#then other nations conquered and un-conquered and conquered some more for a while

[roseverdict]

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[amphibious-thing]

Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England: Roast Beef, English Nationalism, Effeminacy and Epilepsy (ft. Lord Hervey)

While today if asked what the national dish of England is some might say bangers and mash, Yorkshire pudding or chicken tikka masala in the 18th century the answer was roast beef.

It was roast beef that was the star of the patriotic 18th century song The Roast Beef of Old England. Originally written by Henry Fielding for his play The Grub-Steet Opera (1731) and then reused in Don Quixote in England (1734) the more popular version was written by Richard Leveridge who set it to a catchier tune and added five new stanzas:

When mighty roast Beef was the Englishman's Food, It ennobled our Veins, and enriched our Blood; Our Soldiers were brave, and our Courtiers were good. Oh the roast Beef of old England, and old English roast Beef. But since we have learn'd from all-conquering France, To eat their Ragouts, as well as to dance, We are fed up with nothing, but vain Complaisance. Oh the roast Beef, &c. Our Fathers, of old, were robust, stout, and strong, And kept open House, with good Chear all Day long, Which made their plump Tenants rejoice in this Song. Oh the roast Beef, &c. But now we are dwindled, to what shall I name, A sneaking poor Race, half begotten-and tame, Who sully those Honours, that once shone in Fame. Oh the roast Beef, &c. When good Queen Elizabeth sat on the Throne, E're Coffee, or Tea, and such Slip-Slops were known, The World was in Terror, if e'er she but frown. Oh the roast Beef, &c. In those Days, if Fleets did presume on the Main, They seldom, or never, return'd back again, As witness, the vaunting Armada of Spain. Oh the roast Beef, &c. Oh then they had Stomachs to eat, and to fight, And when Wrongs were a cooking, to do themselves right; But now we're a-I could, but good Night. Oh the roast Beef, &c.

Leveridge's version espouses the masculine qualities roast beef making Englishmen "brave", "robust," and "strong". Fielding's version from Don Quixote in England contrasts this English masculinity with the non-roast beef eating "effeminate Italy, France, and Spain". (Edgar V. Roberts, Henry Fielding and Richard Leveridge: Authorship of "The Roast Beef of Old England")

[Politeness, print, after 1780, published by Hannah Humphrey, after John Nixon (1779), via The Metropolitan Museum of Art.]

A common element of English nationalist propaganda was to contrast the masculine beef eating Englishman with the effeminate frogs legs eating Frenchman. The satirical print Politeness compares the masculine John Bull to a stereotypical effeminate Frenchman. John Bull is depicted as a plainly dressed man, holding a pint of beer, with a Bulldog at his feet and a cut of beef hanging behind him. The Frenchman in contrast is depicted as foppishly dressed, holding a snuff-box, with an Italian Greyhound at his feet and a bundle of Frogs hanging behind him. John Bull says "You be D_m'd". The Frenchman responds "Vous ete une Bete". The caption narrates:

With Porter Roast Beef & Plumb Pudding well cram'd, Jack English declares that Monsr may be D------d. The Soup Meagre Frenchman such Language dont suit, So he Grins Indignation & calls him a Brute.

In 18th century English print culture the butcher became somewhat of a stock figure representing English masculinity. There was a series of prints in which a masculine butcher is depicted assaulting a fop. Often with bystanders cheering him on. Some of these prints identified the fop as a Frenchman (such as The Frenchman in London by John Collet and The Frenchman at Market by Adam Smith) but others either don't identify nationality or indicate that the fop is English.

[The Beaux Disaster, print, c. 1747, via The Wellcome Collection.]

The Beaux Disaster depicts the aftermath of an altercation between a butcher and a fop. The butcher has hung the fop up by the back of his breeches on a hook next to cuts of meet. A crowd of passersby point and laugh at the fop, enjoying his misfortune. The caption narrates:

Ye smarts whose merit lies in dress, Take warning by a beaux distress. Whose pigmy size, & ill-tun'd rage Ventured with butchers to engage. But they unus'd affronts to brook Have hung poor Fribble on a hook, While foul disgrace! expos'd in air, The butchers shout and ladies stare. Satyr so strong, ye fops must strike you How can ye think ye fair will like you, Women of sense, in men despise The anticks, they in monkeys prize.

[Docking the Maccaroni–or the Butcher's Revenge, print, c. 1773, published by Carington Bowles, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art.]

Docking the Maccaroni–or the Butcher's Revenge depicts a butcher cutting off a macaroni's queue. Fashionable men in the late 1760s and 1770s would wear elaborate hairstyles sometimes with hair tied back into a 'club'. This hairstyle is a common element of macaroni satire (for a more flattering rendering of the style see George Simon Harcourt by Daniel Gardner). The caption narrates:

A Spruce Maccaroni whose Hair and whose Clothes, Were the envy of Fops, and the Patterns of Beaus; Looked with Scorn on a Butcher; in passing the Street, And turnd up his Nose, at the sight of the Meat. Says the Butcher you Pig, if you'd eat such as that, You'd credit your Country, and grow plump and fat. Greasy Brute cry's the Fop! then the Butcher enrag'd, Snatch'd a Knife, & to punish the Coxcomb engag'd: Then seizing poor Mac, who began to look pale, He docked his Fools noddle, and cut of his Tail: Now Now cry'd the Butcher the People may stare. At a Skull without Brains, & a Head without Hair.

The macaroni was often portrayed as a traitor to English culture not only for his love of french fashion but also his love of Italian pasta. The fabled 'macaroni club' was a reference to Almack's Assembly Rooms at 50 Pall Mall. (see Pretty Gentleman by Peter McNeil p52-55) The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine (Oct 1772) explains that the origin of the word macaroni comes from:

a compound dish made of vermicelli and other pastes, which unknown in England until then, was imported by our Connoscenti in eating, as an improvement to their subscription at Almack's. In time, the subscribers to those dinners became to be distinguished by the title MACARONIES, and, as the meeting was composed of the younger and gayer part of our nobility and gentry, who, at the same time that they gave into the luxuries of eating, went equally into the extravagancies of dress; the word Macaroni then changed its meaning to that of a person who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion; and is now partly used as a term of reproach to all ranks of people, indifferently, who fell into this absurdity.

(Cited in Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum edited by Frederic George Stephens and Edward Hawkins, vol.4, p.826)

Foppishly dressed men were blamed not only for the popularisation of pasta in England but also the growing disfavour for roast beef. A letter written to The Connoisseur in 1767 complains:

By Jove it is a shame, a burning shame, to see the honour of England, the glory of our nation, the greatest pillar of like, ROAST BEEF, utterly banished from our tables. This evil, like many others, has been growing upon us by degrees. It was begun by wickedly placing the Beef upon a side-table, and screening it by a parcel of queue-tail'd fellows in laced waistcoats.

(Volume 1, Edition 5)

With both his dress and diet the fop had betrayed English masculinity for French and Italian effeminacy.

Passed down by Lady Louisa Stuart* as an example of the "extreme to which Lord Hervey carried his effeminate nicety", when "asked at dinner whether he would have some beef, he answered, "Beef?— Oh, no!— Faugh! Don't you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any of those things?" Stuart was somewhat skeptical of this story wondering "Could any mortal have said this in earnest?"

*anonymously. Stuart wrote the introductory anecdotes included in the 1837 edition of The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

While it's anyone's guess as to whether Hervey said these exact words it is true that he didn't eat beef. Not because he "courted" effeminacy with the "affected and almost finical nicety in his habits and tastes" as John Heneage Jesse suggests (in Memoirs of the Court of England from the Revolution in 1688 to the Death of George the Second) but for his health.

Lord Hailes explained:

Lord Hervey, having felt some attacks of the epilepsy, entered upon and persisted in a very strict regimen, and thus stopt the progress and prevented the effects of that dreadful disease. His daily food was a small quantity of asses milk and a flour biscuit : once a-week he indulged himself with eating an apple : he used emetics daily.

(The Opinions of Sarah Duchess-Dowager of Marlborough edited by Lord Hailes, p43)

Lord Hervey's doctor George Cheyne believed that "a total Milk, and Vegetable Diet, as absolutely necessary for the total Cure of the Epilepsy". (The English Malady, p254)

In An Account of My Own Constitution and Illness Hervey explains that he followed such a diet for three years on Cheyne's prescription eating "neither flesh, fish, nor eggs" but living "entirely upon herbs, roots, pulse, grains, fruits, legumes". (p969) However after three years he reintroduced white meet. He explains his diet in a letter to Cheyne, written on the 9th of December 1732:

To let you know that I continue one of your most pious votaries, and to tell you the method I am in. In the first place, I never take wine nor malt drink, or any liquid but water and milk-tea ; in the next, I eat no meat but the whitest, youngest, and tenderest, nine times in ten nothing but chicken, and never more than the quantity of a small one at a meal. I seldom eat any supper, but if any, nothing absolutely but bread and water ; two days in the week I eat no flesh ; my breakfast is dry biscuit not sweet, and green tea ; I have left off butter as bilious ; I eat no salt, nor any sauce but bread sauce. I take a Scotch pill once a week, and thirty grains of Indian root when my stomach is loaded, my head giddy, and my appetite gone. I have not bragged of the persecutions I suffer in this cause ; but the attacks made upon me by ignorance, impertinence, and gluttony are innumerable and incredible.

Intriguingly in An Account of My Own Constitution and Illness Hervey focuses more attention on colic than epilepsy, dismissing his seizures as rare, but admits he had "two this year". This leads to the impression that his diet was prescribed to treat colic rather than epilepsy and Cheyne did prescribe a milk and vegetable diet in cases of "extreme Nervous Cholicts". (p167) Perhaps it was prescribed to treat both. But why downplay epilepsy in an account of his own illness?

While some enlightenment doctors approached epilepsy with a more scientific approach, superstitions still remained. Some believed epilepsy was a form of lunacy that was controlled by the moon (the word lunatick coming from luna). In An Historical Essay on the State of Physick in the Old and New Testament Dr. Jonathan Harle claimed that "people in this distemper are most afflicted at full or change of the moon." (p124)

Many believed epilepsy was caused by possession and this belief was supported by the bible. Mark 9:17-27, Matthew 17:14-18 and Luke 9:37-43 tell the story of a man who brings his possessed son to Jesus who "rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child". The boy's symptoms resemble those of an epileptic seizure and these bible verses are cited by Dr. Jonathan Harle as "an exact description of one that is an epileptick (had the falling sickness) or lunatick". (p124) Harle claimed that was "a truth as plain as words can make it" that some people with epilepsy were "possess'd by the devil". (p22)

Epilepsy was also believed to be caused by sexual depravity. The popular anti-masturbation pamphlet Onania: or, the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution claimed masturbation caused epilepsy (p23). Onanism: or, a treatise upon the disorders produced by masturbation, or, The dangerous effects of secret and excessive venery claimed that a 14-year-old boy "died of convulsions, and of a kind of epilepsy, the origin of which was solely masturbation". (p19)

With the stigma surrounding epilepsy its no wonder that Hervey kept his seizures secret only telling a select few. One of the people he trusted with this secret was his lover Stephen Fox. Hervey describes having a seizure while at court and keeping it hidden from the Royal Family in a letter to Fox written on the 7th of December 1731:

I have been so very much out of order since I writ last, that going into the Drawing Room before the King, I was taken with one of those disorders with the odious name, that you know happen'd to me once at Lincoln's Inn Fields play-house. I had just warning enough to catch hold of somebody (God knows who) in one side of the lane made for the King to pass through, and stopped till he was gone by. I recovered my senses enough immediately to say, when people came up to me asking what was the matter, that it was a cramp took me suddenly in my leg, and (that cramp excepted) that I was as well as ever I was in my life. I was far from it ; for I saw everything in a mist, was so giddy I could hardly walk, which I said was owing to my cramp not quite gone off. To avoid giving suspicion I stayed and talked with people about ten minutes, and then (the Duke of Grafton being there to light the King) came down to my lodgings, where * * * I am now far from well, but better, and prodigiously pleased, since I was to feel this disorder, that I contrived to do it à l'insu de tout le monde. Mr. Churchill was close by me when it happened, and takes it all for a cramp. The King, Queen, &c. inquired about my cramp this morning, and laughed at it ; I joined in the laugh, said how foolish an accident it was, and so it has passed off ; nobody but Lady Hervey (from whom it was impossible to conceal what followed) knows anything of it.

[peony-pearl]

Despite being my full-time blorbo, the fact that Iroh was taught by Ran and Shaw and sought enlightenment from other elements before Ba SIng Se is... odd. I mean, ultimately, it could all come down to his intentions and what he thinks about himself. He could completely think he was a good person; he’s the heir to the Fire Nation, an adored prince, a dedicated general, a loving father. Of course he would see himself as a good guy, and seeking advice from other bending styles could, to him, be seen as enlightenment before being fully un-indoctrinated from what his father instilled into him.

