#we born with where and whom we should be born

[alex51324]

So, the NDA signed by producers of The Apprentice just expired, and one of them has published a tell-all article. Most of the article is about how they used standard reality-TV tricks to portray Trump as being wealthy and intelligent, when in reality he was, and is, a deeply indebted buffoon.

The money shot, however, comes when Trump and the producers are preparing for climax of the final episode, when the winner will be decided.

Per the FCC's rules for game shows, producers could not be involved in deciding who would be fired each week, or who would ultimately win: it had to be Trump's decision alone, like contestants and viewers were told it was. The producers could, and did, give him a presentation about the strengths and weaknesses of the contestants each time he had to make a decision. These were recorded, in case questions ever arose about whether the producers had crossed the line.

So, for the final episode, there were two contestants remaining. Both were men, one white, the other Black. They'd both done well in the final challenge of the competition. As the producers were summarizing the points for an against each candidate, this happened:

“Yeah,” he says to no one in particular, “but, I mean, would America buy a n— winning?” Kepcher’s pale skin goes bright red. I turn my gaze toward Trump. He continues to wince. He is serious, and he is adamant about not hiring Jackson.

In the finished program, Trump chose the white contestant as the winner.

(Four years later, Trump would propagate the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a native-born US citizen and therefore had not legitimately won the presidency.)

The article also describes how women working on the production faced discrimination based on whether or not Trump wanted to look at them while they did their jobs:

While leering at a female camera assistant or assessing the physical attributes of a female contestant for whoever is listening, he orders a female camera operator off an elevator on which she is about to film him. “She’s too heavy,” I hear him say. Another female camera operator, who happens to have blond hair and blue eyes, draws from Trump comparisons to his own Ivanka Trump. “There’s a beautiful woman behind that camera,” he says toward a line of 10 different operators set up in the foyer of Trump Tower one day. “That’s all I want to look at.”

And there's a third anecdote where he pressures a woman producer to break the FCC rules, while being casually misogynistic toward a contestant:

Trump corners a female producer and asks her whom he should fire. She demurs, saying something about how one of the contestants blamed another for their team losing. Trump then raises his hands, cupping them to his chest: “You mean the one with the …?” He doesn’t know the contestant’s name. Trump eventually fires her.

This information is pretty unlikely to persuade anyone who wasn't already persuaded by any of the other things Trump has done and said, which would for anyone else be a career-defining scandal. But it is a useful reminder of who we're dealing with.

(Link is to Slate, an x-number-of-free-articles-a-month site, but the incognito window trick works.)

[genderqueerdykes]

14 year old transgender girl Pauly Likens was unjustly robbed of her life due to trans panic between the dates of June 22nd and July 3rd, 2024. say her name.

i have seen only one or two posts about this, but none of them include her name and it sickens me. Her name is Pauly Likens, a 14 year old transgender girl from Sharon, Pennsylvania who met up with a 29 year old man whom she met on Grindr who was brutally murdered and her body was dismembered because she was a trans girl. she went missing on June 22nd, and her dismembered body was found on July 3rd, 2024. her body was DISMEMBERED and thrown into a river. she was not only murdered but BRUTALLY murdered. she was 14 years old. 14. she couldn't even legally drive yet in the united states. she just barely graduated elementary school.

her mother is fighting for her case to be processed and acknowledged as a hate crime. i am disgusted to find out that my home state of Pennsylvania only considers racial discrimination as real discrimination that can be persecuted by law. gender identities and sexual orientations are not considered at all. lawyers and government officials are also trying to deny that it was a hate crime, because her murderer was a self admitted gay man. i don't care what type of queer you are: there is never an excuse to lay hands on a transgender person just because you don't like how they identify.

this is utterly sickening. to say this wasn't a hate crime is living in denial. i don't care if her murderer was gay. he's a murderer who had a clearly charged reason for doing this. he stole a life from a young transgender girl for no reason other than she identified in a way he didn't like. he's not dangerous because he's gay, nor is he exempt from being transphobic. his sexuality had nothing to do with this. not only was this man a dangerous transphobe, but a predator. a 29 year old man willingly met up with a 14 year old child. this man is dangerous for reasons that have nothing to do with his sexuality. he's a transphobic child predator. he deserves no sympathy or to get off scott free just because he's gay. he willingly met up with Pauly. she didn't force him to do anything. she was a child, and he is an adult.

please say her name. while talking about the dangers of Grindr and how minors should not use it, please include her name. yes Grindr is an extremely dangerous platform for trans women, men, and trans people in general, but that shouldn't be the focus of your conversation about her. don't use her death as a platform to discuss how fucked up grindr is without acknowledging who she was as a person. don't just make her another statistic on a page. she was a real person, a child, who was robbed of her life, and robbed from her community. she is not just another number in a long list of trans panic murders. her life meant something. say her name. fight like hell for Pennsylvania to acknowledge that her death WAS a hate crime. their archaic outdated laws need updating.

her family has a GoFundMe to give her a proper burial, please consider donating or spreading the word about it:

here is a news article that genders her correctly where you can read more about what happened:

rest in power, Pauly Likens, we miss you. you are loved. we will fight like hell for you and your family. remember her.

[ameliathornromance]

A Whole New World - Short Orc Romance

- When your Orc found you, you were in your Church with your other sisters of the cloth.

- They all prayed to the Gods.

- Gods that they wished would come, strike down these beasts who threatened your lives.

- The Church doors were difficult to get open, but your Orc did it. The doors burst off the hinges, crashed into the pews.

-Your sisters all took off running, leaving you behind.

- You tried to follow, but ended up tripping over your robes, falling on your front.

- Your Orc stormed towards you.

- You try to scramble away, desperate to escape your oncoming death, but it was no use.

- He was too big, too quick.

- You close your eyes, expecting a bludgeoning with that horrifying club he had clutched in his hand. You raise your hands above your head and cower for your life.

- Any moment now, any second now, he is going to bring that club down on your head.

- But nothing came.

“They left you.”

You squint open your eyes. Between your arms, you stare at him. His expression pained, his endless black eyes staring at you with… sympathy? You couldn’t understand what you were seeing; An orc, sympathetic?

The club slips from his hand, landing on the floor with a loud thud. Stooping to one knee, he bends down to your height. “Those who you called sisters have abandoned you.”

You dare to look around. Hoping to see a sister who was hiding behind the altar, a pillar, or anywhere. With some kind of weapon in hand, anything to help you get out of this situation alive. But it was barren. Empty of any kind of life whom had been begging for salvation.

He was right. They had. “To escape you, you who would kill me for praying for your death.” You hiss back at him. You didn’t dare believe him, wanted to retreat back into the collective opinion about Orcs. But it was too obvious to ignore his logic.

The words were harsh and sharp, the Orc did not flinch. “And who is here for you, now that I have come to take the lives of your people? Your Gods? Who you pray to, but have done nothing to protect you or your people from the raid of my brethren? Did not even force a fellow sister to stay and share in your fate, so that you would not have to go into the night alone?”

The words rang through you like the Church bell at the top of the steeple. Rooted you to the ground, the world you had built to protect yourself from the truth, crashed and burned. You couldn’t deny that he was wrong. Your so-called ‘sisters’ had abandoned you. Left you here at the mercy of this monster, not one of them had turned to try and help you back up.

A sigh escapes the Orc. “In our ranks,” he says, “we do not abandon our own.” The hand that held the club outstretches toward you. “Come. No one deserves to left alone.”

Anger had risen, spiteful and raging within your very soul. At that moment, as much as you didn’t want to admit it, the Orc was right. Your mind drifts back to what the Church had taught you about them, the Orcs. That they were monsters, born from the core of the Earth. Where Magma bubbled and boiled, where nothing should be able to survive. How your Church commanded that your sisters swear loyalty to one another. To protect each other and Holy Ground from defamation of the filth that rose from the Earth. To do it together. To die together, if it came to it.

The Gods had abandoned you and your sisters had left you. You gave your life for Gods who did not care.

This Orc, monster of the deep Earth, had shown you more decency in that moment. Than Gods or humans had done in the time you had been at the Church. Spite riddles through you. You take his calloused, rough hand.

- Travelling in an Orc caravan was not easy. They were loud, smelly and stupid. All except the Orc who had come for you.

- He was quiet, preferred to watch his others fight, drink and be rowdy with one another.

- At first, the rest of the group had ostracised you. “Humans are no good.” They would snarl. “Weak and useless.” But, after repairing a few of their clothes and cooking meals, they warmed up to you.

- They were kind to you... In their own way. Like the time when they left a whole dead sheeps’ carcass in your tent. The note left with it read: “For dinner this eve. Make or else.” Panicked, you went to find your Orc friend, who explained that this wasn't a threat. Far from it, as a matter of fact.

- They spoke to you that way because they spoke to their own like that.

- "My bretheren see you as one of us now." Rovi - the name of your Orc friend - explained.

“They’re quite the group.” You observe. You had thrown out your robes as soon as you could and replaced them with something that was far from Holy. Trousers and tunic that you had sewed together yourself and hair let down to your waist.

“Indeed.” Rovi agrees. He slurps the rest of the soup from his bowl. Fire crackles in the fire pit, the nights sky blankets the whole group of Orcs who proceed to play fight and snarl. This was apparently, a common pass time for Orcs, who beat the living snot out of each other as a show of comradery. “They will never hurt each other though.” Rovi assures you, putting the bowl beside himself. “We do not do that, unlike humans who abandon their own, kill their friends and steal for survival.”

You did not judge his impression of humans. Surely, you’d feel the same way too if a bunch of humans started chasing after you, desperate for your head. One thing, you could not understand for the life of you, was why Rovi had taken you in. Despite his obvious dislike for humans, he still offered you a place in his camp. Maybe It was as simple as he said: “No one deserves to left alone.”

