and i’m sorry but why does this lady keep interacting with these white supremacist? first, tucker carlson, candace owens, and NOW ben shapiro!!? how insane is this!? like whatever reason ben shapiro has with megan he has with you too nicki!? you make sexual songs and shake your ass too?!? you are one of many pioneers of sexually liberating rap, whatever he said about megan it’s applied to you too nicki! whether you think so or not! then she platforms him to her insane barbz it’s ridiculous honestly. you made these black women empowerment songs/verses just for you to disregard them. protecting black women means for EVERY black woman even the ones you don’t like. you are not fundamental for black girls. you quote tweet these conservative white men on your platform to belittle megan, like they wouldn’t belittle you too in a new york second like…. LMAOOO. rest please, im begging! watch she turn into a evangelical she-devil in like 10 years or so!

Dany antis:

We have to understand that Mirri was devastated over her town and the abuse she suffered. To empathize. She’s a “hero” therefore, for killing a BABY.

We do NOT have to understand that Daenerys was devastated over the loss of her husband and child. She does not deserve empathy despite her losses. She’s “evil” for killing a grown woman who killed a baby.

We have to understand the culture of wealthy grown educated men who have subjected human beings to slavery for hundreds of years.

Oh, but they weren’t alive for hundreds of years! We can’t hold that against them!

But we also can’t deny them the benefit of the excuse that they’ve done this for hundreds of years.

We do NOT have to understand the culture of a teenage girl who is a Khaleesi of the Dothraki, who kills the wine seller for trying to kill her and her baby.

Because she killed him painfully. We don’t care that Varys suggested killing her with the tears of Lys, and remember that the victim dies an agonizing death. We don’t think about the morals of a painful death when the intended victim is Daenerys.

The same applies to when she crucified the slavers. We’re going to insist she did it indiscriminately, even though we know she didn’t kill a single woman who would have had less power, or child who would be entirely innocent, nor did she kill random civilians, they were all nobles. All slavers. But there are innocent slavers! Innocent slavers are definitely a thing.

The people who make laws that are not up to modern standards, like Daenerys, are evil.

But the people who follow those laws, like Ned beheading a man for running away from the dead, or Jon who beheaded a man for refusing to follow an order, or Robb who threatened to hang a man if he didn’t join the war against the Lannisters, aren’t.

Daenerys may have warned the slavers she would show no mercy if they didn’t free the slaves and pay them reparations, but she should have given them a trial even though they own the system.

It’s true they were all slavers, but if she was punishing them for being slavers, she should have killed all of them. The fact she didn’t kill all of them shows it wasn’t about justice, so she’s evil.

But she was also wrong for wanting to kill all of them, and Jorah talked her out of it. The fact he had to talk her out of it shows she’s evil.

And then when Daario tried to talk her into slaughtering them Red Wedding style, and she refused, that’s also proof she’s evil because Daario represents her evil nature.

We can empathize with the slavers! Because we might have done the same thing! We all like to think we’d stand against slavery, but if it’s our culture we might not. And we might stand by while our friends torture 163 children to death to spite an abolitionist.

We say we empathize with the slaves, too, but it’s more we sympathize with them. We understand that they are victims. We don’t see ourselves in their place. We don’t empathize with the anger the parents of those children felt. They follow Dany blindly. They don’t understand choice. That’s why they follow her.

What we CANNOT empathize with (because we know we would NEVER) is a teenage girl who walked along a road lined with the corpses of children who were tortured to death to spite her. We know a GOOD ruler would be stalwart in the face of such horror and hold a trial. Because even though the slavers own all the systems in existence in that city, there’s no way a trial could have caused the death of lesser evil instead of greater. Trials are foolproof!

She should have killed them all or tried to have every one of them examined by witnesses who are profoundly biased. We cannot empathize with that.

Dany’s attachment to the Dothraki shows her savagery. The Dothraki are rapists and slavers and she lusted after her husband when he made that speech and so it doesn’t matter how she tried to fight rapists later. They are all terrible. The Khals are monsters and she loved one, so that shows she’s a monster.

Also, she’s evil for killing the Khals.

She was wrong for sacking Astapor and Yunkai but not staying to rule them. She made it worse because poverty is as bad as slavery and the freed slaves are not able to build their own society, and she should have known that. She was wrong for not staying and ruling them.

She was also wrong for staying in Meereen and ruling it because that makes her a colonizer.

She agrees to allow adults to sell themselves into temporary slavery, and that’s wrong, because voluntary indentured servitude is as bad as generational chattel slavery-except when it’s in Westeros! The rulers in Westeros are rightful, but Daenerys was trying to enslave them by having them bend the knee! She was using the privilege of her father’s name, and it’s different when the Starks do it.

Dragons are evil. They serve no good purpose and she’s evil because she has dragons.

Also, Jon should have a dragon.

When Arya met the Lannister soldiers, and Ed Sheeran, that was to show how she realized that they are not all bad. This shows that sometimes enemies are good. This will show that we should empathize with enemies. That Dany is bad because she doesn’t even though she agrees to help the Starks, whose father supported the man who murdered her brother, and was not disturbed by the murder of her niece and nephew. Who would have killed a baby, had he known Jon was her nephew. Who would have killed her.

This does not apply to Daenerys and her armies, of course. The North was one hundred percent right to treat her with hostility.

Daenerys considered killing Tyrion when she met him! This shows that she is willing to kill people just because they are related to enemies! She’s evil!