But then it falls down to the judgment of who taught him. The judgment of the Sun Warriors, Ran and Shaw, the any others who taught him, would have either accepted the future of the destructive Fire Nation in their training (questionable to have these people whose lives have been damaged teaching the son and general of the other kingdom besieging their lands like it’s no problem) or they were straight up lied to about who he was and/or his intentions (which doesn’t seem to be the route canon is taking bc they do want Iroh to be the completely wise man; and like I get that and part of me loves it, but in a storytelling sense it... doesn’t add up)

I’m conflicted bc I really love the idea of Iroh dabbling in different truths of the world, even as a general; but his intentions need to remain with the Fire Nation, because the more he’s seen as trying to be enlightened before besieging Ba Sing Se for 600 days is... odd. I’m all for conflicting ideas and characters and him believing everything he’s doing is right in his own way; but it definitely seems like the intentions of Avatar Studios is to give Iroh some good traits throughout his life and, again, yeah I dig that! But some of it just isn’t piecing together because IROH WILLINGLY HURT PEOPLE and we’re not adding that mindset into the equation.

We’re not giving him the moment to have a mental dichotomy where he knew learning from other nations was important; after all if the Fire Nation was going to rule over them all, then he needed to be a good future Fire Lord and learn from his subjects, right? Make his interest surface-level, only to later realize how important the other elements are in their own right. But he’s ultimately Prince Iroh, the Dragon of the West.The proud son of Fire Lord Azulon, who’s blood boils for glory, who saw a vision of himself conquering one of the last bastions of hope from his own nation.

Iroh would see himself as the good guy in his own story. But that intention doesn’t line up with the intentions given in the new canon.

He receives his punishment for his hubris either way. Lu Ten falls while serving him in his conquest that was supposedly shown to him in a vision as a child. The more it’s said that Iroh is trying to be a better, worldly person before his actions in the Earth Kingdom, I keep cultivating a headcanon that the spirit world interfered with Lu Ten’s life as a result of Iroh’s muddled behaviors.

After all, if the canon studios are trying to make Iroh a good guy through his life, then the whole Sozin evil/Roku good talk to Zuko is immediately null and void.

there could be more to say but as of right now these are my main concrete ideas my brain has basically said ‘ok that’s enough for now’ lol

[downthepub]

There’s a phenomenon I don’t understand on the internet.  On articles or videos talking about widespread, systemic issues that affect almost everyone, there are always, ALWAYS people commenting telling how wonderfully they have done to avoid this issue, to not be affected by it, to miraculously make all the right choices so they never faced it and never will.  There’s a self righteous, smug glow to these comments.  Telling us how good they are or that they always knew this or that.  

It’s not any one particular comment or sentiment of that type that comes across so negatively to me, but the fact that they’re such a genre, such a popular type of comment.  Like some people can’t see past their own experiences no matter what.  And these people who just “have it down” when it comes to life, are the ones to watch the video and clamber to tell the rest of us.  We NEED to know their success - completely earned and not a matter of luck at all - and their righteousness and winning nature!!  

The other comments that I find bizarre and odd are when people need to give unsolicited advice about these systemic issues, often ignoring (again) the fact that they are systemic.  It’s all about personal choice, you’re not affected by anything outside you!  Aka I got my house through sheer righteousness and goodness, you don’t have a house because you’re a foolish person and made bad choices.  But, if you make these good choices instead, maybe you can be like me!  It’s the self-help trend but in comments.   

On a video about the importance of walking, for instance, and the systemic challenges that need to be addressed to improve the health of the nations, to make walking more accessible and stop the prioritization of vehicles, there are going to be people who say they’ve always walked!  They bask in the self-righteous glow of always having known, always have done this, having never ridden in a car in their life!  They, alone, have conquered this systemic issue.  Not by luck, or accident of birth!  Oh no.  By their sheer, unadulterated goodness and personal choices.  We should envy them - the pure, the un-car’d, the walkers amongst us.

Reading comments about anything remotely controversial like zero waste or eating habits or anything like that will be quite the challenge if you don’t like these sorts of comments, but they don’t belong to any one video or genre, not really.

It seems that the world is simply full of people clambering to tell everyone else how good they are at life, how they have won while millions failed, and it’s all down to their own, personal, force of genius.  In a way - that is our culture.  That is the society this world has created.  A dog-eat-dog world of “I am the best because I’ve never struggled or dealt with this issue or that, or faced the systemic issues others face and that I won’t acknowledge.”  

Many, possibly most, of our dear leaders are like this, sometimes out loud, sometimes silently.  They alone are the genius, the untouched, stand-above-the-crowd good chooser, who leaps over every pitfall and is untouched by human suffering.  They alone, each alone on an island, the chosen ones, have made all the right choices and done all the correct things, and they will tell you about it, ad nauseam, and tell you where you instead went wrong.  

I do wonder if they change their stories all the time, or if they stick to them.  I don’t believe them, mind you.  I don’t think they made all the right choices and were perfect little angels.  I think they got lucky, or stretched the truth, or remembered things in the most flattering light.  I think they - and society as a whole - has a lot of blinders in place about systemic problems that aren’t negated by the fact that a few people made the choices that allowed them to avoid those problems.  Or got born into lucky circumstances.

[ravenmorales]

21st Century

Israel Vs Gaza/Palestine-It started back in mid 20th century,it is one of the longest continuing conflict.So why did they start this war? There's a lot of reasons such as wanting to be independent country, resources,fate, belief there's really a lot of reasons but we'll talk about the main reasons and when it happen.

Concert-Israel’s retaliation comes after Hamas, which rules Gaza, carried out the worst terrorist attack in Israel in decades a week ago, a coordinated assault on kibbutzim a music festival and city streets.At least 1,300 people — including 265 soldiers — were killed in Israel in the terrorist attack and more than 3,300 were injured. In Gaza, over 2,200 people have been killed and 8,000 have been injured.Here in what I research it is said that while people at the concert are partying the Gaza terrorist attack causing a lot of death, injuries,some live but very traumatized because of the things happened to them.

Religion-The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is rooted in competing claims to the Holy Land, and includes disputes over borders, Jerusalem, security, and Palestinian refugees.In religion a lot of people will fight because of they're own belief they won't back down when it comes to religion belief as such causing lot and lot of fight some even expand as wide as world war fights.

Origin-Much of what scholars know about Israel’s ancient history comes from the Hebrew Bible. According to the text, Israel’s origins can be traced back to Abraham, who is considered the father of both Judaism (through his son Isaac) and Islam (through his son Ishmael).

Abraham’s descendants were thought to be enslaved by the Egyptians for hundreds of years before settling in Canaan, which is approximately the region of modern-day Israel.ACCORDING to what I've research it seems like Israel have a deep history and religion around them this may also one of the cause of the Palestine attacking them and thus causing conflict around them.

Territory-It is said Israel illegally conquer the palestine here we see that not everything is true some said that Palestine was the first to attack but is it true that it was them first? Well let's search more about this topic,

Currently Gaza/Palestine territory are-West bank,East Jerusalem,and Gaza strip

Alliance-Israel has diplomatic ties with 164

Well let's put some allies-UN, EGYPT,JORDAN,UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

There's really a lot of them that are allied to Israel but now let's see the Palestine allies

Saudi Arabia,Iran,and Qatar these are what I find but there's surely more.

Resources-Clean water, fuel and medical supplies have all but run out in Gaza, the United Nations said, and electricity has been unavailable for days. The head of Gaza's largest hospital says it has become a mass shelter, with 35,000 seeking refuge inside.

Well let's talk about the countries resources

Mineral resources

Copper ore is located in the ʿArava, phosphates and small amounts of gypsum in the Negev, and some marble in Galilee. Israel began limited petroleum exploitation in the 1950s, and small oil deposits have been found in the northern Negev and south of Tel Aviv.theres other more but these are what I found after a few minutes of researching

In This Blog we've talked about the conflict of Israel and Palestine so if u were to support one what shall it be? Israel or Palestine

Let me say this first Palestine are not under Gaza terrorist.

But for me I shall chose Israel,why? Well for me because not only do they have a lot of allies compared to Palestine but they also have more resources.

Well this are what I've found around internet is it all true? Who knows that's why me must always look, research things throughly so we ourself don't get confused and be misinformed about things that are happening around us,this is my blog about the Israel vs Palestine conflict

Website that I've used

Wikipedia.com

Theguardian.com

Britannica

[love-archon]

A Day With The Genshin Characters: Liyue Edition

Today's going to be a busy day! Check your planner for who you'll be meeting with- as one of the esteemed members of the Liyue Qixing, you cannot afford to be late to any appointment. 

• 6:00, Ningguang: Morning Tea 

Although you say you love your job, waking up at un-archonly hours has to be the part you like the least. Even getting up at five in the morning, the hour when tigers prowl, is still not enough time to prepare for a meeting with the Tianquan. You rush around frantically choosing the best outfit, fragrance, and hair arrangement to present yourself to Lady Ningguang, and you're halfway out the door when it hits you- you forgot to bring a gift with you!

"Right on time," Ningguang says, pleased. You smile, hoping she won't hear your heart beating from anxiety. "And what a lovely present, too... is there any doubt you were appointed as one of the seven Qixing?" (You can't tell if it's her rare praise, or the sheer altitude you're at within the Jade Chamber, that's making your head spin).

• 7:00, Keqing: Business Meeting 

You barely have time to rest before Keqing whisks you away to Yuehai Pavilion. You're very close friends, and you admire the girl for her tenacity and diligence. The conversation flows easily as you walk to your destination under a cloudless sky. It's a wonderfully sunny moment, but the moment the doors lock, you mean business. In the next two hours, you conquer matters that would normally take days to resolve, and the two of you exchange grins. 

"There we go!" Keqing breathes a sigh of relief, pushing away the last stack of papers. She holds up her hand, and you high-five. "You know, I like how easily you keep up with me. You even caught mistakes I would have missed... things like this make me even more certain Liyue is better off in human hands."

• 9:00: Check In With Ganyu

With such a hectic schedule, Ganyu is your saving grace. It's always important to check in with her, just to make sure nothing you have planned catches you by surprise, and sometimes you wonder why others rarely do the same. She's quite lonely, and often mentions how nice it is that you speak with her every day and bring her gifts to help with work. It may be part of your job to be courteous, but... it does help her feel less lonely and conflicted with herself. 

"Qingxin flowers? Thank you so much." She accepts them gratefully, smiling at you with warm eyes. "I still have that new stationery you gave me, too. You're so kind for remembering the things I like!"

• 9:30: Talk to Beidou

The tea in the Jade Chamber was just a front for Ningguang to spring a request on you- meet with the captain of the Crux Fleet to discuss her... recent smuggling habits. But Beidou merely laughs heartily when you arrive. A crewmate tosses her a sack of Mora, and she slits it open, letting the payment shower over you in a spray of gold. And then, before you know what's happening, you're roped into helping them find a treasure rumored to be lost beneath the waves. 

"So, Ningguang though sending her star diplomat would get me to let up, huh!" You blush, wondering how you could be so easy to read under her ruby eye. "I was impressed by your words, and how well you fought by my side. But the annoyance of the Liyue Qixing is of no concern to me."

• 12:00, Tartaglia: TEACH HIM A LESSON!

As the member of the Qixing that oversees diplomacy and foreign relations, it's you that must meet with the Fatui Harbinger. He's quite good at playing pretend- all your underlings believed he was a naive, careless young man, and easily manipulated, too. And all of them ended up suppressing the urge to break something after they were done conversing with him. On your honor as one of Liyue's seven stars, you vow to not make their mistakes. 

"You're asking why I don't try to drive you mad?" he said, setting down his fork. You'd caved in and given him one after watching him struggle with chopsticks for far too long. "You're the only one who isn't a bore to talk to, that's all-" so this was on purpose?!- "and besides, I want to challenge you to a fight afterwards! Your vision's getting quite dusty from neglect, comrade. Let's fix that!"

• 2:00, Yanfei: Discussion of Legal Matters

Yanfei's counsel is an invaluable treasure. Especially when dealing with an opponent as vicious as Snezhnaya's Fatui, who deserve to have her wrath unleashed upon them. You walk to her office with a gleam in your eyes, and are delighted to see an equal fire already blazing in hers. For the next few hours, you two take the "suggestions" Tartaglia passed on from the Northland Bank and scheme on how to best tear them to shreds with the law.

"That man-childe's been giving you trouble again, huh," she giggles. "What did he come up with this time~? I've been waiting for an excuse to bring out the latest edition of my lawbook!" And with that, Yanfei slams it down, and the sheer weight of it nearly cracks her desk. "He won't know what hit him!"

• 4:00: Free Time

Of course, "free time" simply means that you have no meetings scheduled for this hour, which lets you adequately prepare for the next day's events. Tomorrow is your appointment with the Feiyun Commerce Guild, which you already know will require great patience and strength of mind. Because the head of the guild, and his eldest son, the future head, are- to put it mildly- not very bright... it's fortunate, then, that the second son Xingqiu has a good head on his shoulders.  