Biting your lip, you tell him, “thank you for inviting me into your camp.” You meant it. If it weren’t for him, you would still be slaving away for Gods who had no interest in you.

Your Orc huffs, “better than being with humans who abandon their own.” He looks away from you. Back to the jeering crowd of his fellows, watching them clasp each others hands and pat each other on the back. A show of congratulations on a good fight.

- Your romance with him started when there was when you returned to your own tent.

- On your bed, was a small pouch of gold.

- Being in an Orc camp, you observed their customs and cultures. Often, when courting others, they would leave a small bag of gold in their crushes living quarters. A sweet, but simple gesture. Orcs loved their gold, even if they did not flaunt it. To do so was, frowned upon and compared to the Lords who wore those stupid puffy trousers and powdered tall wigs.

- You did not know who the pouch had come from, but you immediately thought that your Orc friend had been the one to do it. But you had to double check. And so you would gauge his reaction to it.

“Look!” You rushed over to him. Waving the bag of gold up to him, you beamed, “someone likes me! I found it on my bed when I got back from washing in the river!”

Rovi, returning from a hunt and carrying a, poor dead stag on his back, looked at you, then the open bag, gold glittering in the sunlight. “Was there a note?” He asked you, dropping it to the ground.

The rest of the hunting party grumbled annoyances at him, dragging the meat away. Rovi ignored them.

“No, there was just this bag. I wonder who it could be!” Your eyes dart across the camp, looking to the cooks, who were now busy skinning the stag, to other Orcs who were busy tending to a fire and talking in their mother tongue and to those who were busy trying to read from tiny human books they stole from villages.

“Best not to think about it,” Your Orc mutters. “Small pouch of gold like that? They can’t be that interested in you.” And with that, he lumbers off.

You frown. You thought for sure it would be him. His reaction made your heart sink in your chest. Sighing, you walk back to your tent, tossing the small bag onto your desk and clambering onto your bed. You sigh. If it was not him, then who could it be?

Unfortunately, you had noted that there was a fair amount of guess work that had to happen when it came to this as well. Usually, it went over well – the admired knew who their admirer was, and they got together. But, in rare instances, where the admired got their guess wrong: The admirer would challenge the guessed person to combat and they would fight. Not a play fight. An actual battle.

It was rare, but not rare enough to avoid being discussed by the rest of the camp. You had never seen one yourself, and if you could, you’d like to avoid it at all costs. You like everyone in the camp, care about them all , you didn’t want anyone to get hurt. One had to assume, that if two Orcs vied for the same person... You didn't want to think about that.

- You had thought long and hard about who it could be. You had become close with everyone in the camp, it wasn’t like there was anyone who stuck out to you.

- Truth be told, disappointment stirred in your gut.

- You had hoped that it would Rovi who had been the one to give you that pouch. He was kind and caring, even if he was a bit rough around the edges. He gave you a whole new life, it seemed almost right that you would fall for him. After he was able to show you the rest of the world, when you may have stayed with the Church for the rest of your days.

- The next day, you went to go and do what you had to do by the river, coming back to your tent and your jaw dropping.

A pouch – you couldn’t even call it that – a sack full of gold had spilled out onto the floor in your tent. You wondered if you’d gone mad. Startling you, a cheer erupted from outside your tent. What the Hell is going on?!

You ran out and into the main area, where a ring of tall, hulking Orcs had formed. You stood on tip-toes, jumped to try and get a look at the brawl that had just started, but had to resolve to pushing your way through the rambunctious crowd. Once the other Orcs realize who it was trying to get through, they bark at their others: “Get out of the way! Let (Y/N) through! It about her after all!”

About you? More desperate now, you finally found your way to the edge of the ring just in time to see Rovi swing a right hook, directly into the jaw of his other. The other Orc goes flying, his landing in front of you sent shudders through the floor. You recognise him immediately as Barrow, a chef who you often spent time with in the kitchens. He was an Orc of very little brains, but he made a mean rabbit stew. He made some inappropriate jokes to you occasionally, but apart from that, he kept mostly to himself.

“That’s all you offer?!” Rovi roars, “pathetic!”

Barrow was out cold, your Orc friend’s chest heaving up and down. “What’s going on?!” You shout over the jeering Orc crowd.

Rovi’s face, goes from a furious, angry scowl, to soft at the sight of you. Rather harshly, he kicks Barrow out of the way and kneels down to your height. “I’m afraid I haven’t been up front with you,” he begins.

The rest of the Orcs are still watching, but now quiet. Your ears rang with the silence, so used to their loud and obnoxious shouting that it was unsettling to hear silence.

“I know that humans are more upfront with their courting practices so allow me to conform to your culture… And I couldn’t allow Barrow to offer you something so insignificant and small as one pouch of gold… So... Would you be mine, (Y/N)?”

Stunned into silence, you bit your lip. Smiling, you ask, “so the extra large sack of gold was you?”

Rovi grumbles and looks away from, a small dusting tinge dusting his orc green cheeks. “Well, I had to do something…” He mumbles. “I had to do something to show you I am superior… if this one hadn’t beaten me to it.” He shoots another dirty look at Barrow, who seems to have awoken in a daze. “The combat was necessary to tell him to back off.”

“I think the gold was more than enough.” You wrap your arms around his muscular shoulders and pull him close. “Thank you for everything, Rovi.”

He freezes for a moment and then returns your gesture, holding you tenderly in that moment. The both of you don’t even hear the crowd of Orcs erupting with cheers and shouts of happiness.

It’s just the two of you. And that’s all that matters in that moment.

[cannellaeluce]

one thing that I can’t let go of re: the locked tomb series is the statement I think it makes about identity and permanence and love. Like, I guess we all finished gideon the ninth being in love with gideon’s pov and with harrow as the person she is in relation to gideon. Then we landed in harrow the ninth and we were robbed of both, and I’m sure we all felt like we lost something, and we thought the end goal would be to get to the point where we would go back to having the thing that we lost: gideon’s vibrant voice and harrow’s whole psyche. and then we landed in nona the ninth and... 

I don’t know for ya’ll, but that’s when something in me shifted. phyrra was in the body of her most beloved adept and got to live with her longing for him and for wake redefining her identity; we didn’t care for her in the previous books, but we got to care for her now, and she was worth it. camilla’s body was both hers and palamedes’ and the coronation of their arc wasn’t to go back to how they were when we first learned to love them; it was to let go of both their individualities to become a whole new person, and we readers - just as nona - got to experience the pang at understanding that we were to let go of our concept of camilla and palamedes as individuals, while having to accept that that was the truest form they both could possibly achieve, that they felt no loss whatsoever, that what we perceived as loss was in fact their triumph. gideon - our beloved gideon - came back and she wore another name and we got to love her again, but names matter in this universe, and we had to deal with the pang of knowing that we could love her all the same, but she was - in fact - not the same at all, and when she antagonised our new main characters we found out in surprise that we resented her for it, that our loyalties had partially shifted. and then...

and then there was nona. nona in the body of harrow, who got to be loved as a person separated from harrow because bodies are transient and the soul is what matters. nona who was born to disappear in mere months, something the people around her knew well and which didn’t prevent any of them from getting to know her as a fully fleshed individual and to learn to love her all the same. nona whom we readers too understood at one point that was a character built to fade away. we could have decided not to invest in her, then. we could have decided to be annoyed at not finding harrow in her, at not finding gideon in her. but we didn’t. well, I didn’t. I understood she was born to die, and I chose to love her all the same. because isn’t it how it is? isn’t this how love is? we are mortal things who fall for mortal things knowing full well they won’t last. but we choose to love all the same. the impermanence of things isn’t a flaw ruining what should have been perfect; it is the very essence of things. we got to love nona even though she wouldn’t last. we got to love nona because she wouldn’t last. that’s all fine, in the end, because we got to love someone, and you can’t take loved away.

[inbarfink]

Okay, so here’s the thing….

We are still at a very early point in the narrative of ‘Fionna and Cake’ and therefore at a very early point in Simon’s character arc. It’s pretty clear that “I need to become Ice King again” is not the end point by any meaning of the word. But I am wondering where we’re going to go with this, cause… The series has yet to really tackle how miserable Ice King himself was a lot of the time. And how often he hurt people. 

Like, yes, I was an advent advocates for 'trying to bring back Simon Petrikov was a really really Bad Idea on Betty's part, it was more healthy to focus on making sure Ice King was as happy and healthy and harmless as he could be', but I am also fully aware that he started the show being both extremely lonely and extremely sad and also a serial kidnapper who was very much a danger to those around him. And as much progress as he made during the show, getting Ice King to that point was a very serious struggle with a lot of backslidings and problems.

'Friends Forever' is, for example, an episode that stuck with me for a long time as a really heart-wrenching demonstration how even in that late stage, when he has buddies and people trying to seriously take care of him - Ice King was still very capable of seriously sabotaging his own relationships and hurting others and himself.

And it does make sense narratively that, like, characters like Astrid and Fionna and Cake, all of whom lack the full context of what Ice King's life was like (Fionna and Cake really just saw Simon at his worst and only got snippets of clips of Ice King and since Astrid was born after Humans came to Ooo that means she was also born after the events of ‘Come Along With Me’) all see Simon as a downgrade. Because they really don’t understand how bad Ice King was beforehand. 

And thus is does make sense that with Simon's current mental state, and how he is surrounded lately with these kinda people who never really knew Ice King and don’t really understand how terrible and miserable he could be, and now hearing that his ‘sanity’ just took away magic and whimsy from some else’s whole universe, and how it feels like the actual gods of the multiverse are telling him that he should be Ice King, that he's supposed to be Ice King....

