#but also that you believe marriage status discrimination is actually a good thing

[anotherpapercut]

god that fucking ridiculous ass post from the person who "works in family law" or some shit where they're like "people who don't want to get married are soooooo stupid. the ONLY reason anyone would EVER choose not to get married is because its too permanent for their tiny brains to handle. don't you know buying a house and having kids are permanent? you childish idiots obviously know NOTHING about the law" is so fucking chock full of straightforward right wing evangelical rhetoric that it's genuinely shocking to me to see it on Tumblr as opposed to the New York times op ed section right next to an article about how trans people are stealing precious little girls

[springday-aus]

SVT’s Jeonghan: Love, War and Everything Between || part one

—

Fic Piece Written by: Admin Grandma of @springday-aus​

Moodboard Link: Created by Admin Grandpa

Character Pairing: Y/N [fem. reader] and Seventeen’s Yoon Jeonghan

Other Characters: Nu’est’s Baekho [known as Dongho], Seventeen [Seungcheol and Jisoo, along with idiot squad!Soonyoung, Seokmin, and Seungkwan], and more to be added along the way!

Genre: historical, romance, drama, royal!au, arranged marriage!au + gender role reversal 

None of this is even remotely historically accurate. This is all purely fiction!

Type: series 

prologue || part 01 || part 02 || part 03 → to be available! check the progress on our upcoming page! 

Word Count: approx. 2.6k 

Plot Summary: Korea’s most distinguished military general arrives home, carrying back glory and honor from the war. However, the general has been revealed to be a woman! Due to the prominent military accomplishments you have made as the highest ranking general, by orders of the Empress, you are arranged to be married to the second-eldest prince, Yoon Jeonghan. Only one problem lies between you two: your reputation as a ruthless killing machine, which scares the living daylights out of your new husband. 

→ Inspired by: the Chinese drama, Oh My General (also known as The General Above I Am Below)

Warnings: graphic violence, glorified war, murder, sexual harassment, sex discrimination (mainly against women), poly-relationships (i.e. concubines), political corruption, and homosexual tendencies

It had taken six months for the final battle to commence, and three full years of ruthless war, before they finally conceded. Needless to say, the new recruits were lucky to be under your jurisdiction. Had they not, the body count would have been much higher. 

Your grip tightens on the rein of your horse, feeling the guilt and anguish wash over you once more of those who have fallen. While it is inevitable to lose soldiers in war, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt any less. 

You take a small breath in, calming yourself once more and settling back into the reality. 

The war had begun in the fall, whereas now, it is well into the summer season. You close your eyes, feeling the sun shine warmly on your skin. Taking another breath in, you open your eyes once more to take in the sights. 

White butterflies dance over the grass, teasing flowers as they move along. The flowers are in full bloom; even the dirt path, which was once wet and muddy, has patches of grass that pop out from the cracks. While you have traveled to many areas, you were never able to take in the sights—well, at least, the less violent ones. 

Ah, war. Politicians may declare war as much as they please, but they have yet to have seen how it destroys the average person—even a general as distinguished as yourself. 

“General?” 

“Yes,” you say. “What’s wrong, Dongho?” 

You don’t look back at him, but you can hear his horse’s footsteps catch up to yours—slowing down to remain a couple of paces behind. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

You smile to yourself. “Rather sentimental.” You turn to him. “When was the last time we ever allowed ourselves to take in nature like this?” 

His smile reflects yours. “I believe it was the last time we had been called to fulfill our duty.” 

You click your tongue, with a disapproved shake of your head. “We need to go on these outings more often.” 

“Well,” Dongho starts. “It’s hard to go on leisurely walks as one of the nation’s most notable figures.” 

“And this is why you’re my second-in-command.” You let out another sigh, a bit longer than the previous one. “It’s hard to roam around with such a large target on your back.” 

“In hindsight, you are very skilled in many areas. Whether it’s swordsmanship, archery, or taekkyon, only a suicidal fool would challenge you.” 

“A suicidal fool, such as yourself?” 

“Yes, General,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m a suicidal fool, who has yet to have learned his lesson.” 

Dongho has been by your side for as long as you can remember. The two of you lived as neighbors, and evidently best friends, for ten years. When your father and brothers died, there was a brief separation period until you turned fourteen—in which you had met again, when you were starting your military training on request of your grandfather. 

Since then, you two trained together, side-by-side in combat for the next twelve years. You rose the ranks together—you as the General and he as the military counselor. 

You hear a groan from your left side. “Are we there yet?” 

“Kim Jisoo,” you call. “You should know by now how long these journeys are.” 

Your bodyguard playfully scowls at you. “Pardon me for being used to having company on these trips.” 

From beside her, Namjoo, your other bodyguard, directs a punch to her sister’s arm. “You speak as if I’m dead.” She makes eye contact with you, before rolling her eyes at her sisters antics. “Father would be upset had he heard your inauspicious words.” 

Lieutenant Kim worked alongside your father and you’re lucky enough to have him by yours as well. He’s like another family member—practically a close uncle, who is more than aware of your peculiar situation. Along with Lieutenant Kim came his two daughters, Jisoo and Namjoo.

Because he spent all of his time in the military, so did they. They learned as he taught and trained the other soldiers, including yourself and Dongho. Then, when the time came, you gave the both of them the bodyguard positions.

Of course there was protest, especially from their male counterparts who wanted their positions. While the Kims had a good laugh, there were also rumors that spread on your part—you had become known as a playboy, who became desperate for female attention while serving in the military.

Eventually, those rumors had been shut down, considering how your military contributions outweighed the gossip that spread due to envious soldiers. Your status easily overpowered theirs (lack thereof) and you dealt with them... accordingly. 

(No one died, but it didn’t mean you didn’t cause some emotional trauma for them. You were nicknamed the Devil for a reason).

But, alas, this is also the root of your predicament. 

“You aren’t the company I was referring to,” Jisoo says. 

“If you’re referring to those pretty boys back at the capitol,” Namjoo says. “You might as well be the dead one.” 

You chuckle at their banter. Jisoo is right (although you would never tell her): it would be nice to have a pretty boy by your side. But, with the current conditions, you know it would only be difficult for him. 

Granted, this would be made a burdensome situation for you as well—the only difference being that you’re made of the tougher materials in life and will not hesitate to kill a man when crossed against. 

Their banter fades into the background, with Dongho attempting to separate the two before the duo of sisters suddenly becomes solo. 

You look up at the bright and clear sky once more, enjoying the moment of peace before the storm strikes. 

It’s been about three days before you determined a stopping point, in order to set up camp for the evening. Your soldiers have been on rotation since then; you figure that they should get a well-needed break. 

You smirk to yourself. The joke’s on them, considering how the lower ranks are the ones who actually set up: the tents, the cots, the fires. 

The sun has already set for the day; the moon shines brightly and the stars twinkle against the evening sky. It’s truly the countryside; in the city, you don’t get sights like these. Too much pollution and such. It only means you and your soldiers still have a long road back to the capitol. 

A long sigh escapes you as you stand outside your tent—naturally, with Namjoo on one side and Jisoo on the other. 

“What’s wrong, General?” Namjoo asks. 

Jisoo turns to you. “Is something bothering you?” 

You let out another sigh. “It’s less of a bother and more of a concern.” 

“What kinds of concerns?” Jisoo asks. “Could we be of any help to you?” 

“Considering we are your protectors,” Namjoo adds with a pointed look. 

“And your best friends,” Jisoo says. 

“Female best friends.” 

You crack a small smile—one that rarely showed during this period. “When do you think…” Your words trail off, trying to find the correct words. “When do you think this charade should be over and done with?” 

Namjoo blinks wordlessly, not seeming to understand your question. 

“What do you mean, General?” Jisoo asks. “Are you referring to…? Possibly…?” 

“When can I fully become (Y/N) rather than just a general?”

“You’re not just a general,” Namjoo says. “You have risen up to become the General. The one who serves and protects your kingdom best.” 

“It’s not that I’m dissatisfied with my accomplishments. I’m proud of them, but I would prefer them to be my own rather than the son of the (Y/L/N) family.” You laugh inwardly at your own words. 

Son. What a joke. 

You did what you’ve had to, but, what was the real cost? The countless men you have killed? The women and children who were left with no one to care for them in this patriarchal society? 

What about your own life? What would life had been like, had your father and brothers not been killed? Would you have been married off to a family as well? Or would you still be in the military, serving with the other soldiers like now? 

There’s a moment of silence and the two struggle to find their words—whereas you’re left again to your own thoughts. 

It’s Jisoo who speaks first. “I want to tell you it would all be okay and things would remain the same.”

“But?” 

“But it won’t.” She tilts her head up, the stars shimmering in her eyes. “Things will be hard and things will be difficult. And, whenever you make that decision, we’ll be right here by your side.” 

Namjoo elbows you with a mischievous smile. “Just as we have always done. We pride yourselves as your protector.” 

Your smile grows. “That’s a relief to hear.” You turn away from them, taking a step back to push back the fabric of your tent to take a step in. “It’s too late to back out anyways.” 

“Too late for what, General?” Jisoo asks. 

Your head turns to her and your smile doesn’t waver. “The letter has already been sent.”

“Your majesty,” the Vice Premier says. “What do you advise us to do now?” 

The King sits at this throne, setting down the newly passed message from General (Y/L/N)—only to come in view with the court. 

While he may not be downright angry, he is well aware of how the court may feel. He is also unsure of what will result in his best military general, especially since the war is not exactly over and done with—considering how King Wu may still hold resentments due to the aftermath. 

He glances at the letter once again, feeling his head throb. Why did you have to choose now of all times? 

Just moments ago, the second messenger from your troops arrived—announcing his arrival and reading the letter aloud for the rest of the court to hear. Upon the King’s request, he had left the letter to the King, still in shock with the present state of affairs. 

General (Y/L/N) is a woman. 

“Your majesty,” Official Chun says, stepping out from his spot. 

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“It is unacceptable for a woman to be of such a high position, nevertheless a man’s rightful position. I propose we remove and replace the General.” 

Official Lee steps out. “Your majesty.” 

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“If I may remind some of us here that we are forever indebted to the General. We continue to be so, considering the current circumstances. While he—” He pauses, before correcting himself. “While she may be a woman, she is of the (Y/L/N) family. Not only have they been loyal to the throne, serving our country for many years, they have made many great sacrifices.” 

“Your majesty,” Official Kwon says. 

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“Official Lee is correct. We cannot just remove the General.” He pauses, not before glancing at Official Chun and his followers. “The war might be over but we still have to be alert. Allowing her removal is the equivalent of death for our country.” 

Sensing Chun’s anger from the indirect remarks, Official Mae steps out. “Your majesty.” 

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“General (Y/L/N) is a woman. A woman with too much power shall be the root our demise.” He glances at the other side, spotting those behind the Vice Premier. “She must be put into her place before she gets too ambitious.” 

Official Song steps out. “Your majesty.” 

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“From what we are aware, the (Y/L/N) family does not have any male heirs. Considering the circumstances, we cannot afford to replace her when there are still repercussions of the war to be settled.” 

“Your majesty,” Official Chun starts to say. 

However, the King puts his hand up, pausing the conversation from continuing any further. He has already made his decision: you were to keep your position. Your accomplishments have stacked up, leaving the entire country indebted to you and your trained troops. Your reputation in the military is the most impressive—no one can be compared to you. 

Although, it might be too unsettling for the officials for you to remain in your position. There must be some punishment—some kind of way to appease the court while you can still maintain your position, but not harsh enough for you to refute. 

“General (Y/L/N) is to keep her position,” the King announces. He continues, shutting down any more possible verbal opposition. “Our country is indebted to the General. She has obtained previous territories that have been lost in previous battles and she has won countless wars, including the one we have just won. Replacing her would only lead to our doom and, even then, we have no suitable replacement.” 

Official Jeong steps out. “Your majesty.” 

“Accepted, proceed.”

“I believe that’s a wise decision, as expected from our King.” He swallows apprehensively. “However, we cannot leave her be. After all, she has deceived us—including you. What shall we do with her then?” 

The officials murmur and whispers are passed around. Removal is too drastic for the King, therefore an execution is already off the table. No one seems to have any ideas of a possible punishment. 

That is, anyone from the court. 

While the officials scramble for an idea, the Empress’ eunuch, Eunuch Hak, shuffles himself from her side to the King’s throne. 

There’s a hush that falls over the court officials. 

“The Empress requests an audience,” Eunuch Hak whispers to the King. 

“Accepted.” 

From behind her golden curtain, the Empress lifts herself from her spot and gracefully walks towards the court. Her head is held high with elegance and her footsteps are light—almost as if she’s gliding. The officials bow their heads as she walks between them, no one daring to look up at her. 

She stops in front of the throne, smiling as she looks up at the King. 

“Mother,” he says. “How do you suppose we deal with this predicament?”

“I am proposing a marriage.” 

The whispers start up again, unsure of what the Empress is trying to plan. 

“Your highness,” Official Kwon says. “To whom do you think the General shall be married to?” 

Her smile grows. “I believe that the second nephew is the most suitable candidate.” 

“Second nephew?” 

“She doesn’t mean—”

“The second prince?” 

The King straightens in his seat, intrigued with the idea. “You are proposing a marriage between the most distinguished figure in Korea and Yoon Jeonghan?” He takes a small breath in, leaning back with a cocked eyebrow as he contemplates the idea. 

Official Jeong speaks up once more. “Your highness, can you elaborate more as to how this is a suitable punishment?” 

“If you ask me, it’s explanatory,” Official Chun mumbles under his breath. 

Official Mae smirks at the comment, whispering back. “Prince Yoon is nothing more than a joke to the royal family.” 

The Empress lets out a small sigh, proceeding to pretend as if she didn’t hear the rude comments about her grandson. 

“It’s not about punishment.” she says. “It’s about balance.” Seeing the apprehensive look from the King, she continues. “Jeonghan is rather unorthodox. He spends much of his time dancing at the brothels and admiring artwork rather than martial arts or sports.” 

There’s a murmur of agreement amongst the officials. 

The Empress takes it as a sign to continue. “While he is a healthy man with three lovers, he is still uncommitted and unmarried. If the two were to be married, it can help solve the problems that are occurring for both parties.” 

The King nods silently, but awaits for the court. 

“Your majesty,” Official Kwon says.

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“Her highness makes a good argument. I agree.” He thinks for a moment. “Not only would the General be married off to produce a male heir, but the rumors of Prince Yoon could also settle down once he’s married.” 

“Your majesty,” Official Lee says. 

“Accepted, proceed.” 

“I agree with her highness and Official Kwon. This is more advantageous on our part,” he says. “I mean no offense when I say this, but Prince Yoon’s reputation is rather…” He pauses. “Unfavorable, at the moment. The General can help with that change and his with hers when the news spread in the villages.” 

“Your majesty,” the Vice Premier says. “Shall we proceed with the marriage then?” 

“Yes, we shall,” the King says with a nod. “From this day, we shall begin the wedding preparations. Once the General arrives back to the capital, Prince Yoon Jeonghan will become her husband.” 

The Empress moves herself to the sidelines as the King stands up, causing the officials to stop in their spots and lower their heads once more. He steps down from his throne, starting his descent down the stairs and onto the path laid out for him. 

The Vice Premier follows him from the right and his majesty’s eunuch, Eunuch Boo, follows him from the left—their conversation continuing in hushed tones. 

The Empress leaves shortly after the King’s departure with Eunuch Hak on one side and Court Lady Nam on the other, leaving the officials with themselves. 

“Court Lady Nam,” she says. “You shall inform Princess Consort Yoon.” 

“Yes, your highness.” 

She turns to her right. “Eunuch Hak.” 

“Yes, your highness?” 

“Begin the wedding preparations.” 

A/N: As always, thanks for reading! Please don’t ask for updates. If you would like status updates, check out the upcoming post we have with upcoming works that will be posted! 

[snapeaddict]

YMMV but Lily was a stand in for Rowling. It's why the relationship with James is uncomfortable to read.

(I hope I guessed the meaning of stand in well because I am not totally sure)

In reference to this post about Gryffindor's (and JKR's) belief in their moral superiority.

Ah, yes op. I do think JKR wrote Lily as this, in her eyes, symbol of perfection for Harry, this symbol of goodness and kindness. I'm sure she saw her behaviour toward Severus as completely okay and positive, I'm sure she never questioned her writing of this apparently flawless character even during The Prince's Tale. But the fact she wrote Lily as flawless (more of a symbol than a character, honestly) doesn't mean she is actually flawless and we now know how problematic JKR's work can be.

I think, and this is a personal opinion, that JKR wrote Lily according to her standards of what a good person is like. Standards she also applies to herself, because she, as an author, and Lily, as her stand in character, have many similarities in the way they view the world and behave toward others. I am of course not comparing a real person and fictional character, but trying to show how one can influence the writing of a character - and what this person thinks of this character, which can be reflected through the narrative and main character's POV. Then, by extension, all of this strongly influences our own views on the character as readers, especially when reading the books for the first time. Some things that are disturbing to us and not understood by Rowling:

Strong belief in your own moral integrity: JKR seems to use her books as a weapon against those who point out her narrow-mindness, constantly reminding us she wrote them as a message of love and acceptance, "including" diversity in her world. She never questions her own behavior. She wrote Lily as morally flawless also because she is a Gryffindor and muggle-born: Lily, if you follow her narrative, is in her right to condemn and be critical of Severus' friends and choices, and to highlight her Gryffindor classmates moral superiority (ie they don't use dark magic) to justify the fact she grants herself the right to judge her friend and condemn his friends without addressing bullying. Because she knows better, and is moraly superior. Just as the narrative never really adressed the fact bullying by Gryffondors on a Slytherin isn't justified because they are "on the good side". JKR considers herself to be part of the Good People™, for many reasons, thus doesn't see any problem is writing blog posts explaining to some people why they are a threat to her own feminist fight or how they should behave. Of course I make NO comparison between her transphobia and a fictional character's behaviour; I'm just trying to show there is a similar pattern of behaviour which is, if I have to sum it up: I have moral integrity because [...] ➡️ So this moral superiority cannot be questioned ➡️ So this gives me the right to judge you/tell you how to behave without sweeping my own backyard.

Quick to condemn, unable to understand: This moral superiority (let's face it, Gryffindor are always portrayed as moraly superior in the books which nearly always justifies for discrimination against Slytherin) JKR thinks she has for reasons said above has for consequence the fact she gives herself the right to point out people's supposed flaws and "dangerous" behaviour without ever giving them time to explain, or listening to them. She sees what she wants to see, and so does Lily as she wrote her: the narrative makes of the fact she never gives Snape the opportunity to explain himself a normal thing, because we already know he is in the wrong; she already knows it and decided it, so why would she even ask?