"Tomorrow, you should go straight to me instead," Xingqiu informs you cheerily, handing you a popsicle. Apparently, he keeps them around for his friend Chongyun, who's off to complete another exorcism. "I'll be sure to set everything in order." His eyes gleam. "And then, I can tell you the latest developments in 'A Legend of Sword'!"

• 5:00: Catch Xinyan's Concert!

Liyue's one and only rock musician isn't hard to find, thanks to the designated performance spots scattered around the city. You stop by at the raised platform where she's rocking out, where other people are listening as well. Xinyan strikes a peace sign in the air, and her vision glows with energy before the stage erupts with pillars of fire; her audience bursts into cheers and applause, and she's beaming as she leaps down to meet you. 

"Wait, seriously? You really changed up the rules a lil' so it'll be easier for me to hold concerts here?" Her eyes shine as they scan the papers- one of the many results of your work today in Yuehai. "Thank you so much! Wait-" she picks up her guitar again, giving it an experimental riff. "Let me think up a quick song for ya as thanks- I insist!"

• 6:00: Wangsheng Funeral Parlor 

Lately, you've been sent particularly determined requests from the other nations about allowing tourists to observe the ancient funeral rites. You already know the answer's gonna be a hard no, but the laws written by Rex Lapis state that you must check with the director anyway. She's not there when you arrive, so a consultant, Zhongli, brings you tea while you wait for her. You sit together in the fading sun, waiting for Hu Tao's familiar song to rise above the hill. 

Zhongli takes a quiet sip from his cup, closing his luminous eyes. "Although it was Rex Lapis who created the laws, they are not meant to be set in stone. Humans must revise the contract as they see fit, so that it will not erode with the passage of time." Something makes you feel as though it's more significant to him than you know. Then, he smiles slightly. "But, just looking at the people leading the way in his absence, like you... there's no need for me to worry."

• 8:00: Dinner; Request Chef Xiangling

The Wanmin Restaurant, run by Chef Mao and his daughter, is a breath of fresh air. While the rest of Liyue is divided between the "Li" and "Yue" styles of cooking, Xiangling pays the conflict no mind. Instead, she's not afraid to be daring and experiment, blazing ahead without worrying about what others think. You can see some similarities between her and Keqing, but it's best not to mention it after that disastrous banquet they organized together... 

"Had a rough day, didn't you?" Xiangling asks, her golden eyes twinkling as she hands you the steaming hot bowl. "Well, for you, I made sure to prepare your favorite dish! I hope you don't mind if I added a lizard or two this time- I'm kidding!" she adds quickly, upon seeing alarm flash across your face. 

• 9:00: Return Home

After everything that happened, you're eager to collect the reports from your subordinates and head home to draft new revisions for Tianquan Ningguang to look over (and then, hopefully, get some rest). But as you're walking on the path to your neighborhood, you spot a little girl sitting in the grass, clutching her head. Alarm rises in your chest as you rush over to see what's wrong, and why she's alone- only to realize with a start that she's the child that returned from the dead.  

"Thank you for taking Qiqi back to Bubu Pharmacy," she says, reading solemnly from her notebook (where the entire thank-you script is written). Even when you set her down, she's still reading the pieces of paper. "Will you tell Dr. Baizhu where I got lost? Please and thank you, again."

• 10:00: Sleep

In the end, you never did get to those revisions. You can hear your fellow Qixing scolding you in your head, but at least you got plenty of other things done; the well-oiled machine that is Liyue will still keep running on thanks to the tasks you accomplished today. Someday, even the adepti will have to acknowledge the ability of humans... you turn in your bed to feel the coolness of the other side. Speaking of adepti... the night air coming in... reminds you of... "Xiao..."

"I thought you were in danger," the adeptus huffs. The moment you said his name, you'd finally fallen asleep, but it still brought Xiao to you- balanced on the windowsill, hair waving in the breeze. "Still... I'm... glad that you're alright," he admits, glancing at you to make sure you're not awake to hear. "Rest well, bright star of Liyue." And then, with a sound like a sigh- or was it the wind?- he's gone.

[aelaer]

☕ The fact that Wakanda was presented as an advanced country looking down on others from it's comfortable vibranium armchair but had a monarchist system that could place a ruler with 100% muscles and 0% brains at the head, along with other bothersome stuff like that, like Shuri being the head of the government's science department while she is a part of the royal family, or really, every single part of Wakanda that looks good on paper - a king with a council of people leading the different tribes - but that history has shown us very often ends up creating a dictatorship, which is really what happened in the movie and I'm surprised no one sees it.

Like, the movie literally shows us this country that's supposedly so advanced, with spies and people placed around the world, most likely putting their fingers in as many pies as possible, and an incredibly developed technology - which is frightening on many levels considering that UN or no Wakanda could blow up everything outside of its borders and people wouldn't know it until it happened -, but with a monarchist - and whatever other words could define it - governmental system that has revealed a lot of problems in its configuration. The tribes leader were literally being choked in the throne room and no one was doing anything, there was a destruction of a historical, scientific and cultural heritage being condoned by the new religious ceremony leader(???) just because the king ordered it. They would've literally tried taking over the entire non-black population (and where does that leave all the metis people? All the ones that are not white, but not black? Of middle eastern descendance? Of Asian one? Etc?) if the ex-monarch hadn't done something.

What I'm trying to ask if, what do you think of Wakanda being a good idea on paper but terrible in practice? True! Untrue? Something else?

Holy shit lady, you ask the tough questions. This is a difficult subject to cover - you’re asking me to look at the political structure of a fictional society within a disenfranchised continent - and I’m uncertain if it’s possible to do a decent analysis without addressing heavy topics. Basically, I don’t want to sound like a privileged dickwad. So I guess what I can say is - this comes from someone with a (mostly decent) American-based education, and no formal study of pre-colonial customs and political structures in Africa. I apologise for any misconstrued ideas and more than welcome any corrections to those who know more about these subjects!

I like Wakanda on paper, mostly due to the fact that the majority of Africa got completely screwed in terms of historical treatment and I’m rooting for the continent’s people to gain their own voices again. Wakanda being such a huge thing in international popular culture might serve as an inspiration for someone who ends up being important to at least one country there. In that sense, I really like Wakanda - the idea that it can potentially inspire historically disenfranchised cultures in the real world. How practical that thought is, I’m not sure - I might just be too idealistic.

Dictatorships can happen in non-monarchies as well, which you know -- as the most famous examples in 20th century history are not monarchies. The issue that can appear in monarchies -- or dictatorships -- is the lack of checks and balances to help keep those in power from going overboard (or the populace not having enough manpower/arms to get a dictator-like-coup out, but that’s an entirely different discussion!)

From what we got in the movie, Wakanda does seem to lack those checks and balances and no ability to overrule a king’s command. It seemed that they never had any sort of Magna Carta in their history (which is far from a perfect document, but did start the precedent of limiting monarchical power), and it doesn’t seem there’s anything resembling a representative government with veto power over the leader that you see in, what, 2/3rds of the world these days? (I legit have no idea, but I do know it’s wide-spread.)

But why wouldn’t they have such a document limiting monarchical power or some sort of democratic process? The modern mindset across many countries around the world leans towards democracy and elected, representative governments. But it can’t be denied that colonialism helped spread this, as -- at least, according to wiki -- representative democracy/liberal democracy/Western democracy all originate in Europe. So, in some way it makes sense that they didn’t transition yet because they were never colonized, and they were completely self-contained so didn’t have any of the outside world conflicts to force them to make changes. France helped fund the barons who pushed for the Magna Carta. France was also responsible for helping fund/arm the US in their fight to gain independence (lol France vs England history, it’s so great). External conflicts with other regions/countries caused *changes* to happen in those societies, at least from what I know of European history. Possibly happened in other continents, but I’m just not knowledgeable enough about their histories to give specific examples.

Wakanda had no outside conflict, and with no outside conflict, you get one major source of problems eliminated. Civil wars happen for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps one of their solutions historically for kingship changing without civil war was the fight of a representative of a tribe to try and win it over. Who knows? But when you’re enclosed like Wakanda was, there’s a lot less chance of things changing.

(On that note - their selection of a new leader is also incredibly disproportionately unfair to women. The average man is physiologically stronger and faster than the average woman. It’s just--biology. But who knows, maybe Wakanda was the same as much of the rest of the world in terms of their thoughts of women leading in politics. There’s comic canon that could be different, but the MCU did a lot of changes from comic canon.)

A *lot* of things changed across the world in the 20th century, making the world much smaller. Before the 20th century, it was likely considered completely useless and nonviable to make war on other nations because, though they were more technologically advanced, it’s incredibly unlikely they had something akin to nuclear bombs in the 19th century. They had to have their own steps of progression. And if they were only *a bit* better, they couldn’t stop the entire world if they started attacking and word spread. It’s only in the late 20th, early 21st century that things like destroying the rest of the world with Wakandan weaponry was likely actually feasible. Though honestly? I don’t think that shield could withstand a nuke. I just don’t see it. If Erik’s plan went through, he may have doomed Wakanda's capital city to being utterly annihilated because too many countries do have the ultimate kill button, and there are some who would not hesitate to use it.

It also could be cultural. Wakanda didn’t go conquering their neighbors left and right. They were happy with five tribes and it seemed to remain five tribes. That speaks of something deeply cultural, deep within the roots of how they’re raised and taught. Erik came from an entirely different culture with a violent childhood and background, and because they were in the 21st century, other Wakandans could *learn* of the rest of the world, and get new ideas - and get the same anger that stirs war and revolutions, and ultimately can affect a country’s culture.

So perhaps before the 21st century, limited power with the king wasn’t needed simply due to their isolation. Now, though that they are much more connected with the world, maybe they need something more like Botswana or Nigeria, only tied in with a monarchy (according to wiki -- Elsewhere, in Botswana, the kgosis (or chieftains) of the various tribes are constitutionally empowered to serve as advisors within the national legislature as members of the Ntlo ya Dikgosi. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, the various traditional polities that currently exist are politically defined by way of the ceding of definite authority from the provincial governments, which in turn receive their powers to do so from a series of chieftaincy laws that have been legislatively created.)

So basically what I’m trying to say is, while I’m personally super gung ho about representative democracies and individual liberties, that’s not necessarily the culture of Wakanda and it may not fit for them. But *what* the culture of Wakanda evolves into, being more open to the rest of the world -- and thus, the rest of the world’s ideas and cultures, remains to be seen. They may find that they do need to reform their political structure after the civil war we saw in the first film, though, and perhaps they do so.

[azvolrien]

An Incomplete Timeline of Stranatir

OK, despite the tag this is more of a reference document than a story; I mentioned once that I have a timeline drawn up to help keep when all my stories happen straight in my head. I update it periodically when I have new stuff to add, but this is what I have sorted out so far.

AI = ‘Anno imperii’, ‘in the Year of the Empire’ (I hope). Previous years are ‘BE’, ‘Before the Empire’, as ‘ante imperium’ would lead to confusion.

AI   1          Raan the Conqueror, chieftain of the Bear Tribe of Raan’s Fort (‘Ki-Raan’), finishes his campaign to unite the scattered Kargvallen (the ‘Jagged Lands’, an old name for the Kiraani Hills) tribes into a single nation; traditionally considered the founding of the Kiraani Empire. Things kind of escalate from there.

     1409    Schism of the Balaurin; the expansionist ‘Sky Kings’ led by Voice of the Mountain travel from the Dragon’s Teeth to the Eastern Highlands and enslave the orcs. I guess they thought it would be easier than trying to conquer the Kiraani, as the orcs had yet to invent ballistae.  

     1420    Approximate beginning of the Raiding Period – an era in Sea Loch history characterised by warfare and raiding between the people of the different lochs, each under the leadership of a different local monarch. Vikings, basically. Kiraan glances in their direction and decides to let things settle down over there before attempting anything.

     1740    Traditionally considered the end of the Raiding Period, with the unification of the Sea Lochs under High King Fergus. Local monarchs keep their titles but swear fealty to the High King.

     2109    The Sea Loch Country and the Hawk Steppes are annexed into the Kiraani Empire; the Emperor adds ‘High King’ and ‘Great Khan’ to his list of titles. The nation of Stormhaven is founded when a slave ship runs aground on the coast and Queen Eleri the First (just Eleri at that point) masterminds the escape. On the other side of the continent, Ikara the Black leads the orcs (who have now invented ballistae, and have also worked out a few useful things about ‘blast pulp’) in the Last Revolt against the Sky Kings; Voice of the Mountain and all other dragons in the Eastern Highlands (save one) are slain. Some of the Sky Kings successfully escape the mountains and join communities in the lowlands to the west, but most are killed with the dragons.