It makes sense that he might start kinda... romanticizing that time in his life again. 

You know, the big thing about the outlook that Betty should’ve accepted Ice King as who he is rather than basically destroy herself to bring Simon back wasn't about whatever Ice King or Simon Petrikov were better or 'cooler' than the other. It was about, like, embracing change. Not obsessing about a past where things were ‘Better’ but seeing what is the best you can do with things as they are. Moving forwards.

And we all know how Simon feels about moving forwards right now…

And obviously that's a pretty bad mindset, even if it's understandable how he got there...

And honestly, if we do explicitly acknowledge that, hey! Ice King’s life was often just as much of a depressive spiral as Simon's is right now! There might be an element of… resignation in Simon’s decision. 

Because Simon's downward spiral since getting cured is not a demonstration that he was better off under the Ice Crown's curse.... But, to him, more a demonstration that he doesn't need the Crown to screw up his own life anymore.

‘Cause as both as Ice King and as good ol’ ‘sane’ Simon Petrikov he is just as capable of being lonely and depressed.

And just as capable of losing his own identity.

And just as capable of pushing his loved ones away and ruining his own life.

And just as capable of becoming a weirdo obsessive.

And just as capable of making little girls cry.

He even started kidnapping people again! That’s the Ice King Classic!

So on some level, maybe Simon is resigned to the fact he’s always going to be SOME sort of screwed up lonely sadman who hurts others. And if that is his fate, he might as well be the screwed up lonely sadman who is mostly oblivious to how sad he really is and can shoot ice from his fingertips. And his arc is going to be about realizing that, whether he is Ice King or Simon Petrikov, healing and change ARE always possible for him.

But we’re gonna have to see where it goes…

[zombvic]

THREE'S A PARTY (mason mount x reader)

summary : in which the beloved couple announce they're expecting a baby

face claim : noone in particular

notes : yall idk what to write.. this is more unserious than serious but we move on 😝💯 also don't u dare mention me adding lando cause 😴

pairings : mason mount x reader

Liked by masonmount, f1 & 3,992,002 others.

yourusename about to be the flyest baby out there.. TRUUUUST 🙏🏽🔥💯

View all 2,547 comments.

user HOLYFUCK

user wasn't on my bingo 2024 card omg 😭

masonmount drippiest baby out there 🗣🗣

- yourusername literally 😭🤞🏼

user they're gonna be the cutest parents i swr

user oh my gosh.. parents (LITERALLY)

user that baby has more shoes than me and ITS NOT EVEN BORN YET 🙅🏽‍♀️🙅🏽‍♀️🙅🏽‍♀️

user if it's a girl yall better name her chelsea 😇

- user even if it's a boy

cmpulisic crazy way to announce a baby mate

- masonmount stop hating 👎🏻

yourusername posted a new story.

Liked by chelseafc, masonmount & 1,002,485 others.

yourusename it's been a while chat! SO...... we had our daughter, alessía mount, a few months ago. she's indeed been the drippiest baby so far tho 😝☝🏽 anyways i missed u guys tbh

View all 2,547 comments.

user adopt me PLEASEEEEE

user ugh to be the daughter of mason mount and y/n .. a girl can dream

user he's so smitten im sobbing

mclaren cutest baby ever

user never wanted to be a baby so bad

user should've been called chelsea smh

- yourusename dw it's her middle name 😴

user imagine being the daughter of THE y/n and mason mount

user that baby is gonna be majestic when she grows up

landonorris ADORABLEEEE ☹️🙏🏻

chelseafc congrats you guys !!

user me when

Liked by chelseafc, cmpulisic & 4,772,485 others.

masonmount my little girl 💙☹️

View all 2,547 comments.

user parenting goals

user he loves that girl so much

user actually sobbing right now

- user literally im never getting over dad mase

yourusename watch it with the caption..

- masonmount wdym babe

- yourusername OUR**** ?????

cmpulisic where is my picture credit

- masonmount you took a single picture mate

- cmpulisic so what? that's a third of this post ☹️

yourusename who's the guy in the 2nd picture he's mad fit 😝💯

- masonmount he's got a kid with his girlfriend whom he loves very much

chelseafcw future striker for chelsea 🙌🏼

- yourusername future stargirl

- masonmount project messi but female 🫡🫡

did this while watching practice two for the monaco grand prix and omd the mclaren livery looked sexy bro 😴😴😴 should be the main one i SWEAR its so nice to watch

[metamorphesque]

Monte Melqonyan/Մոնթե Մելքոնյան (1957-1993)

Honestly, I don't even know where to begin. He's one of those extraordinary individuals about whom countless books could be written and numerous movies could be made, yet still, so much would remain untold. You might wonder, "He's a National Armenian Hero—cool, but why should I know about him?" My answer is simple: if the world had more people like him, especially in today's times, it would be a much better place. He fought for justice, embodied culture and education, and radiated a deep love for his people and humanity as a whole. I believe everyone should aspire to have a little bit of Monte's spirit within them, regardless of their nationality.

Now, it's important to note that some things written about him in the Western press can be questionable and inaccurate. So, I would advise taking most of the information from those sources with a grain of salt.

Monte was born on November 25, 1957, into an Armenian family in Visalia, California, that had survived the Armenian Genocide. From 1969 to 1970, his family traveled through Western Armenia, the birthplace of his ancestors. During this journey, Monte, at the age of twelve, began to realize his Armenian identity. While taking Spanish language courses in Spain, his teacher had posed him the question of where he was from. Dissatisfied with Melkonian's answer of "California", the teacher rephrased the question by asking "where did your ancestors come from?" His brother Markar Melqonyan remarked that "her image of us was not at all like our image of ourselves. She did not view us as the Americans we had always assumed we were." From this moment on, for days and months to come, Markar continues, "Monte pondered [their teacher Señorita] Blanca's question Where are you from?"

In high school, he excelled academically and struggled to find new challenges. Instead of graduating early, as suggested by his principal, Monte found an alternative - a study abroad program in East Asia. The decision to go to Japan was not random. He had been attending karate clubs and was the champion of the under-14 category in California. He also studied Japanese culture, including taking Japanese language courses. After completing his studies at a school in Osaka, Japan, he went to South Korea, where he studied under a Buddhist monk. He later traveled to Vietnam, witnessing the war and taking numerous photographs of the conflict. Upon returning to America, he had become proficient in Japanese and karate.

Having graduated from high school, Monte entered the University of California, Berkeley, with a Regents Scholarship, majoring in ancient Asian history and archaeology. In 1978, he helped organize an exhibition of Armenian cultural artifacts at one of the university's libraries. A section of the exhibit dealing with the Armenian Genocide was removed by university authorities at the request of the Turkish consul general in San Francisco, but it was eventually reinstalled following a campus protest movement. Monte completed his undergraduate work in under three years. During his time at the university, he founded the "Armenian Students' Union" and organized an exhibition dedicated to the Armenian Genocide in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey.

Upon graduating, he was accepted into the archaeology graduate program at the University of Oxford. However, Monte chose to forgo this opportunity and instead began his lifelong struggle for the Armenian Cause.

In the fall of 1978, Monte went to Iran and participated in demonstrations against the Shah. Later that year, he traveled to Lebanon, where the civil war was at its peak. In Beirut, he participated in the defense of the Armenian community. Here, he learned Arabic and, by the age of 22, was fluent in Armenian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Persian, Japanese, and Kurdish.

From 1980, Monte joined the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA – I promise to tell you more about them later) and quickly became one of its leaders. In 1981, he participated in the planning of the famous Van operation. In 1981, he was arrested at Orly Airport in France for carrying a false passport and a pistol. During his trial, Monte declared, "All Armenians carry false passports—French, American—they will remain false as long as they are not Armenian." Over the following years, he perfected his military skills at an ASALA training camp, eventually becoming one of the group's principal instructors.

Monte with his wife Seda

After being released from a French prison (once again) in 1989, Monte arrived in Armenia in 1991, where armed clashes between Armenians and azerbaijanis had already begun. He founded the "Patriots" unit and spent seven months in Yerevan working at the Academy of Sciences, writing and publishing the book "Armenia and its Neighbors." In September of the same year, he went to the Republic of Artsakh to fight for his fatherland and its people. Due to his military expertise, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Martuni defense district in 1992. His sincerity and purity quickly won the love and respect of the local population and the Armenian community as a whole.

Throughout his conscious life, Monte fought for the rights of Armenians, recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and the reclamation of Armenian homeland.

There are various versions of Monte Melqonyan's death circulating in both Armenian and azerbaijani media. According to official Armenian information, Monte was killed on June 12, 1993, by fire from an azerbaijani armored vehicle.

Monte remains a lasting testament to the incredible potential unleashed when the Armenian patriotic heart unites with sharp intellect.

In case you'd like to put a voice to the face and hear about the Artsakh struggle directly from Monte, here he is speaking about it in English.

[nanaminokanojo]

Between 7:00pm and 8:31pm | gojo x you

TW/CW: mentions of death/dying | shibuya arc | misanthropic thoughts | just angst | strong language

"For the greater good? Fuck that."

Four pairs of eyes simultaneously darted towards you, devoid of judgment. More or less, they understood what you were getting at, but you knew what they meant without words. You weren't supposed to say that. Such was your duty and purpose as a jujutsu sorcerer. But you did anyway, giving a voice to the white elephant in the room, acknowledging what everyone was afraid to even give a single moment's thought.

The greater good? Who does it serve anyway? At whose expense? Your friends' lives? Why? Because you were stronger than the rest of humanity? The strongest for the preservation of the lives of the weak?

