Roman's scar which is stupid bc he would never risk offending a rich client by wasting their time focusing on their bodyguard instead. And then Roman gets pissed and grabs him which earns them a timeout in the meditation room haha. A place that is clearly not very tranquil for Weller bc this time he's the one getting pissed and grabby-- and then Roman smugly presents the key-fob for the restricted area and Weller is all '...damn. I think I like this kid' lol. And then when they sneak into the area, Weller gets a call and the whole team does an adorable little conference call to update each other on what they've found out so far. While they're chatting Roman uses broken medical instruments to pick a lock on a cabinet and while that totally wouldn't work (trust me I'm a lockpick now lol) it's super cute that he opens it and then steps aside like it's an offering to Weller. And then he reappears a moment later with some medical files, allowing Weller to put together the answers-- that the cartel is trafficking people to be used as organ donors at this medispa. Then ta-da, the blonde woman appears, but by the time Roman and Weller get there, she's killed the doc and made a run for it. The badass bros-in-law chase her down and find her-- only to be tazed and kidnapped. Oops.

Back at the NYO, the team is set on finding the boys (especially Jane, which is unsurprising since it's the two people she loves most in the world). Nas has to go to meet her source and everyone is like "k, byeeee" and immediately forget about her the moment she leaves the room. Jane realises that the guy they interrogated earlier must know more than he let on so she and Tasha and Reade lean on him with their new info-- turns out his gf was doing all the trafficking stuff without his knowledge. I kinda feel sorry for the guy. Also I was gonna say he reminded me a little of Lin Manuel Miranda somehow and then I realised that it's because he's from Hamilton haha. Sigh, I will see it someday.... Anywho, he helps them by giving them a location where they can find the truck and therefore rescue the victims and their boys :)

Speaking of which, both Weller and Roman are chained up inside the truck with the others, and Roman is freaking out bc it's giving him flashbacks and ughhh Weller pulls him out of the memory and reassures him and ughhhhh my boys. And then the other prisoners help them figure out a way to escape and we find out Roman can speak Spanish bc he really is Jane’s brother (man I gotta start learning spanish so one day I can just randomly whip it out like that). Anyhow the team is at the site and are all spreading out ready to take down the bad guys and then ugh Jane sees Weller in the truck and there's a second of eye contact and then the team dives into a gunfight with the baddies (bc it's not Blindspot if there's not multiple epic showdowns per ep) and while they're engaged in that, Weller chases down the blonde and Roman goes for the smuggler, and Jane runs after them both bc she's gotta protect her boys. I love that Weller goes all Assassin's Creed and jumps from truck to truck, then pauses as he sees the blonde fleeing one way and Roman fighting a losing battle the other way-- so he directs Tasha and Reade after the woman and dives to Roman's rescue, shooting the bad guy a second before he cuts Roman's throat. And Jane is there a second later and ugh the fear in her voice as she yells Roman’s name and then ugh the way both she and Weller crouch over him ughhhh I know he's her brother but in a way they're both parent-figures to him and ugh I get emotional about it. Meanwhile Tasha and Reade are still searching for the blonde, who shoots Zapata in the freaking back, like seriously how dare she do that to my precious baby. Thank god she was wearing a vest. Reade is as pissed about it as I am, so he shoots the blonde in the back too which has just a hint of poetic justice to it tbh

Ughhhh Jeller finding each other in the hallway and she checks if he's okay and he immediately asks after Roman and she tells him that Roman's fine thanks to what he did (yes boy are you figuring out that the way back to this woman's heart is by caring about and protecting those she cares about?? Which includes yourself btw so no foolish business please). And then awwww he admits that he kinda enjoyed hanging out with Roman and he kinda likes him and she's THE CUTEST as she teases him about playing it cool so he doesn't come on too strong and ugh she jokes about it but I bet that his acceptance and liking of Roman means EVERYTHING to her. And then omg Weller brings up Oliver AGAIN (booooooiiiiii whatre u doingg) and then he tells her that though she should be careful she doesn't have to give up all aspects of her life for this fight and she's all 'so you think I should give him a chance?' (aka 'so you've definitely moved on then?') and he's all 'well that's up to you' (aka 'I literally want every man bar me to stay as far from you as possible but I can't even admit that to myself right now let alone to you so I'm gonna hedge hedge hedge') and then what the HELL is THIS bc he genuinely compliments her about always looking for the best in people and then says that it's ONE OF HIS FAVOURITE THINGS ABOUT HER. ONE OF MULTIPLE FAVOURITE THINGS. ABOUT HER. LORD SAVE ME FROM THIS HELL. AND UGH HER WHISPERED 'thank you' AND THE WAY HE SMILES AT HER WITH THE CRINKLY EYES AND THEN EVEN AS THEY WALK AWAY SHE LITERALLY PAUSES AND ALMOST TURNS BACK AND UGHHHHHH WHAT IS THIS BEAUTIFUL TORTURE I LOVE-HATE IT SO MUCH

Omg then the next thing Jane does is go to Tasha and ask for her help doing a background check on Oliver which is adorable and then they find out he changed his name (so he CHOSE the last name 'Kind'?? Literally what kind of damn pretentious... sigh nevermind) and Zapata tells her not to jump to conclusions about it and Jane just looks at her and is all 'would you' and she's all 'oh yeah' and ughhhhh these two cuties ughhh

Speaking of cute pairs, omg Weller is literally visiting roman in his cell with beers and asking him if he's okay and tells him he did good work and ugh they smile at each other and joke about the spanish thing and then Roman is honest about not wanting to remember the bad things he's done and ugh Weller shares some background on his shitty childhood and ugh LOOK AT THIS BONDING. LOOK AT IT, ANAKIN. And so clearly all the pairs are having a little post-mission ~moment~ rn bc now Patterson and Reade are talking in the locker room and firstly oooh Weller's having some drinks at his place tonight, I bet Jane is gonna be there. Ugh wait I wonder if that's why he brought the beers to Roman, bc he knows he couldn’t let Roman come but he wanted to share the moment with him somehow and ughhh help me. But anyway unlike the sweet bonding of the last two pairs, this is Patterson basically calling Reade out on his shit, which I am SUPER supportive of. Then he gets defensive and says she's being stupid, which I am not at all supportive of. But she ignores him and continues on, making it clear she knows what's going on. And omg she has a brother who's an addict and maaannn this is such fascinating backstory I want to hear 100% about this. But ugh then Reade gets even more defensive and basically tells her to shut up and bugger off and grrrr Reade I am really not a fan of you these days. I miss the Reade that was sweet and sassy and supportive and stupidly in love with Sarah Weller. I loved him, but I really don't like this guy much at all. Sigh.