     2214    The Devourer appears at Eyrie Spire and begins consuming magic for miles around. To date no one is completely sure what it really was (not even me!). Almost all dragons die in the event, leaving only a handful of survivors and unhatched eggs; Balaurin civilisation collapses without them. Most human survivors quietly integrate into the Mammoth People on the ice fields to the north or Kiraan south of the mountains and a few remain in the mountains with most of the surviving  dragons, but some become more belligerent. The Balaurin mage Morath (known to Stormhaven as the Harbinger) and her dragon Dark Shadow over the Frozen Land (‘Shadow’) come to Stormhaven in warning and are slain in battle against an invading Balaurin faction.

     2696    Crown Prince Zarannon of Kiraan (‘Zar’, and believe it or not that was not an intentional pun on ‘Tsar’) is born to Emperor Kaial III and Imperial Consort Aysel Darehyin Yaigani.

     2702    Lorna, an eighteen-year-old girl of the Sea People, becomes disillusioned with the violent culture of her remote island birthplace and steals a boat to defect to the mainland. She is caught in a storm on the way and washes up on a beach in the Sea Loch Country, where she is taken in by Bruide MacDovran, his wife Morag, and their son Euan (also eighteen). Although she’s unofficially adopted into the family, her relationship with Euan is very much not that of brother and sister.  

     2710    26th Voynithi/March – Roan is born to Lorna and Euan, and orphaned by raiders a couple of months later; she is then raised by her widowed grandfather Bruide, who cannot bear to keep using NicEuan as her patronymic and changes it to NicBruide, the name she will bear for the rest of her life.

     2711    15th of Sirakithi/January – Fayn reyth Aren is born. The village priest views her albinism as a terrible omen and insists that they leave her in the forest to die. Her parents Aren and Kayun can’t completely overrule him, but manage to talk him down to allowing her to live just outside the village boundaries in the care of her eldest sister Una. Una does a pretty good job, all things considered, and is probably the biggest reason Fayn had both the skills to survive alone and the ability to eventually return to civilisation.  

                 8th of Rivedi/July – Asta zeDamar is born. There’s not really anything more interesting to say about that part of her life; she has a fairly happy and nondescript middle-class upbringing up until the point everything goes horribly wrong for her.

                 16th of Messis/September – Wygar Smith is born, and left at a Stormhaven orphanage by his biological parents Wyatt and Irwen (no surname) two days later. Nicholas and Mari Smith adopt him after a month in the orphanage; he doesn’t remember it, but once he’s financially capable of it he makes regular donations to the orphanage.

     2716    Nirali is born. (cradle name: ‘Blue Eyes’) Unlike Fayn’s experience, her albinism is noted as unusual and her parents are advised to be careful with sun exposure, but it otherwise has no effect on her upbringing. Her eccentricities are entirely her own.

     2717    Emperor Kaial orders the genocide of the Falkari people out of paranoia; only Fayn survives. Zar, horrified, cuts all ties to his father not strictly related to his duties as Crown Prince and immediately starts planning what he’ll do to try and atone for it once he takes the throne. Stormhaven declares war shortly after the massacre.

     2719    The Darkwald War ends with the signing of Treaty of Harbinger Pass; nobody can really be said to have conclusively won or lost but hostilities between Stormhaven and the Empire are officially over. Unofficially, Stormhaven is not totally convinced, so the Harbinger Gate is constructed to block the pass. The Darkwald as far south as the Stone River is designated an official buffer zone between Stormhaven and the Empire. People can still pass through from one to the other but the only activity allowed within the zone is services for travellers on the Great Darkwald Road, such as roadside campsites and the village of Halfway.

     2723    Wygar begins his apprenticeship at the Stormhaven College of Sorcery alongside Calburn, Rhona and the rest of their yearmates.

     2726    Karash is born. (cradle name: ‘Honey’)

     2731    Roan graduates from the University of Duncraig following the death of her grandfather earlier in the year and begins working in a bank.

     2732    Asta graduates from the Imperial University of Kiraan. Her parents are killed in an accident; she sells herself into slavery to cover their considerable debts (in Nivalis/December) and is purchased by Lady Fiona MacArra as a secretary. Fiona initially offers her freedom but Asta declines on the grounds that she would just be out on the street. Instead she agrees to stay with Fiona for five years or until Fiona’s death, whichever comes soonest. Roan decides she hates working in a bank, resigns, and moves to Dun Ardech to live, as Asta put it, as a semi-feral sea witch. Nirali begins training as a Memory-Singer.

     2736    Voynithi: Wygar and his yearmates leave the College for the traditional journeying year.

     2737    Events of The Last Shapeshifter and most of Water Horses.

                 Voynithi: Wygar returns from his journeying year and meets Fayn in the Darkwald, where she’s been living a mostly feral existence since the Falkari genocide. She accompanies him back to Stormhaven and adjusts surprisingly well.

                 Gracilis/November: Wygar and Fayn marry. They acknowledge that this is pretty soon but it works for them. Death of Lady Fiona MacArra.

                 Nivalis: Asta’s manumission in Fiona’s will is overruled and her ownership passes to Lord Darius ‘Daro’ MacArra, Fiona’s grandson, who has had his eye on her since she first came to Duncraig. Asta escapes from Castle MacArra (not unscathed) and flees to Dun Ardech, where she meets Roan.

     2738    Sirakithi: Daro kidnaps Asta from Dun Ardech with the help of his guards and a hired crew; Roan kills him and rescues her. Asta travels to Stormhaven aboard the merchant ship Curlew at Roan’s insistence and finds work in the College’s admin office.

                 Nivalis: Wygar and Fayn travel to the Northern Forest at Zar’s request to investigate a spate of mysterious disappearances there. Events of The Northern Forest.

     2739    Nivalis: Death (from old age) of Emperor Kaial; Zar ascends the Imperial throne to become Emperor Zarannon IV, with his coronation held on the winter solstice. Wygar and Fayn attend with the Stormhaven delegation. Events of To Kiraan. Aysel leaves the Imperial City and returns home to the Hawk Steppes.

     2740    Sirakithi: Under Zar’s new Protection of Slaves Act, Clan MacArra are arrested and imprisoned for their horrific abuse of their slaves. Now that it’s safe for her to do so, Asta returns to Dun Ardech to live with Roan. Specifically on the 7th.

                 12th of Rivedi: Una Falkari Smith is born. Calburn and Rhona travel to the Hawk Steppes and travel with a band of Yaigan nomads for a while. Events of The Hawk Steppes.

                 Gracilis: Wygar and Fayn travel to the Darkwald for Una’s naming ceremony.

     2742    Ikara is born. (Cradle name: ‘Little Red’) Karash begins training as a Memory-Singer.

     2744    Torsani/June: Karash and Ikara are orphaned in the Fever Summer. Karash takes on parental duties for his infant half-sister; juggling his training with raising her is difficult, but he manages.

                 Nivalis: Asta and Roan marry.

     2746    Wygar reconnects with his biological family, somewhat by accident. He never really comes to think of Wyatt and Irwen as his parents, but he remains on cordial terms with them and Una does consider them her grandparents.

     2748    Wygar, Calburn and Rhona go missing on the far western continent and are presumed dead. Events of Centaurs of Varakai.

     2749    Wygar, Calburn and Rhona make it home to Stormhaven, accompanied by the Red Sun centaur herd. The Red Suns go to live on the Hawk Steppes, where the landscape suits them a bit better. The Steppe tribes are surprised but generally roll with it.

     2750    Events of The Lady of Kaltara. Wygar, Fayn and Una go on holiday to Stonehead. Fayn is kidnapped by Mara Kovar, the Lady of Kaltara, and Wygar and Una travel to rescue her.

     2752    Una begins her own apprenticeship at the College.

     2754    Nivalis: Roan goes missing fishing in a winter storm. Riabhach rescues her from the water and gets her safely to the island of Starwatch. Una and some other apprentices visit the Order of Night on the island and are caught up in a raid by a band of Sea People led by the warrior Svanna, the daughter of Lorna’s sister and so Roan’s first cousin unbeknownst to either of them. Events of The Island of Stars.

     2756    High Master Idris Carwel retires; Wygar is promoted to take his place as head of the School of Combat. Nobody is really surprised by this.

     2758    Ikara begins training as an Initiate Windkindred.  

     2764    Ikara bonds with the rukh Tsheer and ascends to full Windsister.

     2765    Una leaves on her journeying year. She meets Bright Star in the High Cold Dark (‘Star’) in the Dragon’s Teeth, accidentally forms a permanent blood-bond with the young dragon, and is adopted by the surviving Balaurin. The Sea People invade Stormhaven in force under King Torann, but are defeated (read: their fleet is practically obliterated) by the Balaurin dragons.

     2767    Events of Anchored Tempest. The Balaurin relocate from Journey’s End to Ornfell, close enough to the Sea Loch Country for much easier trade. Una and Star travel to the Eastern Highlands and encounter the orcs. Halted Flow of the River of Time (‘River’), the last survivor of the Sky Kings’ faction, is discovered guarding a cache of five hundred viable dragon eggs held in stasis. River is killed; the Balaurin transport the eggs to Ornfell for incubation.

     2768    Interim between Anchored Tempest and its epilogue. Karash, Ikara and Nirali accompany Una on her journey back across the continent from the Eastern Highlands to Stormhaven, acting as something between explorers and unofficial ambassadors between the orcs and the wider world. They have a few hurdles along the way, but overall it goes well. I haven’t decided anything more specific yet.

[captainkurosolaire]

金 LFRP - Captain Kuro Solaire (Updated 5/2/21)

NAME: Captain Kuro Solaire AGE: 37 (Appears 29) - (’Relic Cursed’ Immortal, not Invincible.) RACE: Seeker of the Sun, Miqo’te GENDER: Male SEXUALITY: Gynephilla, Dom MARITAL STATUS: Poly SERVER: Crystal

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ––––

HAIR: A slick jet black texture, Kuro’s hair is majority of the time unkempt with downward spikes often cascading across sometimes when grown-out it’s placed in a bandana and combed on the sides. Under rare occurrences the length of his hair can be lower then his shoulders and without being straightened leaving a shaggy and feral look. Often sporting an accompanied goatee through more veteran experience and grizzly age has extended that further with a stubble to boot and long sideburns.

EYES: One eye is often left visible with an amber tint. (Typically while the other eye lays remained behind an eye-patch for a particular reason that is usually left in speculation to other onlookers.)

HEIGHT: 6 fulms, 0 ilms. 

BUILD: (Trains and adjusts his mass depending on situation or if injured.) Typically built like an ultimate fighter (ref) 

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Scattered scars from a gash hidden underneath a leather collar from his first defeat and near end. To followed historical injuries to dragon claws swiped across his hip to rib nearing his chiseled abs, to lance wounds on his pec, bite-mark from a fanged creature adorned on his shoulder. Scratch marks from passion on his back. To matching fiendish talons shredding the opposing side of his rib-cage. With a gashed-cut draped across his right-eye. Lastly an X incision on his chest crossing over his upper-torso and halting near his shoulders to his pecs. -- Additionally donned the cheek scar of his first that he had cast away due to old insecurity and trauma which was resolved. He’s got a tattoo on his forearm of runic engravings with summoner lettering’s that seem to be serving as a seal. Compass on his left-hand to prevent him losing memories of being a sailor that points in all four-directions. The south-seas etched above crossing over his bicep. Behind his back is a Goldbrand Crest a forgotten ritual that has since been lost among the GB Crew as little carry it left but two-survivors. He’s often shirtless for all to see. (Gives him that unrestricted feeling Miqo’tes like plus has meaning to him.)

COMMON ACCESSORIES: Talisman across his neck that has several link-pearls attached to a string with a condor feather which represents ‘freedom’, the pearls mainly allow him to keep in-contact with crew-mates and a bundle of criminal orientated allies or business associates. A combat satchel attached to his belt that allows him quick accessibility and utility. Owns a signature tricorne hat that is leather matching his often outfit of black leather which serves to highlight his seen mysterious and imposing scoundrel aesthetic.

PERSONAL –––-

PROFESSION: Captain of the Goldbrand, navigation, commanding, claiming panties all over Eorzea and providing pleasure where others need the lesson or reminder. Along with a thief, smuggler, diplomat and a veteran sailor. He’s also a chaser of treasure from old relics to folktales passed on in Legends through very little evidence of the existences but scrolls & charts that he reads and plans out accordingly before attempting his plunder for fortune.

HOBBIES: Drinking, Ocarina, Women, Pleasure, More Pleasure, Even more Pleasure, Entertainment (Former Pleasure Dome worker as a Dancer and Escort.) Juggling, Acrobatics, Jury-rigging, Swimming, Teaching, Training, Mentor, Fighting, Fishing, Brawling, Working out. Exploring. Adventuring. Landing into dangerous situations.

LANGUAGES:  Fluent (Mostly) Eorzean, Xaelic, and Hingan, Pirate Tongue. (Working on venturing past his horizon to open trades and communications with beast-tribes for business escapades or other relationships.)

RESIDENCE: Ul’dah

FEARS: None. (Backstory behind that) He’s not immune to psychological attacks and is prone to them.

RELATIONSHIPS –––-

SPOUSES: Failed many.