You were strong. That should be the end of the conversation. You didn't owe anyone for it. You chose to be strong, and those who were born like you weren't there to play the role of anyone's savior just because they have the means.

Fushiguro Megumi was right: you weren't heroes. You may choose whom you want to save. Your addition to that was the fact that you can choose whether to save others or not. That's the cold, hard truth you wanted to live by without having to apologize for it, but that would shake the very foundations the jujutsu society stood for.

You looked towards Gojo. You knew he was looking at you even with his blindfold on and the lack of physical indication that his attention was on you. And somehow, it seemed to weigh more than any of the looks every one else in the room gave you. It angered you that he was resigned to it all when he was the best out of all of you, the strongest, the honored one. He can do whatever the hell he wants and yet he was there with you, wholeheartedly accepting orders to deal with whatever was happening in Shibuya at the moment.

Alone.

"Now isn't the time to –" Nanami spoke, and you usually wouldn't dare with the degree of respect you held for him, but you interrupted him.

"No, seriously. What does this have to do with us?" you asked, stunning them further. You looked at Nanami who was able to escape this life but came back anyway, confusion and rage glimmering in your eyes despite your calm manner. He could have a good life away from everything, but what the hell was he doing there?

And now they're thinking of sending Gojo alone to play along with whatever schemes the enemies are brewing? They're letting him walk into something that – although he was possibly capable of putting an end to – was, by all means, a trap? You refused to stand for it.

You didn't understand. Ever since you were a child, you were taught and trained to become what you are: a jujutsu sorcerer before you were a human; a tool for this greater good – whatever that meant – before you're a feeling, living being. But as time passed by, watching all the people you knew, good ones, lose their lives for this one-track cause, the less you knew. Why do you have to save them? Lives begin and end. It's just there. Why should those people's lives matter more than yours did? Because they're good? On whose standards?

"Y/N," Yaga warned, evidently seeing the ghost of someone he thought he knew well from last year. "This has already been decided by the higher-ups."

"And nobody dared question it?"

"You're treading dangerous waters there," the principal stated, raising his voice. "This is what we do. It's what you chose to do. Have you come to resent it?"

"There lies my mistake."

Shoko placed a hand on your shoulder. "You don't mean that."

"Geto was right." There, you said it, distabilizing the very principles you all stood for.

"Don't go there –"

You gave everyone a sweeping glare, silencing even Yaga. "His methods will never be right, but he knew what he was talking about." You chuckled bitterly. "He always did. And now he's gone."

You started walking out of the room but paused by the bench where Gojo was seated, still looking unbothered. "I never cared that you were the strongest. To me, you're just Satoru."

You looked behind your shoulder. "That applies to you all."

"Where are you going?" Nanami asked.

"You will excuse me if I do not wish to have a hand in murdering my friends or myself for that matter."

**

"You underestimate me."

You blew the cigarette smoke you were holding in as you stared at the clear signs of veils laid out over the busy streets of Shibuya from where you stood on a building rooftop. Without acknowledging the presence behind you, you finished the last drag of smoke, the burn in your throat and lungs feeling better than all your bitter thoughts and feelings towards the world you've come to know.

"'Just Satoru', eh?"

"You're purposefully being an idiot if you didn't understand what I meant by that." You glanced at Gojo when he came close enough. "Even more so if you think I'll ever underestimate you."

He chuckled. "So, you don't want me to go?" he asked in that melodic, carefree voice, slightly bending down towards the side as if he needed that to take a better look at you. "You have so little faith –"

"Faith, I have too much in you, not because you're strong, but because you are you. What I don't have is sympathy or trust for anyone who thinks they can rely on you all the time to straighten things out."

"And proud?" You let out a humorless laugh. "There's nothing to be proud of in death. There's never any ounce of dignity in it whether you die saving others or if you get snuffed out meaninglessly. It all ends the same way."

His weirdly glossy lips protruded at your sentiment. "Aren't you proud that people are able rely on us?"

"This is wrong." Everything was conveyed in those three words you uttered without any need for elaboration. Gojo merely smiled.

"So, you're scared of dying?"

"No. Dying is easy. That's all where we're headed at one point. You know what's terrifying though?"

"What?"

You finally looked at him. "Giving your life to this cause knowing it changes nothing."

"How very nihilistic."

You shrugged. "A hundred years from now, curses will still be around, kept alive by the very beings we're fighting for at present. And for what? For future generations who will produce curses, stronger and harder to fathom and defeat? All because they can't accept they're just products of a chance in their search to have higher purpose and superiority in life.

We ourselves are cursed. We control that very form of energy to prevent it from evolving into monsters, but it eats us up for the very same reasons."

"Those reasons being...?"

"We're stronger so perhaps we should be responsible for protecting lives around us. Whoever thought of that was fucking cocky, but really, who are we kidding, Gojo?"

He snickered, no doubt thrilled by your unfiltered thoughts. After him, you were probably the biggest thorn on the higher-ups' side with your radical thoughts, at least by their standards. But he still wanted you to jump all the hoops. "Thus your belief that Suguru was right?"

"I'm worse than him. I just don't act on it. I'm super sold on the fact that humans are the scum of the earth, sorcerer or not."

"You're human and a sorcerer?" he pointed out, trying to vex you.

"Exactly."

Gojo patted your head. "And yet you're still here for the very purpose you dare spit on."

You smirked at him. "I don't want you to have to kill another one of your friends for insubordination and subscribing to the ideologies of our realm's Lord Voldemort."

"Suguru had hair and a nose though?"

"He's prettier, too, that cult-leading fucker, but not the point, dumbass."

It was both funny and sad how you speak of the fallen Geto Suguru so fondly as if he didn't kickstart the most massive chaos in recent jujutsu history. But like Gojo, to you, he was just Suguru.

Just then, Gojo pulled you into his long arms, giving you a bear hug that annoyed you more than anything. "You've always been our sweetest Y/N even if you act like Ryomen Sukuna's spawn."

You pushed Gojo off of you, straightening your hair out in irritation. "He's my ancestor after all."

You both made disgusted faces at that little detail about you, but as always, Gojo was quick to recover into his cheerful façade. "Don't worry. I'll be back."

He said that, but not even an hour later, you were hearing Itadori Yuuji screaming from the top of a building in the middle of the deserted Shibuya.

Gojo Satoru has been sealed by none other than the very person – or at least whatever now resides in him – whose beliefs you agreed were right.

[hindulivesmatter]

Why Gandhi is a piece of shit and you should hate him.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been established in our history as a "Mahatma" which means "great soul"

This man is anything but that.

He is EVERYWHERE. He's on our currency, he's revered as a hero who saved India, and we have a mandatory holiday on October 2nd in honor of him.

If you didn't know, now you're going to get to know why he was a horrible human being. Let's begin.

This man managed to fool people Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela (among many others) into thinking he was a good person.

Here is some of the shit he's done:

In 1903, when Gandhi was in South Africa, he wrote that white people there should be "the predominating race." He also said black people "are troublesome, very dirty, and live like animals."

 Refused to have sex with his wife for the last 38 years of their marriage. He felt that in order to test his commitment to celibacy, he would have beautiful young women (including his own great niece) lie next to him naked through the night. His wife, whom he described as looking like a "meek cow" was no longer desirable enough to be a solid test.

Believed that Indian women who were raped lost their value as a human.

During Gandhi's time as a dissident in South Africa, he discovered a male youth had been harassing two of his female followers. Gandhi responded by personally cutting the girls' hair off, to ensure the "sinner's eye" was "sterilised". Gandhi boasted of the incident in his writings, pushing the message to all Indians that women should carry responsibility for sexual attacks upon them.

He argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honour. 

Gandhi also waged a war against contraceptives, labelling Indian women who used them as whores.

He believed menstruation was a "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality".

On 6th April 1947, he gave a speech where he said, “ If the Muslims are out there slicing through Hindu masses to wipe out the Hindu race, the Hindus should say nothing and peacefully accept death”.

He hated the great Hindu rulers, especially Shivaji Maharaj. To please the Muslims, he banned the book named ShivBhaavani which correctly depicted Islam’s intolerance and fierce fundamentalism spread by it.

Refused his wife life-saving medication (for religious reasons), but those religious reasons all of a sudden no longer applied to him when he was in a similar position.

Started a fast unto death when Ambedkar asked for separate electorates for Dalits.

Gandhi left his ailing father on his deathbed, to sleep with his wife. The child born out of this copulation died in infancy. According to Gandhi, the death of this infant was the result of this evil karma.

Gandhi, even when he claimed to be the angel of non-violence, made no efforts to prevent the British from deploying Indian troops at various locations during World War II.

Kashmir was invaded by Pakistan in 1947, the brutal Pakistani army committed heinous crimes against Kashmiri Pandits including mass rape and mass killings consequently many Pandits were forced to flee to Delhi and other places. In one incident Pandits took refuge in an abandoned mosque in Delhi. Infuriated, Gandhi threatened to fast to death if the Pandits didn't leave. The Pandits were slaughtered in a communal riot as soon as they abandoned the mosques.

Criticized the Jews for defending themselves against the Holocaust because he insisted that they should have committed public mass suicide in order to "shame" the Germans instead of fighting back. His exact words were, "But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions."

And this is all from a simple Internet search compiled here. I wonder what else is hiding if I do a deep dive.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[rederiswrites]

Look, I think if you're a US citizen you should go on Youtube and watch the debate, or at least some of the chunks of it where the topic matters most to you. You can't counter the arguments if you don't know what arguments they're making. And no, I don't mean arguing with your aunt that drank the conspiracy koolaid. I mean that there are genuinely a lot of people out there hearing what Trump is saying and thinking, "I don't know. That sounds really scary."

So know what he said, and know not just THAT he lied, but HOW he lied.