Speaking of guys I don't like, Oliver shows up at Jane's apartment, and yet again when he speaks I'm reminded of that terrible terrible accent of his. But sigh I will acknowledge that he's kinda sweet and they are cute with their little hand-holding thing and whatever. But oooh she goes for it an asks him about the name change and he gets pisssssseeedddd. Lbr there's probably going to be some completely legit reason for it like he had a really terrible family situation or whatever, but lbr I don't really care bc it means it got him out of her apartment (a dinner-at-home date seems like the prime situation for some lovin', so I'm very glad that it crashed and burned lol)

Aaaand speaking of crashing and burning, the basically-forgotten Nas has reached her meet-point and is now being garrotted. Oh well. But then lbr we all know she doesn’t die so no point in getting excited. Er, I mean ‘worried’...

#Blindspot #Blindspot recap #Jeller #sooo late but also appropriately timed for the new ep so...?#Ugh I loved this ep though #the bonding was just the beeeessstttt #and the jeller is getting closer and closer I can feel it #I'm so ready

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scarceblog · 7 years

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Slow to anger...even on facebook

We live an extremely controversial world. With social media platforms out the wazoo and press outlets feeding us 24/7, it’s nearly impossible not to base strong opinions and beliefs over something and dispute it in one forum or another. Not to mention the incredible reach any one person can have over an audience to sway them, good or bad. Kind of like this blog, right? I may only have a small audience consisting of my wife and two cats with the occasional visitor, but through this blog, there is potential to reach an audience. Oh...and that’s my goal!

Let me cut to the chase here...

Christians - We need not be quick to judge, to cast stones, or show anger towards a differing view. Instead, we must be slow to anger, put down our stones(phones. I mean, it’s the 21st century), and show the love of Christ.

Now let me clarify. Is it okay to disagree with someone? Of course. Is it normal for us as Christians to feel as if we are under attack by the world? Yes, because we are! Then why shouldn’t we be angry? Maybe it’s okay to feel angry, but we need to be careful how we let people see that anger.

Why shouldn’t we fight back on facebook and slam our beliefs in their faces?

First off, representing your faith and beliefs is one thing, but I think you all know what I’m referring to. It’s those endless “comments” sections between opposing people and by the time you get halfway through the feed, you wonder if either one of them is a follower of Christ. In fact, you may be so taken aback by the debate, you begin exercising compassion and mercy by kneeling down and praying for them on the spot.

I’ll list a few quick reasons, founded in scripture, why those types of debates shouldn’t include us.

We are image-bearers of God. We, His children, are created in the image of God. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”(Genesis 1:27)

We are called to follow Christ, to take up our cross and follow Jesus, God Himself. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

We are to seek God’s will for our lives, to follow Him, and care for those around us. David, a great king in the old testament, was known for being a man after God’s own heart(Acts 13:22). He was sinful just as we are, but he lived out many attributes of God’s heart: humble, trusting, loving, respectful, merciful, faithful, devoted, and he was repentant of his sins. All of these attributes are seen in David’s hospitality towards Mephibosheth, a man who considered even himself to be a “dead dog”, yet King David upheld a promise from the past, and gave him a seat at the King’s table for the rest of his life. Read 2 Samuel, beginning in chapter 4 for the story, but David’s true heart is shown in Samuel 9.

We are not to judge, unless we ourselves are free from sin...we know that’s not the case. Jesus references throughout the new testament that we are not to judge, for judging others only brings condemnation upon ourselves. (John 8:7, Romans 2:1, Mathew 7:1, Mathew 7:3)

Fruits of the Spirit are what we should be reflecting! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is WAY too easy to forget these when we’re rapid-firing comments and tweets.

Peace must come before anger, even(and arguably especially) when reaching the unrighteous. James emphasizes throughout his book to be set on good deeds and patience. Not that good deeds offers salvation, but remaining peaceful and being good to others will reap righteousness. Others will want the the peace you have, offered through Jesus Christ! (James 3:18)

I could go on and on, but I’ll leave that as enough reason to keep your cool when scrolling through the bookface or tweeb feed. We are created in the image of God, called to follow Him through the man Jesus Christ, led by the Holy Spirit into all the world, reflecting the fruits of the spirit inside of us.

Case in point: our anger, our retaliations, and rapid-fire statements are not going to win souls for the Kingdom of God. We must live as Christ lived, showing love, kindness, and peace to all we come in contact with. Remember, Jesus Christ was God Himself, yet he didn’t even consider equality with God(Philippians 2:6). How then, can we play the role of Judge, when it is God who judges?

The more anger we show, the more hypocritical we look.

Maybe you see someone doing something you truly believe is against God(a sin). Yes, your heart should break for that person, but you have to approach each situation with caution. If you have a brother or sister in Christ who you know and have a relationship with of some kind, you may be able to be more forward with them, while remaining completely kind, loving, and compassionate. If you’re on facebook and you don’t know the person, it’s a whole different scenario. Keep in mind, the person on facebook has no reason to listen to you as far as they’re concerned so, before you send a comment, make sure you build some trust first. Even then we must remember we are here to assist those who haven’t come to a knowing faith, not show anger towards them. We want to help our neighbors, not turn them away from the gospel.