CHILDREN: Bastard children all around who knows you might be one. He’s often out there being ever the man-whore and shameless about the fact.

PARENTS: Hoku Solaire (Father - Alive) - (PC) Rokeia Solaire (Mother - Deceased giving birth to Kuro Solaire)

SIBLINGS: Unknown but Father was a former Nunh of a branch in the Coeurl Tribe, there’s more room to make some. (Has ancestors in an upcoming arc been polishing.)

OTHER RELATIVES: Many unknown. Though Sol Akagane / Founding GB Captain Gark would be considered along with his OG Crew as Family in a more surrogate / adoption style way. Wild Crew.

PETS: Which kind you wondering?

TRAITS –––-

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded / open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / unemphatic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION –––-

SMOKING HABIT: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

@mooglemeet @crystal-rp-ffxiv​ @balmungrp​ @ffxiv-crystal-rp​ @balmungroleplayers-blog​

HOOKS + OOCLY, I AM –––– (Below cut)

HOOKS –––-

◘  Mystical Journey - Meet Captain who’s rebuilding towards something on a scale higher than the skies that’s far beyond himself. Whether friendships forged, romantic, rival, or outright enemy. Open to plot about just anything whether one-shot, or slice of life. Each confrontation and connection is impactful and holds weight that determines and shapes him, his source of power by himself is extremely low but the wind and orbit of who he’s surrounded swells and creates upon him alongside them or with that fact, he may overcame the impossible multiple times, even his goal of deemed ultimus. He’s lustful, prideful, sinful. Though there’s good in his scoundrel ways and also freely can be interpreted as evil against the pure heart. From descendants to nearly wherever sea’s may touch he can be found voyaging too or from. Depending on the City-State there’s more mystery surrounding him due to him trying to remain under the radar but he’s also pretty brash, open, which can net him in infinite chaos and trouble. This dark and often cursed seemingly lifestyle he’s thrown under sometimes he also needs to be in the company of innocent and light, peaceful individuals. To remain humane and stay on track of him straying from being the problem. Many lives have died under his company, many lessons and time’s he’s ‘wrecked’’ the smallest and few encounters overall tally and aid him with building his compassionate side to see those people again. ◘  Scourges - The worst of the worst pirate crew’s. They command various levels of commandment, control, conquering all that is blue and water-bound. Each hold their own vendetta and thoughts on what being a pirate or their own treasure ‘sake’ they wish to lay ownership. Ongoing and tackling these threats with Captain holds mighty risk. (Subject to your comfort) In this case it can result in injuries, mental trauma, or many afflictions that may provide more experience to your character or layers. - There are no clear solutions on how to defeat, overcome, or maybe it’s just an encounter with a band of Crewmates from the varying Crews, that’ll overall build steps closer to final battles or all-out Warfare or cripple these Crew’s to make him able to defeat them with his Wild Crew. ◘  Ulterior - (Mystery/+18Dark ) - A cultist crew held from marshy swamped seas, polluted and tainted. They blur webs of confusion alongside deceit. Operating in the blends of guises that shadowy walk in public crowds they don’t distinguish themselves. The pressure of this arc will be dark, twisted, and every foreboding, never certain what’s reality. Vastly in concern, they’ve begun becoming more bold and manipulating brave pirate’s, adventures, would-be sea goers who get reported missing soon afterwards. Only to be converted and abducted into this Cultist crew as nearly every encounter with them as they eat and feast off your fears turn’s their targets into belief of a high power, a mad god under all fleshing skin. Visited during nightmares. ◘  OMONGA - (Bloody/Violent +18 Extremely Dark) - This Scourge crew is one of the most dangerous altogether. They’re primitive freaks, viking pirates of sorts. Who outright raid, pillage, slaughter anything that moves approaching their territory. A force unlike any other, a dominating and deathly, blight of a Giant who strike’s fear just mentioned by pirate’s of old, stays clear from him and often plays nice to prevent gaining his wrath or detection, better to submit. YORE of the Gorey Seas is their Captain who destructively holds gatekeeper and one force that Maelstrom even cannot overcome their brute waters as they stay stationary and defensive, he’s not too mobile beyond his ‘Nation’  but his crew are savages and they operate like the fiercest warmongers, also they’ve got berserkers. Used to be known wanted but after many bounty hunters and foolish adventurers tried taking his life and the failures stacked up, using the defeated and weak for soil for harvesting their crops, and even their own fleets could bypass their engineering he remained untouchable. Sort of a necessary bridge from one individual owning all the seas altogether. They’ve a whole hierarchy, torture system, culture, that is ultra barbaric. He’ll need additional power to help him have a chance to survive and maintain more importantly the lives of his Crew. This is his last chance to get it all right. (There’s more too but I’ll save them unless asked or somehow the other’s become dealt with or too full.) ◘  Wanted: Deadman - (Suspenseful / Thriller / Mystery) - Recently Captain had resurfaced from death making advancements and pursuits only identifiable as his motives. Maelstrom and other officials, detectives, could be working alongside a set of Law characters that I’ve created also trying to seize and capture him for not just a hefty bounty it’s an instant hanging to death and gallows if he’s caught this time. Or a huge payout. He’s stacked multiplied crimes of indecencies, broken peace, slandered Maelstrom, stolen, scammed, rebelled for Freedom, liberated and uncovered crimes against city-state laws, he’s an outright menace to society. Though Captain and his Crew are crafty and now alongside his First Crewmate are covering his tracks desperately to prevent him from being heard again. Though if Captain succeeds in claiming or ‘Goldbrand’’ regains recognition and infamy again over the high-seas whether by gaining influence, relics, or defeating Scourges and creating more noise. He’ll be even more on the run. His Crew are accessories so capturing them may be enough to draw him out or still provide information and payouts. If he’s noted to still be breathing a full on world bounty can be placed to only increase the odds stacked against his time. (Also wanted by Voidals and anything relating to a Scourge. His enemies are highly stacked but he’s got some incredible reach and allies, people he genuinely loves and cannot be anything without them.) ◘  Isle RP - (High Fantasy / Evolving) - Various Isle’s can be visited, linked and tether to a Crewmate’s personal quest. Or maybe Fables. Each Isle has its own unique dangers and is creatively open to any adapting once the base concept is thought out. I have multiple in mind. Some of them have treasures, others have temporary treasures once the threat on each Isle is dealt with the treasure may be spent. Those things might be non useful, so the experience and journey alone may be the only reward. Or surviving and wreckage etc can also occur, it's all open to free-form.

◘  Relic Hunt - (High Fantasy / Evolving ) - (Reference) - Captain’s crew and trade is being a professional treasure hunter diver. Searching and uncovering ancient tablets and thing’s long forgotten past time itself from allagan, mhachi, amdapori and other mythological natures. From Voidal Relics to the series of Deity Relic’s there remains ruins and dungeons, trials, labyrinths, that possess unique items with governed power imbued from primals, high aetherial beings, or prototypes to strange works of magic and science. Depending on the Relic often determines how desperately Captain seeks to net it under his awareness than allow another to uncover as rival band’s of Scourges and pirate crew also would chase for such and want to use it for dominion and nefarious reasonings. Sometimes they’ll already possess said Relic’s and be threats to battle for the property. Which in that case it’s plundering.time. Depending what Relic is conversed around it could be difficult puzzles, or trials, or something more tame to fetch. If another Historian or someone he believes would preserve the item, safer than within his stead, he’ll only aid in retrieving and less on acquiring. Better the relic stay’s far from his lurking dangers that already pursue his waters.

◘  Crew / No Crew - (Optional Addon) - Can choose whether you wish me to RP the other Crewmates and have them interact with your character / characters or bring multi-muses too. Each Crewmate or the main 13 have their own quests, narratives, their own motives of why they’re even following Captain, but they can betray, be broken, all them will act very realistic and lifelike, so they can be romanced etc too. Captain would go to world’s end for them. Make no mistake, this is his Last Crew and shot, he’s on the thinnest surface of water. Soon the mightiest tides will crash and collide against him and his Worldly Finder, his ship, if he’s unable to reign them or lead them to aid their own morale's then he’ll have no chance in getting to the end of his own quest, goal. Each scourge, relic, everything is an obstacle and aiming for something grand.

Alternatively, I can just RP Captain himself and vaguely mention anything else regarding. Might also gain allies, other crewmates, other things that’ll play parts depending on the arc.

Writing is my lifeblood I enjoy stories.

Overly chill and outspoken along with communication my prime focus. I human so I break down and have to recuperate my energy and health sometimes. Not into drama outside RP.

I Para-RP but do nearly ever format and style.

I’m open to plot within any genre.

24/7 Nerd. +18 year RP experience all around from LARPing, Dungeon Master /  Former event runner /  Former Owner / Leader for Discords and Linkshells / Tabletop Creator. There’s nothing I cannot do.

I’m CST. Though chronic-deteriorating health makes my hours rando. I prefer Discord RP. (Tumblr too sometimes if have an idea.) In-game I can be swayed. ◘  ~ This all long but trying to be communicative and thorough upfront. A necessary evil, I fear.

YOU CAN CONTACT ME VIA ––

Twitter - Captain Kuro Solaire

Tumblr - I try to follow everyone in FFXIV Community so should be able to DM me.

Discord: Kuro Solaire#0508

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[eretzyisrael]

Normalization Could Create a Real “New Middle East”

The main thing you need to know about the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is that Iran, Turkey, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other enemies of the Jewish state oppose it.

Opponents of the deal like to call it a “betrayal of the Palestinians.” It isn’t: rather, it’s a betrayal of the PLO and Hamas, organizations which are the worst thing to happen to Palestinian Arabs since the Nazi Mufti Amin al-Husseini.

Countries don’t have feelings and don’t form friendships. They have interests and form alliances in support of them. The PLO was created in 1964 by Nasser’s regime in order to promote Egyptian objectives, which were to conquer and annex as much as possible of the new state of Israel; later it came under the influence of the KGB, which employed it on behalf of Soviet interests in the region.

Neither Egypt, which forced Palestinian refugees into camps in 1948 (and to this day does not grant full Egyptian citizenship to Palestinians living in Egypt), nor the other Arab states and the Soviet Union, viewed Palestinian Arabs as anything other than a weapon to use against Israel, and the PLO, their creature, reflected this.

In 1982, the PLO was defeated by Israel and Maronite Christian forces in the First Lebanon War. But instead of being treated like the war criminals they were, the leadership of the PLO was allowed to flee under UN auspices to Tunisia. One would have thought that the PLO, removed from close contact with Palestinian Arabs, would lose influence and die out. But in 1987 there was a popular Palestinian uprising in the territories, the First Intifada, and PLO-connected groups managed to coopt and control it, brutally suppressing anti-PLO Palestinians as “collaborators.” The PLO made itself the de facto representative of the Palestinians in the territories.

And now Israel made one of her greatest mistakes since 1948, the Oslo Accords. Oslo created a “temporary” Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern the territories until a final status agreement could be made, which of course never happened. But the PA, in essence the PLO, still controls the parts of Judea and Samaria where most Palestinians live. In Gaza, the PLO was overthrown by a violent coup by Hamas in 2005.

Both the PA and Hamas function as dictatorships (the PA is supposed to be democratic, but hasn’t held an election since 2005). Both are supported by large amounts of foreign money via UNRWA and other sources. They are both massively corrupt; “connected” Palestinians live like kings, while most of the population lacks basic needs. Both maintain their maximalist demands against Israel, which have kept the conflict simmering with intermittent boiling over into large-scale violence – the Second Intifada and multiple Gaza conflicts. And both have created educational and media systems that teach their youth to hate Jews and Israelis enough that even children have become capable of murdering Jews at random in the streets.

The PLO and Hamas depend on the conflict as an excuse for their dictatorial control, and for much of their foreign money. It’s their reason for being. So there can be no “normalization” of relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews on their watch. The conflict must go on. And this has been bolstered by almost universal Arab and Muslim solidarity – until today.

The peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan called for some degree of normalization, but these aspects have not been realized. The peace has been “cold” from the beginning. This isn’t an accident. Indeed the growth of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel expression in Egypt and Jordan – which sometimes bursts out in murderous incidents – ensures that there will not be normalization in the near future. Like the PLO, the leadership of these countries has been prepared to compromise to some extent to achieve the practical benefits of non-belligerence; but they have not rejected the destruction of Jewish sovereignty as an ultimate objective.

The negotiations with the UAE, on the other hand, at least at this point, seem to express a wholly different spirit, one in which actual normalization and not just non-belligerence seems to be the goal. Nothing could infuriate the Palestinian leadership more, since their unhappy subjects will see, for the first time, that the option of unending hostility is not the only choice. If other Arab nations join in as expected, it will be even more persuasive.

Naturally, the Iranian and Turkish regimes (correctly) see these developments as the creation of an economic and military alliance that opposes their geopolitical ambitions. But what about Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and similar Western leftist groups? How can we understand their opposition to what is, after all, a movement in the direction of reducing conflict, perhaps a movement that will ultimately lead to the long-desired end of the Israeli-Arab conflict?