Sometimes, it's easy. There are no "abortions" after a baby is born. That would be uhhh let's see MURDER and it's already pretty illegal everywhere and absolutely no one is trying to change that. The comment Trump attributed to former VA governor Ralph Northam is completely misrepresented. Northam (whom I am not defending as a person, by the way) was commenting on the subject of *non-viable* pregnancies that represented a health risk to the mother. Nobody was talking about killing babies. Nobody. Not even Mr. Blackface.

Sometimes it's so addled that I'll leave someone else to unpack, for example, what the FUCK he was on about with the giving illegal aliens in prison forced "trangender surgery". Personally I'm assuming he just used the random word generator in his head to say something that sounded scary to him.

There is NO credible evidence that anyone, much less Haitian immigrants, is eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Both government officials and the police say there's nothing to it. Springfield has had a huge influx of Haitian immigrants, and this is causing infrastructure strain and racial tensions. But again, people who would rather believe that a) legal immigrants are okay with *stealing your pets and eating them* and b) the entire police and gov't infrastructure of a town and the surrounding county want to cover this up, are not worth our energy. It's the people who don't know the truth and are worried that we want to reach.

And my guy, my man, Cheeto Benito, that is not how tariffs work. Tariffs are not magical free money that other countries just HAVE to give you. They're...they're not that at all. Look, I'm lazy so I'm just gonna quote CNN:

Here’s how tariffs work: When the US puts a tariff on an imported good, the cost of the tariff usually comes directly out of the bank account of an American buyer. “It’s fair to call a tariff a tax because that’s exactly what it is,” said Erica York, a senior economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. “There’s no way around it. It is a tax on people who buy things from foreign businesses,” she added. Trump has said that if elected, he would impose tariffs of up to 20% on every foreign import coming into the US, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports. He also said he would impose a “100% tariff” on countries that shift away from using the US dollar. These duties would add to the tariffs he put on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines, and many Chinese-made goods including baseball hats, luggage, bicycles, TVs and sneakers. President Joe Biden has left many of the Trump-era tariffs in place. It’s possible that a foreign company chooses to pay the tariff or to lower its prices to stay competitive with US-made goods that aren’t impacted by the duty. But study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, have found that Americans have borne almost the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products. To date, Americans have paid more than $242 billion to the US Treasury for tariffs that Trump imposed on imported solar panels, steel and aluminum, and Chinese-made goods, according to US Customs and Border Protection. [link]

Also though you should watch the debate because Harris was an absolute savage and it was genuinely HUGELY entertaining to watch her mercilessly bait Trump in every answer she gave, and watch him take the bait every. fucking. time.

[susitseart]

In return.

For your friendship.

That's what I must be. As good friend as you are.

Otherwise I'll never be worth of you.

You, who deserves all the best in the world.

Darkness has always been a part of our existence. We born from dark to dark, to find our place in this world. To look for the glimmer of light that would make life worth all of our searching.

We went to do this alone. And eventually some of us were lucky enough to find it.

Our own way and reason to be happy.

Someone other who was searching too.

A friend.

The other who became so dear to us and to whom we grow so dear. The other, in whose light the world wasn't so dark and lonely anymore.

In the glow of that other, we were happy. For a friend was healing some part of us that somehow felt sore and numb at the same time.

But it's possible that one day the glimmer of the other starts to feel too much. Too bright. Too beautiful. Something we cannot be worthy of.

Not someone like us. Who deep down feel so permanently broken.

Too broken. And as too broken, we don't know how to be there for the other as we should.

We can't find words of comfort to the other when the other needs it. We cannot bear part of the other's pain, for it mixes too much with our own pain.

We can barely breathe. How could we be something to someone who is more precious to us than anything?

That's why we may retreat back into the dark. To the place where we belong.

We may spend a moment or an eternity there. We don't know and we don't care. It's all just so comforting and safe.

While we're there, our friend can find something better than us. While we are there, at least we are not a burden to those we love.

It doesn't matter if we'd disappear for good.

And yet, our friend comes to find us. Shining brighter than ever.

Saying they wants to be our friend. No matter how broken we are.

That's our friend. Wanting to give us everything, even though we ourselves can give nothing in return.

How could one bear such a debt of gratitude?

- - -

Do you know this debt of friendship?

[katakaluptastrophy]

Can we talk about Juno Zeta?

You're living the dream, Master Archivist of the Sixth House. The Archaeology department hates you. The secretaries love you. Your son has risen to the very top of the absolutely unproblematic meritocracy of the House to become Master Warden. Sure, you treated him as a colleague when he was 7 too, but this is much more intellectually satisfying and much better for your publication record (suck it, Archeo). You sit on the Oversight Body, making decisions for the 3 million strong House of the Sixth.

Then the Master Warden gets summoned by god to become a Lyctor. (No civilian has seen a Lyctor for thousands of years. But the information you do have speaks of astonishing power. Are you intrigued? Do you regard it as an even more stellar opportunity for the Master Warden? Do Lyctors have access to interesting material for the archives? Does the possibility of your son becoming an immortal finger and gesture of god ever feel strange?)

A few months later, some fragments come back in a box. There's nothing left of Camilla at all. No one will tell you anything. Every House but the Third and the Ninth has lost its head or heir (the poor girl your son loved is dead. You're never going to get another overly-formal letter from the Fifth begging for Lyctoral documents from your archive.)

Then the Master Warden makes contact from beyond the grave to tell you that the saintly founder of your House left a plan in place in case it ever became necessary to betray god. He tells you why god should be betrayed.

Suddenly, the Oversight Body has to make a decision. To take your home and 3 million people away from the Dominicus System (away from its thanergetic soil, no more necromancers will ever be born). To break the contract of tenderness made on the day of the Resurrection. Do you have time to call back your soldiers in the Cohort? Do you have to leave them behind? Has the Oversight Body ever felt unanimously about something before? And how frank can you be with the House? You have visiting scholars from almost every House, and who knows where the Bureau have eyes and ears.

There are calculations to make. How to transport a whole House? How do you work out that it takes five hundred and thirty-two obselisks? That there are deleterious effects past five hundred and sixty? How do you find a stele that would anchor such a big thanergy transition? (Only the Fifth make stele. Do you try to do it yourselves? Who do you trust on the Fifth to help with that? Is that why Kester Cinque left Koniortos?)

The Master Warden, who is dead, lives inside the body of Camilla, who is not. He picks you - in your capacity as Master Archivist - to be one of the negotiators. How do you integrate 3 million people into a completely alien society with whom your people have been at war for millennia? How does negotiating with terrorists feel compared to academic committees?

What happens then? One day you just...lose it? The sun rises too bright and too blue and you are in agony, unconnected from yourself, screaming and writhing. And when the thing in the sky is at its furthest orbit from you, in some exhausted moment of clarity, you nearly kill yourself using necromancy to restore your sanity. You blind yourself. Do you think beyond that moment? As someone who deals in documents and artefacts and forms in triplicate, do you mourn your sight alongside everything else you have lost? Your son, your home, your god, your sanity...

And now you are a hostage. Sixteen of you in the back of a sweltering truck, held at gunpoint, always moving. The only thing keeping you alive is the possibility of selling you back to the empire that you've betrayed. Your captors have signed a 'no torture' clause, and perhaps they do stick to that. You're needed for providing proof of life and are probably better off than most. But it's too hot, there's not enough water, you can't see, and the only way out is either that the Master Warden gives Blood of Eden a Lyctor or being released to the mercies of the Kindly Prince. You sit in the dark and do mental maths with each other to stay sane.

Somehow, the Master Warden has done it. Without a Lyctor, he's turned his own cell commander against her fellows and you have been released. Most of the Oversight Body can't even walk out of the truck without help. But you're free, and the Master Warden - now in the stolen body of a Lyctor's cavalier - has the sort of mad scheme only he could come up with. Those mental maths will come in handy. The cell commander isn't bad either...

You can't see your son die again (the last time he speaks to you, from that borrowed body, he calls you 'mum' instead of 'Master Archivist'). But you can smell Camilla’s flesh burn. Perhaps the Commander, holding your arm, describes it to you. You follow this new person, your child, now something else, back into the truck where you were held captive and watch as they drive it into the River.

The Tomb is open. Your child is part of a being of strange and unimaginable power. The House Formerly Known as Sixth is on the other side of the universe. You are on the Ninth with a dead cavalier in the body of her necromancer, the Emperor’s construct, legions of demons, and a very mysterious dog...

Anyway, I'm very excited to see what havoc Juno gets to cause in ATN. She's there to be snarky, do psychometry, and be a romanceable MILF. Let her yell at god. And for goodness sake, let her get some peace at the end.

[hyperlexichypatia]

One time I asked my mom (in her 70s) whether she, personally, knew any people in so-called "traditional marriages." I defined a "traditional marriage" as follows:

A man and a woman, married to each other

They are both each other's first and only spouse, neither has been married before

Neither of them has any children with any other partner

Any children they have were born after the couple was married.

After thinking about it, my mom was able to come up with a few examples of such couples. But only a few. And she had to think about it.

Yet we still live in a society where this type of family is considered "the norm" and the much more common types (blended families, single parents, divorced people) are considered "exceptions."

And this is not the only thing like this! There are many experiences/lifestyles/family types that are treated as The Default or The Norm that, in fact, may not apply to a majority at all!

Even in discussions like "We should remember that not everyone has [normative experience]," it's still framed as though the normative experience is, of course, still the statistical norm. It might not be at all! Or maybe it is the statistical norm worldwide, or nationwide, but not in your particular community, or your social circle.