I will agree with anyone that says it’s hard to walk through the day and not feel sorrow and heartbreak from the state of the world. As followers of Christ, that’s normal! The closer we become to knowing God and understanding His nature, His heart, the more common that will be. It’s part of the burden of taking up our cross to follow Christ. Just remember to be slow to anger and always have your intentions be set on assisting and helping...even on facebook.

#facebook #twitter #socialmedia #hypocrisy #anger #faith #compassion #love #kindness #peace #patience #gentleness #fruitsofthespirit #christian #debate #truth

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years

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13 Keys to the White House

I hate politics with a burning passion. The whole subject just makes me depressed and stressed, but like a moth to the flame I find myself unable to escape it. My politics posts were topical and relatively popular during the lead up to the 2020 election, but things have quieted down considerably a we adjust to the new normal under a sane but useless president. For this reason, I've decided that the best way to spend my time is to try and make prediction about 2024, because it makes me feel like I have some semblance of control over my life when in reality these things are well out of my hands.

Allan Lichtman is a political analyst who has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984, and working backwards his method correctly accounts for every election since 1860; with the only hiccup being 2000 when he predicted Al Gore would win (by all rights he did; he won the popular vote and he would have won the Florida recount if George W. Bush's brother hadn't illegally stopped it and delayed it until it was too late to restart).

Lichtman gives 13 yes or no statements to assess the performance of the incumbent party over the last four years, and has determined that if eight or more are true then the incumbent party wins another term. If six or more are false, the challenging party wins instead. From Wikipedia they are:

Midterm gains: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

No primary contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.

Incumbent seeking re-election: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

No third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

Strong short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

Strong long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Major policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

No social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

No scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

No foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Major foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Charismatic incumbent: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Uncharismatic challenger: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

In 2020 the chips fell thusly:

False: the Democrats won more seat in 2018 than the Republicans in 2014

True: Trump was the only Republican candidate, and in fact many states canceled their primaries to give it to him

True: Trump was running for another term

True: the libertarians and the greens didn't get nearly as much air time as they did in 2016

False: Covid recession

False: Trump dug a hole so deep it'll take us years to crawl our way back out of it

True: McConnell's court packing scheme, 3 justices, America First foreign policy, sucking up to dictators, alienating our allies

False: George Floyd protests

False: too many to name

True: not failing doesn't necessarily mean succeeding

False: case in point, he didn't accomplish any of his goals like ending the war in Afghanistan or disarming North Korea

False: although his base worships him as the second coming of Christ, they only make up 40% of the country, and the other 60% HATES him

True: Biden is a boring old man that both right-wingers hate and progressive leftists hate. Only moderates and centrists really like him

That's 6 true and 7 false. Trump needed 8 true to win, so Lichtman called it for Biden in summer. While we can make some assumptions about the future, we can't predict everything, so there will be a lot of unknowns that prevent us from drawing solid conclusions. I'll update this post as time goes on; we should have a fairly solid picture by early 2023 after the midterms.

Almost certainly false: the Democrats are hanging on by a thread as is, and 2022 will see dozens of competitive House seats redrawn by Republican to give themselves an advantage going forward. I'm pretty sure the Republicans will take back the House, but even if they don't there's no way the Democrats will manage to hang onto as many seats in 2022 as they won in 2018 (235)

Probably true: to hear Biden tell it, he's a spring chicken at the top of his game and wholeheartedly intends to run for re-election in 2024. I give it 50/50 odds that he bows out due to declining health and gives it to Kamala Harris, but either way they have the nomination in the bag. Nobody is going to challenge Biden, and nobody serious will challenge Harris.

Unknown: see above

Unknown: this one is leaning towards true, but it's too soon to tell. We think of third-party candidates as being fringe, but they played major roles in 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016. I don't expect the networks to give as much airtime to the libertarians and the greens as they did in 2016, but then again all the media outlets made off like bandits during the Trump years. Love him or hate him, he made them a shit load of money, and helping a third-party campaign will ensure another candidate like Trump gets elected

Probably true: it'll be hard for Biden to fuck things up more than they are now. I don't think we'll see ANOTHER recession in less than 4 years, but then again we thought the Great Recession of 2008 would be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Absolutely true: Obama's second term was prosperous, Trump's term put us deep in the red, so they average out to neutral; as long as Biden can do better than literally nothing, he has this one in the bag.

I don't think so: 2021 was the Democrats' best chance at changing things, but they fumbled like we all expected them to. They have majroties in both houses of Congress and could conceivably railroad through any legislation they want, as Trump did in his first 2 years, but no, they want to play fair, they want to be bipartisan. They extend an olive branch when the other side wouldn't piss on them to put them out if they were on fire. None of Biden's campaign promises will get done.

Probably true: I don't think things can get worse than 2020. Biden is, if nothing else, inoffensive. Republicans are trying to make him out as this socialist boogeyman, but nothing really sticks because he is nearly economically identical to Trump (both party establishments are economically neoliberal). If we were going to go to war, it would have been last year. I don't think there's anything Biden can do to screw things up that badly.

Probably: like I said, Biden is boring, which means he's not take any risks. I think even he has sense enough to realize that the entire country is watching him with a magnifying glass, waiting for him to make any mistake. He's playing it as safe as possible with relative transparency, so I don't see him doing anything shadier than any other president. If the Republicans take back the House they might impeach him as revenge for Trump, but he'll be acquitted and public opinion will probably be on his side.

Unknown: Democrats love to fumble, so this one's up in the air

Unknown: pulling out of Afghanistan might be a success, but the Taliban will just retake control once we're gone and it'll be back to square one. It'll be this generation's Vietnam; a 20 year long waste of time that we ended up losing. I'm still not convicned the withdrawal will even go through.

False: Lichtman didn't call Biden charismatic in 2020, I know for a fact he won't suddenly become MORE popular by 2024. Hes boring. If he didn't run and gave it to Kamala Harris I still don't see this flipping true. She has more energy, sure, but she's disingenuous at best and a two-faced enemy of the revolution at worst. She's a cop.