It’s simple. They say they are concerned for the welfare of the Palestinian people, but that is not true, and never has been true. The welfare of the Palestinians would best be served by the replacement of the PLO and Hamas by less corrupt leaders that would favor normalization and closer cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. There is no doubt that if instead of paying terrorists to murder Jews, Palestinian leaders worked together with Israelis to develop economic alternatives to the international dole, the lives of ordinary Palestinians would be greatly improved. I am sure that many Palestinians already think so, but are afraid to publicly say it in the face of PLO and Hamas repression.

IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace – and countless other such organizations – have as their objective the elimination of the Jewish state, not the welfare of Palestinians. For that reason, they support BDS, the PLO and Hamas. They are supported financially by anti-Israel sources (see here and here) like the massive Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Their opposition to normalization exposes them for what they are.

One doesn’t want to be too optimistic at this early stage. It can be noted that there will probably be a backlash from religiously conservative elements against Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the region. It can be argued that the apparent rapprochement between Israel and some Sunni Arab states is nothing more than a temporary alliance against Iran. But I don’t think so. I think there is beginning to be an understanding, at least on the part of some Arabs, that the continued demonization of Israel does not serve their long-term interests. And the possibilities for the future are breathtaking.

Abu Yehuda

[thegeminisage]

the south is like another country

i have an entire essay on how the current radicalism and steep political divide in this country can be traced directly back to the civil war - rural white southerners here playing the part pre-ww2 germany, the part of a resentful, conquered nation assimilated into the nation that conquered them, because if you think about it the south/the confederacy WAS its own nation for a time, that lost a very bloody war, and paid very steeply for it (not that slavers didn’t deserve every bit of misery the “carpetbaggers” threw at them), and the bitterness from that loss/the lost capital from having their slaves freed has been handed down through the generations, to people who now live in abject poverty while their livelihoods are destroyed by late stage capitalism, and their schools are so broke a lot of people here don’t even know how to read, and their towns are eaten alive with meth, and they’re still looked down upon by most of the country for being racist uneducated backwater hicks (to be clear, we should always look down on racism and racists, but it’s not making them any less bitter/ripe for being drawn into the cult of tr*mp’s america and f*cism).

but anyway this post isn’t about that! this post is about how when i go up north and i say “y’all it really is like i’m living in a different country” NOBODY BELIEVES ME. we speak the same language, we’re all americans, right? PFFFFFT. this amazon van thing just drives it home (pun intended). here’s a list of differences from the deep south* to the rest of the country*:

*the deep south here meaning the RURAL deep south. sorry to everyone who lives in cities/the suburbs and/or in border states like maryland and virginia. i’ve been to maryland and virginia and they are technically southern and some of this applies to them but it is not quite as extreme as it is here. the rest of the country includes the other states i’ve been to (california, washington state, new york, etc), which are in mostly every area except the midwest. i cannot personally vouch for the midwest. sorry, midwesterners! rural midwest probably has a lot of things in common with the deep south because rural life is different and also how easily people move around this country, but whatever

this is a long-ass post get ready

difference #1: DRIVING. driving & pedestrians are entirely different un rural areas vs urban areas. for starters, southern towns often do not even have sidewalks. this is because of 1. budget and 2. racism.

budget: rural towns are very spread out, and it costs major $$$ to put sidewalks in. it’s just not worth the trouble, financially, to put a sidewalk where only 12 people are ever going to use it, AND spend the money to maintain it. never gonna happen. racism: initially, suburbs especially in the south were seen as safe havens where people could get away from the stress of living in “urban” (re: integrated) areas. that the neighborhoods were only accessible by car and NOT by people who were too poor (black) to afford automobiles were just an added bonus. 

as such, the first time i left the southeast, i was SHOCKED to see people walking and biking WITH (or indifferent to) the flow of traffic. down here we are taught that if you are walking along the road (or biking, because bikers get lumped in with pedestrians down here), it is very very very crucial that you walk against the flow of traffic, because you cannot expect drivers to see you and not mow you down. the onus is on YOU to get out of THEIR way. additionally, walking in knee-high grass along the side of the road sucks, and because there aren’t many people here, the roads are usually totally empty. so oftentimes pedestrians just straight up walk ON the road. and if you do that you absolutely have to be able to see a car coming from a long way away, because rural drivers on completely empty roads tend to take them at extremely high speeds just for fun. the people who live diagonally across from me have had to replace their mailbox four times because folks take that blind curve at 90mph. i had a cat get hit by a car on that road. (they all live indoors now.) i even witnessed a car accident happen there when i was just outside minding my own business. ever see a tire fly 12 feet into the air and come down into someone’s windshield? that’s what happens when you hit power line pole driving like that.

the first time i ever encountered one of those pedestrian crossing buttons was in california in the early 2010s. i had literally never seen one before because we simply don’t have them here. they’re not very self-explanatory if you have been jaywalking your whole entire life because all you’re taught to do is look both ways and make sure the street is empty before you cross. northern/urban roadways are made so that pedestrians and drivers can both get to where they’re going. in rural/southern areas pedestrians might as well not bother.

interestingly, while not an entirely southern problem, there’s a loose correlation between rural areas and more problems with drunk drivers.

on the driving side, driving in a city is batshit insane. it’s both faster and slower. there is NO space and you’re expected to go whenever you have so much as an inch to worm your way in. there’s more traffic, and the traffic totally dictates your speed. in the south you can change lanes if you want to drive faster or slower and weave around traffic or let it weave around you, but in a city there’s no other lane to change to and if you don’t drive at the speed of the people ahead of and behind you you will die. you turn fast, you brake fast, etc. whenever i come back from driving in a city the people who ride with me think i’m insane. you don’t PULL ONTO A ROAD if you can SEE ANOTHER CAR THERE, what the fuck? meanwhile i’m like “lol that is six miles of space i have plenty of time” and give everyone in my vicinity heart palpitations until i readjust. 

tailgating in a rural area is something only assholes do (done by people on a two-lane road to encourage the person in front of them to go faster because the only other lane is for oncoming traffic), and if someone gets within one car length of me on a two-lane road i can very passively aggressively slow my vehicle to a crawl until they back the fuck off. in a city you’re lucky if you have a twelve inches between your bumper and the next car’s hood ornament.

difference #2: LANGUAGE. this is a small one, but the southern dialect combined with the lack of literacy means i am learning certain things late in life. phrases i have heard verbally with my ears but had never seen written out include: “chest of drawers” which i thought was “chester drawers” - “seven year itch” which i thought was “seven year each” - “albeit” which i thought was “i’ll be it.” i’ve made a deliberate effort to unlearn mine own accent/dialect but i run into weird shit all the time. remotes are mashers, shopping carts are buggies, you put stuff up instead of putting it away, i fix you a drink instead of pouring you one, we shoot the game instead of play it. my mom LITERALLY can’t understand me if i speak too quickly - she has to remind me all the time to slow down and put on my southern.

difference #3: TECHNOLOGY. issue of whether or not you personally have the creepy amazon vans aside, the rural south is behind the rest of the country on technology. things in cities are AUTOMATED. things like the little button you press to cross the street, tickets you take at parking garages, even the parking meters you find in cities, that’s just the beginning of it. one time i came across a little computer touch screen in a MCDONALDS where you put your order in. you didn’t even go up to the counter. you just put your order on the screen and swiped your card and then they got it ready for you and you never had to speak to a human person. self-checkouts, gas pumps where you can swipe your card and not go in and pay at first...the south got those YEARS behind everybody else. in the mid-2010s i went to DC and visited a target for maybe the 5th time ever and i was BAFFLED by the self-checkout. i had no idea how to use it! it was like less than ten years ago and i was IN MY TWENTIES and i had never seen one before! when we send a package we have to talk to a human person. when we order food we usually have to talk to a human person. apps for places like dominos and subway have not been in use here for very long. my county just got doordash LAST YEAR. 

because i am 31, and because the south is so technologically behind, i am actually old enough to remember how when you used to go to a gas station an attendant would not only pump your gas but wash your windshield for you while you just SAT IN THE CAR. that seems like something from the 50s but it actually was a thing here in my childhood IN the 90s. i wish i was making this up.

difference #4: INFRASTRUCTURE. this sort of goes hand-in-hand w/ the last point because so much of our infrastructure is made of technology, and it’s also more of a rural/urban thing than a south/north thing. but just for fun here’s a non-exhaustive list of things i don’t have in my town:

starbucks* - the first time i went to a starbucks i was in my 20s

a public pool - we used to, but now the only pool here requires a YMCA membership. the only baseball diamond in this county is also at the Y.

walmart

in fact, ANYWHERE to buy clothes that is not a goodwill or other secondhand store. i cannot buy clothing unless i order it online or LEAVE MY TOWN. almost all of the clothing i own is from walmart because it’s one of the only places in my entire county where you can actually PURCHASE clothing.

grocery store chains? pffft. my town has two entire stores and both are small southern chains. i didn’t go into a publix for the first time until two years ago when i went to florida. i’ve NEVER entered a whole foods.

food delivery? yeah, no. like i said, we got doordash last year, but before that the only place you could get delivery from was a pizza chain. we only have two pizza places in my town that deliver, and one is a local place, not attached to any chain, so i can’t spend my loyalty points there. (it’s very expensive there too.) last year it was CLOSED for six months because the manager got caught dealing meth. every last one of the delivery drivers was trafficking it for him. they all got fired and had to restart from the ground up. for that short time, it was not possible to get any food delivered to your house whatsoever.

a hospital/ambulance services - if someone is sick, we have to take them to the hospital in laurens, the town next door (about 15-20 minutes by car). the town i live in lucky - we have our own police and fire departments. (acab but you know what i mean.) joanna is a smaller town next to mine that isn’t a real town - it’s been demoted to a census designated area because only 2000 people live there. if they have an emergency, they have to use OUR fire and police departments, and LAURENS’s ambulance/hospital system

after-school places kids can go to keep from getting into trouble. we have the Y, if you have money (no one here has money), and we have churches, but mostly schools can’t afford to run too many extracurriculars. there’s nothing to do here but church and meth.

food banks: zero. we have food DRIVES sometimes where people will come from further away and bring free food, but if you’re hungry, there’s nowhere you can go for help - you have to wait for help to come to you.

libraries: we don’t have our own library. we have a branch of the county library that’s physically located in our town. but we share books with the rest of the entire county, so everything is always checked out or at the other branch. 

*we technically have a starbucks that’s in the local college campus, but only college students are allowed to be there. they’ll still serve people without a college ID because no one gives a fuck, but you can’t linger and loiter and hang out like you do in a normal starbucks. we also have one in the barnes and noble in greenville, which is about an hour away by car, but again, it’s a mini starbucks that serves a limited menu and none of that weird Starbucks Culture™

here’s a few things i don’t have in my ENTIRE COUNTY:

movie theaters - technically. we have a Historial™ one-screen theater in laurens that shows one movie for two weeks a month after it hits regular theaters and then switches to another, and if you miss it, too bad. this is a VERY recent addition - it wasn’t restores until i was in my 20s as a kid and a teenager i had to ride in a car an hour or more to go to the movies.

target. only commies and yankees have target. down here we do walmart.

malls

arcades

skate parks/skating rinks

bowling

museums

zoos/aquariums

campgrounds

fairs. our county fairground got razed a decade ago because there just werent enough people showing up to justify the expense. so no more fairs. you have to have people to fund things and down here there just aren’t enough people anywhere.

you get the idea. we don’t have entertainment. like i said, nothing to do but church and meth.

CLASSES FOR STUFF: knitting classes, dancing classes, driving classes? nope. gymnastics, karate dojos, golf, knitting groups, books clubs, cooking classes? [GAMESHOW BUZZER]. you can’t even hire a clown for a birthday party out here. we do have a shooting range. ONE. in the entire county. and a race track. and a rather infamous former kkk memorabilia store. they made a movie about that (serious tw for this trailer - they’ve got white hoods, burning crosses, pepper spray, the whole nine), which, yes, takes place in laurens, aka right next door to me. i used to walk by that place all the time when i was playing pokemon go. haven’t seen the movie but the shooting locations in the trailer make laurens look a lot bigger and prettier than it really is in real life - especially the racetrack, which, in the trailer, is actually PAVED. (this is inaccurate to real life.)