Belief in your own right to judge and change people: for all the reasons I wrote above. You can question behaviours, you can point out flaws and issues: but you, as a person, cannot grand yourself the right to say "I know better than you do because this, this and this, so please change for me or I'll stop being kind to you." To JKR, this is perfectly acceptable behaviour (for example, "she knows and love trans people" but to the condition they remain silent and do not threaten her fragile views on feminism. If they do, she'll consider them a threat.) She writes Lily with a similar kind of behaviour regarding Slytherins: "without trying to understand who you are and why you are the person I see standing in front of me, without educating myself on your motives or asking for you pov, I ask you to change to match my own standards, no matter what it costs you."

Use of minorities, etc to serve personal aims and display your moral integrity: We have a whole history of JKR using sexual orientations or racial minorities to promote her work's open-mindness without ever giving them a voice or listening to them, trying to understand them. She writes Lily as a character who has such a good heart she is friends with Slytherin, dark arts affiliated Severus Snape and who knows it: "My friends (moraly superior Gryffindors) don't even know why I still hang out with you". ie "you should be grateful and their opinions have more values than yours to me." She points out her own benevolence at still accepting Severus as a friend, but never tries to understand Severus' own bravery and struggle at still being friend with her while having to survive in Slytherin house as a half blood (which was obviously more difficult). While reading this particular extract from the text, I cannot unsee the fact she (or JK) seems to think she does Severus a favor for being his friend (in context it's perhaps understandable), but it's very telling JKR would write this - we get the message as readers. The conclusion being, Lily had to be this moraly perfect girl as she had a Slytherin friend. I cannot say it's not implied by the narrative or it's not what JKR thought (she has lesbian and trans friends, so what she says cannot be discriminating/are justified by her supposed openness). Another disturbing and wrong way of thinking.

Belief that your belonging to one oppressed minority prevents you from oppressing others: JKR uses her identity as a woman in a patriarcal society, her statues as a woman who suffered from this patriarchy, to justify her transphobia and point out the fact she, as part of a group which is oppressed, do not oppress others (her blog post on "Why I'm not transphobic" is very telling). My feelings when I read Lily's character (but this may be interpretations from my part) is that her statues as muggle-born also automatically grants her moral integrity or at least a moral compass (narrative-wise) to be judgemental over Severus' relations and to decide whether or not the Marauder's actions toward him were serious: there is a kind of disturbing hierarchy that is created with Slytherin using dark arts and having prejudices against muggle borns (according to her) vs the Marauders and their pranks (not serious at all especially in comparison for her, and anyways they are Gryffindors). As if the fact she is the victim of oppressors means she doesn't have responsibilities or all she does is somehow justified or cannot mean ill (for example, turning her back on Severus while he is being sexually assaulted after he insulted her. She had a duty to perform as a prefect, which she wasn't even doing well before he said anything). The problem isn't her, she has reasons to act the way she does and flaws like all human beings. The problem is that the narrative (thus JKR) sides with her and never have us readers question her behaviour as well. It matches her inner belief that some people's moral integrity cannot be questioned for certain reasons. We are never offered another pov, we are never shown another perspective (of course Lily as a character isn't the one supposed to be this meta): for example, we could have been shown how easy it is to fall into radicalisation especially when you're an abused and neglected child from a poor social background and a minority. (Again I'm not saying it was up to Lily as a character to understand this. She had no obligation toward Severus and isn't all mighty and a Saint. The "problem" is that the narrative is trying to portray her as such because the author truly believes this is how a good person behaves and should be looked at.)

All of this of course being unconsciously accepted, but never put in question. Lily's behavior being of course viewed more positively because no matter how flawed it was, it served honorable aims: fighting against the disgusting blood purity ideology. Her values are honorable. So to me, of course JKR was convinced of Lily's human perfection and inherent goodness because I think she wrote her according to her own views and beliefs on the matter. Which is why, if we grant importance to the narrative, her marrying someone as crual as James Potter is disturbing according of what is said of her:

"Not only was she a singularly gifted witch, she was also an uncommonly kind woman. She had a way of seeing the beauty in others even, and perhaps most especially, when that person couldn't see it in themselves."

But, when you take a step back, you realise that her marriage with James is a consequence of JKR's internalised sexism, as she heavenly implied macho and possessive behaviour such as displayed by James were attractive to girls in the end, and, if you take another step back, you realize JK never understood the seriousness of the bullying she wrote so it didn't look so appealing to her that Lily would date James as it is to us.

Then, if we really think of the characters themselves and not JKR's intentions, I think James and Lily were a good match for various reasons, not all negative.

I'm afraid this is a little clumsy and I just really want to say, I'm not blaming Lily for her behavior even if we must acknowledge the fact she wasn't a very good friend and was very far from being perfect; I'm not making a comparison between real life issues and fictional ones, or between author and fictional character: I'm trying to show why Lily appeared as such a model of goodness into JKR's eyes, which shines through the way she tells the story, because she was written according to the writer's standards - some standards and positions we cry about every day when we open twitter. It's not really about her transphobia or use of minorities, but the reasons why she thinks she has a right to give judgemental opinions and ask people to change, her own system of thinking. Her - phobia are a consequence of this but I have to talk about them to show how it seems to me JKR thinks of herself and of others.

This is not anti Lily Potter, she still was a good person and lived in a particular context which also explains certain aspects of her behavior; this has nothing to do with making Snape look better or finding him excuses.

It has everything to do with the way the author viewed her characters and certainly failed to understand the seriousness and complexity of all subjects she chose to address. With the way she sees things and how her characters behave sometimes accordingly.

(Like, for example, not making any comparison, I'm sure she really thought it was positive when she created the house elves, slaves that are happy to be slaves and making fun of those who are disturbed by their conditions and having the only free elf die; I'm sure she thought the message was good when it clearly reeks of colonialist fantasy, thus her own opinions and views as a white British in the 90s [not generalising this to anyone else!], certainly internalised.)

PLEASE MAKE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "SHE WRITES LILY THIS WAY" AND JUST "LILY".

[writtenwhalien]

Hello, love! Hope you're good ❤

About your answer on my feedback for aoy part 8, I just wanted to share my thoughts about reputation/social class prejudice, but at the same time I didn't wanna ruin your feedback with my comment, so I'm sending you what I've been thinking while reading the chapters here...

Firstly, I want to say that you did such a great job portraying this social issue in aoy and ofc, it makes sense (well it does to me) that Deok-su & Eun-ae's background was only a part of why Deok-su was against Jimin & oc's relationship and how he strongly believed that she wouldn't be able to understand their values no matter what. Honestly, I didn’t put it best on my review the other day as I focused solely on their background story because it was that chapter's new information, but in any case, I can't say that I'm okay with that kind of opinion. And trust me, I know very well from personal experience that personal beliefs are hard to be reevaluated especially in elderly people, but still, there's just some beliefs that I simply can't stand.

Oc did say that Deok-su was right, and even though I get why she got his point of view, I personally think he wasn't quite right about it –people by their very nature are capable of constantly learning and adjusting themselves to any kind of lifestyle values– he just manipulated her into thinking that way about it. She's already overqualified to understand whatever values on her own and join the Park family as an equal member. I mean, if anything, she's a living example and Deok-su admitted that himself. I'm so proud that her last words were the ones to make him realize how stupid his thinking was. The value of a true & healthy love is the most powerful one. I'm so so glad of the way the story turned out, so beautiful, natural and meaningful. Forever grateful for this masterpiece of yours, babe! 💗 (can't wait for your next projects)

Idk why I'm actually sharing this, lol, it is that I just know class discrimination unfortunately still exists in altered forms and it's really sad to watch it happen. When will this world finally realize that freedom is a value as well, irrespective of one's origin, age, gender, sexuality, education, religion, sexuality, social status etc.???

sorry I took so long to reply to this 🤦🏻‍♀️ I agree with you completely! deok-su was wrong to put oc through all of that just because he doesn’t think she’s able to adapt to the family based on her upbringing (although when he got to know her, he realised that she’s adapted in many situations before and is a super capable woman), but like you said, anyone can adapt. it’s just his mindset as a rich, upper class man now. I didn’t realise as much as I was writing but I guess this fic really does have elements of the typical rich boy/lower class girl vibes, except oc is super successful and the struggle was all in her past!

but as well as that there was his past with eun-ae, which is why at the beginning, eun-ae is also a bit hesitant about jimin choosing someone bc of love as opposed to getting an arranged marriage; but this was only after jimin first tells deok-su about oc at the end of part 4). after she meets oc, she changes her mind (she also had a bit of a stuck up moment in part 4 when jimin first mentions where oc is from, and she tuts, but she moves past that quickly).

but yeah, I tried to make it more than just one factor influencing all the characters to make their actions seem more believable 😅

anyway, thank you as always for being so invested in my fics, it’s one of my favourite thing to talk about!!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Your blog isn’t what I expected for someone who champions conservative values because it is very rich in celebrating culture and strikes a very humane pose. I learn a great deal from your clever and playful posts. Now and again your feminism reveals itself and so I wonder what kind of feminist are you, if at all? It’s a little confusing for a self professing conservative blog.  

I must thank you for your kind words about my blog and your praise is undeserved but I do appreciate that you enjoy aspects of high culture that you may not have come across.

My conservatism is not political or ideological per se and - I get this a lot - not taken from the rather inflammatory American discourse of left and right that is currently playing itself out in America. For example my distaste for the likes of Trump is well known and I have not been shy in poking fun at him here on my blog. Partly because he’s not a real conservative in my eyes but a .... < insert as many expletives as you want here > ....but mainly he has no character. My point is my conservatism isn’t defined by what goes on across from the pond.

Rather my conservatism is rooted in deeply British intellectual traditions and draw in inspiration from Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott, Roger Scruton, and other British thinkers as well as cultural writers like Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Waugh. So it’s a state of mind or a state of being rather than a rigid ideological set of beliefs.

Of course there is a lot of overlap of shared values and perspectives between the conservatism found elsewhere and what it is has historically been in English history. But my conservative beliefs are not tied to a political party for example. I wash my hands of politicians of all stripes if you must know. I won’t get into that right now but I hope to come back and and address it in a later post.

As for my feminism that is indeed an interesting question. It’s a very loaded and combustible word especially in these volatile times where vitriol and victimhood demonisation rather than civility and honest discussion so often flavour our social discourse on present day culture and politics.

I would be fine to describe myself as an old school feminist if I am allowing myself to be labelled that is. And in that case there is no incompatibility between being that sort of small ‘f’ feminist and someone who holds a conservative temperament. They are mutually compatible.

To understand what I mean let me give you a potted history of feminism. It’s very broad brush and I know I am over simplifying the rich history of each wave of feminism so I’m making this caveat here.

Broadly speaking the feminist movement is usually broken up into three “waves.” The first wave in the late 19th and early 20th centuries pushed for political equality. The second wave, in the 1960s and 1970s, pushed for legal and professional equality. And the third wave, in the past couple decades but especially now, has pushed for social equality as well as social and racial justice. It is the first wave and bits of the second wave that I broadly identify my feminism with.

Why is that?

Again broadly speaking, in the first wave and overlapping with the second wave legal and political equality are clearly defined and measurable, but in the third wave (the current wave) social equality and social justice is murky and complicated.

Indeed the current feminist movement - which now also includes race and trans issues in a big way - is not a protest against unjust laws or sexist institutions as much as it is the protest against people’s unconscious beliefs as well as centuries-worth of cultural norms and heritage that have been biased in some ways against women but also crucially have served women reasonably well in unwritten ways.

Of course women still get screwed over in myriad ways. It’s just that whereas before it was an open and accepted part of society, today nearly all - as they see it - is non-obvious and even unconscious. So we have moved from policing legalised equality opporttunities to policing thought.

I understand the resentment - some of it sincere - against the perceived unjustness of women’s lot in life. But this third wave of feminism is fuelled in raw emotion, dollops of self-victimhood, and selfish avoidance of personal responsibility. Indeed it bloats itself by latching onto every social and racial outrage of the moment.

It becomes incredibly difficult to actually define ‘equality’ not in terms of the goals of the first wave of feminists or even the second because we can objectively measure legal, civil and political goals e.g. It’s easy to measure whether boys and girls are receiving the same funding in schools. It’s easy to see whether a man and woman are being paid appropriately for the same work. But how does one measure equality in terms of social justice? If people have a visceral dislike of Ms X over Mr Y is it because she’s a woman or only because she’s a shitty human being in person?

The problem is that feminism is more than a philosophy or a group of beliefs. It is, now, also a political movement, a social identity, as well as a set of institutions. In other words, it’s become tribal identity politics thanks to the abstract ideological currents of cultural Marxism.

Once a philosophy goes tribal, its beliefs no longer exist to serve some moral principle, but rather they exist to serve the promotion of the group - with all their unconscious biases and preferences for people who pass our ‘purity test’ of what true believers should be i.e. like us, built in.

So we end up in this crazy situation where tribal feminism laid out a specific set of paranoid beliefs  - that everywhere you look there is constant oppression from the patriarchy, that masculinity is inherently violent, and that the only differences between men and women are figments of our cultural imagination, not based on biology or science.

Anyone who contradicted or questioned these beliefs soon found themselves kicked out of the tribe. They became one of the oppressors. And the people who pushed these beliefs to their furthest conclusions — that penises were a cultural construction of oppression, that school mascots encourage rape and sexual violence, and that marriage is state sanctioned rape or as is now the current fad that biological sex is not a scientific fact or not recognising preferred pronouns is a form of hate speech etc— were rewarded with greater status within the tribe.

Often those shouting the loudest have been white middle class educated liberals who try to outcompete each other within the tribe with such virtue signalling. Since the expansion of higher education in the 1980s in Britain (and the US too I think), a lot of these misguided young people have been doing useless university degrees - gender studies, performing arts, communication studies, ethnic studies etc - that have no application in the real world of work. I listen to CEOs and other hiring executives and they are shocked at how uneducated graduate students are and how such graduates lack even the basic skills in logic and critical problem solving. And they seem so fragile to criticism.

In a rapidly changing global economy, a society if it wants to progress and prosper is in need of  valuing skills, languages, technical knowledge, and general competence (i.e critical thinking) but all too often what our current society has instead are middle class young men and women with a useless piece of toilet paper that passes for a university degree, a mountain of monetary debt, and no job prospects. No wonder they feel it’s someone else’s fault they can’t get on to that first rung of the ladder of life and decide instead that pulling down statues is more cathartic and vague calls to end ‘institutional systemic racism’. Oh I digress....sorry.

My real issue with the current wave of feminists is that they have an attitude problem.

Previous generations of feminists sacrificed a great deal in getting women the right to vote, to go to university, to have an equal education, for protection from domestic violence, and workplace discrimination, and equal pay, and fair divorce laws. All these are good things and none actually undermine the natural order of things such as marriage or family. It is these women I truly admire and I am inspired by in my own life because of their grit and relentless drive and not curl up into a ball of self pity and victimhood.

More importantly they did so NOT at the expense of men. Indeed they sought not to replace men but to seek parity in legal ways to ensure equality of opportunity (not outcomes). This is often forgotten but is important to stress.

Certainly for the first wave of feminists they did not hate men but rather celebrated them. Pioneers such as Amelia Earhart - to give a personal example close to my heart as a former military aviator myself - admired men a great deal. Othern women like another heroine of mine, Gettrude Bell, the first woman to get a First Class honours History degree at Oxford and renowned archaeologist and Middle East trraveller and power breaker never lost her admiration for her male peers.

I love men too as a general observation. I admire many that I am blessed to know in my life. I admire them not because they are necessarily men but primarily because of their character. It’s their character makes me want to emulate them by making me determined and disciplined to achieve my own life goals through grit and effort.

Character for me is how I judge anyone. It matters not to me your colour, creed or sexual orientation. But what matters is your actions.

I find it surreal that we have gone from a world where Christian driven Martin Luther King envisaged a world where a person would be judged from the content of their character and not the colour of their skin (or gender) to one where it’s been reversed 360 degrees. Now we are expected to judge people by the colour of their skin, their gender and sexual orientation. So what one appears on the outside is more important than what’s on the inside. It’s errant nonsense and a betrayal of the sacrifices of those who fought for equality for all by past generations.

Moreover as a Christian, such notions are unbiblical. The bible doesn’t recognise race - despite what slave owners down the ages have believed - nor gender - despite what the narrow minded men in pulpits have spewed out down the centuries - but it does recognise the fact of original sin in the human condition. We are all fallen, we are all broken, and we are all in need of grace.

Even if one isn’t religious inclined there is something else to consider.

For past generations the stakes were so big. By contrast this present generation’s stakes seem petty and small. Indeed the current generation’s struggle comes down to fighting for safe spaces, trigger warnings and micro aggressions. In other words, it’s just about the protection of feelings. No wonder our generation is seen as the snowflake generation.

A lot of this nonsense can be put down to the intellectually fraudulent teachings of critical theory and post colonial studies in the liberal arts departments on university campuses and how such ideas have and continue to seep into the mainstream conversation with such concepts as ‘white privilege’, ‘white fragility’, ‘whites lives don’t matter’, ‘abolish whiteness’ ‘rape culture’ etc which feels satisfying as intellectual masturbation but has no resonance in the real world where people get on with the daily struggle of making something of their lives.

But yet its critical mass is unsustainable because the ideas inherent within it are intellectually unstable and will eventually implode in on itself - witness the current war between feminists (dismissed uncharitably as terfs) who define women by their biological sex and want to protect their sexual identity from those who for example are championing trans rights as sexuality defined primarily as a social construct. So you have third wave feminists taking completely different stances on the same issues. For instance there’s the sex positive feminists and there’s also anti-porn, sex negative feminists. How can the same thing either be empowering or demeaning? There are so many third wave feminists taking completely different stances on the same exact topics that it’s difficult to even place what they want anymore.The rallying cries of third wave feminism have largely been issues that show only one side of the story and leave out a lot of pertinent details.

But the totality of the damage done to the cultural fabric of society is already there to see. Already now we are in this Orwellian scenario where one has to police feelings so that these feminists don’t feel marginalised or oppressed in some undefinable way. This is what current Western culture has been reduced to. I find it ironic in this current politically charged times, that conservatives have become the defenders of liberalism, or at least the defence of the principle of free speech.

To me the Third Wave feminism battle cry seems to be: Once more but with feelings.

With all due respect, fuck feelings. Grow up.

I always ask the same question to friends who are caught up in this current madness be they BLM activists or third wave feminists (yes, I do have friends in these circles because I don’t define my friends by their beliefs but by their character): compared to what?