True: calling it now, nobody the Republicans choose will have national appeal. Lichtman noted that these last two keys are incredibly subjective, but you know it when you see it. For his definition of charisma he cites presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama (2008 Obama, not 2012 Obama; the novelty wore off real quick and we realized he was the Republicans' doormat and a war criminal). If Trump tries for a second term, he'll be even less popular then than he is now, and none of his underlings inspire as much confidence in the party. Ron DeSantis, my state's governor, appears to be the front runner of non-Trumps, but he's so dumb he makes that whole family look like a Rhodes Scholars. America is so divided that I don't think there will ever be another super charismatic candidate with bipartisan appeal.

That's 3 false, 4 unknown, and 6 true. Biden needs 8 true to win a second term, but he has plenty of unknown keys which would turn in his favor. Even Trump avoided a major foreign policy failure, so I'm sure Biden can cinch that key, bringing him up to 7. That and the third-party key seem the most likely to flip true, meaning Biden will probably win, though I could very well see this becoming a repeat of 2000 and 2016 where he wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college. In that case, I expect civil unrest going into whatever Republican's term, verging on total civil war.

One-term wonders are exceedingly rare. Trump was a historically weak candidate who only won because of low voter turnout in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He saw an Alabama senate seat flip blue, as well as all four seats in Arizona and Georgia, he lost the house and the senate in quick succession, and was impeached twice. He was a loser through and through, and I don't think he'll be coming back.

At least I certainly hope so.

#politics #2024 #prediction #election

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illbefinealonereads · 4 years

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Blog tour! Keep scrolling for an exclusive excerpt from Music From Another World by Robyn Talley.

MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD By Robin Talley On Sale: Mar 31, 2020 Inkyard Press Teen & Young Adult 20th Century United States Historical Fiction Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Emotions & Feelings Teen & Young Adult Gay & Lesbian Fiction 9781335146779; 1335146776 $18.99 USD 384 pages

It’s summer 1977 and closeted lesbian Tammy Larson can’t be herself anywhere. Not at her strict Christian high school, not at her conservative Orange County church and certainly not at home, where her ultrareligious aunt relentlessly organizes antigay political campaigns. Tammy’s only outlet is writing secret letters in her diary to gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk…until she’s matched with a real-life pen pal who changes everything. Sharon Hawkins bonds with Tammy over punk music and carefully shared secrets, and soon their letters become the one place she can be honest. The rest of her life in San Francisco is full of lies. The kind she tells for others—like helping her gay brother hide the truth from their mom—and the kind she tells herself. But as antigay fervor in America reaches a frightening new pitch, Sharon and Tammy must rely on their long-distance friendship to discover their deeply personal truths, what they’ll stand for…and who they’ll rise against. A master of award-winning queer historical fiction, New York Times bestselling author Robin Talley once again brings to life with heart and vivid detail an emotionally captivating story about the lives of two teen girls living in an age when just being yourself was an incredible act of bravery.

Robin Talley studied literature and communications at American University. She lives in Washington, DC, with her wife, but visits both Boston and New York regularly despite her moral opposition to Massachusetts winters and Times Square. Her first book was 2014's Lies We Tell Ourselves. Visit her online at robintalley.com or on Twitter at @robin_talley.

Social Links: Author website: https://robintalley.com/ Facebook: @robintalleywrites Twitter: @robin_talley Instagram: @robin_talley Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6469490.Robin_Talley

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Dear Harvey,

I hope it’s okay for me to call you Harvey. In school, when they taught us to write letters, they said adults should always be addressed as “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” but from what I’ve read in the newspaper, you don’t seem much like the adults I know. I’d feel wrong calling you “Mr. Milk.”

Besides, it’s not as if I’m ever going to send you this letter. I’ve never kept a diary before, but things have been getting harder lately, and tonight might be the hardest night of all. I need someone I can talk to. Even if you can’t answer back.

Plus, I told Aunt Mandy I couldn’t join the prayer circle because I had too much homework. Tomorrow’s the last day of school, so I don’t have any homework, but she doesn’t know that. If I keep writing in this notebook, maybe she’ll think homework is really what I’m doing.

I guess I could write to my new “pen pal” instead. That might count as homework. It would be closer than writing a fake letter to a famous San Francisco homosexual, anyway, but I can’t handle the thought of writing to some stranger right now.

Technically you’re a stranger, too, Harvey, but you don’t feel like one. That’s why I wanted to write to you, instead of “Dear Diary” or something.

It’s ironic, though, that my pen pal lives in San Francisco, too. I wonder if she’s ever met you. How big is the city, anyway? I read a magazine article that said gay people could hold hands walking down the street there, and no one minds. Is that true?

Ugh. The prayer circle’s starting over. Brett and Carolyn are leading the Lord’s Prayer again. It’s probably the only prayer they know.

We’ve been cooped up in the church basement for five hours now—my whole family, plus the youth group, plus a bunch of the other Protect Our Children volunteers. Along with Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell, of course. The results from Miami should come in any minute.

You probably already know this—wait, who am I kidding? Of courseyou know, Harvey—but there was a vote today in Florida. They were voting on homosexuality, so our church, New Way Baptist, was heavily involved, even though we’re on the opposite side of the country. Everyone in our youth group was required to volunteer. I worked in the office Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell set up in their den, answering phones and putting together mailings and counting donations to the New Way Protect Our Children Fund. We had bake sales and car washes to raise money to send to Anita Bryant, too.

You know all about Anita Bryant, obviously. You’re probably just as scared of her as I am. Although, come to think of it, whenever I see you in the newspaper, you look the opposite of afraid. In pictures, you’re always smiling.

Don’t you get anxious, having everyone know? I’m terrified all the time, and no one even knows about me yet. I hope they never find out.

Maybe I should pray for that. Ha.