EDUCATION: lots of people can’t read. we have two schools for illiterate adults, one religious college, and one branch of one of the state colleges that has a skeleton staff and a fuck ton of computers (you basically just go there to distance learn/e-learn - if you want to take real classes from this college, you have to drive at least an hour.)

support groups/group therapy: almost none. we have al-anon and weight watchers, but that’s about it. there’s only half a dozen therapists in my entire county, and none that operate from my town. mental healthcare down here is bullshit.

on food: we don’t have many sit-down restaurants, where servers bring you your menu and your food. if you don’t count waffle houses, my town has 4. my county has 9. in and out, 5 guys, applebees, ruby tuesday, red lobster, olive garden, panda epxress? forget it. those places were and still are rare treats. i’ve only been to an olive garden twice. red lobster once. whenever i leave my county i BEG for chinese because there’s only two chinese restaurants in our entire county and one of them is crazy expensive and the other one sucks. 

we also don’t have the more important stores you need to like, live. if we need to exchange our router at a charter store? yeah, we don’t have one. need to visit the sprint store to get your phone repaired? nuh-uh, we don’t have any phone stores either. my family recently switched to at&t because it was the only company that had a physical location in our county. before that, we had to drive an hour for even the smallest repair.

on a grimer note: we don’t have homeless shelters! homeless in laurens county? too bad for you. we do have homeless PEOPLE. they just have nowhere to go except the churches

hospitals? only kind of. like i said, our county has one, but it’s not equipped to take seriously sick people. when my mom had a heart attack she had to be driven straight to greenwood, which is 45 minutes away if you’re not in an ambulance. they obviously made it faster than that, but still. that was scary. it took them a long time to get here. i had a distant relative of mine die before the ambulance made it because they were SO far out in the sticks, even further than me.

we also don’t have any specialty stores. sporting goods, gamestops, shoe stores, florists, craft stores, bookstores, best buys...forget it. if you can’t buy it at walmart, you just can’t buy it. the exceptions: my TOWN has one jewelry store, two hardware stores, and two auto repair stores. my COUNTY has three clothing stores, none of which are in my town, one place that sells used TVs, and one movie rental place. thrilling, right? i can rent a movie if i drive out of town. (i know streaming killed the rental business, but we also only had two places when i was a kid, if you counted the rental section in the grocery store.)

so, yeah. i know the term “shithole” is really loaded these days, but rural areas are just plain less developed, and often in seriously poor repair because nobody fucking uses them. there USED to be more stuff here - my mom was on a bowling league, and as a kid i had a birthday party at a skating rink - but late stage capitalism and drugs destroyed it all. people ran out of money to do things like skate and bowl and so those places closed. the south is full of empty store fronts and deserted strip malls slowly being eaten by kudzu. my brother got out of this town and whenever he winds up back here (not often) he remarks on how completely and utterly dead everything feels. “my friends who live in greenwood now think they’re all rural,” he said once. “they complain constantly about how remote it is. but they have no idea. they wouldn’t make it five minutes out here.” greenwood has its own movie theater, mall, starbucks, homeless shelter, food bank, and hospital.

so, yeah! if you were wondering what rural white southerners are so fucking mad about, that’s part of it. propaganda and xenophobia and racism has their anger directed ENTIRELY at the wrong people, but it’s hard to argue that the anger itself isn’t just a little bit justified.

difference #5: CULTURE. specifically culture around food, and the culture around the civil war. i could write an entire other essay about the culture of the church being everything because the church IS the only semblance of infrastructure we have and this is why the south is so homophobic, but we’ll skip that for now.

food: this is a quickie, because i sort of touched on it already, but there are like, almost NO vegetarian options here. there’s very limited choices of cuisine. it’s ALL waffle house and soul food. we have a lot of mexican places because we’re physically close to the mexican border, but aside from that, forget finding like indian or thai or japanese or anything like that. no sushi. forget finding a menu that has meals that are halal or kosher. there’s just. no culture here. no variety. you know? like i said, our entire county doesn’t even hit double-digits for proper sit-down restaurants.

civil war: i’m not going to go into the big stuff since i sort of covered it at the top and also this post is getting way too long, but to other white rural southerners there is legitimate baggage around the fact that my mom married a yankee and that i am half-yankee. and he’s not even a real yankee! he was born up north but raised in southern florida. (florida is weird. the further south you go geographically, the less southern you are culturally.) yet: my family makes jokes that are sometimes not jokes about this. when i drop this information in casual conversation people get that look on their faces like: ah, that explains it. it being that i am not religious and don’t laugh at racist jokes and maybe i am queer?? (strangers tend to be unsure about this last part, even when i’m wearing rainbows.) it’s because i’m half-yank! that explains everything! the xenophobia is SO strong here that white people are even xenophobic at OTHER WHITE PEOPLE. 

so in conclusion when i say the north is like another country, it’s because the people who raised me think of it like another country. and culturally! it is buck wild! the differences that there are! when i leave this town i feel like i step into fucking star trek! if you are not from the rural south, and you have never been to the rural south, please do not come here! i’ve been to a few different places now and this is definitely my least favorite one. 

[giftofshewbread]

Walk Circumsectly

By Daymond Duck Published on: February 28, 2021

The title of this article comes from Scripture. “See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).

Here are 7 basic things that people need to know about Bible prophecy:

One, people need to know that God knows the future. Paul said, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). God knows what will happen before it happens.

Two, people need to know that God reveals the future before it happens. God said, “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done” (Isaiah 46:9-10). There is just one God, and He reveals what He plans to do before He does it.

Three, people need to know that the Bible is full of prophecy. God put 18 books of prophecy in the Bible. He put 5 books called the Major Prophets in the Bible. He put 12 books called the Minor Prophets in the Bible. He put the Book of Revelation in the Bible. He put whole chapters of prophecy in the Bible (Matt. 24-25). Depending upon who we talk to, some say 25-40% of the Bible is prophecy. The Bible is full of prophecy.

Four, people need to know that Bible prophecy is reliable. God said, “The prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die” (Deut. 18:20). God’s prophets had to be right 100% of the time. If what they said is not from God, it is from Satan.

Five, people need to know that there is proof of the accuracy of Bible prophecy. The Old Testament records more than 300 prophecies about the first coming of Jesus. Some prophecies are repeated two or three times. After the repetitions are removed, the Old Testament still records at least 108 specifically different prophecies about the first coming of Jesus that were literally fulfilled.

Many years ago, Peter Stoner, former Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, calculated the probability of one person fulfilling just 48 prophecies to be 1 with 127 zeros (A trillion has just 12 zeros). With the odds being so great for one person to fulfill just 48 prophecies, one must wonder what the odds would be for one person to fulfill all 108 prophecies. Fulfilled prophecy is indisputable proof that Jesus is the Messiah, that God knows the end from the beginning, that God is in control, and that the Bible is the Word of God.

Six, people need to know what Peter said about Bible prophecy. “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:20-21). Notice these four things: Bible prophecy is sure (it is accurate), people would do well (be wise) to pay attention to Bible prophecy, Bible prophecy is like a light (because it helps people understand other things in the Bible), and Bible prophecy was given by the Holy Ghost (the reason why it is 100% accurate).

Seven, people need to know that Bible prophecy is about Jesus. The Bible says, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10b). Why would people, especially pastors and church members, willfully ignore the testimony of Jesus?

Here are recent current events that relate to Bible Prophecy and our need to walk circumspectly (believe, live and act the way God wants us to believe, live and act).

One: on Feb. 19, 2021, it was reported that Pres. Biden took office promising to improve America’s relationship with Europe, work with our allies in Europe, strengthen NATO, etc.

Pres. Macron of France believes it is time for the EU to establish a more powerful military and tell the U.S. to remove her troops.

The Antichrist will rise to power in Europe and go forth conquering and to conquer.

I am receiving e-mails from readers that want to know if I believe Emmanuel Macron is the Antichrist.

The identity of the Antichrist will not be revealed while the Church is here, but since Israel became a nation in 1948, several people have been identified as the Antichrist that are no longer alive.

There is no question that Macron has many traits of the Antichrist, and he could be the Antichrist, but be careful because skeptics will label you as a false prophet, refuse to listen to you, etc., if something happens to Macron.

Two, concerning world government: on Feb. 19, 2021, it was reported that Biden addressed global leaders with two major speeches (one at the G-7 virtual summit and another at the Munich Security Conference) to declare the end of Trump’s “America First” agenda.

As I understand it, the era of “America First” is dead, and it has been replaced by the era of “Globalism First.”

Trump put the needs of America above the needs of the UN and other nations.

Biden is putting the needs of the UN and other nations (the globalist agenda; the New World Order) above the needs of America.

Know that the World Economic Forum (WEF) plans to ask the G-7 nations to approve “The Great Reset” this fall, and Biden (or whoever is in charge at the White House) is letting people know that he supports the globalist agenda.

Be aware that a former Obama Dept. of Homeland Security Official said more than one million immigrants will try to cross the U.S. border with Mexico this year (many with Covid; some getting vaccinated before American citizens that want vaccinations can get them).

Be aware that Biden has prepared a $1.9 Trillion Covid Relief Package and less than 10% of the money is for health-related issues (more than 90% is for museums, family planning, bailing out states and cities, a bridge that Schumer wants in New York, a tunnel that Pelosi wants in San Francisco and more).

Be aware that the bailout of cities and states is based on unemployment rates, meaning that cities and states that use lockdowns to put people out of work will get more money than cities and states that don’t use lockdowns to put people out of work.

Be aware that Biden is warming up to China; that nation is requiring its people to hate God, wants to head up the coming world government, a government that will hate God, etc. (Rev. 13:4-8).

Know that God gave Daniel a vision of the latter time, the rise and fall of the Antichrist, and his world government during the Tribulation Period (Dan. 8:23-27).

“And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days. And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.”

The vision of the coming Antichrist and his world government was so evil and destructive that it caused Daniel to faint and be sick for several days.

In a past article, I stated that God may have allowed Trump to be removed from office so the globalist agenda can go forward (and it is).

God is in control, and He can speed it up or slow it down, but I expect the Democrats to lock America into a world government before the next election.

Three, concerning persecution: on Feb. 16, 2021, Worthy News reported that the Center for Family and Human Rights is warning groups and organizations that the UN (wannabe world government) is planning to create lists of those that oppose the LGBT agenda.

Those that oppose the LGBT agenda will be designated as “LGBT hate groups,” and they will be blacklisted and punished.

Four, concerning natural disasters: the state of Texas is known as a major producer of oil and natural gas, but in 2020, Texas used wind turbines to produce 23% of its electricity.

The extreme cold of the Feb. 2021 winter storm froze about half of the wind turbines, and, at one point, more than one and a half million Texans were without electricity.

It has been reported that without rolling blackouts, the entire system was just minutes away from a catastrophic failure that would have taken weeks, or perhaps months, to totally repair.

Stores closed for lack of electricity, others closed because they ran out of food, people moved into their vehicles to stay warm, more than 40 people died, and this is perhaps the costliest weather event in the history of Texas.

Thank God for fossil fuels because without them, the hunger (famine), cold, death and destruction would be much worse than it was this time.

Incidentally, on his first day in office, Biden stopped construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline in the U.S., put thousands of Americans out of work, and hurt Canada, but now he is promoting a pipeline to carry Turkmenistan gas across Afghanistan and Pakistan to India.

Why are pipelines environmentally unsafe in the U.S. but environmentally safe in Muslim and terrorist countries?

If nuclear power plants are unsafe in the U.S., why is Biden signaling his readiness to resume talks with Iran over the resumption of that terrorist nation’s nuclear program?

Since America’s economy is in danger of collapsing and the U.S. has crude oil that could be sold, why is the U.S. cutting production, jobs, etc. and starting to buy oil again?

If pollution of the atmosphere is causing climate change disasters like the one in Texas, why is Biden ignoring the fact that China is one of the worst polluters on earth, and why is Biden’s Climate Change Envoy, John Kerry, still flying around in his private plane?

It has been my opinion for a long time that God uses natural disasters to warn nations to repent and return to Him (II Chron. 7:13-14), but globalists are using the disasters as a scare tactic to bring in their godless world government.

Godless leaders do not think like Christians, and more and more, it is clear that this world is not the Christian’s home (I Cor. 2:14-16).

To be honest, I do not think America will repent, and if Covid and the Texas disaster are birth pains, there is more to come.

By the way, on Feb. 19, 2021, John Kerry was on CBS This Morning, and he was asked, “How much time do we still have left to avert climate catastrophe?”

He replied, “The scientists told us 3 years ago we have 12 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crises; we are now 3 years gone, so we have 9 years left.

This is 2021, and 9 years from now will be 2030, which is the UN agreed-upon goal for having a world government up and running.

Five: on Feb. 19, 2021, William Koenig, author of “Eye to Eye,” noted that Biden has hit the ground running on issues that are worrisome or detrimental to Israel.

Koenig is famous for pointing out that those that bless Israel are blessed, and those that curse Israel are cursed.

We cannot deny that Biden has come out in favor of the Two-State Solution (division of Israel), he opposed Israel’s construction of settlements in Judea and Samaria, he waffled on Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, he announced that the U.S. might be willing to rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal, he revoked Trump’s designation of the Iranian-backed Houthis as a terrorist organization, and more.

Now, the U.S. (especially Texas) has been hit with a record-breaking storm.

Six: on Feb. 17, 2021, it was reported that there is a leaked July 16, 2020, video of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, expressing concern to his employees about the Covid-19 vaccine.