We live in a systemic racist society! Compared to what?

We live in a patriarchal society where women are subjugated daily! Compared to what?

We live in an authoritarian state! Compared to what?

We live in a corrupt society of privileged elites! Compared to what?

Third-wave? Not so much. By vast majorities, women today are spurning the label of “feminist” - it’s become an antagonising, miserable, culturally Marxian code word for a far-left movement that seeks to confine women into boxes of ‘wokeness’.

For sure, Western societies and culture have its faults - and we should always be aware of that and make meaningful reforms towards that end. Western societies are not perfect but compared to other societies - China? Russia? Saudi Arabia? - in the world today are we really that bad?

Where is this utopian society that you speak of? Has there ever been one in recorded history? As H.L. Mencken memorably put it, “An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.“

I prefer to live in a broken world that is rather than one imagined. When we are rooted in reality and empirical experience can we actually stop wasting time on ‘hurt feelings’ and grievances construed through abstract ideological constructs and get on with making our society better bit by bit so that we can then hand over for our children and grandchildren to inherit a better world, not a perfect one.

Thanks for your question.

[jcmorrigan]

In Defense of Archibald Snatcher

Oh, wow, we’re coming up on almost the sixth anniversary of The Boxtrolls, my favorite film of all time, and though the fandom for it seems to be either dead or in hibernation, I still have the torch lit.

I actually have been of the mindset of the opinion/s I’m about to present here for all those six years, but never really thought it prudent to lay them out until I recently had a friend I was recommending the film to who I warned about some of the elements considered “problematic” and I offhandedly mentioned that I could do a whole essay about why they don’t bother me and said friend replied with a desire to want to hear it because we share infodump for infodump, so here we go, I’m poking the hornet’s nest surrounding a controversial film with a dead fandom.

But if you were on Tumblr back in the heyday, you might’ve seen the reaction to this film when it first debuted. Specifically, what a lot of people honed in on wa that the villain, Archibald Snatcher, employed a dragsona to be able to push his agenda and implement his evil scheme. There was outrage. There were accusations. There was lambasting. And above it all, one question hovers: was this transphobic?

I want to start, before we get into the weeds, by saying that if you are anywhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and you were offended by this film or this character, your experiences are completely valid. I’m about to present the counterargument in language that assumes my take is fact for the purpose of not having to write fifty thousand clunky disclaimers, but analytical as this may be, it IS an opinion, and if you don’t think it’s right, then hey, that’s super valid, and I’m not gonna try and change your mind, because if you’re hurt, then you’re hurt! You just may want to nope out of this post right now because I’m about to lay out my observations and thoughts to the contrary of the accusations of this being homo/transphobic.

First of all, the obvious facet that comes to mind is how strange it is that we only ever saw the word “transphobia” put on this phenomenon rather than “homophobia” when using a female alter ego as a disguise or a performance art is not the same as being a woman assigned male at birth. One only needs to take a look over at RuPaul’s Drag Race to see examples of this culture. Lots of gay men wearing dresses. No women perceived male.

All the same, I will say that on the surface, adding any kind of queercoding to the story’s villain, who the audience is supposed to boo and hiss at, looks really, really bad on paper. However you interpret it, Snatcher is definitely queercoded. He openly flirts with the man he’s trying to trick as a means of getting what he wants, he displays sincere enjoyment of wearing the dress, and he runs the gamut of flamboyant hand gestures. But if you dig a little further, there’s even more to the story: his tale is one of a man who desires to pass as one of the elite class in his society, but is held back by something he can’t change about himself no matter how he denies it.

Let’s look at the rest of his story. Snatcher is in pursuit of the White Hat: the ultimate status symbol. To that end, he’s decided to otherize the Boxtroll population of the town and play upon the culture shock in Cheesebridge to convince the humans of the “upper world” that the Boxtrolls are predatory monsters who must be killed. This sounds like a pretty black-and-white good-and-evil scenario, right? You’ve got your population of innocent sweethearts being attacked and your genocidal racist orchestrating their destruction. But there’s a third layer still: Lord Portley-Rind, the chief White Hat himself. Lord PR is actually the worst of the lot. It’s because he doesn’t accept Snatcher that Snatcher feels he has to resort to this tactic. He demonstrates open hatred of the Boxtrolls and of Snatcher (”I’m not sure who should be more worried: the Boxtrolls or us!”). There are implications in how he treats his daughter that he’s a textbook sexist who believes there are men’s roles and women’s roles in society and nary the twain shall cross. And he’s the rich guy controlling the entire city and letting children’s hospitals and crumbling bridges go to waste by spending the budget on frivolous cheese. In short, Lord PR is basically the ur-example of a nightmarish fictional Republican (and oh, how I WISH he hadn’t been so prophetic).

I’m not saying Snatcher was justified or good. No. He’s in no way redeemable. But over the course of his interactions with Lord PR, you can see just how much society’s elites treat him as inhuman or like a dirty buffoon. He’s looked down upon, he’s insulted even when he’s doing the “service” Lord PR desires, he’s rejected until he’s gone above and beyond his contract and I think it’s even a little bit implied that Lord PR would’ve reneged on the whole deal if the mob hadn’t cheered for Snatcher in the end. So what you have is a prim and proper billionaire who subscribes to gender roles telling a man of the lower class, obviously economically downtrodden, that he doesn’t deserve what Lord PR has.

The idea of meritocracy is woven throughout the film. Listening to the speech in the background of Snatcher’s anaphylactic attack, while the visuals are focused on Eggs rescuing Fish, you can hear Snatcher rambling about how his father told him that if you work hard, you will receive a White Hat, but he worked hard all his life and got nothing. One of the White Hats literally says he got his through being rich. It’s not hard to infer that Snatcher has figured out how broken the system is and realized the only way to win the game is to cheat.

But there’s still one more thing holding him back from his victory, something that actually trips him up when he achieves what he wanted. Cheese is presented as another status symbol: the rich eat it and are connoisseurs of its flavor. Snatcher is deathly allergic to it. The goal he’s chasing, he can’t even have without threat to his own life. His reaction is to pretend he isn’t allergic and to expose himself to having allergic reactions on the regular to show how much he’s ready to become part of the elites. I’ll reiterate: Archibald Snatcher wants to join the elites, but is held back because of something about himself he cannot change that only matters because the upper crust said it should.

Okay. So we’ve established the man is gay, or somewhere on the queer spectrum. How is this not really, really horrible?

Because the narrative invites you to feel some sympathy for him. No, not for his actions or any secret soft side or tragic backstory (that’s a job for the fans), but because he is chasing a dream he cannot attain. Perhaps the film’s biggest shortcoming is how little consequence comes to Lord PR in the end, because Lord PR, for all intents and purposes, is the worse villain on the board. Snatcher’s ploy is to take the class below the one he inhabits and paint its members as the bad guys: a nuisance that must be exterminated for the betterment of society. And we’ve seen this. We’ve seen plenty of real-life examples of have-nots turning on have-lessers because the haves benefit from oppressed groups infighting and being distracted from who holds the money and the power. A lot of times, you see that while intersectionality is definitely something we need to pay attention to, racism, sexism, and homophobia are not concepts that are all explicitly linked. If you experience one, that doesn’t mean you don’t project one or two of the others on other people - particularly if you’re trying to make yourself feel better about the discrimination you face.

When you look at the hierarchy, Snatcher is, I reiterate, a very bad person. But he’s also a victim. Not as much of a victim as the poor Boxtrolls, who get the malice trickling down from both the Red Hats and the White Hats, but he is a victim. We see him mocked, laughed at, turned away. And though he’s not redeemable, there are aspects in which he is sympathetic.

But what about Frou Frou? What about that particular disguise?

Well, for one, it’s used to make yet another allegorical statement. Snatcher is able to get attention paid to him if he weaponizes female sexuality - though it is a very shallow attention that largely results in the straight men of the town swallowing his propaganda while also objectifying him. Most of the comments made on Frou Frou are slimy, smarmy “compliments” on her body from the White Hats. Lord PR’s wife harbors a distinct distaste for Frou Frou because her husband most certainly prefers ogling Frou Frou to actually paying attention to their marriage. Frou Frou is a propaganda vehicle to make it look like more than one person is on the same page as Snatcher; Snatcher himself drives the action of his scheme and gets the dirty work done.

It’s also worth noting that if you take away the implications, villains using alter egos to trick their nemeses is a tale as old as time, from sea witch Ursula making herself more supermodel-esque in order to marry the prince to mythological Loki actually crossdressing much in the same vein in order to fool the Frost Giants. There’s a reason disguise masters and shapeshifters are intriguing villain archetypes: because we’re always a little bit afraid that someone isn’t who they say they are, and because - yeah, I’m about to go here - I think we all wish we could shift shape ourselves to take on new forms that suit the goals we’re trying to accomplish, even if that means “fooling” others. So it’s reasonable to think Laika wasn’t aware that there was any queercoding to even be had here - but I do think the crew was aware, and not in a malicious way.

However, watching Snatcher’s scenes as Frou Frou, there’s something that comes across in his character that you don’t see so often when he’s presenting male: he’s legitimately having fun. He dances, he flirts with the crowd, he adds more flourishes to his speech, he gets sassy. Frou Frou is a means for him to express himself, to allow himself to be feminine when he has built his philosophy on needing to do “what a man does” (he repeats this at least twice) in order to achieve greatness. He can be a little more himself when he’s Frou Frou, even though Frou Frou isn’t him. Taking a new identity that’s allowed the other half of the gender roles allowed in Cheesebridge (which runs on a binary because it’s run by the White Hats) lets him act a little less like what he needs to be to be taken seriously and a little more like he has freedom.

Put this back in context of the greater narrative: given all the parallels we’ve seen, it’s safe to assume that Cheesebridge, as a whole, is not accepting of deviations from gender roles, whether it’s being open and proud of your LGBTQ+ identity or simply wearing the clothes that don’t belong to your gender. Snatcher is taking an enormous gamble here by using Frou Frou at all. On one hand, it’s a calculated risk; he knows if he can appeal to Lord PR’s unchecked sexist libido, he can secure another avenue to being heard. On the other, however, it’s not really much of a leap to say this is something he wants to do, someone he wants to be more like, and isn’t allowed to, and since he’s cheating at the game anyway, he might as well go all the way and do what he wants with his life.

I’ve seen a lot of people take issue with the scene where he reveals himself to Lord PR and comparing it to some actual homophobic/transphobic media. And again, if that still stands to you as your primary analysis and emotional reaction, then feel free to turn away, reject my analysis, and know your thoughts and feelings are completely valid. But I think this scene differs from your usual “person with male parts tricked you into thinking they were a woman” scene in a couple ways.

For one, Snatcher decides to out himself on his own. To Lord PR, it’s when he’s got nothing left to lose. Again, when he realizes the game is broken and the odds are against him, he takes control and decides to be himself a little more. Now everyone knows he likes to act a dragsona because he wanted them to. But also, earlier on, when he revealed himself to Eggs, it was again on purpose. Eggs didn’t figure him out. Snatcher needed Eggs to know the level of the threat he was dealing with: that he was the person Eggs has been running from since the start and is no less dangerous in a dress. It’s always been of his own volition. There’s no “I thought you knew” or disrobing to see a body that doesn’t match expectations - Eggs ripping Snatcher’s wig off is maybe a little iffier, but again, in context, that’s him trying to show Snatcher’s identity, not as a man but as Archibald Snatcher, to expose the corruption, and Snatcher actually plays it completely off because he’s that good of an actor.

Which brings me to my second point. There’s only one person who reacts in an “Oh, gross!” manner to this revelation, and it’s Lord Portley-Rind. The one we’ve established is sexist, homophobic, and your textbook Rich White Straight Cis Man. The one at the top of the food chain. The one who’s been objectifying Snatcher and acting like a slobbering pervert about Frou Frou from the beginning. The homophobe realizes he has been a little gay. The sexist realizes his objectifying a particular person he perceived female has consequences. And this is why to me, that scene is actually hilarious. Because I don’t feel like I’m laughing at Snatcher’s expense. I’m laughing because Lord PR just got called OUT, and this is exactly the kind of discomfort that is karmic given how he’s treated his daughter, his wife, and everyone in his city who’s needed him.

Cycling back to when Snatcher outs himself at the ball, Eggs doesn’t really seem to care that there’s a gender-role-play involved here. His concern is not that this is actually a man; his concern is that it’s specifically the person who he knows is trying to ruin everything. Same with Winnie when Eggs passes it on. Eggs trying to reveal Snatcher to the crowd doesn’t even begin with “Frou Frou is fake,” but a line I will never forget: “Archibald Snatcher has lied to you all.” Not even drawing attention yet to the fact that he’s in the room. Starting out by having everyone remember that guy they are all sure ISN’T there and pointing out he’s bad news.

To look at Lord Portley-Rind’s “Oh my God! I regret so much!” as a dig at Snatcher is to say that Lord Portley-Rind is the lens through which we should be viewing this story, which it most certainly isn’t. The lens is Eggs and Winnie. Adjacent lenses are Fish, Shoe, and Jelly. Lord Portley-Rind is an antagonist to every single character in this film save the other White Hats.

Which is why if this film falls flat anywhere, it’s in letting Lord Portley-Rind get away without consequence. I think I can take a guess as to why this primarily happened: it needed to wrap up in a little under two hours, and dismantling systematic oppression and abuse of socioeconomic power can’t be done in a two-hour escapade. I still wish he were at least villainized a little more, as that’s where the narrative was leading up to that point. One of his earliest scenes with Winnie foreshadows that he will have to choose between her and the hat, and it takes him two tries to make the right choice. This story, until the very last act, has not supported him being a character to like or sympathize with, even in such subtle ways as Trout and Pickles stealing his hat and running around with it to taunt Snatcher - showing that a symbol is really only a symbol, and doesn’t indicate your worth. Anyone can put on a hat. Lord PR has just been brought onto an equal footing with them, if only for a moment.

Okay, so why have this whole three-layer narrative anyway? Couldn’t we have made this story more clear-cut between the Boxtrolls and White Hats, with no queercoded villain to get in between?

Yes...but I’m not sure that would have been best for the viewing audience. And there’s plenty of precedent as to why Laika thought it was a move for the better.

Queercoded villains are in every aspect of our fictional and fandom lives. Here’s a bitter pill to swallow: all your favorite Disney villains are queercoded. All of them. “But Frollo’s arc is about - “ Being a man in a religious system afraid of being tainted as sinful for being attracted to the wrong person. “Gaston, though, is - “ Very chummy with LeFou, and I’m talking the animated versions. They’re all colorful, flamboyant, foppish for the men and full of socially-unacceptable strength for the women. These were the cornerstones of our childhood nostalgia and characters we still feel culturally attached to.

It’s not just in Disney. Are you a fan of musical theater? Well, then your favorite villain probably got a big song and dance in which they wore some glitter. Classic lit? Google the name of your favorite literary canon villain and “queer theory” and see what happens.

I don’t think we can really say this is good or bad. On one hand, it’s not great that a marginalized group can only see themselves in the character we’re supposed to hate. On the other, though, we don’t always hate that character. Villains hold a unique place in our culture. They do bad things, horrible things, but the story can’t take place without a conflict, and we like when that conflict has a name and a cool design such as a tall, imposing sorcerer/witch in flowing robes - or perhaps a tall, graceful man in a long red coat and a towering crooked top hat.

I’ve had lots of friends and trusted Internet reviewers talking about how queercoding in villains can actually be really empowering. If you’re a fan of the villain, you get to see a power fantasy in which someone who has something very big in common with you gets to enact karma on others for wronging them! You get to wear the cool robes, sing the fun song, do things that are not really legal or acceptable! I think a great analogy is if you check out the book “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers” by Sady Doyle. It’s primarily about sexism rather than queer issues (though it does touch upon them!), but examines how women throughout pop culture and storytelling history have always been the witch, the monster, the demon, and how that sucks, but it also means that women have a great pile of fictional power fantasies to pick from to indulge in. It’s the same principle. I myself may not be same-gender-attracted, but I am asexual, and still waiting on my glamorous villain who uproots society as revenge for being forced to do something analogous to having a sexual relationship...*taps wristwatch*

Meanwhile, queercoding is not as prevalent in heroes. And I think that’s where everything’s tripping on its own feet. Because a gay villain among a bunch of straight heroes does look pretty bad. Are some of the heroes queercoded as well, though? Well, that’s just realistic diversity. People are gay, and there happen to be some good ones and some evil ones here. I don’t think Snatcher’s dragsona is entirely unproblematic, but I do think it could have been mitigated a lot with more implications that Eggs and Winnie might be queer in some way (and believe me, I choose to interpret them that way, because the more the merrier).

The thing is that in pop culture as of late, there seems to be a trend to scrub away all villainous queercoding because it’s seen as a black-and-white issue. To go back to the Disney villains, do you feel like the live-action recreations of Jafar, Scar, and Gaston are missing a certain je ne sais quoi? Well, think about it through this lens and it might be that you savez quoi after all. They’ve all been made incredibly straight as of late, with off-the-record actor confirmations about having obsessive crushes on the film heroines. I can’t speak to why this has happened; there’s a lot of history behind any given social movement, and I haven’t managed to really unpack this one. “Blame Tumblr” is too easy; I would want to know who were the loudest voices, why they said what they said, and what was the intended accomplishment, not to mention if this had built on other social-media or real-life platforms over the years and was influenced by any outside source by news or marketing. I can’t say why queercoded villains are being burned; I can only say it’s happening. And it was happening big-time in 2014, when The Boxtrolls was released.

I also feel like I would be remiss to mention that The Boxtrolls is based on “Here Be Monsters,” which I believe to be one of the worst books I’ve ever read, bar none. That version of the story has...pretty much everything that’s perceived to be in the film version’s text as problematic. Frou Frou is presented as something to laugh at Snatcher about throughout, largely because everything about Snatcher is presented to make him seem gross or like a buffoon. There’s a whole scene of the hero rifling through his desk to find soiled underwear. Not to mention that the original purpose of Frou Frou in the text was to manipulate the town’s women by dictating the fashion trends they should follow and the beliefs they should hold in order to fit in. This is something that does need commentary on it, but in that text in particular, it seems like the women are silly and easily swayed, and that they’re the town’s weak link because they’re slaves to fashion. The Boxtrolls completely flips this around so that the town’s weak link re: Frou Frou is the rich MEN who objectify women, particularly the men that happen to be in charge of the whole town, and looking at that divide alone tells me how much care was put into this adaptation at every level.