Okay, the Lord’s Prayer is over and now Uncle Russell’s making everyone silently call on God to save the good Christians of Florida from sin. I hope I can keep writing without getting in trouble.

Ugh, look at them all, showing off how devout they are. The only two people in this room who aren’t clasping their hands in front of them and moving their lips dramatically are me and Aunt Mandy, but that’s because I’m a grievous sinner—obviously—and Aunt Mandy keeps peeking out from her shut eyes at the phone next to her.

I’m not sure how much you can concentrate on God when you’re solely focused on being ready to snatch up the receiver the second it starts to shake. Maybe she’ll grab it so hard, it’ll crush to a pulp in her fist like one of Anita Bryant’s fucking Florida oranges.

I wonder what you’re doing tonight, Harvey. Probably waiting by your phone, too. Only you’re in San Francisco, and if you’re praying, you’re praying for the opposite of what Aunt Mandy and everyone else in our church basement is praying for.

It seems pointless to pray now, though. The votes have already been cast, so we’re just waiting to hear the results. There’s a reporter from my aunt and uncle’s favorite radio station in L.A. sitting at the back of the room, ready to interview Uncle Russell once we know what happened. Even though we basically already do.

My mom showed up at church tonight with a box of balloons from the supermarket, but Aunt Mandy wouldn’t let anyone touch them until the announcement, so at the moment the box is sitting in the closet under a stack of old communion trays. The second that phone starts to ring, though,

I just bet Aunt Mandy’s going to haul out that box and make us all start blowing up those crappy balloons.

I wonder if you’ve heard of my aunt. She wants you to. She knows exactly who you are, of course—you’re her enemy.

Which makes me your enemy, too, I guess. I’m not eighteen, and it’s not as if I could’ve voted in an election in Miami even if I were, but I’ve still spent the past two months folding up comic books about the destruction of Sodom to mail out to churches in Florida.

I’m a soldier for Christ. That’s what Aunt Mandy calls me, anyway. And since I do everything she says, she must be right.

Writing to you instead of praying with the others is the closest I’ve ever come to rebelling. That’s how much of a coward I am, Harvey.

I wish I had the nerve to tell my aunt to go shove it. That’s what I’d really pray for—the nerve, I mean. If I thought prayer ever helped anything.

Shit, the phone’s ringing. More later.

Tammy

Buy Links: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Music-Another-World-Robin-Talley/dp/1335146776 Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/music-from-another-world-robin-talley/1131130958#/ IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335146779 Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Music-from-Another-World/Robin-Talley/9781335146779?id=7833509719461 AppleBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/music-from-another-world/id1458725405 Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Robin_Talley_Music_from_Another_World?id=yEy7DwAAQBAJ

#music from another world #robyn talley #blog tour #booklr #excerpt

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seniorbrief · 6 years

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My Father Was the BTK Killer. Here’s Why I Managed to Forgive Him.

Travis Heying/Wichita Eagle

The man knocked on Kerri Rawson’s door around noon on February 25, 2005. She looked out at him from inside her apartment near Detroit—he was holding an FBI badge.

She almost didn’t answer. Her father, a code compliance officer in Park City, a suburb of Wichita, Kansas, had taught her to be wary of strangers, and this one had sat in his car for an hour outside her home. But she decided to let the FBI agent into her kitchen, where she had made a chocolate Bundt cake. From then on, the smell of chocolate cake would make her queasy.

The man asked if she knew what BTK was. Yes, she did. BTK—Bind, Torture, Kill—was the nickname for the serial killer who had scared her mom decades ago and who was responsible for murdering ten people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991.

The FBI guy was her dad’s age, in his late 50s, wearing glasses and a necktie, nervous. Kerri was a 26-year-old substitute teacher taking a day off, still in her pajamas. The man said her dad had been arrested as a BTK Killer suspect. He needed to swab her cheek for DNA. (Here are the strangest unsolved mysteries in each state.)

At that moment, in Park City, Kerri’s mother, Paula Rader, 56, sat down to lunch at home, waiting for her husband, Dennis. Cops rushed in, guns drawn. A week later, Paula’s lunch still sat uneaten in the house she had shared with Dennis since the early 1970s. She’d never sleep there again.

Cops arrested Dennis as he was driving home for lunch. In Wichita, officers picked up family and friends for questioning. At the police station, Paula defended Dennis. Back in Detroit, Kerri yelled at the FBI agent. The last time she had seen her dad was in Park City at Christmas. He’d looked sad. She remembered his bear hug, how he smelled, his brown uniform. This could not be true, she told the man. Dad had called last night, asking if she’d checked the oil in her car.

At that point, she did something she would do many times over the next seven days: defend and then doubt her father at the same time. She told the agent about Marine Hedge. Hedge, 53, was a grandmother with a silky southern accent, five feet tall, weighing no more than 100 pounds. She’d lived six doors down from the Raders and disappeared in 1985, when Kerri was six. Hedge’s body was later found in a ditch. Paula had been fearful. “Don’t worry,” Dad had said. “We’re safe.”

Kerri remembered that when Hedge disappeared, her dad wasn’t home. “It was stormy, and I didn’t want to sleep by myself. My mom let me in her bed—that’s how I know he was gone.”

After the FBI agent left, she took down a picture of her father from the hallway and stuck it in a closet. She Googled “BTK” for proof that he was innocent but then told her husband she was matching her memories to BTK’s murder timeline, wondering if her whole life might be a lie.

The next day, police and politicians gathered in Wichita’s city hall. “BTK is arrested,” the police chief announced. Kerri was furious when she learned that to link her dad to the BTK Killer, cops had obtained one of her Pap smears taken years before at Kansas State University’s clinic. They used it to confirm that the Rader family DNA closely matched DNA in the semen that BTK left at the scene of a quadruple homicide in 1974. The FBI guy had asked Kerri for a cheek swab so he could double-check her DNA.

The first nights, Kerri and her husband, Darian, slept as if one of them needed to be on watch—she on the couch, he on the floor. TV crews camped outside, and when Darian drove to work, they followed.