Sometimes it's necessary to look at global or national statistics to correct your bias of extrapolating from your social circle. Social bubbles are a real problem. But. But. Other times. It's useful to just look at your social circle and ask yourself "Do these population-wide statistics really apply here? Should I be looking at them to determine what's 'normal' instead of just looking around me?"

So here are some things that are culturally assumed in the U.S. to be "the norm", that you might want to ask yourself: How many people do I know personally that this is actually true of? (Other countries have their own maybe-not-that-normal norms that I'm not as familiar with, but feel free to weigh in on).

How many people do you know personally who:

Have a "traditional marriage" as described above?

Have a work schedule of Monday through Friday, ending at 5:00 p.m.? i.e. for whom Saturdays, Sundays, and evenings after 5:00 are "not at work" time?

Attended residential college from ages 18 to 22, and graduated with a bachelor's degree by age 23?

Had most or all of their college tuition and living expenses paid for by their parents?

Have, as an adult, the same surname as both of their parents, who were and still are, married to each other? Which was their father's surname which their mother took at marriage? i.e. whose parents could accurately be referred to as "Mr. and Mrs. [that persons' same surname]"?

Don't take any regular daily medicine?

Depending on your social circle, you might know very few people in these categories! But you probably still hear people say unquestioned, taken-for-granted things like "We should have the meeting at 6:00, so people can come after work," or "Of course parents of college students should have a say, since they're paying for it."

In many demographics, these things aren't just "not always true"; they're hardly if ever true. I wrote here about the false assumption that college students are uniformly single, childless young adults. Are you scheduling your events on the assumption that evenings and weekends are free time? For that matter, how many child care providers serve families during the hours that most parents actually work? Are we ready to admit that these things aren't the norm yet?

[moonchild-in-blue]

So, I have recently noticed that out of all of Sleep Token's discography, there are exactly only 3 songs where Vessel isn't addressing someone directly as a dialogue (doesn't use the words you/we), and 2 of those he still mentions someone in the 3rd person.

Atlantic - doesn't use you/we. The second person (you) is implied, but the song is mostly about Vessel/his inner monologue and memories. If I'm not mistaken this is the ONLY song that mentions him crying sobbing (I've barely begun and I'm already sad).

call me // flood me // weather me // etc

Alkaline - doesn't use you/we but spends the whole song describing someone and how she affects him.

she is changing me // her molecules // she's not acid nor alkaline // i'm caught up with her design // etc

Distraction - doesn't use you/we, and the main focus is on him. Vessel mentions someone in passing (in the 3rd person), but mainly it's all about him.

she is not like any other (...)

Worth mentioning that the ONLY song that breaks the you/we // dialogue rule, that seems to be solely about Vessel and doesn't reference any other person is DYWTYLM, if you go with the most common interpretation that this is Vessel talking to himself/his reflection.

[of course it's up to personal interpretation but to me this is what makes the most sense]

Why is this interesting? BECAUSE, in literally every other song, his feelings about the person, their relationship, and even his own position tend to change a lot.

Sometimes Vessel gets extremely passive agressive and angry at them (I see you Granite). Others he is just pouring out his love and desire, and being the most romantic individual ever. Sometimes they are someone to defend or be guarded by, others they are a menace and dangerous; someone to walk away from. All of these are things he says directly to them, even if he does flourishes and dances around the question.

And yet, in all 3 of those songs, they are always painted as someone who is "good" and "unlike any other", who protects them, who is "more than he could ask for". Someone whom he loves and is content with. In Alkaline, where he mostly just talks about her, Vessel describes her as "either born in hell or heaven sent" and goes on about the dichotomy of her being, but is ultimately "into it". At no point he shows remorse or discontent regarding her.

On the other hand, he is always suffering in them (technically he is always suffering anyways but-). In none of these songs does Vessel ever takes the role of someone who could retaliate. Of someone who is strong. If we look at Atlantic and Distraction (and DYWTYLM if you want to), the only songs pretty much solely about him, he is always in pain, on the verge of collapsing completely. Even Alkaline, he is glad to be consumed and entangled by her.

In those songs, Vessel is crumbling and sobbing and falling apart, and begging to be "put to sleep"; he is willing to be drowned because "it's too late for him", offering no resistance; he is wishing to be someone else, wishing to love himself and "smile back at him", as he knows he should.

When talking directly to them, Vessel is as loving and sweet as he is angry and hurt by them. And yet on the very, very few occasions he talks to only to himself, he is always seeking refuge and declaring his love for them, while running from himself and begging for death.

Also interesting to point out that, with the exception of DYWTYLM, all of them belong to This Place Will Become Your Tomb. The depression album. The "let me be taken by the cold waves and sink to the bottom of the ocean so I don't feel anymore pain" album.

[toournextadventure]

everyone but her pt.39

Summary: Everything is starting to play tricks on you, and all you really want is for Wednesday to swoop in and fix it. Even if only for a moment.

Word Count: 4.5k Warnings: swearing, injury, shock, grief, suggestive themes at the end Pairing: Wednesday Addams x Reader (everyone but her Masterlist)

Ringing echoed in your ears. It felt so deep that you could almost feel your teeth vibrating. At least it was a feeling. Something other than the unusual mix of numbness and the heavy weight that had settled in your stomach. The ringing was some sort of distraction from the stench of the hospital.

Underneath the dried blood, your skin itched. A nice contrast to the way it usually felt like it was crawling. Your dirty nails peeled the dried flakes of blood off your skin subconsciously. Piece by piece, falling to the floor like rusted snow. Beneath your hands, resting on the ground, a tiny horrific winter wonderland was being born.

You couldn’t see it. The blackness had crept upon your vision, leaving you with something that was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. A small pinprick of the spot in front of you, distorted and distant and looking like nothing more than a speck of light in the pitch black.

The doctors were saying something to Yoko. You wouldn’t know; you hadn’t been able to hear anything aside from the ringing for… you didn’t know how long. Time moved both too fast and too slow. Existence seemed to crawl by at a snail’s pace, and yet it felt like you were ageing with each shaky, pained breath you took.

That grounding hand on your knee disappeared, leaving you with nothing but the small speck of light and the itching of your skin. The ringing started to dull, slowly becoming overwhelmed by muffled voices. It started off low, almost inaudible, growing into what could almost be recognised. Something familiar.

Something angry.

You blinked hard once, twice, squeezing your eyes shut the third time. When you opened them, the tunnel vision started to pull back, revealing two tiles on the floor, then four, then letting them take over your vision. There was something powdery beneath your hands. Had it come from you?

Two sets of shoes stepped into your still-growing field of view. A pair of boots and a pair of heels. Both black. Neutral. Safe. It was like Wednesday. Black was safe. Your eyes slowly raked up from the shoes to the legs, to the waist, then finally up to the face.

Bianca. She was safe too.

“What did you do?” She asked, demanded, her voice ringing crystal clear in your ears.

Maybe she wasn’t safe.

She’s accusing you, the voice said, almost sounding more clear than Bianca. You killed her girlfriend. You blinked hard again. You’re a killer. No, that couldn’t be right. Right? No, of course not. No one could have died. Why would they have died?

Everyone around you dies.

“We didn’t do anything,” Yoko said. In contrast to Bianca’s, her voice sounded far weaker, almost uncertain. That couldn’t be right. “You should be happy we even found them at all.”

“Are you here for-”

“-Yes,” Bianca said quickly, interrupting whom you assumed to be the doctor.

You tried to see who they were, to finally get a firm grip on what was going on, but it was like you were moving through molasses. No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t move fast enough. It was like a bad dream, one of the ones where you tried to save someone but you just couldn’t get your feet to run faster.

“You can all come with me,” the doctor said by the time you finally managed to look at her. “We put them both in the same room.”

Bianca didn’t wait for either of you to follow. You didn’t blame her. A pale hand reached across your gaze before resting on your arm. It slowly slid down until it cupped your elbow and gently pulled upward. Oh. Oh, of course, you should follow. The creak of your knee was horrifically loud in your ears. You wondered if the entire hospital had heard it.

Yoko’s hand never strayed from your elbow as she helped you down the hallway to the room. Did she think you were incapable of getting there on your own? She may have been older, but you weren’t a child. Even as you tripped over the floor when the toe of your shoe scuffed the tile.

You’re incompetent, the voice chided. A feeble killer.

“They’re stable,” you heard the doctor saying when you walked through the doorway. “They should wake up soon.”

She politely pushed past you then, leaving you alone in the room with Yoko and Bianca. And two corpses. No, they were alive, the doctor had said so. Stable even. As long as you didn’t have to look at them, they would be okay. Your mind couldn’t play tricks on you if you didn’t look.

“What happened?” Bianca asked after a few moments of tense silence. “I need the truth.”

“I already told you,” Yoko started with a sigh.

Her hand vanished from your elbow while she rambled on, talking about what had happened out in the forest. At least you assumed that’s what she was saying; each word from her mouth was melding with the next, leaving nothing but a constant stream of noise.

Look at them.

You didn’t want to.

Look at what you caused.

Your eyes raised from the hole you were attempting to stare into the ground. All of your insides were screaming, telling you something was wrong. The usually pristine white bed sheets were soaked, dripping steaming blood onto the sterile tile below. Yoko’s voice was drowned out by a flatline that grew louder with each heartbeat from your own chest. Bandages were soaked through and they were looking at you with ghastly white eyes. You wanted to scream.

But you couldn’t move.

It was like that story Wednesday had read to you at Nevermore; I have no mouth, and I must scream.

It burned in your throat. Like swallowing hot coals, one by one, devouring them before they devoured you in return. You weren’t sure what it felt like to drink fire, but this must have been close. There wasn’t even any saliva left in your mouth to ease the scorching heat threatening to bubble past your lips.

If only you could open your mouth.