So why’d I do this, besides having a friend who wanted to read it? Because Archibald Snatcher is legitimately one of my favorite fictional characters. Yeah, I know, he’s a horrible person and terribly racist, and no, I don’t think his demonizing an entire people is anything to be emulated. But on one hand, there are places where I not only empathize but identify with him, particularly where it comes to living out the majority of one’s life trying to live up to a meritocracy - I did everything right, so why am I not on top? He’s also just fun and satisfying to me. He’s the exact brand of evil I eat up. He’s quippy, flamboyant, sadistic to a point, and altogether enjoying his job way too much. Even though he isn’t in power all that long, he is a power fantasy for me, too - wishing I had his talent to talk my way into others’ hearts by saying the right thing, and maybe cultivating a little bit of that I didn’t realize I had (but not to use for evil purposes). I loved him from the moment he turned up because of his sheer dynamic presence - his drawn-out vowels, his sinister smile, his silver-tongued manipulations - and to this day I find him an inspiring character when it comes to writing fiction, both in the realms of fanfiction and original villain creation. You could say he’s a comfort character to me. And maybe this has been the delusional rambling of a woman trying to protect a character she likes for surface reasons by spelling out what look like analytical points of discussion.

But I don’t think Laika was trying to be mean-spirited or homo/transphobic in their character creation. I think they were trying to make an engaging villain who had some layers you could pick at to see more about the narrative as a whole and the message of societal corruption and how the way to overcome it is to be true to yourself rather than defined by your status: a lesson Snatcher fails at the finish line when Eggs gives him one last chance to “make you.” And ultimately, if you really and truly did like Archibald Snatcher, you’re not wrong or invalid in the least.

[celestines]

                have   you   seen   JUNG   SOMI   around   campus   ?   i   hear   they’re   a   SECOND   YEAR   ,   SUMMER   witch   with   a   specialty   in   FORTUNE   TELLING   .   i almost   never   see   them   without   their   FENNEC   FOX   .   if   they   ever   want   to   be   a   FORTUNE   TELLER   someday   they   should   ease   up   on   being   OVERSENSITIVE   &   POSSESSIVE   .   at   least   you   can   say   they’re   ANIMATED   &   LOYAL   ,   too   .

              hello  angels    !    im   xan   and   im   late   as   usual   but   that’s   just   the   way   it   is   …   😔   im   22   ,   from   the   est   timezone   &   i   go   by   she   /   her   pronouns   !   i   truly   …   never   know   what   im   doing   with   intros   they   just   turn   out   super   long   &   messy   so   aha   …  are   u   ready   for   this   ?   here   is   intro   number   one   out   of   two   baby   !   😋

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     QUICK  STATS  !

full  name  :   jung   somi   .

nickname(s)  :   mimi   .    

zodiac  :   leo   sun   ,   sagittarius   moon   (  click   !  )

sexuality  :   bisexual   .

alignment   :   chaotic   good   .

pinterest   :   (   tba !   )  

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     BACKSTORY  !  

she   was   an   accidental   pregnancy   ,    born   shortly   after   the   marriage   of    her    parents   ,   but    they    were   far   from   mad   about   it   .   her   father   was   a   well   regarded   summer   warlock   ,   a   famous   entertainer   known   for   his   long   and   successful   career    in   the   spotlight   with   his   sister   ,   a    man   who’d   been   the   object   of   many   summer    witches’   affections   .   it   was   a   shock   to   everyone   when   he    retired    from   show   business   to   settle   down   with   his   old   academy   sweetheart   ,   a    soft   spoken    spring   witch   with   a   passion   for   healing   .   

somi’s   father   was   delighted   that   their   first   born   was   a   summer   witch   ,   but   her   mother   intended   to   raise   all   their   children   with   a   blend   of   beliefs   from   both   the   spring   and   summer   covens   ,   and   that’s   exactly   what   they   did   .   since   her   father   had   been   a   famous   entertainer   ,   his   social   circle   extended   far   beyond   just   the   summer   coven   .   although   it   was   obvious   he   had   pride   as   most   summer   witches   and   warlocks   do   ,   he   was   never   the   type   to   discriminate   even   against   those   from   the   winter   covens   ,   a   habit   he   learned   from   his   wife   .     

somi   was   their   only   child   for   the   first   half   of   her   life   (   as   her   parents   were   relatively   young   when   they’d   had   her   )   .   because   of   this   she   was   spoiled   by   the   excited   new   parents   ,   attention   and   support   never   lacking   at   home   .   she   was   raised   to   believe   she   could   do   whatever   she   put   her   mind   to   ,   no   matter   how   big   those   dreams   were   . 

  however   ,    once   she   entered   her   teenage   years   and   her   baby   fat   was   gone   ,    and   she   could   no   longer   rely   on   being   “   that   cute   and   friendly   girl   ”   to   get   her   where   she   wanted   to   go    ,    things   got   a    little   harder   .   she   had   no   problem   with   confidence   ,    but   motivation   was   not   one   of    her   strong   suits   ,    unintentionally   growing   up   with   the   mentality   that   things   would   just   magically   fall   into   place   if    she   wanted   them   hard   enough   .

this   was   also   around   the   time   her   parents   had   their   second   baby   ,   a   boy   born   in   the   spring   .   naturally   he   became   the   object   of   her   parent’s   attention   which   only   made   somi   feel   more   lost   ,    like   maybe   she   wasn’t   as   special   or   important   as   her   parents   had   made   her   feel   .   but   when   her   parents   had   another   child   a   little   over   a   year   later   ,   another  summer   witch   ,   somi   realized    it   was   pretty   dumb   to   be   jealous   of    babies   ,   and   that   it   would   be    better   if   she   focused   her   time   on   becoming   the   type   of   older   sister   her   siblings   could   eventually   look   up   to   !

once   she   started   at   arcane   somi   vowed   she’d   take   her   studies   more   seriously   and   not   get   too   distracted   by   her   social   life   .   while   her   talent   for   fortune   telling   had   manifested   pretty   early   on   in   her   life   ,    and   while   she   was   good   at   it   ,   she   would   be   lying   if   she   said   she   was   interested   in   studying   it   in   a   scholarly   way   .   (   she   has   way   more   fun   sneaking   off   the   island   with   her   best   friend   and   fortune   telling   for   humans   for   some   quick   cash   )   .   still   ,   she’s   trying   her   best   to   keep   her   grades   up   ,    all   the   while   making   sure   she   doesn’t   miss   out   on   a   single   party   ...   and   boy   are   there   lots   of   parties   ...                 

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     PERSONALITY  +  TIDBITS  !

she’s   a   leo   and   it   shows   JWDBJWDBJWDW    full   of   energy   and   confidence   at   almost   all   times   so   it’s   pretty   easy   to   tell   when   she’s   upset   because   she’ll   finally   be   quiet   .   a   big   social   butterfly   with   no   real   opinions   about   house   rivalries    ,   BUT    she’s   super   proud   to   be   a   summer   witch   so   if   you   try   to   put   her   down   because   of    it   that’s   when   she’d   be   upset   /:

she   might   be   the   oldest   sibling   in   her   family   but   that   definitely   doesn’t   show   .   has   big   i’m   baby   energy   and   is   quite   literally   the   embodiment   of   this   emoji   🥺   at   all   times   but   especially   when   she’s   trying   to   get   out   of   trouble   .

blindingly   loyal   to   her   friends   and   the   people   she   loves   to   the   point   where   if   they   murdered   someone   she   would   wholeheartedly   believe   they   were   right   in   doing   so   .   friendships   are   very   important   to   her   and   so   is   getting   back   the   energy   she   gives   out   .   she’s   the   type   to   drop   anything   to   help   a   friend   in   need   !

struggles   a   lot   with   acting   out   when   she   feels   neglected   or   like   someone   doesn’t   care   about   her   as   much   as   she   thought   .   usually   it’s   short   lived   dramatic   bursts   of   anger   ,   and   she   might   give   you   the   silent   treatment   for   an   hour   or   two   before   finally   confessing   how   she’s   feeling   (   and   yes   ,   asking   you   for   reassurance   )   .

she   can   also   be   a   little   possessive   at   times   both   platonically   and   romatically   .    absolutely   loves   the   thought   of   being   everyone’s   favorite   person   but   she’s   also   aware   it’s   highly   unrealistic   </3   still   ,   that   won’t   stop   her   from   being   a   little   dramatic   about   it   ...   as   a   treat   .

she   has   a   huge   heart    😌    and   it   would   be   easy   to   just   cast   her   off   as   a   softie   because   in   lots   of   ways   she   is   one   .   eliciting   real   anger   from   somi   is   pretty   rare   ,   but   hurting   someone   she   cares   about   is   the   quickest   way   to   get   you   there   .   she’s   100%   the   type   to   not   like   someone   because   one   of   her   friends   has   a   problem   with   them   which   can   sometimes   be   hard   considering   she’s   also   the   type   to   try   and   be   everyone’s   friend   ...   it’s   complicated   😭   

she   hates   bullies   😡   will   threaten   to   fight   them   despite   having   no   combat   skills   .        

her   love   life   is   also   complicated   ...   she   gets   crushes   super   easily   and   her   infatuations   are   always   super   consuming   ,    like   she   swears   she’s   gonna   marry   the   person  consuming   ,   but   her   attention   is   always   broken   by   someone  else   so   they   never   last   .   she   wants   to   find   her   true   love   at   the   academy   the   way   her   parents   found   each   other   🥺   she’s   a   romantic   and   proud   <3     

gets   grumpy   when   she’s   hungry

her   familiar   is   a   fennec   fox   named   pancake   and   they’re   the   best   of   friends   except   when   somi   is   acting   up   JDBWJDBWJDW 

 she’s   in   the   art   club   !   originally   joined    because   she   thought   she   could   be   a   muse   and   sit   in   the   middle   of   a   circle   and   have   everyone   paint   her   ...   but   she   stayed   because   she  ��really   does   love   art   !

so   lazy   and   she   says   she’s   trying   but   she’s   probably   rotated   through   at   least   3   different   tutors   because   they   couldn’t   stand   it    /:   she   just   thinks   the   classroom   isn’t   the   right   place   for   her   and   that’s   ok

will   tell   you   your   fortune   even   if   you   didn’t   ask   ...   it’s   her   party   trick   she’s   still   going   strong   

nothing   good   happens   when   she   drinks   .   is   a   lightweight   AND   a   chaotic   drunk   but   it’s   pretty   fun   to   watch   

has   a   lot   of   respect   for   anyone   older   than   her   in   grades   above   her   UNLESS   they   use   their   seniority   to   be   assholes   ,    then   she’ll   no   longer   look   up   to   them   </3      

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     WANTED  CONNECTIONS  !  (  all  open  to  all  genders  )

tutors   !   past   failed   ones   who   tried   to   help   her   out   &   maybe   a   current   one   whose   patience   she’s   testing   SJDBJWDBJWW

someone   she   defended   once   and   ever   since   then   she   keeps   asking   them   if    there’s   someone   they   need   her   to   fight   even   though   they   literally   did   not   ask   and   they   both   know   somi   would   lose   

unlikely   friendships   !    maybe   your   muse   usually   steers   clear   of   summer   witches   ,    or    maybe   your   muse    and   somi   just   have   opposite   personalities   ,    either   way   they   became   friends   despite   their   differences   

maybe   an   ex   or   two   .   their   relationship   would   have   been   short   lived   despite   how   into   it   somi   seemed   .   maybe   they’re   still   kinda   resentful   about   it   ,   or   maybe   they   feel   as   if   they   dodged   a   bullet   .   or   maybe   an  ex   that   dumped   somi   before   she   could   dump   them   and   she   hasn’t  been   able   to   let   it   go  

current   infatuations   !   her   list   of   crushes   is   ridiculously   long   ,    but   there   would   be   a   handful   of   people   who   have   surpassed   crush   status   and   she’s   full   on   head   over   heels   for    .   i   feel   like   this   would   work   really   well   with   3rd   or   4th   year   witches   since  somi   already   tends   to   idolize   them   ,   but   it   definitely   isn’t  exclusive   to   older   witches   !   maybe   they   have   no   idea   how   she   feels   (   although   she   makes   it   obvious   )   ,   maybe  they   pretend   not   to   notice   to   tease   her   ,   maybe   they   try   and   use   her   feelings   to   their   advantage   ,   or   maybe   they   just   think   it’s   cute  the   possibilities   are   endless   hehe

second   years   she   can   bond   with   🥺   maybe   a   first   year   she’s   taken   under   her   wing   despite   only   being   grade   above   them   and   acts   like   she’s   showing   them   the   ropes   SJDBWJDBWJDW   but   they’re   realizing   her   best   places   to   nap   and   not   get   caught   tour   won’t   really   help   them   ...

people   who   only   really   know   her   from   parties   !   maybe   they   don’t   really   hang   out   outside   of    parties   so   it’s   kind   of   awkward   when   they   bump   into   each   other   ,    but   as   soon   as   they’re   in   a   setting   with   alcohol   it’s   all   good   again

sibling   like   friendships   !   i   would   definitely   love   some   older   sibling  figures   in   her   life   since   she’s   never   had   one   🥺

people   who    were   big   fans   of    her   dad   JWDBWJBDWJ   since   he   was   well   known   i   think   it   would   be   funny   to   have   people   know   her   because   of   him   and   even   more   funny   to   have   them   be   fans   because   somi   would   pretend   to   be   grossed   out   if   they   ever   tried   to   tell   her   how   awesome   they   think   he   is   </3 

enemies   (:<   she   tries   not   to   have   any   ,   but   she’s   bound   to   butt   heads   with   people   .   she   can   definitely   be   a   lot   ...   maybe   it’s   a   personality   thing   ,   or   a   we   have   different   values   thing   ,   or   maybe   there   was   an   unfortunate   incident   where   your   muse   stole   somi’s   favorite  pen   then   lied   about   it   to   her   face   and   to   this   day   they   are   her   sworn   nemesis   because   of   it   ...

a   sub   point   to   the   enemies   ...   JDWJDBWJD   i   think   it   would   be   so   funny   to   have   someone   she   started   out   as   enemies   with   but   who   she’s   starting   to   realize   she   might  actually   have   a   lot   in   common   with   and   actually   get  along   with   but   they   both   try   to   deny   it   because   they’re   so   used   to   hating   each   other   although   it’s   clearly   not   the   case   anymore       

i   wont   lie   to   u   this  got   longer   than   i   thought   it   would   😭😭😭   im   sosososo  sorry   for   the   length   …   also   i   feel   like   my   charas   always   change   a  lil   once   i   actually   start   plotting   &   writing   so   sorry   again   if   u   see   me   finally   writing   as   somi   on   the   dash   and   ur   like   literally   who   is   that   …  JSDBWJBDWBDJ   PLEASE  come  message  me  on  discord  to  plot   !   if   u   prefer   im’s   that’s   perfectly   ok   too   im   just   warning   u   now   it’s   gonna   be   a    much   slower   process   so   if   u   want   speedier   replies   …  u   can   message   me   @ glo lovecore ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ#8172   maybe  …   give   this   a   like   if   u   wanna   …   plot   hehehe   thank   u   for   reading   all   this   im   sorry   again   ur   so   brave   for   making   it   x   

[the-desolated-quill]

Two Riders Were Approaching... - Watchmen blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t read this comic yet, you may want to before reading this review)

As we hurtle head long into the third act, Two Riders Were Approaching provides a story that comes the closest to a more quote/unquote ‘traditional’ comic book narrative. With nuclear tensions rising and World War Three imminent, Daniel and Rorschach must work together to deduce the identity of the ‘mask killer’ before it’s too late.

At the core of the issue is Dan and Rorschach’s relationship. Their partnership is something that has been talked about throughout the graphic novel, but this is the first time we actually get to see Nite Owl and Rorschach in action, and it’s legitimately fascinating to observe.

When I first read the graphic novel, one question kept bugging me throughout. Why the hell would Nite Owl want to work with someone like Rorschach? A violent, bigoted, right wing conspiracy nut. It can’t just be a marriage of convenience because Dan does express genuine affection toward Rorschach numerous times throughout Watchmen. Of course I was much younger at the time, so I didn’t understand all the nuances until now. See, what Alan Moore does such a good job with regarding the Nite Owl/Rorschach dynamic is using them to illustrate the flaws and dangers of centrist politics.

Now before I go any further, I just want to clarify one thing. I’m not necessarily saying there’s anything wrong with holding a centrist view. I myself identify as a centrist, albeit slightly left leaning. However there is always a risk when it comes to taking a centrist stance of becoming so neutral to the point of being complicit, maintaining the status quo even when it serves as a detriment to others because they don’t want to take sides. I can understand wanting to come across as fair and balanced, but fair and balanced doesn’t necessarily mean both sides of a debate have equal weight. There are some topics where there is no neutral stance you can possibly take. Do women deserve the vote? Should black people have rights as white people? Should gay people be allowed to get married? There’s only one correct answer to those questions. Trying to take a centrist view here wouldn’t be fair and balanced. It would be perpetuating a harmful system of discrimination and inequality. Both sides of an argument aren’t always equally valid. And yet, especially recently, we’re seeing a growing number of (usually white) centrists trying to take a neutral position from a moral or political standpoint. We’ve all seen those cringeworthy pictures of people posing with their Trump supporting friends wearing a MAGA cap, saying how politics shouldn’t affect a strong friendship. Donald Trump is a racist twat, and while not all Trump supporters are necessarily racist twats, they are complicit in his racist twattery, as are the people who claim to be liberal and yet still hang out with those guys, wringing their hands and asking why can’t everyone just get along.

In my opinion Nite Owl serves as the pinnacle of extreme centrism. He may not be as right wing as Rorschach, but he is complicit when it comes to his extreme methods and views because they’re superheroes and what they’re doing is for the supposed greater good. The scene in the bar hammers this point home very effectively. Rorschach of course used similar violent means of interrogation back in the first issue and you’d think now that Nite Owl is with him that he’d show a bit more restraint, but no. Rorschach is still just as violent as he was before and Nite Owl doesn’t stop him or resist in anyway, instead reassuring everyone around them that they’ll try and keep their interrogation brief. In fact it’s Rorschach that ends up restraining Nite Owl when he finds out about Hollis Mason’s murder and threatens to kill one of the Knot Tops.