Zuckerberg said, “We just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA … whether that causes other mutations or other risks downstream.”

This seems significant because Facebook has announced an expedited effort to remove posts that say the Covid-19 vaccine changes people’s DNA.

If Zuckerberg can warn his employees about future risks, why are others not allowed to warn people about future risks?

The U.S. Constitution gives citizens freedom of speech, and people like Zuckerberg should not be allowed to take it away.

This is another case of the rich and powerful making rules that apply to others but not themselves.

Finally, if you want to go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

[keltonwrites]

How do I become courageous? How do I stop letting the anxiety over the uncertainty of future, or the fear of other people's judgement, dictate my life's narrative?

Ten years ago, my Zoloft prescription ran out the day I had a tumor sliced out of my neck. The surgery was on a Monday. I woke up with chest pain and nerve damage in my face. They kept me until Wednesday morning. I left the hospital with a drainage bag attached to my neck, pinned to the collar of my shirt. I couldn’t move the right side of my face. I emailed my boss.“The surgery was a little more intense than I anticipated. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it in this week.”“Please be here on Friday.”I went to work on Friday. I couldn’t brush my hair because the pressure on my neck was too painful. The blood bag seeped occasionally on my shirt. I had the kind of sleep anyone has after their ear is partially sliced off to remove a tumor burrowing beneath it. Don’t worry — they sewed it back on. (The ear, not the tumor.)On Friday, because I didn’t understand how boundaries or rights worked, I walked across the National Institutes of Health campus toward my building looking more like a patient than an employee. My boss stared at me and then didn’t speak to me again. I wrote for four hours before I went into her office.“I need to go home.”“Have a nice weekend!” She beamed, actively looking everywhere that was not my blood bag.I smiled, sort of. The right side of my face was still temporarily paralyzed, so the left side of my mouth hoisted my cursory courtesy smile by itself.“Gonna work on my face,” I said pointing to my partially slack expression.“Sorry?”“Nerve damage. Gonna try to exercise it. Do some heavy lifting while I watch TV,” I said, my face contorting from the kind of stifled laughter usually reserved for broken ribs and strict teachers.“Ok!” She almost yelled, her own face contorting with discomfort.Over the next two weeks—tumor and medication free—I lost my mind. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. I gave away my percocet. I dyed my hair. I adopted a cat. I started a blog. And nine months later, I started a challenge called Bold Moves October. I started it because so much of my day-to-day life felt defined by inaction and complacency. Plus, the October prior is when the doctors had said, “we’re really not sure if it’s cancer or not.” Followed immediately by, “we can schedule you for surgery in three months.”It was a long three months. Death all of a sudden seemed like something that could happen. In my 23-year-old wisdom, this meant I should be more proactive. For better or worse, I primarily applied this proactivity to flirting.

We can’t all learn life’s great lessons on the first go.Anyway, that blog and that mini movement of boldness changed the trajectory of my life. One thing toppled into another. Over the next few years that blog and challenge would (directly and tangentially) get me a book deal, writing contracts, sport sponsorships, job offers, the friendship of my favorite author, the adoration of my husband, and a full-time job as an editor that would be the two best professional years of my life.The period I spent working on that blog was obviously good. It was also the most derided and insulted I would ever be. I lost friendships. I received hate mail and death threats (in 2011 no less, before every Twitter account with too many numbers in the screen name became an amateur fear monger.) I allowed people to send me anonymous messages because it was a way for people to share how they were struggling without revealing their identities. But that meant I couldn’t protect myself from anonymous and un-trackable threats. God only knows what my parents thought. (In this scenario, I am God. I know what they thought.)Courage often doesn’t feel good. The only courage that exists without anxiety is arrogance. There is not a life where you, a person who wrote anonymously to an all-but-dead Tumblr, live without the anxiety of others’ judgment. But there is also not a life where you, who—again—wrote asking for advice anonymously to an all-but-dead Tumblr, aren’t a person defined by desperate chances and hope. I apologize that you sent me that note months ago, but I assure you, it is because I too was flexing courage, letting it coarse through my veins and vanquish months of chronic nausea.Like you, I was fussing about in the woods of my life, looking for something that resembled a path. Not necessarily a path without sinkholes or poison leaves, but rather one worth them.Your path, the one it sounds like you’re trying to find, will be overgrown with the thorns of judgment and anxiety. But they’re just thorns. They’re on every path. They’re hurting you just as much on the wrong path as they will on the right one.Normally I give very ethereal advice that’s difficult to act on. It’s more like a song than an action item, but in this scenario, you don’t need to listen to someone else. You also don’t need to have a tumor spliced from your insides to remind you that at some point, our chances run out. All you need is to develop the skill of listening to yourself. For a couple of months, relax with the courage. Courage is just an instagram word for having a strong inner constitution. And that is something you can develop without framing it in the same terms we use to go to battle. 

To do the work, I recommend a few things. 

If you don’t already, move your body. I know how much people hate this advice. But if you can hike or run or cycle or even just briskly walk (without podcasts) for a minimum of 20 minutes a day, you should. Our gut, our intuition, our inner sense of self or whatever you want to call her, she’s not going to feel safe coming out when you’re in the mental thicket of other people’s narratives. Exercise is the closest humans have to Drano for the mind. 

Find a journaling exercise that feels like maybe it’s a little too much work. If it feels conquerable, it’s too easy. I go back to Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year. Doesn’t matter if it’s a new year. Time is a construct. 

Get the book Designing Your Life. You may not design an entirely new one, but it may help in making change feel conquerable, or just possible. If that book feels too “action item” oriented, try The Artist’s Way. It’s much more about knowing yourself than it is about art.

Make a list of the narratives that you feel other people are suffocating you with. Maybe dad wants you to be a doctor. Maybe girlfriend wants you to settle down a little. Maybe boss wants you to focus on the clerical side of your job. Maybe society wants you to buy an apartment you can’t afford. Whatever or whoever it is you feel is pressuring you, write it down. You need to know your demons to exercise them. You might even find, in time, that you even like some of these visions. They’re not the enemy. Pressure is. And pressure is only defeated by self. Isn’t that annoying?

Write to me again. Impress me. Give yourself a few challenges each week. Whether it’s applying for a class, trying something you’re bound to be bad at, getting up half an hour early to dance your heart out before work, I don’t care. Do some things that are for you. Not for others, not for profit, not for your future — just for you right now. And then use me for more than an anonymous submission on the internet. Use me as a deadline. Sometimes all it takes to get over the hurdle of pressure is a little validation. I’m here for that whenever you need me.  

I’m recommending these things because I just did them.

I gave myself a deadline to change my life. Not that it was bad, it just felt… well it felt exactly how it did ten years ago: full of inaction and complacency. I was on cruise control, taking few chances, taking really nothing at all. So the next thing I took was an exit. I wanted to see what life looked like when things weren’t all concrete and white lines. I quit my job. I camped around the west. I picked up a few new hobbies. I journaled more than I did all of 7th grade. My year-long bout of nausea went away. I started to dance again. I wrote songs again. I wrote in general again. And I dug around in my psyche for the truth about what I always liked doing, what the through-lines in all my good jobs have been. Very simply, the strongest through-line was the encouragement and empowerment of others.

Most of the writing I’m doing right now will be private until it isn’t. I’m writing a horror film and still working on my first novel. But I need a weekly way to interact with people via writing lest I lose my lonely mind, so I’m bringing back the one thing got me into writing in the first place: answering people’s questions.

After writing Anonymous Asked, I was too embarrassed to promote the book. I’ve never re-read it. I fell into the spiral of what other people thought: of me, of the work, of my ideas. But I’d rather be fulfilled and insulted than bored out of my mind and forgotten.

So to encourage your courage, I am flexing a little bit of my own. My newsletter (of which this essay is a part) is now called “A Little Bit Better” and the whole point is that it helps you feel a little bit better. You can subscribe to it here. It will include essays like this and other bits of things that made that week a little bit better. I hope you enjoy it. I know I will. See you there.I wrote this while listening to:It’s a Storm - Young & SickSwing - Mahmut Orhan Remix by Soki Tukker and Mahmut OrhanKissing Other People - Lennon StellaScared to Death - Jax AndersonSound of Your Voice - Griff

[a-queer-seminarian]

preaching during Holy Week is really rough....and this is before i figure out how to address the whole pandemic thing!

i’m trying to find an interpretation of the Palm Sunday story (particularly as told in Matthew 21:1-11) that, like, vibes with me. that makes contextual sense of what happens in it without being 1) horribly antisemitic and 2) not so skeptical about whether it “really historically happened” that i cause congregants who don’t like that kind of take to stop listening ya know?

so anyway here’s a bit from one article (or sermon?) i found that is maybe helpful? questions i have about it are below the quote:

“Passover was a problem for Rome. To not allow Passover to be celebrated would probably cost more, via a general civil uprising, than it was worth. Yet the festival was a celebration of escape from Egypt which always seemed on the edges of a rebellion against Rome. It was not hard to imagine that all that innocent asking of questions by the children: Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights, we eat either unleavened or leavened bread, but tonight we eat only unleavened bread? On all other nights, we eat all kinds of vegetables, but tonight, we eat only bitter herbs? and so on, was a thinly veiled reference to events that it was hoped would one day involve an escape from Rome, and, hopefully, something not too far distant from the drowning of Caesar's armies. So to keep things under control, extra troops would be sent into Jerusalem for the duration. They would march in from the west, probably from Caesarea Maritima, and make a great show of military might with war horses and columns of marching troops while entering the city, in an effort to dampen the enthusiasm of any Jewish activists. The story from Rome was that it had conquered the world. Resistance was useless. Jesus appears to have carried out something between a seriously seditious piece of street theatre and what we Australians would see as an hilarious piss-take of the "powers that be." In recent Australian history we see such an act in the Chaser's Breach of APEC restricted zone, which had half the country laughing themselves silly and the government furious. While Pilate and Herod had their "ring of steel" clamping down on the city, Jesus was on the other side of the city at the Mount of Olives, which is significant in biblical history as the place where the Lord's feet would stand when the enemies who had come against Jerusalem were finally driven out. (see Zechariah 14:1-19) Jesus made his own entry down the hill and over into Jerusalem mounted on a donkey and its foal. This is not some bizarre circus trick. It echoes the text of Zechariah 9. The triumphant king who comes in peace rides a donkey. Hebrew poetry uses a technique called a hendiadys where one noun is echoed by another for emphasis. “So humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey…” (Zechariah 9:9) is not talking about two animals but emphasizing the fact of the donkey over the warhorse that one would expect of a hostile king. The next lines make this clear: “He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” There is some confusion about why Matthew, almost certainly a Jew, tells the story as though Jesus somehow needed to have two animals to fulfill the prophecy and ride both of them. (The original story in Mark has only one animal.) Some suggest this is a literary device to emphasise that the prophecy is thoroughly fulfilled; eg, Petty, but I think there is a proto-Australian attitude on show here! The centurions coming into Rome all had their remounts— their spare horse in case the main mount went lame— up at the back of the column in the care of their batman. You don't look half so magnificent if you have an un-mounted horse tethered behind you. But Jesus tows his own remount. And it's only a foal! It's likely that any Roman soldier watching this has no idea of the cultural referencing that's going on. But the people who are coming in with Jesus clearly see a single raised middle digit, and may have taken it further than Jesus desired. (It specifically says that it is the crowd travelling with him which makes all the fuss, not the people in Jerusalem.) They put their clothes down on the road, which is a sign of acknowledging royalty. A clear reference to this is in 2 Kings 9:13. "Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, ‘Jehu is king.’" If we read for the context of this quotation we see that Jehu has just been anointed king by one of Elisha's emissaries—a junior prophet—although the current king is still alive and on the throne! This is a coup. Jehu then rides off, pretending still to be loyal, and kills both the king of Israel—who is the son of Jezebel—and the king of Judah. ...”

Questions i have:

So yeah i think if i’m reading this right it’s saying that Jesus’s “stunt” with the donkeys, with people shouting hosanna and alluding to a coup, was likely viewed as a threat by the Roman military occupying and marching around Jerusalem. If any Jewish leaders had a problem with it, it was probably out of fear that Jesus’ stunt would hurt them all, if Rome decided to retaliate.

Is that a proper reading of this article? And is it like...accurate sounding?

And does it seem...i don’t know...like what i’m looking for for my sermon? Is focusing on the threat Jesus posed to Rome rather than his intra-community conflict with other Jewish leaders a good direction to go with this? Or is there still antisemitism lurking in this take?

Also, I still am very much wary of how, like, the Passion story goes that after this hosanna stuff “all the people” “turn on” Jesus -- these people shouting hosanna today are going to join the crowds that demand his death tomorrow. All the people Jesus has helped turn on him (or at least don’t stick up for him). I just don’t know how to handle that part of the story -- partially because i question the “historical truth” of a lot of all this, and mostly because of the violent consequences of this take for Jewish communities across the centuries.

idk if any of this is coherent haha but if anyone has thoughts....i am all ears