A cold hand slipped into your own from behind. Small, seemingly fragile even though you knew the strength it held underneath the skin. All it took was a squeeze of her hand in yours, and the acid rising up your throat started to recoil, slithering back to whatever crevice it had crawled out of.

It wasn’t just the feel of her hand that tamed your nerves; it was her very presence. The moment you felt her beside you, the pools of blood on the tiles started to absorb into the tiles. Each drip from the bed sheets slowed down until they stopped completely. And each set of nightmarishly white eyes closed until you were standing in a normal hospital room again.

You had always been in a normal hospital room.

Voices - muffled and high pitched - came from behind you before quickly ending up in front of you. The air in the room grew lighter, and you inhaled slowly through your nose. Your lungs then exhaled in relief, the burning ache easing into nothingness. There were plenty of people in the room, you could tell, but you just looked back down at the floor.

Wednesday’s black platforms made for a wonderful focus point.

“Why were you in the woods?”

Bianca’s voice was grating against your ears. It didn’t sound any different than normal, but something about it made your skin crawl. Someone cleared their voice. It was a wet sound; too fleshy for your liking.

“You asked me to go with you.” That was Ash. She didn’t sound dead.

“What do you mean?” Bianca asked, and you finally looked back up. Everyone had gone dead silent. “I was in my apartment.”

“No you weren’t,” Ash said. Her voice sounded raw as she cleared her throat again. “You asked me to go on a morning walk with you.”

“When have I ever wanted a morning walk?” Bianca asked not unkindly as she gently took Ash’s hand in hers.. “Mornings are the worst part of the day.”

Everyone turned their heads slowly to look at you. Why would they be looking at you? You weren’t Bianca; you didn’t even look the same. Besides, you had an alibi, and everyone tended to believe Yoko about things. She was your best friend, but she had made it clear over all the years that she would call you out if need be.

“What about you?” Ajax asked the other bed; Joel’s eyes were slowly opening too. “Who did you follow?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a similarly croaky voice to Ash. “I don’t remember anything after going to sleep.”

Wednesday squeezed your hand again, holding on tightly for a few seconds longer than usual. It was grounding. The longer you stared at Ash and Joel, the more their bandages started to bleed. But each time Wednesday moved, or touched you, or spoke, the bleeding would dissipate. Slowly. Surely.

“Have the police come in yet?” Divina asked. “They were still outside when we got here.”

“Not yet,” Yoko said. She looked at you; you weren’t paying any attention. “But I’m sure we’ll have to.”

“Get lawyers,” Kent said. “No one’s pressing charges, but you can’t trust cops.”

Everyone mumbled in agreement.

“My family will assist with the lawyers,” Wednesday said. “We maintain a list of all attorneys we currently have on retainer.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Bianca grumbled. You didn’t hear her say she didn’t want the list, though.

“Moreno is on his way,” Wednesday said directly to you.

You knew she was speaking to you because her voice lost its edge. The purposefully professional tone she kept around everyone else - though it slipped more and more with each day - didn’t exist with you. Instead she was soft, almost even kind; something she kept reserved just for you. Only Uncle Fester received the same treatment, and that was something you were okay with.

Something sealed your lips together from the inside. You wanted to say something to her; scream out that you were scared. There was too much red, things didn’t seem real. But you couldn’t even tell her a simple “thank you.” Instead, you just nodded once and blinked slowly. You hoped she understood.

—---

You could feel the exhaustion settling in your bones as Moreno walked out of the interrogation room with you. His hand rested between the connecting point of your wings. Fingers scratched between the joints and kept you grounded. Something usually only Wednesday did, but it worked just about the same, you supposed.

Wednesday was sitting in one of the chairs in the lobby of the police station. The tunnel vision from earlier returned; you could only see her. Her, in your worn out hoodie that added just a splash of colour to her usually black repertoire. It looked almost unnatural, yet not unpleasant.

She looked tired.

It’s your fault if she is.

Moreno stopped you in front of Wednesday and started saying something to her. You couldn’t decipher any of it. The only thing you could hear was the difference in who was talking. It seemed they were having a conversation. Well, that was typically what happened when people talked, so of course they were.

Talking about you.

Yes, you could have guessed that on your own. Maybe they were talking about how you were going to jail again. Surely that couldn’t be too far out of the realm of possibility. Maybe it was for the best. Clearly nothing was going right, maybe it would be safer if you were in prison.

Cold hands pressed against your cheeks and tilted your head down. You blinked hard once, forcing your vision to come back. You couldn’t even be concerned about how you had gotten back into your apartment. It was so far detached from the numbness of the situation.

You just didn’t care.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said softly. It was too soft for Wednesday Addams. A shiver went down your spine.

Her hands lingered on your face for a moment, nails scratching against your jaw. Comfort. Your eyes fell shut as you let yourself feel. The sharpness of her nails against your skin. The shocking cold of her hands in comparison to the warmth of her body pressed against yours. You felt… love.

“In any other situation,” Wednesday said as her arms slid down your neck and arms, “the blood would look lovely on you.”

It should have upset you. The blood belonged to your friend and you should have been upset. You were soaked in it, to the point where your clothes were stiff and your skin itched. But it didn’t. Instead, you felt a warmth in your chest, slowly pushing out the cold that had been tightly nestled into your ribcage.

Wednesday’s hands slipped into yours and pulled. It didn’t take an ounce of brain power to follow wherever she was taking you. The hardwood of the floor turned into tile, and you looked around at the bathroom. A simple room; you would have expected nothing less from her. A clawfoot tub against the wall and a shower across the room.

She let go of your hands to start filling up the tub.

You knew the steps to getting into the bath. Take your shoes off, remove your clothes, and step in. Simple steps, something children could do on their own. Yet you couldn’t get your body to do it. It was too busy staying locked up, refusing to move. Your body felt heavy, like you were trapped underneath rubble and couldn’t get out.

Air caught in your throat when cold hands slid underneath your shirt. Flinching because Wednesday had touched you was humiliating. You hadn’t done it in… you didn’t know how long. She wouldn’t think you were scared of her, would she? Oh god, what if she did? You didn’t think you could handle that.

She’ll think you’re a coward.

“May I?” She asked, eyes uncharacteristically wide.

The words still wouldn’t form on your tongue, so you settled for nodding instead. She gave you that little smile that most wouldn’t even notice before gently taking the hem of your shirt and helping you out of it. Most of the blood was dried, but you still felt a few sticky parts catching your skin. The scalding water filling the tub had already left the bathroom full of steam, so it wasn’t cold when you were bare to the world.

You still shivered anyway.

She held you steady as she helped you out of your stiff jeans. You didn’t know when you had taken your shoes off. Wednesday’s hands kept you steady. She was far sturdier than she seemed. The water was far too hot, but you wouldn’t say anything. If Wednesday Addams had one guilty pleasure, it was a painfully hot bath.

“Wait,” you said when Wednesday started removing the jacket. She froze and looked at you, waiting. “I can help.”

“I’ll only be a moment,” she said. You simply nodded and turned back to face the water.

It would have made anyone laugh if they saw the tub in Wednesday’s apartment. Hot water, fresh black roses on a small table nearby, and a relaxing bubble bath that created a wonderful aroma in the air. Rather soft for what people typically associated with the Addamses. Oh how wrong they were.

The water parted as Wednesday stepped in, quickly straddling your lap. There was nothing scandalous in the position; it was one of comfort, nothing more. It often led to the perfect position for her to help you wash your hair, which was enough of a battle on a normal day. The second upside was your wings could rest on the outside of the tub, staying perfectly dry.

“Stay still,” she demanded, though it held no venom. Her words never held the same sting as they used to. Sometimes you missed it.

Not all the time, obviously. But sometimes.

While one of her hands gripped your chin, the other grabbed a wet washcloth and started washing the grime off your body. It’s blood, the voice made sure to remind you. Your friend’s blood. You bit your tongue to distract yourself from that very fact.

It didn’t distract from the knowledge that you were literally bathing in Ash’s blood.

“Would you find any sort of comfort in talking?” Wednesday asked. “It doesn’t have to be about what happened.” You exhaled slowly through your nose. “It can be about any topic you wish.”

Your thumb rubbed against her hip bone. Did you want to talk about anything? Though you had stayed silent for the majority of the day, you worried that if you opened your mouth, nothing would come out. Or worse, you would fall into uncontrollable sobbing and wouldn’t be able to stop.

But Wednesday was offering, and she so rarely offered.

“Am I bad luck?” You asked.

The washcloth stopped moving for only a moment.

“No,” she said simply. “You are not bad luck.” Her thumb rubbed underneath your eyes. “You simply have a penchant for getting yourself into complicated situations.”

You choked on a laugh. “Did Wednesday Addams just try to sugarcoat my apparent proclivity for trouble?”

“I would never stoop to such a level,” she quickly attempted to defend herself. “I’m simply saying perhaps it’s not all you.”

“Maybe not,” you mumbled. A smile slowly formed on your lips. “Maybe it’s Yoko.”

“What?” She asked.

“Yoko.” You weren’t necessarily looking at Wednesday, but you felt her hands rubbing the product into your hair. “She’s always with me when I get in trouble.”

Wednesday hummed in reply. “You may have a point.” The corner of her mouth tilted upward. “She is a rather unlucky vampire.”

“Exactly,” you said as you leaned your head down so she could better reach the back of it. “I would bet money she’s the reason I’m always in trouble.”

Wednesday smiled. It was her equivalent of a laugh, and you adored it. Even though you would kill to hear her actual, verbal laugh, you had become obsessed with her smile. There was nothing more beautiful, more perfect. The sight alone made your heart skip a beat in the best way.

You wanted to see it for the rest of your life.