Ah yes. Rorschach. Now he is the most interesting part of this issue for me. Presented as being sociopathic and intolerant throughout the entire novel, here we start to see another side to him. There’s obviously the moment I just mentioned where he stops Dan from committing murder, but there are other moments too. Near the beginning of the issue, we see the two of them going to Rorschach’s residence to pick up his spare uniform and journal (which is very bloody convenient, isn’t it? The spare uniform I could believe, but a spare journal too? He just happens to have a spare journal lying around in case he lost the other one. When does he have the time to copy his notes wholesale just in case he misplaces one copy? Doesn’t the guy sleep?) and they encounter Walter’s landlady who had been spreading misinformation accusing him of trying to sexually assault her. Rorschach, understandably, takes issue with this and starts to berate her, calling her a whore. She begs him not to say that in front of her kids because ‘they don’t know.’ The implication being they all have different fathers. At which point, in a rare moment of pity, Rorschach leaves her be. There’s clearly a strong parallel between his landlady and his mother and the reason he drops the argument is because he see’s one of her young boys crying in fear, which seems to remind him of his own unhappy childhood. He’s never going to be considered a good person any time soon, but considering the vile and atrocious things he’s done in past issues, this moment feels significant.

Another significant moment is in the Owlship with Dan. With the police hunting them, the two have to lay low for a while before continuing their investigations into the ‘mask killer,’ which leads to a lot of stress and arguing. Dan finally snaps and shouts at Rorschach, chastising him for his behaviour. You think you know what’s going to happen because we’ve become so familiar with the characters’ MO, but Rorschach surprises us yet again by instead apologising and shaking Dan’s hand, calling him a good friend. 

This is why Rorschach is such a great character and why Watchmen is such a great book. This small, but touching moment adds some real humanity to his character. As horrid and extreme as he is, you can’t help but feel slightly sorry for Rorschach as you realise that throughout the story, his attempts to reach out to Dan have been in an effort to win back the trust of his best and only friend. It’s a tiny detail, but it helps elevate the character to something more three dimensional as opposed to just being a conservative strawman.

But now of course, it’s time for the big reveal. Turns out the ‘mask killer’ was Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias the whole time. I’m going to talk more about his character in the next issue, which focuses very heavily on him. For now I’ll just say that it’s a good twist that was expertly built up throughout the course of the graphic novel, however I do feel that Alan Moore fumbled it a bit toward the end. While Nite Owl is trying to break into Adrian’s computer, Rorschach delivers this very clunky monologue about Egyptian beliefs and practices, which ends up giving the game away too early. The reason why the reveal works is because Adrian has been used sparingly throughout the story. We know that his superhero alter ego has an Egyptian theme, but this is a background detail that doesn’t really register until now. It sounds silly to say, but at no point did I ever suspect that the mastermind behind ‘Pyramid Transnational’ (the company behind many of the suspicious goings on in Watchmen, along with Dimensional Developments) was the Egyptian themed superhero. But that’s because we’ve only been exposed to Ozymandias every now and then, just enough to keep him in the back of our minds, but not so often that it gives the game away. It’s a masterstroke, if you think about it. However, thanks to Rorschach’s clunky monologue, the reveal becomes really forced rather than having everything falling into place naturally. There’s no moment where the reader goes ‘oh duh! of course it’s Adrian!’ because the reveal is being telegraphed way too heavily. It’s a serious misstep in my view and I wish Moore trusted the reader a bit more rather than having to explain everything in a giant infodump.

However what I especially love about all this is how intentionally ridiculous it all is. We see Nite Owl and Rorschach talking and acting in a very melodramatic fashion. Someone is killing off superheroes in order to try and start World War Three and only they can save the day! Tra la laaaa! It’s once again all about the fantasy of power, until they learn that Ozymandias, one of their own, is the true villain, at which point the fantasy is broken and things get a lot more complicated from here on out. Not that it wasn’t complicated before, but this is the first time the characters themselves acknowledge it’s complicated, which again says a lot about them and their fantasies. Anyone less than a superhero is easy to deal with, but a superhero betraying them? Now that’s more serious.

Before his falling out with DC, Alan Moore had expressed interest in doing a Watchmen prequel about the Minutemen, which I would love to see. But after reading Two Riders Were Approaching, I would also love to see a prequel series about Rorschach and Nite Owl’s partnership in the sixties. It’s clear that we’ve only really scratched the surface of these characters as here we are, ten issues in, and there’s still so much to unpack and learn about them. It would have been nice to have seen them in their element and how it fell apart. We’ll probably never get to see it sadly (yes I know Before Watchmen exists. I’m talking about Alan Moore coming back to Watchmen), but at least this issue gives us a tantalising glimpse.

[red-diaper-babies]

Reclaiming Red Pill

Online, a person who has “accepted” certain traditionalist myths about men and women and the roles they ought to play in society is said to have “take the red pill” or are “redpilled” (a reference to that scene from The Matrix). The Red Pill presents itself as a complex philosophy that is brutally honest about the nature of sexual relationships between men and women and the countless dangers of feminism which have conspired in scores of unhappy men and women. Most of it is just rehashed biological essentialism, with perhaps a touch of postmodern nihilism.

Thanks to my morbid curiosity, I’ve been exposure to this ugly, misogynistic subculture through it’s now “quarantined” home on Reddit and the several watchdog/satire subreddits, such as r/thebluepill, that keep an eye on it and the several related internet subcultures it has spawned (incels, Men Going Their Own Way, etc.). These online communities are known collectively as “the manosphere.”

Red Pill evangelicals insist that their movement is about male self-improvement, which is a fascinating angle for a women-hating philosophy to adopt, but upon further inspection it makes perfect sense that they lead with this. Proto- and Crypto-Fascist ideologies (and The Red Pill absolutely is one of these) are extremely opportunistic; they seize upon important and emerging fissures in society and supplant a critical materialist explanation with reactionary dogma and, as always, use this dogma to prescribe as a fix both wanton cruelty and a return to a Golden Past that is distorted or nonexistent. They sell a vision of a time when a man could sit comfortably on a couch in a clean house after a hard day of work, well behaved children out of earshot, homemade meal in his stomach, and awaiting the delivery of a cold beer from his grateful wife, and feel like he deserved this, that he'd earned it. They sell a fantasy.

Why does the fantasy appeal to so many heterosexual, cis-men? What fissure has this ideology grown out of? Men in Western society, and perhaps particularly in America, find themselves in a crisis of identity. The roots of this crisis are primarily economic, and as complex as they are, can be simplified in this way: as the rate of profit has steadily fallen in the postwar era, more and more social labor is required from families (or per individual), and less and less net pay it making its way into the family's checking account. By social labor, we mean labor done outside the home that is traded for wages. As we know, real wages are stagnant and prices are rising; preserving a standard of living requires bringing in more income. The natural consequence is that dual income households have become more common (and necessary), from the working poor all the way through the upper-middle class, for the last five decades. A notable side effect is that, as the presence of women in professional careers has been normalized, women are more often finding themselves the primary breadwinner in the family, supplanting a host of traditional expectations about familial roles. Fifteen years ago this tension was a favorite source of material for stand-up comics and sitcoms; now it's passe to even comment on, but the insecurities and dislocation persist.

Heterosexual, cis-men's traditional and patriarchal role in the family, which was often imbued with the power to unilaterally direct the family's resources, was tightly interwoven with their prescribed role as "provider." The social order of the day was at the time tasked with preserving this status quo; putting up glass ceilings, limiting access to higher education, permitting rampant sexual harassment/assault, legalized discrimination, on and on. This is not to say that women haven't always worked, especially in the working class, but by and large they had access only to a few professions and were otherwise capped at lower wages and lower ranks. 

To whatever extent this role was actually realized by men of previous generations, it seems this has been turned upside down. This has been very disorienting for many men, not least of all because they are also finding themselves expected to do more and more of the "reproductive labor" that used to be taken care of by a stay-at-home spouse (or servant) just a generation or two ago. By reproductive labor, we mean the labor that maintains the workers themselves and provides for the nurturance of the next generation of workers. Reproductive labor is often referred to as household labor.

It will come as no surprise to many women that, as their share of social labor has increased, they nonetheless continue to perform the majority of reproductive labor, both globally and domestically. Those figures get even more stark if you factor in emotional labor and the facilitation and managerial tasks we've come to call "mental load." This strip by French cartoonist Emma demonstrates the significant weight of mental load, and the repercussions it's inequitable distribution has had on women and Heterosexual marriages. 

Indeed, Red Pillers acknowledge this inequity right off the bat. They gleefully ridicule other heterosexual cis-men for being irresponsible, lazy, selfish, gluttonous, and unattractive. They see it as an unfortunate norm that fathers are directed by wives on where to go, what to do, what to wear, or are altogether left out as the woman goes about the business of running a family while simultaneously pulling a full-time job. They bemoan the "Homer Simpson-ification" of the western man, who has, we're to believe, been transformed by feminism and mainstream media into an extra child that the wife/mother must care for, instead of the "captain" that she needs and truely desires (the Nazi's promised each man would be the "Fuhrer" of their household). Their diagnosis is based on biological essentialist dogma; their prescription is based on an idealist return to a time that never really existed; but the problem they identify is a real one. Men by and large struggle with relating to their families in positive ways, particularly as their role has shifted, and we on the Left, particularly we cis-men in Heterosexual relationships, must address this problem ideologically, through our political work, and in our own lives.

Wolfgang Willrich, The Aryan Family (1930)

The answer, of course, lies not in moving society backwards, but forwards. An inequitable division of labor, particularly founded on the oppression of women, is unacceptable. So to is a world that enforces strict gender role conformity and uses a division of labor to drive a wedge between men and women. In everything we do, we must assert the scientific truth: all major differences between men and women in ideology, ability, and behavior are acculturated or perceived, not biologically determined. We must be self-critical about the assumptions we make about who should do what and how much/how often. We should promote a vision of fatherhood and parenthood which is dedicated, affectionate, nurturing, disciplined, collaborative, and as communal as our society allows. We should invest our mental and emotional energy and time as dutifully at home as we do at work. We should hold each other accountable (gracefully and supportively). And we must do this as much for our activist spaces as well as our social and work spaces.

I’ve always been salty that the right has appropriated “red” in this instance. Red should belong to us. The real Red Pill reveals a world full of ideological justifications for the exploitation of women and the infantilism of men, and once you see it, it's impossible to unsee. Women really can do it all, perhaps not all the time or forever, but they do it everyday; the question is, who does this benefit? Men's discomfort with their changing role in the world suggests that we are beginning to see the danger in our own dependency (as opposed to interdependency) and increasing irrelevance, all because we lack the imagination necessary to break out of the outdated patterns and expectations and weave new kinds of bonds with our wives and children. 

So whatever the color, it’s time for men to swallow whatever pill is necessary to see our responsibilities towards domestic life for what it is, and what it could be. This is not about making men “men,” again, but about being an adult. Are we full, equal, responsible participants in the managing of our homes and the rearing of our children? The order of the day is partnership, and this is a good thing, for the liberation of women and the formulation of a new, positive identity for men. 

[i-may-have-a-point]

Review of 14x10 “Personal Jesus”

So many people were fantastic in this episode, but my review mainly focuses on April’s story as she is the one I connect with the most.  

“In a course of one day, Job received four messages with separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children had all died.  He continued to be a faithful servant.  He praised God.  He persevered.  Job’s faith was tested, and he passed the test.  And for his faith God rewarded Job with twice what he had before.”

There is an idea in many circles of Christianity that has been perpetuated for years.  To really be a Christian, you must prove yourself. You follow all the rules, you stay as far from all forms of sin as possible, and you never question the teachings of the Bible.  If you can do those things, and do them well, then maybe you will be a good enough Christian.

April Kepner was taught those same ideas.  She grew up believing, knowing, that God is the answer for all of life’s difficulties. All she needed to do was to believe in him and follow his teachings, and life would go according to plan.  

Except it didn’t.  

It didn’t go according to plan in that hotel room in San Francisco when her feelings for her best friend contradicted everything she had learned about sex and virtue.  For the first time in her life, she stopped following the straight path that was laid before her.  She took a detour and found, that if she let it, life could be fuller and hold more joy than she ever imagined.  

And it was. For a moment.

But the guilt and shame that come from being taught your whole life that good Christians don’t sin quickly caught up with her, and her unshakeable pillar of faith swayed just enough to crack the surface.  

Christians fail, though. She knew that.  She only needed to ask forgiveness and to reaffirm her faith, and eventually she did.  The on-call room escapades stopped, and she grounded herself again, back on the right path.  She would work harder at being a better doctor, a better person, a better Christian and eventually, God would reward her.

And the she met Matthew, who was seemingly everything she ever wanted.  A kind, handsome man who was strong in his faith and loved her completely.  Her world had been set right.  Except for that quiet spark, deep in her soul that yearned for more.  She heard it in still moments.  It would whisper to her that there is more to life than settling for what you are “supposed” to do.  She continued to silence that nudging voice, until the day she was supposed to marry Matthew, and the voice became a roar.  It was so loud that it was all she could hear as she turned from the altar and ran from the church with Jackson, terrified and overjoyed all at once.

Her faith shook once more, unsure that she had made the right choice, but then peace came.

God had brought her happiness.  She married Jackson, they were expecting a baby, and all was right with the world. Until it wasn’t.  Until she was given an unimaginable test.  Her child was sick, and no medicine in the world could cure him.  She held her son and watched him take his last breath. She had no explanation.  She prayed for a miracle. Her whole life she had been taught to be faithful and obedient and God would answer her prayers.  Yet he didn’t.  And this ripped a hole in her faith so large that it could never fully close.

The hole grew as she traveled to Jordan searching for healing, but she lost her marriage instead. Jackson was her rock.  He was one of the few people in her life who had ever truly believed in her.  Losing him made the hole grow bigger.

Oh, but Harriet. Harriet is her strength. Her reason to keep going.  Her light in the darkness.  

But she is still hurting. She has to ask herself, how can someone like her, a good Christian, face so much pain?  And why would a loving, caring God allow one of his followers to suffer when he could prevent it all?

This season has been building to April being forced to look at her life and the decisions she has made, and this episode is a turning point in that journey.

April walked in to season 14 with a broken spirit when she told Jackson that what they were doing was causing her pain.  Her heart was broken over Jackson, and things only got harder from there.  All season, she was repeatedly reminded of Samuel, Jordan, leaving Matthew at the altar, losing Jackson, and her insecurities as a doctor.

Like Job, she has been tested.  Job lost everything that was dear to him, and yet he still kept his faith.  He was patient because he knew that, no matter what, God was with him.  April did the same.  Through her trials, she kept believing in God and his grace.  Until today, when all of her struggles and all of her failures were placed in her path at once.

Paul is brought in as a hit and run victim and April treats him, while Meredith, Jo, and Alex discuss how best to handle the situation.  Mer goes into the room to check on Paul’s status, and tells April not to kill him. “You really can’t lose him.”  April is constantly being told she is not as good as Meredith, but this is not actually a moment of Meredith distrusting April’s abilities as a doctor.  Mer tells her she can’t lose him because she is afraid Jo and Alex will be charged with murder.  Unfortunately, April doesn’t know that, and it comes across as Mer doubting her.  We see that when April calls after her, “Thanks for the vote of confidence!”  Once again, April feels that she is not good enough.

Because she is so trusting, she thought that Webber had asked her to run the contest because she is a good leader.  She soon finds out it was simply so he could compete, and now, she is missing out on a great surgical opportunity.  This is another small reminder that she is still not valued as a surgeon in her peers’ eyes.

She doesn’t have time to dwell on that, though, because Karen Tayler is very pregnant and will not make it to Labor and Delivery before her baby is born.  So, April steps in for Robbins, delivering the baby who turns out to be Matthew’s daughter.  It seems that Matthew, the man she left at the altar, has the happy life she dreamed of, and she is forced into a front row seat to witness it.  She is happy for him, though.  He deserves happiness, and this is reassurance that she made the right decision leaving him.  He is happy. Even if she isn’t.  

(Side note: Arizona claims she didn’t tell April that she was treated Matthew’s wife because of HIPPA. Arizona sure didn’t care about HIPPA when she told Jackson that April was pregnant.)

Deluca drives the pain in a little deeper by telling April that Matthew’s wife is just like her.  At this point she is visibly frustrated, but she spots Jackson and heads over to him, knowing he will understand.  They have an adorable exchange about the embarrassment of treating Matthew’s wife as well as the contest.  April tries to get Jackson to take back the contest, which he unbeknownst to her, created.  He, of course, says no, and we get our first hint that this contest is going to be big for both of them.  

Their conversation is cut short as April has another incoming trauma.  A twenty-year-old man tried to cut off his own hand because he couldn’t stop masturbating, and according to his interpretation of the Bible, this was the only logical thing to do.  This patient is a message directly for April, but also for the audience.  The Bible is a book of stories that has wonderful teaching and morality lessons.  However, in no way should we interpret what it says literally at all times.  It has been translated countless times and was written by human hands.  Fallible human hands.  It is a guide book and not a how-to manual.

The next trauma is another sign for April that God doesn’t always intervene, even when he can.  Eric, a twelve-year-old boy, was shot by a police officer climbing in the window of his own house.  Jackson and Bailey are visibly angered by this, as things like this happen too often in our country.  He is an innocent child who was shot for no reason other than the officer’s assumption he was a criminal based on the color of his skin.  April does not have personal experience with this, but she can see the cruelty and unfairness of the situation.  She jumps in to help and the weight of the day’s injustices begin to weigh heavily on her.

Like Jo tells Jenny, “The good outweighed the bad.  Until it didn’t.”  

Everywhere April looks she sees bad.  Paul, Karen and Matthew, Eric, Jackson, her career.  But she still has faith, and she tries to explain that to the guy who attempted to cut off his hand.  “God doesn’t tempt us beyond our ability.  He doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” And one of my favorite lines, “When God created the world, he also created metaphors.”

The only problem with this is that God does give people more than they can handle, and April is feeling that right about now.  

Eric’s family arrives and April watches as his parents and Jackson have to fight for him to be treated as a child, a human.  How could these cops, who swear to uphold justice, clearly be so wrong?  

She exchanges a silent look with Jackson, a look that holds so much tension and unspoken thoughts, but Karen Taylor is in pain, and she is pulled away again before she can decide to speak.

Karen has a blood clot on her vagina, and April finds herself in the embarrassing situation of having to drain the blood clot off of her ex-fiance’s wife’s vagina.  Talk about humbling. But that’s okay, because as Karen reminds her, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”

This message is repeated for April because she is feeling overwhelmed with sorrow, but her Christian upbringing has taught her she is suffering this much for a reason.  God is teaching her something, and she just has to be patient, like Job.

During Eric’s MRI, April hears about the discrimination Jackson faced from police and she realizes there are things she doesn’t know about Jackson, but again, she doesn’t have a moment to get deeper into what he tells her because she is paged back to Karen Taylor.