Darian watched his wife change. Athletic and nearly five foot ten, she was no girlie girl, and he loved that. She could walk for days carrying a backpack. But now, she was the BTK Killer’s daughter. She even looked like her dad: same dark hair, same eyes. She shared his middle name, Lynn. She felt as if she’d done something wrong.

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

Kerri searched her memories. The night of Hedge’s murder, Dad had taken Brian, her brother, on a Boy Scout campout. Was it an alibi so he could sneak out and murder their neighbor? In 2004, around Christmas, after BTK threatened in letters to the police and news outlets that he would kill again, Dad had driven her to the airport to pick up her brother. But Dad had wandered off. Was he mailing one of those letters? Watching the news to see if he was mentioned? She minutely analyzed her whole life.

Kerri remembered how he spoke sharply if she sat in his chair or failed to put her shoes away. Cops said BTK made strange marks in his communications to them. She recalled weird marks Dad made on newspaper stories. “Code,” he’d called it.

Three days after her dad’s arrest, Kerri flew back to Kansas City. On the plane, she escaped by reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But on her layover, she saw her father’s face on the airport’s TV screens.

Mike Clark, the family’s pastor, visited Dennis Rader in jail a week after his arrest. Clark called Paula afterward, and Kerri watched her mother take the call, with a yellow legal pad in her hand. Paula wrote, “He’s confessing,” and underlined it as they talked.

It was true. He had murdered the Oteros: a mom, a dad, and two children, ages 11 and 9. He had tortured victims, sexually defiled several. He had taken Hedge’s body inside Christ Lutheran Church, where he was congregation president. He posed her and took photos. BTK had started his crimes in 1974, before Kerri was born.

Everybody assumed the BTK Killer was a sadistic genius. But the real BTK is an ordinary, inarticulate doofus, Darian thought. And a good dad, Kerri said. With Paula, he’d taught the kids’ godliness. Kerri had two college degrees; Brian, her older brother, had been an Eagle Scout and was training to serve on U.S. Navy nuclear submarines.

Dennis couldn’t understand why no family members visited. Kerri wrote him: “You have had these secrets, this ‘double life’ for 30 years; we have only had knowledge of it for three months … We are trying to cope and survive … You lied to us, deceived us.”

The family dreaded a trial, where his crimes would be described. Dennis pleaded guilty to spare them. Kerri felt relieved until the plea hearing. Her dad told a TV audience at length how he had killed people, lingering over how he’d murdered the Otero kids. He seemed to enjoy the story. He even brought up Kerri. “Joseph Otero had a daughter; I had a daughter.”

One night the next year, while Darian slept, Kerri lay beside him and wrote her father.

“Should I tell you that I grew up adoring you, that you were the sunshine of my life … true, even if it is coming out jaded and bitter now … Sometimes I just want to go out and buy the biggest, buttery tub [of popcorn] I can find and wave it in your face and say, ‘Ha, you won’t ever have this again’ and ask was it worth it? In the next breath I want to ask if you’re staying warm at night … I’m so sorry that you’re alone in that small cold concrete cell and sometimes I just wish I could give you a hug.”

She never sent that letter. And when her dad wrote, his letters sometimes went into the trash, where she dumped cat litter on them. Other times she’d write, and he would not reply, later telling her he’d been busy.

Dennis committed his first murders at age 29. At age 29, Kerri became a mother, and suddenly she truly despised her dad. In 1974, he had killed two children. In 1977, he had strangled Shirley Vian while her six-year-old son watched through a keyhole. In 1986, he killed Vicki Wegerle as her two-year-old stood in a playpen. “Man hurt Mommy,” the child told police. Kerri stopped writing to her father and cut him out of her life.

Sue Parker, a therapist, treated Kerri for five months in 2007. Parker saw a woman with above-average intelligence, poise, and post-traumatic stress. (Kerri gave permission for Parker to be interviewed for this story.) Many factors determine how well people can recover. “It’s about the severity of the trauma and how long it goes on, but it also depends on the coping mechanisms the victims have … their support system, who they have around them,” Parker said.

Kerri had had good people around all her life, Parker thought. A loving husband. Church. Friends. And good parents. Not just Mom. Dad too.

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

The cops said Dennis Rader fancied himself a James Bond character with cover stories—Boy Scout volunteer, congregation president. But the BTK Killer had also been a good dad, Parker said. “Maybe it was all a cover story,” she added. “But if it was, it was a cover story that actually worked.”

While betrayed on a level only God can understand, Parker said, Kerri seemed healthy and strong when she left Parker’s care. After her daughter, Emilie, was born, Kerri clung to teachings about God’s love. But when a sermon on forgiveness was announced at church, she stayed away. She had a second child, Ian, in 2011, but her dad’s betrayals kept poisoning her life. When Emilie was five, she asked her mother where her grandfather was.

“In a long time-out,” Kerri replied.

Could Kerri see him? Emilie asked.

“It’s a really long time-out,” Kerri answered.

One day at church, Darian and Kerri listened to a woman describe being raped. She said she forgave not to help the rapist, but to lighten her own suffering. Kerri talked about that idea for days. In August 2012, she announced at church that her father was a serial killer and told her story. “I have not forgiven him,” she said. Marijo Swanson, a friend, talked to her. “If we choose not to forgive or not work at healing from the betrayal,” she told Kerri, “we continue to give the other person power to control us and our feelings.”

That fall, Kerri suffered a fracture in her tibia. She was laid up for weeks. Shortly afterward, forgiveness poured over her one day. She sobbed so hard while driving that she had to pull the car over. The anger was gone. In December, Kerri wrote to her dad for the first time in five years. She told him she would never forget his crimes or be at peace with them, but she was at peace with the man who had raised her. Then she wrote of her life and of the grandchildren he would never meet. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to make it for a visit but know that I love you and hope to see you in heaven someday.”

After that letter, Kerri changed. “Before she forgave him, she thought of herself as BTK’s daughter,” Darian said later. “But as soon as she forgave him, she was Kerri again.”