That will never happen, the voice taunted. It sounded deeper. Sinister. She will abandon you once she learns how dangerous you are to those you love.

After what had just happened… you couldn’t disagree.

“You’re thinking rather loudly,” she said. You hadn’t noticed she had finished with your hair. “Would you care to share those thoughts?”

No. No, you didn’t want her to know about the voice in your head and how it was right. You hurt those who loved you. Everyone that had ever felt any sort of affection for you had gotten hurt. Fuck, Nicky had gotten killed. How could you explain that to anyone without sounding like either a jinx or a superstitious lunatic?

You couldn’t let her know.

“Do you think Ash really saw Bianca?” You asked instead, doing your best to change the topic before Wednesday caught on to your original train of thought. “Or, I mean, do you think she thought she saw B?”

Wednesday’s hands rested on your shoulders, and her thumbs rubbed against either side of your neck. They were perfectly poised over your jugular; a spot she was rather fond of. You didn’t know if it was because of the power it gave her, or if she simply liked knowing how vulnerable you willingly were around her. All you knew was you kind of liked it.

“If she did,” she started slowly, “then it must have been a hallucination.” Her eyes trailed off to the side. “Or perhaps a shapeshifter.”

“They said the wounds were from claws,” you said. “Shapeshifters usually don’t have claws.”

“Perhaps a werewolf then,” Wednesday continued. “Though it wasn’t a full moon.”

“Enid can grow claws whenever she wants,” you pointed out. “Full moon or not.”

“We should be putting this on my investigation board,” she said.

She didn’t give you any time to object or even fully comprehend what she had suggested. The next thing you knew, she was already getting out of the tub and drying off with her towel; a black, monogrammed towel you had managed to get her for her birthday. You tried not to stare, but she did look rather good with it wrapped around her.

“Are you coming?” She asked.

“Yes ma’am,” you said quickly.

Wednesday was already leaving the bathroom by the time you managed to start emptying out the tub. Of course she would leave you with cleanup. Once a spoiled rich kid, always a spoiled rich kid. The thought made you smile to yourself. Ah, but she was your spoiled rich kid, that was for sure.

By the time you had managed to get out, dry the floor, and dry yourself off, Wednesday had already gotten dressed and set up some sort of board in the living room. You peaked at it on the way to the bedroom. Shit, she had been serious, you didn’t have any time to waste. You hastily threw on a pair of old sweats and pulled the sweater over your head. It was a good thing she was too busy looking at her board to watch you squirm to pull your wings through the holes on the back.

“Did you have this at Nevermore?” You asked as you finally managed to look at the black board. It was littered with notecards and- were those autopsy photos?

“Yes,” she said without turning away from the board. You did your best not to notice that she was wearing another one of your sweaters. And no pants. “I’ve had it since I was nine.”

“Sounds normal enough,” you said with a subconscious nod to yourself. “What else would a nine year old girl want?”

“You said the injuries came from claws?” Wednesday asked.

Okay, no room for small talk, she was in serious mode. That certainly hadn’t happened in a while. It was a lovely look on her; all business. You had missed it. But when she still wouldn’t look at you, you pouted. You hadn’t missed that.

“That’s what the doctor said,” you confirmed. “At least, that’s what Yoko said the doctor said.”

Wednesday nodded once and put something up on the board with a thumb tack. “Plus the possibility of a hallucination.” She tacked a second piece of paper on the board. “What’s the connection?”

“Maybe Bianca’s just a secret psychopath,” you grumbled. This wasn’t turning out to be as fun as you thought.

“I had considered it,” she said, “but it’s rather unlikely.” She turned her body toward you slightly. “Weren’t you and Yoko attacked as well?”

“Yeah,” you said slowly. Was it bad you had practically forgotten your own attack? “But we didn’t see anything, it just… happened.”

“What was the worst injury?” She asked, already reaching for a stack of cards. At least that’s what they looked like.

“Yoko got a cut on her head,” you said with a shrug. “And a few scratches on her back, I think.”

Wednesday turned quickly to look at you. “You’re alright?”

You tried not to smile. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

She nodded to herself and turned back to the board. It wasn’t like she hadn’t just seen you in the bath, though you supposed your body was a bit obscured by the bubbles she just had to have. But you knew better than to bring that up. She wasn’t too keen on being teased about her super secret love for bubble baths.

“Preliminary evidence leans toward a werewolf,” she said as she tacked up another card, this one looking like a picture. “Though obviously we’ll need to do some more research.”

“Research?” You asked, standing up straighter. The pop in your knee was not hurting; you were just getting old.

“Whatever it is has attacked my-” you raised your brow as she cleared her throat “-your friends.”

“Nuh uh,” you said as you grabbed her hand and pulled her around. “Joel is all yours, mi vida.” She exhaled through her nose. “And admit it, Ash is your friend too.”

She seemed to think for a moment. “It might also take the pressure off Enid for those fraternity murders last year.”

You sighed. Well, you hadn’t gotten her to admit they were her friends, but at least she hadn’t openly denied it. That was a start if you had ever seen one. Slow, baby steps with Wednesday.

Baby steps.

“Are we going to be doing this all night?” You asked.

Wednesday turned to look at you with a smile so big you almost, almost, saw her teeth.

“Can I at least get a kiss as motivation?” You asked with a sigh.

Her hands held your head in place as she stood up on her toes and kissed you. She tasted uncharacteristically sweet, as if she had been eating candies recently. Coupled with the warmth that had seeped into her skin thanks to the bath, it was almost like you were kissing a Wednesday from another dimension.

But you could still taste the bitter undertones of black coffee, and her fingers had already lost their warmth, and only your Wednesday let her fingers gently hook on either side of your jaw to give her complete control. Only your Wednesday knew just how to kiss you so you felt utterly wanted, loved, desired even.

“Motivated yet?” She asked, her lips still moving against yours.

You shook your head and bent down, wrapping your arms around the backs of her thighs and picking her up. She inhaled sharply, nearly taking your breath away. But that didn’t stop her from wrapping her legs around your waist and pulling your face closer. Not quite into a kiss, but just to hold you close.

“Just a little more,” you said softly.

You couldn’t tell her you couldn’t look at the board yet. That just the thought of finding out who had done something to Ash and Joel was enough to hammer away at what little sanity you had left. She loved mysteries, and you weren’t going to stop her from it.

But a little distraction from the world wouldn’t hurt. You could get your distraction, she could get a clear head, and you would both be all the better for it. After all, maybe if you were lucky, she would test out a few methods of, ahem, marking to see how possible they were.

For her research board, of course.

[hero-israel]

Let me tell you being a former Christian this shit goes so much deeper than a lot of born Jews realize. The Christian worldview (specifically Calvinist/Puritan) seeping into and pervading all of modern leftism is honestly frightening. But also it's very funny.

They believe that there are Good people and Bad people, and that any mistake or lapse in judgment or instance of not being educated is a Mask Off moment, showing who is a member of the Elect and who is not. If you fuck up, that's not just a fuck up, it's Revealing. You are damned, were always damned, you were just good at hiding it, and now we know the truth and are doubly angry because not only are you evil, you lied about it. The only recourse is to shun you, and if that leads to your death, so be it. Anyone who's seen any micro celebrity get canceled saw this in action.

And the only way you can prove you're a member of the Elect is to operate as if you have nothing to hide. You have to loudly and proudly proclaim your righteousness. If you don't have anything to hide why would you be worried? Privacy is suspicious. You Must Speak on everything they deem important or else you obviously agree with the Bad People. There is no room for discussion or healthy debate. There are no loopholes or subclauses or other points of view to consider. You're with us or against us. If you don't constantly go around saying you're with us, you're probably secretly against us. The only way to convince your neighbors, whom you inherently distrust, that you're one of the Good Ones, is to perform righteousness, parrot righteous words. The only way to redeem yourself is by grandiose acts of self flagellation, perhaps being the right demographic, or by accusing others of Heresy.

The goal is not to bring good into the world, it's to recruit more people into the same thought patterns (that's kind of all Christian denominations though). Because if you can convince your community that you're one of the Elect, that means G-d preselected you for Heaven, and you're golden. No repercussions or consequences baby. The only material benefit for you is that you "get" to proclaim you're going to Heaven and everyone has to agree with you. If anyone doesn't they're probably going to Hell anyway. You're on the right side (of history), so why should you ever self reflect or grow? Why should you question anything? Why should nuance or empathy exist? This is about Right and Wrong. We know where we stand, where do you stand?

Every single aspect of American culture and politics, right and "left" alike, was planted by the pilgrims, and it is so fundamentally antithetical to true Leftist thought. Remember all the actually successful Western Leftist movements were started in Europe (and Israel cough cough)... because they kicked all their fucking psychotic Calvinists out. Those people went to America and that's a big big big reason why we don't have any near as much of a robust Leftist movement as even socially conservative European countries (and Israel cough cough). And what's funny is I still find myself slipping into these thought patterns, which is so not compatible with Jewish philosophy or theology. It's been years and I'm still not done.

It's a hell of a drug to kick, so I definitely don't trust white goysiche college kids who've been antitheists for about 6 months since they left their Republican parents' homes to have any great success in unlearning and unprogramming from this. Which is kind of obvious in that I see them acting just like their conservative Christian parents every day on every social media platform, swap out a gun toting white Jesus with some noble savage idea of Palestine, absolving the West of its sins against the Global South.

It is a cult structured around spiritual isolation, antisocial behavior, and it is inherently against any kind of political movement that centers and celebrates the Community. It is designed to tear communities apart and foster obedience to whatever authority can force itself on them. And this has been going on for almost 500 years, there is nothing we can do about it.

Thank you for the insightful look. Their "purity culture" approach definitely had to come from somewhere.