Karen is still waiting for a room, and she ends up catching up with Matthew while they wait.  She gets to hear all about how Karen is the love of his life. Even after April hurt him so much, he found something better.  “She the love of my life, you know?  Of course you know.  You have that with Jackson.”  In that moment, we all heard April’s heart break.  Jackson is the love of her life, but she feels that she failed in that, too. Instead of telling this to Matthew, she pretends to be happy.  At least something good came from her leaving him.  God gave Matthew a great life and she doesn’t want to take away from that. But that happiness is hard to fake when Matthew says, “I heard from the pastor that you were pregnant.  So, you have, what a three-year-old now?”  Samuel. He would have been three had he lived. “I had – I have – We have Harriett. We have a beautiful daughter named Harriett.  She’s one. She is the light of my life.”  And the love that April has for her daughter is heard in the emotion that comes through in that line.  Harriet is her life at this point.

Matthew is happy for her.  “So, it worked out perfectly for both of us, didn’t it?  God used that pain and turned it into something beautiful.  Guess he knew what he was doing all along.”

He returns to his wife, and April’s face falls as she walks away.

Karma reaches Paul’s room as he injures himself in his angry fit, causing a head injury that leads to him being brain dead.  Can’t say I’m sad.  Jo is told that she gets to make the call on what to do with Paul.  Her reaction from laughter to tears was perfect.  And the way she reached out for Alex’s face for support and relief was everything.  

Robbins finally shows up to help April with Karen who is in extreme pain just as Eric crashes.  

April, Jackson, and Bailey get him to the O.R., and Bailey tells April they can take it from there. April backs away feeling helpless, only to turn back to run into Karen’s O.R.  She is shamed as usual by her co-workers, and she is overcome with guilt.  Maybe she isn’t a good enough doctor.  Maybe she did something wrong.  Did she cause this like she caused all the other bad things in her life?

In this time of despair, she turns to the only source of strength she can think of – God.  She heads to the chapel to pray for her patients, only to find an angry Matthew.  He leaves her, and she sits, beginning to pray for healing and good, but the words of the prayer fail her.  She hears no answer.  And all she can do is cry.

Cry for Karen, whose body is failing her when her child and husband need her the most.

Cry for Eric’s family, who have to bury their child way too early.

Cry for Jackson, who has to live with bias in his life every day because of his skin color.

Cry for a system that has failed.  A system that is supposed to be good.  “How am I supposed to have any faith in a system like that?”

Cry for Ben and Bailey who have to explain their son how not to get killed by the police.  

And she cries because she has no answer for the patient who questions his own faith.

“Then tell me what to do! If I can’t trust this, if the word of God is just a bunch of stories, what does anything mean?  What is any of this even for?”

And that’s the question April cannot answer.  That is the questions that brings her faith tumbling to the ground.  What is the meaning of a new mother dying and leaving her daughter motherless?  What is the meaning of a twelve-year-old boy being murdered outside his house?  What is the meaning of her son, Samuel, dying? What is the meaning of her marriage to Jackson ending?  What is any of this for?

She has spent her life being good because that is what she is supposed to do as Christian, or so she believed.  But why? So she can die with no explanation one day?  So she can experience suffering and loss over and over again?  So she can watch good people suffer daily?  Why is she trying so hard to be good when God allows these terrible things to happen?  Why isn’t he doing anything? Because if he is not going to intervene, then there is no reason to try to live this perfect life.  There is no point to any of this.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Job asked the question, too.  But he kept the faith. And what did he get for it?  Replacement children.  PTSD.  Was it worth it, to be a faithful servant?  Or would it have been better to just curse God’s name from the beginning? Where was God throughout all of Job’s suffering?  He was winning a bet with Satan.  Makes you wonder where he is through all of the unfairness and inequity and cruelty in the world.  Where is he now?”

To April, God has forsaken her.  She was a good and faithful servant.  She was patient.  And it got her nothing.  So, she is done being faithful.  We saw the pain on her face as she drank herself numb at the bar and as she stood in the shower, desperate to wash off the pain of the day, the light in her eyes burnt out. This is where April’s journey begins.

Her decision to let Vik in the shower had nothing to do with love or lust.  It was just one more thing to numb the pain.  She sees no reason to continue to always do the right thing because it has gotten her nothing.  She is alone and broken, and those feelings will guide her decisions from now on.  So stop saying that the show made April a slut or that this decision was out of character.  The character we know as April is not the one who made this decision.  This decision was made by a woman who feels abandoned and lost.  This decision reflects her hope leaving.  I agree that April only having been with Jackson was beautiful, but calling her a slut perpetuates the idea that women, particularly Christian women, should be shamed for having multiple partners.  April has felt that shame her whole life.  That statement would never be made about Jackson, or any other character on the show for that matter, and April should be given the same grace.

But as Sarah said, this story is not over.  Job’s story did not end in the middle of his pain.  It ended with him being rewarded with twice as much as he had before.  I believe that is where April’s story will end, too.  She will come full circle and find her faith and happiness again, so don’t be angry at the turn of events in this episode.  Just wait for the moment that forces April to feel again.  The moment that forces her to stop being numb.  That is the moment when everything will change for the better.  Because even though April was reminded over and over again that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, that’s just not true.  He does.  He gives us so much to handle that we need to turn to him for help and answers.  April knows this, but in this moment, she doesn’t believe it.  But she will find her faith again.  Good things are coming for April, and I still believe for Japril as well.  

[gregoryyswk352]

An Overdose of Medicinal Cannabis

"It occurred to be recently while seeing television that the U.S. Federal federal government is truly absolutely nothing greater than the political version of Jabba The Hutt from the Star Wars motion pictures. As you might remember, Jabba was a formless, sluggish moving, obese entity that ruled with an iron fist while devouring sources offered him. He did not spend for anything, he simply took them, and also he was not there to help any individual but himself. Those he subjugated had no say in exactly how their sources and wealth were used as well as had no chance in removing Jabba from his position of power. Type of sounds like our political class presently sitting in DC.

Jabba came to mind today as I thought of some recent occurrences in which the Federal federal government has gotten so huge that it is doubling back on itself and also putting itself in some very weird scenarios as well as conflicts with the reality of the globe around us:

- According to a short article in the July 23, 2010 problem of The Week magazine, a Boston Federal judge has ruled parts of the Federal Protection of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional. This act restricts the Federal federal government from acknowledging gay marriages and also granting Federal benefits. The court ruled that the Federal legislation pressures Massachusetts to discriminate against it very own people. Now for the odd component. the Obama management is now required to appeal the judgment, although his management and the Democrats accountable of Congress oppose the Protection of Marriage Act and also want it reversed. The Federal government has obtained so huge that it is using up lawful resources for something that it does not wish to exist to begin with.

- This odd situation is similar to the present illegal alien circumstance. A recent Associated press short article reported that the most up to date stats relative to prohibited boundary crossers shows that the Federal government just recently had the highest degree of prosecutions for illegal aliens and also the highest possible expulsion degrees of illegals because they began monitoring such statistics but at the same time this exact same Federal federal government was in court combating the new Arizona state regulation that was trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens right into that state.

- Returning to gay marriages, according to a July 15, 2010 Associated Press post, the nation of Argentina recently came to be the first Latin American nation to legislate gay marriage. The short article reported that Chile and also numerous other South American countries are most likely to attempt as well as do the same. Do we believe that our Jabba, flaunting as the American political class, has any kind of chance of making that occur in this country when it discovers itself in court resisting gay legal rights?

- According to a short article in the August problem of Factor publication, since 1996 fourteen states as well as the District of Columbia have legislated cannabis usage for clinical functions and also several various other states are thinking about doing the exact same. This is in direct conflict with Federal regulation which has sometimes led to Federal raids of clinical cannabis suppliers which are unlawful under Federal law however lawful under state law. This is also in conflict with Obama the advocate who intended to legalize the drug when he competed Head of state today protects the outlawing of it at the Federal degree. Once more, federal government has actually gotten so large that we have actually entered the unusual zone relating to clinical marijuana where it is legal at the same time as being prohibited.

- Mentioning medication problems, a current Associated Press write-up reported that the Federal Veterans Affairs organization would certainly enable its people to use medical cannabis if those patients stayed in the fourteen states where clinical cannabis is legal. Hence, one arm of the Federal federal government (Veterans cbd oil sierra vista az Matters) is completely great with medical cannabis usage while other arms of the Federal federal government (FBI, DEA, Federal statue) wishes to clean it out.

- If you think the Federal federal government has a medicine issue now, wait until the Oakland City Council votes on whether to permit commercial farming of marijuana to be established in city restrictions, industrial farms which would certainly generate marijuana for medical use in addition to for use in items ranging from baked goods to body oil. Winning candidates who would certainly operate these ranches would have to pay yearly authorization fees and also 8 percent of their sales to tax obligations in addition to bring $2 million in liability insurance policy. Similar initiatives are being pushed in various other cities throughout the state along with a November tally issue to legislate non-medical use cannabis, according to the write-up. Currently think about the components of a brief blurb in the July 23, 2010 concern of The Week publication that reported on a Rand Research study that concluded from their evaluation that the legalisation of marijuana would certainly decrease the street rate by up to 90%. Thus, the initiatives in The golden state might help reduce the street cost of the medicine which subsequently would substantially reduce the power, wide range as well as impact of the Mexican medication cartels which would be a good thing. Nevertheless, in the face of this good collection of results (more profits for the city governments, less of a stigma of marijuana customers, much less police sources invested in breaking marijuana individuals, the weakening of the Mexican medication cartels) do we assume that the Jabba the Hutt beast in DC is nimble enough to recognize what the advantages are or will it continue down its course of problem at the Federal drug enforcement degree?

- Take Into Consideration a Washington Message short article from Might, 2007, entitled ""Federal Loans Fuel Push For Coal Power Plant Kingdoms."" The post discusses a remaining Anxiety era Federal program that provides affordable loans to construct coal terminated, high contamination nuclear power plant utilizing taxpayer cash. According to the write-up, ""the [car loan] assistance is a significant pressure behind the thrill to coal plants, which gush carbon dioxide that researchers blame for international warming."" Therefore, while the Obama management is pushing a climate control bill in order to fight against international warming, the exact same federal government is funding nuclear power plant that do just the opposite. Makes no sense.

- A current Affiliate Press article reported how the Feds had broken 94 individuals for defrauding the Medicare program. This was a great development yet why was our Jabba so sluggish in getting these arrests done? Medicare fraud has been going on because the day Medicare began a number of decades back, why did it take such a painfully slow-moving time to begin apprehending the cheats? One of those jailed had filed over 3,700 illegal insurance claims under her name before she was arrested, exactly how slow-moving can you obtain?

We can go on and on. The UNITED STATE federal government has obtained so huge therefore slow, just like Jabba the Hutt, that its lots of folds of skin hide waste, stupidity as well as the doubling back on itself, i.e. public law as well as activities in conflict with itself or the needs of those running the federal government. We might continue regarding just how sluggish, inefficient, and also wasteful our Jabba is, about just how our Jabba never ever addresses an issue whether it is unconfident borders, failing public institutions, rising health care prices, and so on, exactly how our Jabba wastes unimaginable billions of dollars on trademarks, useless efforts, and also fraud-infested programs, or how our Jabba does not know exactly how to manage the economy, causing skies high national debt degrees and also a really creaky financial scenario with low development and high unemployment.

Jabba is extremely poor for everybody yet he is challenging to remove. With the set aside process, the gerrymandering of Legislative areas, do-nothing campaign finance laws, as well as various other methods, Jabba has several defenses versus loss in a political election, defenses that even a Jedi light saber might not conveniently pierce. Long-term, it is vital we start to enforce term limitations on political leaders to ensure that they never ever once again get as fat, slow, inefficient, and also inadequate as Jabba The Hutt. Short-term, this November is critical because it begins the procedure of voting out the Jabba incumbents as well as ultimately entering some streamlined, reliable, and also daring Jedi warriors who will make the challenging choices to get the dimension of federal government under control and make that scaled down federal government more effective and much less strange and much less contrasted."

[americanbackyard]

Our Rise, Our Fall

One of the most focal things we have been shown in trumpland is his followers, his fans. There is a difference between supporters and fans in that a supporter can be shown reasons why not to support someone or something and there is a possibility that they might change their mind. A fan is much harder to convince that the object of their affection is not worthy of their time or emotions. Trump is one of a million to hold some kind of shine to people and become an icon in the culture of America. Or at least part of America. Not the good part...

A unique thing has happened in the case of trump's popularity in that we can now clearly see that many Americans do not pay attention to anything beyond tabloid type information, regardless of the nearly unlimited amount of real information available at no cost to them. We can now plainly see that there are many stubborn and selfish people out there who refuse to look into things for themselves and choose to join mobs of others who act and react the same way. These are the rabid fans. In the case of donald trump and what they believe him to be, they show us that their lives are not their own, even if they claim to want to be left alone by government and those who are not like them, ie; white christian republicans. The amount of hypocrisy is astounding with these people and there is no way to convince them of the ridiculousness of their ways. Yet they function in society somehow. Amazing how the human psyche works. This is the survival instinct that we see in homeless people who appear to have lost their minds yet still build a shelter of discarded objects and scrounge for food. Rabid fans build a shelter of twisted ideals and scrounge for justification of what really boils down to bigotry and stupidity.

For decades trump has been in the B-level news as if he were the only person with money, surrounded by women and golden objects and living in a towering palace and blah blah blah. Anyone who took a few minutes here and there over the years and actually read anything at all about the man could have seen that this is not the case. What we are able to see now about his history, regardless of seeing his taxes shows that he is a dime-a-dozen developer with no peers and no friends, a multiple bankruptcy failure, a man with dreams but only of himself, which he is unable to make come true due to his own lack of intellect or determination, a con man and a grifter, plus a racist. There is nothing at all to like about this man and nothing to worship as some do.

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions...” - 2 Timothy 4:3 (1)

Even those who call themselves Christians who are fans of trump obviously have not read or begun to comprehend the scripture on which their supposed faith is from. Besides the religious aspect of The Bible there are many practicle warnings to heed and advice to be taken. Rabid trump fans do not take advice nor do they heed warnings. If they did, they would not be rabid trump fans. As we have seen for decades this is nothing new though, as televangelists and now trump's “spiritual advisor”, herself a complete fraud, screw over their flocks every second of every sermon... Why are people so gullible? Why are they so desperate? Could it be the same thing that causes people to worship deities that promise a better “life” after death? Try living in the now for God's sake, so to speak.

For some reason, people are able to overlook things like racism, perversion, fraud, lies, and other acts of diminished ethics if what they see is a shiny extension of the worst part of themselves that makes them feel better about being shitty, for lack of better words. I'd imagine they were raised to be that way as they likely did not learn that as an adult, at work, or in college or church, although looking at the messages of some churches, like the Westboro Baptist Church, or various colleges like Liberty University, it is possible but people were attracted to those places for some reason in the first place, and look at some of the fine people they churn out. Also there are many people in history that are beloved but had things about them that would make a normal person cringe. Historical figures today that are relished, and I don't just mean with confederate statues, which is a fine example of praising the wrong people, but popular politicians, athletes, entertainers or religious figures that were racist, child molesters, rapists, or a variety of other things that if your neighbor were one, you would want to kick their ass halfway to New Zealand.

What it comes down to is that people need to look at the reality of other people around them and understand what is real and what it not and how their own lives and the lives of those around them are more important than the lives of who they are fans of, and how they all connect. It's called “getting fucking real”, something that many forget. “Celebrities are fascinating because they live in a parallel universe—one that looks and feels just like ours yet is light-years beyond our reach. Stars cry to Diane Sawyer about their problems—failed marriages, hardscrabble upbringings, bad career decisions—and we can relate. The paparazzi catch them in wet hair and a stained T-shirt, and we're thrilled. They're ordinary folks, just like us. And yet… Stars live in another world entirely, one that makes our lives seem woefully dull by comparison. ” (2) Again, get a fucking life... But they are unable. Why? And how can we help them to help themselves and not affect us all and the whole planet really by not making stupid decisions based on falsehoods and unreality and believing in people like donald trump, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Paula White, Pat Robertson, Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler, etc. We cannot. BUT we outnumber them. SO why are we not coming out in droves to defeat the insanity which enables them to continue in their relentlessness path of destruction and jeopardizes all of humanity on a daily basis? Sounds intense but let's face it, the more folks let politics and religion rule their world the more the corporations and pontiffs will take advantage of them. History tells of this over and over and over again. It's nothing new folks...

We are beyond the two party system at this point. It is now a puppet show in front of us while we have become a mob of idiots versus a huge living room of couch potatoes. We let in the interlopers and the freaks and some of us gladly accept them based on their excuses or shiny false badges of honor while others of us say “whatever” and go about dong nothing to stop the inflow of assholes into the system that we trust to run things while we are running the rat race. There are herds of people who are fired up over things that they are told affect them when they absolutely do not, yet they fall for it hook line and stinker singly based upon the emotions and simplicities of their personalities that their new heroes have honed in on to get what they want from them. “...why do people repose blind faith in leaders or ideologies? How is it that otherwise sane and sensible people become moronically incapable of grasping reality? The culprit: our brain. Still evolving and still primitive, it readily sacrifices rational evidence-based conclusions in favor of primal ones. And so conformism trumps individual judgement.” (3) So is it because we are still primitive? Racists have their own ideas about who is primitive but let's face it, the worst degrees of thought in this country are coming from the rightwing white pseudo christians, who pretty much measure up, or down actually, in evolutionary thought when it comes to primal instincts.

Then there are those who won't vote, or get up and stand up.

Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights! Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights! Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights! Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight! (4)

On the other hand many are prone to apathy and burnout, due in large part to the overexposure of the right's flock of sheep and the constant pressing of their presence by the wolves that lead them into their dens. “We use voting as a tool to transmit to others who we are,” explains Eyal Winter. An economist, he works at the University of Leicester in England and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. (5) So while the crazies identify with each other and go out and do what they can to make themselves known, others are simply distressed or depressed by it enough to give up and not take the same initiative to go make a difference and fight the powers that suck.

Let's face it though, which party is the one using the Electoral College to silence over three million voters and give trump the win? Which party is guilty of voter suppression in over a dozen cities, that we known of? Which party is guilty of vote tampering, voter intimidation, poll violations, and supports racism while arguing to abolish immigrants, even legal ones, and who holds children in cages, separates them from their parents forever, allows them to be raped, become sick, or die, and then traffics them out? It's all happening., and we let it.

When will it become unacceptable? When it becomes inconvenient? The easy way out of a major confrontation is to get out there and vote and let your voice be heard. The numbers will speak and cannot be overturned. Not yet at least. Unless we let it. We can easily see the wrongdoing of the right wingers in the discrimination of those who the right hates the most. The GOP is not christian by any means, nor or they civil servants, nor are they compassionate, ethical, scrupulous, professional, or on anyone's side besides their own. They are not the lesser of two evils, they are the evil. The lesser may be the only thing we have to curb them but we can work on that and turn it around. It all starts now, or it never starts, and the end is already here. Will those in the position to make positive change refuse to do so? Forget those who are fooled by it, this is about you, the ones who can make  the difference.