In February 2013, Kerri spoke at church. “[God] told me, ‘You have a dad problem; you have a trust and obedience problem. You trusted and obeyed your earthly father, and he hurt you, so now you’re holding out on me. Let’s fix that.’”

She said, “I told Him that ‘I love you.’ He said, ‘Then show me.’”

Courtesy Kerri Rawson

And so she had done it, she told them. She had forgiven him. She wrote again to her father, telling him once more that she forgave him. Her father was stunned. “Forgiveness is there between the lines,” he wrote in his rambling style. “She recalls all that we did as a family—many good memories, and that helps her make the day. That is true love from a daughter’s heart. What else can a father ask for.”

That was not the end to Kerri’s struggles. In September 2013, Stephen King said in a TV interview that he’d written a story inspired by the Rader family called “A Good Marriage,” about discovering a monster in the house. Furious, Kerri gave her own interview, lashing out at King. Among people giving her rave reviews: Dad.

“She reminds me of me,” he wrote to the Wichita Eagle. “Independence, fearless, uses the media. I was touch[ed] by it … People reading … will see we had a ‘good Family.’ Nothing to hide; Only me with my ‘Dark Secrets.’ Like she said, I was a good Dad, (but only did bad things).”

Memories came back to Kerri. In 1996, the Raders had lost a cousin to a car wreck and were losing a grandfather to illness. To comfort the family, her mom made manicotti, but the Raders got into a fight at dinner. “We had this old rickety table and someone—I don’t remember who—pounded on it, and the legs broke and all the dinner came crashing down … My dad was so angry at my brother, he put his hands around my brother’s neck and started to try to choke him. I can still picture it clearly, and I can see the intense anger in my dad’s face and eyes. Close to manic.”

For Kerri, life continued to be complicated. “I fight my dad sometimes in my dreams, never understanding who let him out of prison,” she said. “I’m always very fearful of him and very angry in my dreams. Sometimes I’m even fighting for my life or frantically trying to convince others of the truth.”

On a bitter morning in January 2015, Kerri is in Wichita. “Coming back here to Wichita is like stepping into enemy territory,” she says. She wonders whether people might recognize her, and she talks about forgiveness. “I feel bad for the 30 years of … bad things because of one man, my dad … I forgave him. But I didn’t do that for him,” she says. “I did it for me.”

She returns to her old block and points. “There’s my grandma’s house, and there’s where Mrs. Hedge lived … And here is where our house was.”

It is a vacant lot. The city razed the house to discourage gawkers. “To get to my grandma’s house, I had to walk past Mrs. Hedge’s house, and now [at age six] I was afraid. And the guy who killed her was living in our house.”

She shows where a tree house stood, built by her dad. She indicates with her arms how big his garden had been. “He turned my bedroom into a nursery for plants when I was three, and I’d sleep with my brother in the bunk bed. I was so annoyed with my dad. But now you realize that kept him out of trouble. He was trying to stop. So it was plants—or murder.”

She points to a depression in the grass: the grave of Patches, a pet dog long dead. The cops were so suspicious of the BTK Killer that they had dug up the dog’s remains to see whether BTK had buried any secrets with them. He had not.

But nothing about her life was spared, Kerri says. Not even the graves of long-dead dogs.

Next, find out the most notorious criminals in each state.

Original Source -> My Father Was the BTK Killer. Here’s Why I Managed to Forgive Him.

source https://www.seniorbrief.com/my-father-was-the-btk-killer-heres-why-i-managed-to-forgive-him/

#seniorbrief #seniors

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johnchiarello · 6 years

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Kings 3

KINGS 3 [Wisdom] 13 For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee. 14 He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. Ps. 147 [News at bottom] https://youtu.be/OsFFErCmcuY Kings 3 https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/4-4-17-kings-3-wisdom.zip https://ccoutreach87.com/4-4-17-kings-3-wisdom/ https://youtu.be/4UGEa_bbQXk CCCF ON VIDEO- .Take a walk on the ‘wild’ side .Mary- Agnes- Laredo streets .Car at the shop .Rhema word .True legacy .Imprecatory Psalms .Wisdom works well .Martha Stewart .Mother Theresa .Apostles 1Kings 3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment. NEW- Just A few notes- I’ll add my past commentary on this chapter below. The scenery for this video is not as ‘nice’ as some of the others. I’m trying to do my ‘series’ teaching by the waterfront. But this day I had to drop the car off at my mechanic on Agnes [brakes- rotors were bad]. And I have been having problems with my laptops- So- I thought I would take a day off from teaching- but wasn’t sure. So I taught walking down Agnes/Laredo streets. The West side of Corpus. I even mentioned how I like these walks because I run into my friends. Sure enough- if you watch the video- that happened. One more note. Sunday I taught the verses from Church Unlimited- Pastor Bil spoke on Jehoshaphat the king from Chronicles. The next day my friend Charlie also brought up Joel chapter 3- which speaks of the valley of Jehoshaphat. There was sort of a theme- both from the Churches [Mass- C.U.] as well as my friends on the street. I find it interesting how the ‘un-planned’ teachings seem to ‘allow’ the Spirit of the Lord to connect things. Ok- thats it for now- God bless. ONE MORE NOTE- In the past I used to do my own brakes- but Oscar the mechanic always gives me a great deal. I had the rotors and front brake pads changed on both sides [front]- the parts were 80. It’s about a 3-4 hour job- The labor was also 80- a regular shop would have charged around 350- 500 for this job. That’s why I take the car to Oscar. For my local friends- his shop is on the corner of Port and Agnes streets. MY PAST TEACHINGS- https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/04/08/battle-is-the-lords/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/04/10/the-fellowship/ https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-kings/ https://ccoutreach87.com/james-2015/ KINGS- https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-kings/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/03/29/kings-2/