Perhaps both sides choose the path of least resistance. But who controls the controlling factors introducing us to our supposed paths?  That choice is ours alone. Common sense might dictate which side we take but in the end we should all be on the same side. And politics and religion are constantly used to keep us from doing that, so that they benefit and not us, even though we put them in charge, willingly, when we vote for them to “represent” us.

In the end what is it going to be? Are we all on our own? Is it survival of the fittest? Or of the most privileged? Will the meek inherit the Earth, or will the corporate enterprises destroy it? And will we let them? This is why it is imperative at this point to get things straight and not allow the absurd to flourish and to take command of the things that matter rather than allow the power mad to run amok. It's happening all over the world and has been for a very long time. Is it just human destiny then to drive itself into the ground? Perhaps. But if we are to get to the next level of a civil society then we have a lot of work to do.  We ourselves and our fellow humans need to make things work, and not just rely on some suit wearing zombies with a political label. A progressive party is not just a partisan party but one for all, to do what? PROGRESS. There is an entire side that does not get this yet but might learn from example. OUR example. And again, if they won't learn, it does'nt matter if we make our numbers count. They will survive and even thrive, even if they may never accept who helped them do it. That's okay though because that is what a civil society does. It sees a problem, diagnoses it, and urges those around them to try to figure out a solution together without doing further damage or taking the easy way out.

Maybe we are dealing with cognitive dissonance. Or maybe some people are just fucking stupid. I like  to think that nurture plays just as important a role as nature though, and that perhaps one can keep learning throughout life to see the big picture and utilize common sense, or at least common decency. Of course, that can only be taught. Or can it? Altruistic behavior is believed by some to be hereditary in many species, so hope is not be abandoned. As easily as hope may be offered up in the form of security and salvation in sensible terms, it can be sold too as something entirely different than what it actually is defined as, something redefined and repackaged by untruths and lust for power. Thus, the rabid trump fans. The ultra right wingers. The fanatical conservatives. The crazy republicans. Not all people on the right are evil, many just conveniently go along with their dimensions which they find themselves lazily confined in. We need to agree on a middle ground of decency and intelligence, of fairness and unity, and only voting and voicing will present that to those who cannot or will not see it. They won't change their minds and we can't change it for them, so we have to change ours and let them see what we can do together.

For once in my life I've got something to say I wanna say it now for now is today A love has been given so why not enjoy So let's all grab and let's all enjoy!

If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided

Just take a look around you What do you see? Kids with feelings Like you and me Understand him, he'll understand you For you are him, and he is you

If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided

If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided

I don't want to be rejected I don't want to be denied Then its not my misfortune That I've opened up your eyes

Freedom is given Speak how you feel I have no freedom How do you feel?

They can lie to my face But not to my heart If we all stand together It will just be the start

If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided

If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided If the kids are united Then we'll never be divided (6)

(1) The Bible

(2) Psychology Today, Carlin Flora, July 1, 2004

(3) DAWN, Peter Hoodbhoy, August 8, 2015

(4) Bob Marley, Get Up Stand Up, 1973

(5) Science News For Students, Bethany Brookshire, November 7, 2016

(6) Sham 69, If The Kids Are United, 1978

[kretzu]

Half-Steps & Full-Steps.

As a white man, I will never fully understand some of the painful realities that people of color deal with. But as a follower of Jesus, having an interracial marriage, and being friends with many who have experienced race-based discrimination, it weighs heavily on my heart.

This weekend someone asked me how we are to respond to events like Charlottesville. This is how I’m processing it. It’s not polished or perfect, but I feel like it’s important to share. 

Many are speaking out against the violence in Charlottesville, which I am grateful for. Sometimes things seem so obvious that we forget that we need to actually say them out loud. I was reminded how critically important it is for us to say the words, though, on Sunday when I was standing in front of my church. The words that I prayerfully wrote down Saturday night were clean, Biblical, appropriate. But Sunday morning, when I had to say them out loud in front of people, they felt inadequate. It just didn’t feel like I could say enough. 

Pointing out the wrongs or the evils that we see around us is a half-step, but it’s only when we simultaneously move towards what is right is when we make a full step. Doing one or the other is nice and has good intentions I’m sure, but often doesn’t cause us to change. While it may look good, it probably won’t do any good. We have to name the wrong and move towards the right. Speak boldly against injustice, and also speak to what the better world is.

So yes, condemn evil and hate when we see it. Also, we must intentionally live our lives and speak in the way of love.

It should be easy for us to condemn evil when it escalates to the point of violence like we’ve seen recently, but do we also condemn and actively fight against the tiny seed of evil that is inside each one of us? We readily condemn the full-grown monster of white supremacy, but are we allowing it to exist in it’s infancy in each of our hearts?

Supremacy in any form goes against all that Jesus taught and called us to, yet it seems like we only call it out when it reaches it’s ugliest levels. We all this seed to take root in our hearts in smaller, “acceptable” ways.

While it is good and right to condemn the evil that we have seen, we are not allowed to call out the white supremacy we see in people until we’ve looked internally first at the plank of supremacy in our own eye.

Jesus commands us to love one another (John 13:34), which we take pretty seriously. Jesus commands us to put others before ourselves (Mark 9:35, 10:21, Matthew 5:41), which we try to do from time to time. And then he even invited us to give our lives for others (John 15:13), which we conveniently like to assume he just meant figuratively.

Viewing, treating, or believing anyone other than you is less-than you is directly opposed to the message of Jesus. He was always looking for ways to acknowledge and lift up outcasts on any side. He stood against racial, religious, and gender biases in his conversation with the Samaritan woman (John 4). He stood against political divides when he served a roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10). He even stood alongside the traitors that took advantage of their own people (Luke 19:1-10).

The one person who actually was supreme (Colossians 1:15) and had every right to live that way instead chose to spend his life releasing his privileges.

Supremacy in any form would be absurd to Jesus, so lets work against it in every form; including the way it rises up inside each of us.

So, back to the beginning, a half-step would be to condemn the evil spirit of supremacy, and the full-step is for us to lift others up.  What does it look like to lift others up? Man, that might just be the fun part. But I’m not sure I’ve got time for that now. 

So...would the Spirit continue to transform my heart and yours, as well as our churches and communities, as we have the same attitude as Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:5-11

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

[almightygodismydependence-blog]

Resolving the “Cold War” Makes My Life Even Happier!

Tian Yu

When I got married, my family advised me that “All lay loads on the willing horse,” that after marriage, I must be in charge so that I’m not taken advantage of, so that my life will be fulfilled and happy. So, after marriage, I always wanted to be in charge and that whatever I said would go. In the beginning, my husband would consult me for all matters big and small in our home. But as time went on, he would often not consult with me, but do things according to his will. Because of this, I felt rather unhappy. I felt that my husband didn’t take me seriously. I thought, “If things continue like this, I wouldn’t have a place to stand on in this family.” In order that I could be in charge, I would often sulk and ignore my husband until he softened and said nice things to me, and things only ended when I was satisfied.

One year, during the Spring Festival, my husband consulted with me to kill the pig we had at home. I said we’d feed it for a few more days. At the time, he agreed with me completely. But I didn’t expect that the next morning the pig butcher came. At the time, I pretended as if nothing was wrong and greeted him until the pig was killed, but then I complained to my husband that he didn’t consult with me beforehand. My husband kept explaining to me the reason the butcher had to come earlier, but I couldn’t listen to him at all. No matter how he explained, I ignored him. In order to get on my good side, when I was doing work, he purposefully came over to help me, but I kept my unpleasant expression. In the end, he had to leave dejectedly. Looking at him leaving helplessly, I felt very miserable too. Why are we suffering like this? Why couldn’t I have given him a way out without embarrassing him? But then I thought that there is still a long way ahead of us. If I relent easily now, then he wouldn’t take notice of me at all. How could I be in charge of the house then? No, I cannot relent so easily. So, even though I really wanted to make up with my husband and didn’t want to continue our stalemate, I still held on sternly. No matter how he apologized, I didn’t speak to him until he pleaded me and promised that next time he would definitely consult with me. Only then did I condescend to speak to him.

But in daily life, these kinds of trivial things were too many to count. Because of this, there were rarely happiness and joy in our life. Most of the time was spent waging a cold war. Seeing my cold face every day, my child spoke very carefully. My husband would sigh and groan every day, and I would feel wronged. I thought that my husband didn’t understand me and my child didn’t obey me, and because of this, I would often cry by myself until midnight…. I also felt that this life of waging a cold war is too miserable and too tiring, but I could not control my own heart.

In 2003, I believed in God. Through the fellowship of brothers and sisters and reading God’s word, I realized that these things I was doing, such as often being angry toward my husband and ignoring him because of my temper, were the corrupt disposition of Satan and the result of Satan’s poison planted deep within my heart. If I wanted to stop being controlled by these corrupt dispositions, I had to achieve transformation through reading God’s word, experiencing God’s word, and practicing God’s word. Therefore, I enthusiastically read God’s word and partook in church life, hoping that my corrupt disposition could be transformed.

One morning, my fourth big brother-in-law said to me: “Some time ago, I borrowed some money from my brother (my husband), but I’ve come to repay it today.” Saying that, he handed me the money. After he left, I thought, holding the money, that my husband had dared to lend the money to somebody else without consulting me, and my anger rose immediately. I wanted nothing more than to reason with him right then. In the evening, when he got home, I asked him sternly: “Do you even care about me anymore? You’ve lent money to somebody else without even telling me. Who do you take me for in this house? Am I invisible to you? …” I got angrier and angrier, and no matter how he explained, I would not listen to him. The following day, my husband approached me and spoke to me. I glared at him and ignored him, and he felt very awkward. Looking at his awkward expression, I felt guilty inside. I thought: This isn’t actually something too serious. Besides, the brother-in-law has already returned the money, and I am a bit overdoing it by not relenting at all. Moreover, I am a believer in God. God asks us to live out normal humanity, to have the likeness of a Christian. What I am doing do not have the likeness of a Christian. But when I thought that my husband did things without consulting me and that he didn’t care about me, I felt frustrated in my heart. I thought that if I don’t let him suffer a little this time, then he’ll ignore me more and more in the future. So, although I felt miserable, I still hardened my heart and didn’t relent.

Later, I saw God’s word say: “Cruel, brutal mankind! The conniving and intrigue, the jostling with each other, the scramble for reputation and fortune, the mutual slaughter—when will it ever end? God has spoken hundreds of thousands of words, yet no one has come to their senses. … How many do not act for the sake of their own interests? How many do not oppress and discriminate against others for the sake of maintaining their own status?” (“The Wicked Must Be Punished” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Isn’t God’s word referring to me? I recalled that, since I started this family, I always wanted to be in charge and in control. In every situation, I demanded that my husband must listen to me. Whatever he did must go through my approval. If he doesn’t do as I want him to, I treat him with the cold shoulder, and become short with him, using a “cold war” method to assert my authority and repress him, so that he submits to me and I achieve the goal of establishing myself. After reading God’s word, I had some knowledge and came to ask myself: Aren’t those my expressions of battling for power and position with my husband? Aren’t I repressing and pushing away my husband for the purpose of protecting my own position? I force my husband to submit to me by waging cold wars just to have him listen to me, so that I could be in charge in this household…. For more than ten years, I often had cold wars with my husband and we are miserable and tired, but it has all been caused by me. They are the bitter results brought about by fighting with my husband for position and power in order to be in charge. If I didn’t fight for my position, then I wouldn’t often have cold wars with my husband, and our family life wouldn’t be this painful. All of this is caused by my pursuit of position and power! The revelation in God’s word allowed me to discover the root of cold wars in our house and brought me a path to practice. Therefore, I decided to change my faulty pursuit and lower myself to make up with my husband.

In the evening, when my husband came home, I wanted to take the initiative and talk to him. But then I thought: If I relent like this, then would he still have a place for me in his heart in the future? Would he just ignore me even more? But if I don’t practice the truth, I feel my humanity is too bad, and God would be displeased…. After turning the thought over and over in my mind, in the end I still ignored him. Because my heart had hardened and I did not practice the truth, I was very tormented inside, so I came before God and prayed: “God, I wish to practice the truth and release from the bindings of Satan’s influence, but I cannot succeed in putting this into practice. I am always concerned about my position in my home. God, I hope that You would guide me and help me so that I can practice the truth.” After praying, I felt I had a bit of confidence and will to practice the truth. During dinner, I summoned up my courage and said to my husband, red-faced, “This time it’s my fault. You already explained things properly, but I’m still unrelenting….” After he listened to me, he let out a long sigh, and said: “This is so surprising. I thought that this cold war would stale for a long time. I really didn’t think it would be over so quickly.” Hearing his words, in my heart I couldn’t stop thanking God’s guidance, because without His guidance I could not have practiced this at all.

I’ve tasted the sweetness of practicing the truth and seen God’s guidance and blessing, and I have recognized that God asks us to live out normal humanity, have the conscience and reason of normal humans, conduct ourselves according to God’s word and put down our own desire for status so that we can shake off Satan’s bindings and control. So, I decided not to let the family “cold war” continue. When I encountered things, I wanted to put down my own desire for status and take the initiative in making up with my husband. In my subsequent relationship with my husband, I began to practice implementing God’s word. From then on, our house was full of laughter and joy.

One day in January 2008, I heard my husband on the phone where somebody asked him about a loan. I asked him about it casually, and he stuttered for a moment and said: “Um, it’s from the bank.” Seeing him stutter as he spoke, I asked him what he did with the loan. He said a bit impatiently: “Last July I did business together with somebody else, and because we didn’t have enough capital we took out a loan…. Stop being bothered about this.” When I heard that he didn’t want me to bother about it, an anger welled up inside me. I said: “Do you still treat me as a member of this family? You didn’t even talk to me about such a serious situation, and when I found out you told me not to interfere. Do you still care about me at all?” Seeing that I was getting angrier and angrier, he didn’t say anything. I got so angry that I ignored him again. Seeing me like this, my husband didn’t talk to me and simply turned his head and left. I sat down angrily on the chair and thought: Haven’t I done enough for this home? I worry over everything in this house, great and small, and you’re really taking me for granted…. As I was thinking, wounded tears began to flow down my cheeks. At this point, I suddenly realized that I was living in Satan’s deception, so I began to silently pray to God inside my heart: “God! I am now living under Satan’s influence again. I hope You can help me walk out from Satan’s influence….” After praying, I felt a bit calmer. I opened the book of God’s word and saw that God said: “Your heart and your spirit have been taken away by the evil one. … You have lost everything that should have belonged to you and everything that the Almighty bestowed upon you. You have entered an endless sea of bitterness, with no strength of a rescue, no hope of survival, left only to struggle and to bustle about…. The evil one steers your heart in every matter and becomes your life. You no longer fear him, no longer avoid him, no longer doubt him. Instead, you treat him as the God in your heart. You begin to enshrine him, worship him, be inseparable like a shadow of his, and mutually commit to each other in life and death” (“The Sighing of the Almighty” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Those whose belief in God is always for their own gains, who are self-righteous and haughty, who show themselves off, and protect their own status are those who love Satan and oppose the truth. They resist God and belong completely to Satan” (“Escape From the Influence of Darkness and You Will Be Gained by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words’ revelation and judgment let me feel deeply that God is worried and pained about me, as I could not practice the truth or forsake Satan. Now, I remembered Adam and Eve, whom God had created in the beginning. They originally listened to God’s word and obeyed God, they had God’s care and protection, and lived happily in the Garden of Eden. Later, because they listened to Satan’s lies that lured and confused them, they betrayed God, lost God’s guidance and blessing, and fell into Satan’s corruption and affliction. I thought about why I lived so tiredly. Why did I always get angry and have cold wars with my husband over little things in the household? Isn’t it because of the satanic poisons that my family instilled in me, “All lay loads on the willing horse,” “Only I am the ruler,” and “Be in charge of the household” that have controlled me? Under the control of these satanic principles of living and life philosophy, I always wanted a position at home where whatever I said would go, I always wanted to have the advantage, so that my husband listened to me on every matter. If there was just one thing he didn’t listen to me about or didn’t consult me on, I would repress him at every step until he submitted to me, leading both of us to live in Satan’s deception, making me cry, wipe my tears, and feel wronged very often. My husband complained and sighed, and even our child did things carefully every day while reading my expression…. I’ve been fooled by Satan and I’m living so miserably and tiredly! At this point, I came to understand this: Only when people live in God’s word do they have God’s care and protection and they can live happily. Once people leave God’s word and live by Satan’s life philosophy and rules of living, they do not have God’s care and protection, and can only be prosecuted and trampled on by Satan. This is the source of my painful life. At the same time I hated Satan in my heart, I hated my own incompetence. I had God’s word yet I did not practice it. Instead, I held on to Satan’s lies and didn’t let go of them. Isn’t this bringing about my own suffering? So, I determined to toss away Satan’s lies and live by God’s word. I saw God’s word again: “What testimony will you be asked to give? You live in a land of filth but are able to become holy, and no longer be filthy and impure, you live under the domain of Satan but divest yourself of Satan’s influence, and not possessed or harassed by Satan, and you live in the hands of the Almighty. This is the testimony, and the proof of victory in the battle with Satan” (“The Inside Truth of the Conquering Work (2)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Seeing God’s word, I understood God’s will is that I can bear a witness for God before Satan. Although there is still Satan’s life philosophy in me as well as desire for status, today God has established this situation so that I could practically forsake these satanic poisons and be victorious over Satan’s dark influence through practicing God’s word. This is practically witnessing God. I have to look at things according to God’s word and practice His word. I cannot let Satan lead me by the nose again. When I had a will to practice the truth, I felt especially released in my heart, and I had the confidence and strength to practice God’s word.

Soon, my husband came back, and I promptly asked him: “Do you have enough money? I still have some money here, take it and use it.” After hearing it, my husband happily said, “You’ve changed. You’re not like before, when I had to submit to you before you would relent.” I said happily: “Thank God! It’s God’s word that changed me.”

One day, I cooked while humming hymns of God’s word. When the meal was ready, I called my son and husband to eat. Seeing that I was smiling, my son said happily: “In our house, as long as mom is smiling, the house is full of happiness.” Hearing this, I said smiling: “Mom’s happiness was brought about by God. Only by living by God’s word do we have true happiness.” My husband chimed in: “Now mom’s face is so bright and less gloomy.” Hearing their words, I kept thanking God in my heart, because the happy life we have at home now was brought about by God.