(1050)1st KINGS 3:1-15 this is a prophetic chapter, Solomon goes to Gibeon to offer on ‘the great altar’. What is the great altar? There is a remote verse [somewhere in the Old Testament- I didn’t look it up] that says Moses tabernacle is located at Gibeon. How it got there we don’t know, but the picture is important. The tabernacle of Moses represents the Old Covenant [law], during David’s rule the Ark of the covenant that was stolen, David retrieves it and places it at Jerusalem [the tent that he puts it under is called the Tabernacle of David- a type of the new covenant people who have free access to God, no more veil!] So Solomon more than likely sacrificed at Gibeon [picturing the Old Covenant] and then has the famous dream where God appears to him and he asks for wisdom. This ‘dream’ can be a type of death. Jesus referred to death as ‘sleeping’ Paul too. So after ‘the dream’ [death] he goes to Jerusalem and is at the place of the Ark [a type of Gods presence, it was not in Moses tabernacle, but under the tent that David set up] and eventually the remnants of Moses tabernacle [at Gibeon] will be joined to the Ark [at Jerusalem] and there will be ‘one new temple’ [Ephesians speaks of the 2 becoming one in Christ, both Jew and Gentile]. So under Solomon’s rule [a type of Christ] we have the joining of the Old Covenant people of God along with the Gentile church. Jesus did not forsake his ‘people that he foreknew’ [Romans] but thru his death he took away the ‘law of commandments contained in ordinances and nailed them to his Cross’ [Colossians, Ephesians] thus removing the enmity and making in himself ‘one new man’. Solomon was definitely prophetic! [see 2nd Samuel study, chapter 7- entry 923]

(1051) 1st KINGS 3: 16-28 Now to the famous story. Two women [harlots] come to Solomon with a problem. They both had children within a few days of each other, and one night one of the babies died. The other woman woke up and had the dead baby with her, but after she looked at it she realized it wasn’t hers. The real mother of the dead child did a swap at night. So as they are pleading their case to the king, they both claim that the living child is theirs. So Solomon calls for a sword, they bring him the sword and he tells his men ‘take the baby and divide it in two, give half to each mom’ sounds fair enough. Of course the real mom says ‘no, don’t divide it. Give the baby to her’ and the fake mom says ‘no, divide it!’ Ahh! Got ya. Solomon says ‘give the child to the one who did not want to divide it, the child belongs to her’. A few things, it just so happened that the last book we studied was Ecclesiastes, I didn’t plan it like that, it just ‘happened’. Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon. One of the verses I didn’t cover says Solomon wrote on all types of subjects and put together three thousand proverbs. Proverbs are short, concise bits/nuggets of wisdom that get the point across in a nutshell. While there are times when you need to read large volumes and stuff, yet wisdom allows you to cover a lot of content in a little space. In this case Solomon used his wisdom to quickly come to a conclusion that could not be refuted; Jesus did stuff like this with his parables. Notice also that after the judgment was made, there really was no ‘if, ands or buts’ about it. He was right and that settled it. I still have old preacher friends who can’t discern the most basic stuff. Now, I don’t want to be mean or condescending, but there comes a time where things are right or wrong. Many years ago I taught how leaders were making a serious mistake when they grasped on to the prosperity interpretation of Jesus parable of the sower [read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ in the book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ on this site]. Basically many preachers, good men, were going around and teaching that Jesus was speaking about getting a huge harvest of cash. In the parable Jesus says one of the things that hinders the full harvest is ‘the deceitfulness of riches’, so I taught how Jesus was not saying ‘the deceitfulness of riches is holding back the cash’. Now, this is really elementary stuff, but some preachers still can’t discern this, after 20years! There comes a time when Solomon [Jesus] sends a judgment forth, and we ultimately become responsible for what we do with it. In this case, one of the ladies was right the other wrong. Solomon plainly told us who was telling the truth. [note- the other day as I was flipping channels, I stopped at a ‘prophetic’ brother who I haven’t watched in a while. In the past he has had some good words that were right on. But I felt that too many ‘prophecies’ were going forth on a yearly basis that were not really accomplishing anything ‘this year is the year of increase, Rebuke the demon of poverty’ stuff that was being repeated over and over hundreds of times, and yet the word of God was not being taught. Well on the program I tuned in on, the brother was saying how all the media complaints about Sarah Palin’s expensive wardrobe were ridiculous [I agree] but then he said that it was nothing but a ‘spirit of poverty’ that needed to be rebuked. Are there ‘spirits/demons of poverty’ no. At least we see no cases of Jesus casting out spirits of poverty in scripture. There comes a time when preachers/media outlets need to return to a sober message of the Cross. I believe in prophecy and miracles and have experienced many of these types of things over the years, but we need to stop being silly with some of this stuff.

[parts] VERSES- 1Kings 3:1 And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about. 1Kings 3:2 Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built unto the name of the LORD, until those days. 1Kings 3:3 And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places. 1Kings 3:4 And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar. 1Kings 3:5 In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. 1Kings 3:6 And Solomon said, Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. 1Kings 3:7 And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. 1Kings 3:8 And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. 1Kings 3:9 Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? 1Kings 3:10 And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing. 1Kings 3:11 And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; 1Kings 3:12 Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. 1Kings 3:13 And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. 1Kings 3:14 And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days. 1Kings 3:15 And Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants. 1Kings 3:16 Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him. 1Kings 3:17 And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. 1Kings 3:18 And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. 1Kings 3:19 And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it. 1Kings 3:20 And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. 1Kings 3:21 And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear. 1Kings 3:22 And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king. 1Kings 3:23 Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living. 1Kings 3:24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. 1Kings 3:25 And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. 1Kings 3:26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. 1Kings 3:27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof. 1Kings 3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment. ________________________________________ Luke 16:9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Psalm 122:3 Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Psalm 109:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations 1 Corinthians 6:5 I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Matthew 23:34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, andwise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations King James Version (KJV)

NEWS- http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/migrants-are-being-sold-open-slave-markets-libya-1616492 This is the result of our actions in Libya.

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