Recalling these few years that I’ve walked alongside God, although I used to deeply suffer from the affliction of satanic poisons such as “Be in charge of the household,” “All lay loads on the willing horse,” “Only I am the ruler,” which made our house full of misery and sighs, yet now, because of God’s selection and grace, I could have the fortune to return before God and experience the chastisement and judgment of God’s word. I can distinguish between positive and negative things, and I have a new understanding regarding what true life is. Because of the guidance of God’s word, not only did I turn around my previous, false perspective and found the correct life direction and goal, I can also discern Satan’s evil substance, and I can live while no longer being reliant on Satan’s poison and have a happy, joyful life. Now, I can proudly say bye bye to family “cold wars”!

[dydturktek]

Nem Kurutma | Nem Alma | Rutubet Kurutma | DYD 444 0 719

Applying for grants Painless MailOrderBride Guidance

Applying for grants Painless MailOrderBride Guidance

The reason that is key You’re Not Happy

O. k, Guys, do you really learn to keep women delighted? I will make available to you a few simple, yet effective recommendations for relationships in the act to help keep a female totally pleased. To start with, be your self. You might believe that you need to be another person for just about any partner to have noticable you. As opposed to everything you might imagine, some body that’s assured in himself is fairly getting a female. And on occasion even noticed a extremely extremely girl with a man the truth that you’d for no reason at all get ready to obtain the girl’s with? Nearly all women see don’t simply the real aspect.

Different partners adjust the principles that are mythic marriage… “and they reside cheerfully just after. ins No, like a couple of pretty much every is with in cost be effective difficult to produce the wedding succeed. That is an explanation it may be therefore required for maried visitors to achieve practice tune up these life that is marital. Every 3 months there should your sign in people wedding. Just simply simply Take some right time and energy to understand how products are gotten moving in the love. One of many mistake that is biggest maried individuals make will be to believe that it is all completely ACCEPTABLE along with their wedding. Usually do not assume,seek advice. Examine any fishing type of interaction between you. Is just an interaction flowing well? Can there be obstructions within the marks of interaction. 2. simply exactly how is a appreciate? Can you nevertheless love 1 since before? 3. Have you got issue forgiving your wife or husband? These exact things can retain you against experiencing and experiencing the bliss you must have a life that is highly effective when you look at the wedding.

Home semantics Where is it possible to live? Are you prepared to alter towns, states or nations if simply just one for the job opportunities requires it? Explore testing the vow of in memory and bad! Discuss this in general to make certain that if the does certainly occur you are able to later be competent to avoid unneeded anxiety. Who can turned out to be residing in household is an additional crucial concern since well to be contingent on that earnings you’re going towards the two be realizing to assist you maintain your path of life. Precisely how particular break up the chores? Yep. The two of you need to food in somehow rebuild succeed and develop an area of balance and respect. Make an effort to rotate schedules using the intention that monotony does not use up into any quarrels that are future.

Effective Possibilities Of https://www.becomingminimalist.com/8-essentials-for-a-successful-marriage/ Across The United States Of America Correspondence. As soon as you get wed, featuring must give consideration to your self just, it is advisable take into consideration that any points and choices you’ll want to do now has got to be looked at as not simply just by just you or single him, it should be designed for the both of you. This is exactly why you must always need ones partner’s viewpoint in whatsoever you’ll complete, interaction for the the two of you is a vital recipe regarding the completely marriage that is happy. It will become more higher level than rotating up fighting with one another as a result of those recommendations departed unsaid or discussed.

Adopt a great mind-set. State of mind may you need to be any such thing and every thing after the duration comes into the world to produce that union succeed. Steer clear of conversing within the destructive way and become the force that is highest within the world concerning constructive reasoning re any achievements all of the wedding. You’ll undoubtedly be amazed and surprised for the optimum achievements.

Strategies On a primary Date to be sure you Win Her Heart

To ensure, heading out to have meal and/or an excellent enchanting film is considered one of probably the most famous kind internet dating event, nevertheless, it might eventually turn into the foremost upsetting and embarrassing times you may possibly simply just take, created for brand-new partners beginning the main portions of dating! Numerous cutting edge partners hit that off o. k, using the outset, speaking and joking about such a thing and precisely what relates to mind. Most are exceptional storytellers, plus some can be listeners that are great. But, as one example you or your date, simply don’t safe maintain and lucky either among these elements? Just just just How clumsy and difficult would that nightmare frequently be? Actually asian mail order bride, merely should put away the reality that pair of top times some ideas for a time that is after. Truthfully, the extremely most useful advice, initially associated with an internet relationship, must be to take time to get at understand the other prior to whatever real time encounter. Workout an abundance of care and patience, publications determine the plusses and minuses establish any smoothness, character and compatibility associated with an applicant looking the a number that is large of status of real love.

Only at that minute wait an instant, isn’t going to that fly studying the report that is initial we called rational. Good we said doing so was logical, we never claimed hello had been proper. Those are many things that are completely unique. That one could take that can be really easy and they’re going to provide help to grasp your ultimate goal if you want to get dates with a romance one can find actions. Critical information on utilize this link Revealed

Furthermore make use of fate within your day-to-day encounters in combination along with her. Go ahead and make use of fate to produce the girl’s feel linked. For instance, that you just are instead too as you ended up being talking she mentioned an area. You can expect to inform her that this should be fortune whenever you beneficial to get that spot too and may also also turn out to be the perfect driveways have actually crossed. Preserve this sort of discussion and you ought to properly grow the seed in fate in their own personal visualization additionally the the next thing you realize that you’re striking these people straight right right back that you simply ‘ve got understood your partner for several years. Fast Systems In https://quizlet.com/6122974/health-questions-ch-10-healthy-relationships-flash-cards/ – Insights

Besides, they are slack, reckless, deadbeat, uncaring, extremely demanding with little to no respect for partner and youths. This actually among the numerous leading points causing a number that is increasing of teleshopping brides. Once again, the guys that are russian very early wedding. Hence, in case your woman the examples below is together with twenty-five years old but unmarried, your sweetheart gets very little other dedication but to sign up for to help you these portals. Aside from these, females elder in Russia have become discriminated within the is very important of income and employment. Girls right here have significantly paid down salary than males when it comes to exact same work. Now, those elements together have actually compelled these pretty damsels to join up for Russian teleshopping brides agencies that are.

Your 3rd myth doing the rounds is definitely that many such online that is russian services may be frauds and merely want to lead capture pages out cash through the options grooms. This will be once more wrong as opposed to the instance. You will have a small number of dating sites which repeat this nonetheless that does not end up in virtually no web sites are genuine. There are lots of respectable Mail that is russian Order sites the spot that the Russian women can be genuine along side research of real love.

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[lydiaabroad]

Blog #8: Nearing the End

Hello! I am in Delhi until Friday and then I head off to the mountains to complete a four week independent research project! Can you believe it? After coming back from a week at CRHP in Jamkhed I felt very downtrodden. To be honest, I am not particularly inspired by any of our lectures lately (it’s hard to inspire after CRHP) and I have reached a point of frustration with my program. Academically, it isn’t what I expected. I have learned a lot though, and I have enjoyed all of our excursions the most (Bahraich, Thailand, CRHP). I am feeling ready to head to the mountains and be on my own. I think the experience will be very transformative and possibly the best part of this program. We will see…

I wrote the following paper as a sort of synthesis/summary of some of the major things I have learned this term. I pumped it out in a day so it ends in an unusual metaphor as a final attempt to marvel my “teacher,” (angry because he was not a good teacher), but, I think it is a pretty decent analysis of some of the aspects of being here that to me were the most significant. I hope you enjoy :)

The World Health Organization in 1978 redefined “health” as  “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”[1] This definition increased the responsibilities of governments to recognize the greater factors that play into a population’s wellbeing. “Health is a most important world-wide social goal whose realization requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector.”[2] A healthy population is no longer determined by markers of birth or mortality, but by the social and economic status of its citizens. Section Three of the 1978 Alma Atta Declaration declared that the attainment of health can only be fully achieved if economic and social development increases in concurrence.[3] The concepts of social and economic development in India include factors such as gender, caste, poverty, geography, and education. These factors exacerbate levels of health, unless education is available. Education is a facet of health because of its capacity to improve the physical, mental, social, and economic well being of individuals.

In the discussion of health and education in India, gender is inherently an aspect of access to health. Women are generally repressed as India functions majorly as a patriarchal society in which the role of women, more so rural women, is to produce children and care for them and the home. When a mother is not valued, her health is at risk, as is the health of her child. Direct impacts of sexism on health include sex selective abortions, in which fetuses determined to be female will be aborted because the family wants a male child, and high rates of maternal mortality as the mother often does not stay in the hospital long enough after birth because she must return to her duties at home.[4] These factors are clear discriminations against women’s health. There are also a number of factors that are socially constructed through traditions and norms that are dangerous to women’s health.       

In India, forty percent of women’s marriages occur before the age of eighteen. The desire to marry off a daughter at a young age comes from the beliefs that she cannot contribute to her family, so the only option for her and the only place she will have purpose is with a husband so that she can produce more children. Because girls are not seen as able to contribute to the family, it is preferred for boys to go to school. The decision of whether a girl goes to school lies in the hands of her family. There is little to no dialogue between men and women about their issues and needs––women, let alone young girls, lack decision making role in their lives. When a family chooses to marry their daughter, before or at, the age of eighteen, that girl is not fully developed physically or mentally. In addition to her physical and mental development, if a girl is married at the age of fifteen and becomes a mother at sixteen, there is no feasible way of finishing an education. Fifty-three percent of women become pregnant before the age of twenty,[5] which enforces the social structure that discourages women from gaining greater knowledge, which ultimately functions as access to social and economic well being, and a greater state of health.

        The education of women as a crucial determinant of health is a strong theme in literature as well as in real-life experiences. Shoba, a village health worker in Jamkhed, Maharashtra, explained in an interview how an education provides more than an avenue for a job, it provides changes to every aspect of an individual’s life. In fact, Shoba said that when a boy is educated, he will learn to treat his family better, but when a girl is educated, her entire family will do better. The education of a woman gives her knowledge, thus power, in practices of child rearing, nutrition, sanitation, and finances, and increases the likelihood of her children receiving an education.[6] The betterment of a woman’s life through education extends further than in her traditional roles of womanhood. The education of a woman breaks socially constructed expectations of her role in society and ends cycles of repression.

Breaking the cycles of how women are viewed in rural Indian societies might seem to be a long-term mission, but in actuality the positive benefits of education are evident within generations. Shoba, now a middle-aged village health worker, was the oldest child in her family. As the eldest she was unable to attend school because of her duties to help with younger siblings and the home. At the age of ten she was married, then had her first child at fourteen. When she was twenty years old she became a village health worker, a position in the community, which required a year of training, educating Shoba about health, providing her skills to care for her community, and eventually share the knowledge she gained with the community so that they too could benefit from a greater knowledge of health. When asked how she has changed since becoming a village health worker, Shoba said, “I don’t have any deficiency…I can do anything and everything.” The fact that this was the first response to the question of changes Shoba had experienced in her life implies that before becoming a village health worker, Shoba did feel that she was in some way deficient. Before she had the training and position of health worker, she did not believe she could do “anything and everything,” but access to knowledge allowed Shoba to “become more aware” of herself. “I’m not educated but I can talk to higher officials about anything…I’m not afraid of anyone now.” Shoba’s beliefs about her capacities directly counter the beliefs she was raised with, that she had no voice and no role besides that of a mother. The power of education allowed Shoba to reconstruct her understanding of her role in society, and to break the cycle of feeling deficient. Shoba proudly shared that she decided to get a driver’s license because, “If men can drive then I can drive,” and bought a tractor and land to farm, creating financial independence from her husband. She also shared that some people in her village are jealous of her, suggesting they would want the same successes knowledge has brought. In addition to this information, Shoba shared that her children all went to school and now her grandchildren attend boarding schools. These stories of achievement are markers of financial and social change in her lifetime, as a consequence of her education as a village health worker. Shoba’s education has created tangible change within her own lifetime and stands as a testament to the power of knowledge in a woman’s life.

In the case of Shoba, and other village health workers of the Comprehensive Rural Health Project NGO, the power of education on a family’s social and economic well-being, and consequently their health, has been realized. The Indian government recognized this more comprehensive approach to health more recently, in 2005, when the National Rural Health Mission was created. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) recognized that India’s health care systems must focus on vulnerable populations. The poor are most at risk of bad healthcare systems and treatments, and spend comparatively more money on healthcare than urban populations.[7] The conditions in which people work, live, and grow are cited as the leading causes of the inequitable distribution of health. These conditions of life are, in other words, the factors of gender, caste, poverty, geography, and education that systematically divide and oppress the population. The NRHM recognized that these conditions of health require broader solutions, “pro-poor policies,” to “tackle” the inequitable distribution of money, power, and resources in India.[8] Thus, the Indian government set forth a series of actions. The government established the right to food and right to education for all children in 2009. The government is obligated to provide and ensure the education of all children ages six to fourteen.[9]

The government, though expected to be accountable for resources such as education, often fails to provide to the degree the people actually need. It is when the government leaves gaps that the work of NGOs can be incredibly beneficial in providing resources. An NGO is beneficial to the population it serves when it acts as a source of knowledge. According to Dr. Anjali Capila, a good NGO provides links between citizens and the socio-political process, is committed to individual and community awareness building, and the process of “community building” includes the participation of those who cannot or usually do not participate in communal decisions and actions.[10] These characteristics of a good NGO all follow the common theme of encouraging responsiveness in communities. Awareness building, as Capila says, is essential to empowering the community and inciting change. Awareness is achieved through the sharing of knowledge, the process of educating.

The Comprehensive Rural Health Project NGO works to share knowledge to educate the communities it works with. Jayesh, a social worker at CRHP, said in an interview that his role at CRHP is to “expand knowledge to grassroots workers in the field.” “People always respect knowledge and information,” so when he shares information, people listen. Jayesh has worked to disseminate knowledge through programs at the CRHP such as men’s groups, women’s groups, and adolescent boys’ and girls’ groups. At these group meetings villagers, many of whom do not have a formal education, are encouraged to bring topics they would like to know more about. CRHP also organizes topics for the groups surrounding health, farming, and financial practices that raise awareness in communities. The village health workers play a major role in the spread of information to villagers. Surubai, a village health worker, organizes group meetings for her village to educate about government schemes the village would otherwise be unaware of. There are numerous government resources which fail to be realized by citizens simply because the government fails to propagate them. The failures of the government can come from a variety of factors such as corruption, bureaucracy, lack of efficacy, or the lack of resources. Citizens often have to ask their governments for services to be provided, which is unlikely to occur if they don’t know what the government should be providing them in the first place. When Surubai learned about all the possible government schemes, she initiated a nutrition program in her village for malnourished children and started a bank for women to be able to take loans and start income generation businesses. Surubai herself started selling chilies and earned enough money to buy land on which she dug a well for her village to have accessible drinking water. Through Surubai’s training and the knowledge she gained about government proceedings, she was able to change her own life, but also the entire economic and social wellbeing of her village. The power of knowledge in a woman’s hands is strong.

The village health workers of CRHP, as community members and women, occupy a unique role in changing the realization of health for rural Indians. These women are using their knowledge and awareness to stop cycles of caste and gender discrimination. One village health worker was not invited into higher caste homes to provide her services because she was of the Dalit caste. Higher caste villagers did not believe a low class woman could hold useful knowledge and would not let her offer them medical advice. Then, one day, a high caste woman went into labor unexpectedly. The woman’s mother begrudgingly called for the village health worker, who had to enter the home on a path of cloths so as not to touch anything. The village health worker gave the woman going into labor a check up and said she was safe to deliver, but the woman’s mother did not believe her. The woman’s mother called a local physician who came and told the family the pregnancy was high risk and a Cesarean section would need to be performed immediately. The village health worker urged them not to believe this doctor, she knew the pregnancy was safe, and instead convinced them to come to CRHP’s hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital, the pregnancy was indeed deemed safe and the village health worker delivered the baby. The village health worker used her knowledge to prevent this family from being exploited by a greedy doctor. From that moment forward, all the higher caste families in the village came to the village health worker for help. Caste is likely still a social factor in the village, but this village health worker created waves of change in that her identity as a low caste woman became a second thought compared to her identity as a source of knowledgeable in the village.

There are many cases in which local medical professionals and unqualified professionals will attempt to exploit poor, rural citizens. As seen in the story of the C-section, the knowledge the village health worker had was able to prevent a poor rural woman from being exploited. Rural people are much more likely to receive care from unqualified providers so the dissemination of knowledge from village health workers and NGOs plays a crucial role in advocacy against such care.[11] A social worker at CRHP, Madhu, explained how desires to exploit poorer populations come even from within communities. When he first started to work for CRHP, his primary role was to organize Young Farmer’s Clubs (YFC) that act as a support and education group for farmers in villages. When the wealthier populations of the village heard about the YFC, they were outraged and fought against its creation. These wealthy people did not want farmers and workers to become organized because they wanted to continue to benefit from the low cost work of uninformed villagers. As YFCs formed, poorer farmers were able to work together to buy equipment to share within the club, as opposed to renting equipment at high rates from wealthy farmers. Citizens who are knowledgeable about their rights and options are indeed dangerous to those in power because they have the capacity to stop these people in power who benefit off their oppression. As farmers become involved in groups, learn, and support each other, they become stronger as a system and find more success economically and socially. The knowledge they gain allows them to live altogether healthier lives.  

When asked what he likes about working with CRHP, Madhu said, “My happiness is that my knowledge is not only with me; I am sharing it with everyone.” The phrase ‘knowledge is power’ is no cliché in matters of health, gender, and socio-economic wellness in rural India. Education, be it through school, the training of an NGO, or community outreach, prompts social and economic development which forms the foundations on which greater health can be achieved. The achievement of health through education is clear in the story of Surubai, who used her knowledge of government schemes to build a well for her village, and the village health worker who protected a family from an illegitimate doctor. The knowledge village health workers have gained has a direct impact on their lives but also all of those around them as their children and grandchildren go on to gain educations, and families in the villages begin to change and inevitably inspire change in their communities. Awareness building places knowledge in the hands of the people, so the unequal distributions of power may begin to shift. The most important aspect of awareness building is the fact that to have knowledge and incite change does not require having a degree. The power of knowledge can be placed in anyone’s hands. The provision of knowledge to rural women and communities improves health outcomes like a well: At first the effects of the information begin to seep out as droplets of water, puddles, in certain key, drilled locations, but over time the water of knowledge and change will begin to flood.