Even though she named Tyrion her Hand. Even though she agreed to aid the North with no strings attached once she saw the army of the dead. Even though she accepted Varys into her service when he’d tried to have her murdered. Varys being part of the plan to sell a teenage girl into sexual slavery was not evil because she turned that to her advantage.

Dany was wrong for even considering killing Tyrion despite the fact that she didn’t and ultimately named him her Hand.

She was wrong for killing the Tarlys even though they were oathbreakers who killed their own friends and attacked their liege’s home. Even though the punishment for oath breaking is death. Even though they refused to bend the knee in exchange for keeping their lives, lands and titles, which is standard procedure in Westeros. Even though they refused the Wall, where Tarly sent his eldest son.

She didn’t kill them for oathbreaking or murdering her allies. She killed them for not bending the knee! Even though she only attacked them after they did that, and she did not harm Jon when he refused to bend the knee, she allowed him to mine her dragonglass, and offered to provide men and resources to help.

Sam was not wrong for hating Daenerys for killing his father, even though he was an oathbreaker, an abuser, and threatened to kill Sam. Even though he said that nothing would give him more pleasure than telling Sam’s mother that her son died. Even though Sam knew of Dany’s great deeds from Aemon. It’s understandable that he would still mourn his father. Even if his father was a monster, we have to empathize with his anger.

YET Daenerys is dead wrong for calling out Jaime for murdering her father. Her father was a monster! How dare she feel anything about his murder! She had no right to object to Jaime’s presence at Winterfell, even though he tried to kill her on the battlefield and said straight out said he wasn’t sorry for all he’d done and would do it again to protect his family.

She was wrong for restoring the family name of the man who killed her brother and cheered the brutal murders of her niece and nephew. Because she only legitimized Gendry for personal gain, even though he could have done the opposite of joining her, and tried to take the throne himself.

She is wrong if she is good to the family of her enemies because she is self serving, and she is wrong if she’s not good to them because it’s not their fault.

The Starks are not wrong for judging Daenerys by her father’s actions even though she came to help save them. Sansa is not wrong for wanting to evict children from their homes because their families were traitors.

When the Starks are suspicious of the family members of those who’ve harmed them, it’s fair. They are being smart.

When Daenerys is suspicious of the family members of those who’ve harmed her, it’s proof of her being paranoid like her father.

When Sansa told Jon that the free folk should join their fight against Ramsay, that they owed it to him because he’d saved their lives, that was smart!

When she told Arya “you should be on your knees, thanking me,” she had every right to assert her accomplishments.

YET, Daenerys was very entitled to want the North to fight Cersei with her in exchange for her helping them defeat the army of the dead, even though Cersei was their enemy too, and she sent them a letter saying “come bend the knee or face the fate of all traitors.”

It was not wrong of Jon to tell the North he bent the knee to save them, even though she said she’d help before he bent the knee.

It’s Dany’s fault the Night King got a dragon even though the wight hunt was Tyrion’s idea and Daenerys did not like it. Even though Jon told her, “I don’t need your permission. I am a king.”

Dany held Jon prisoner even though he had to stay to mine the dragonglass and he stated that he did not need her permission to leave. That’s what being a prisoner means, right?

Daenerys went mad because her family was fraught with incest. This does not imply that Jon will go mad, because his mother was not a Targaryen (even though his mother’s parents were related). Generations of inbreeding unequivocally mean madness, but the ramifications of those generations are undone if one guy at the end of the line produces a child with a woman whose parents were also related. That’s how genetics work, right?

Daenerys is a colonizer. Even though she didn’t have any goal other than destroying the slave trade in Essos. She only did that for selfish reasons even though Yunkai trains bed slaves and neither Meereen nor Yunkai added to her military might. Even though she never forced her religion or language on them. Even though she renounced power over the cities when she left, so that the people could choose their own leaders.

The Starks were never colonizers! Even though the earliest Starks were First Men, who committed genocide against the Children of the Forest. The First Men called themselves the First Men, they did not acknowledge the humanity of the Children. Therefore, the Children were not human.

The First Men destroyed the Children. The Starks built a Wall to separate the dead from the living, but left thousands of living and Children of the Forest at the other side of it. The Starks destroyed the other families, established power over the area, established their religion and language as the official religion and language. The Starks became the Kings of Winter by bringing to heel, and sometimes extinguishing, other families. That’s fine because the Starks are good. That’s not colonizing! The Starks were always good! They killed the warg king and his sons and beasts and then married his daughters. That’s not rape, that’s marriage!

The Targaryens who adapted the Westerosi religion and language and did not in any way repress other religions or languages, were the oppressors.

Dany hardly did anything in the Long Night. Her armies and dragons did not thin out the dead army, making it possible for Arya to kill the Night King. Two dragons can only do so much against an army of 100k. Even though Dany’s army also was over 100K.

YET, she burned MILLIONS in KL (even though the population of KL is under a million and even though I just said she could not have possibly taken out much of the dead army.)

When Daenerys didn’t weep and wring her hands over her abusive brother’s death that was evidence of her turning “mad.” Even though he abused her, sold her, and pressed a sword to her belly and threatened to cut her baby out of her body.

When Sansa smiled as Ramsay screamed, being torn apart by dogs, that was not a sign of anything bad. He abused her!

When Daenerys crucified the slavers even though a trial would have yielded nothing, because they had owned the entire system, that was a sign of her being a villain.

But Varys wasn’t wrong for trying to poison her before she did anything wrong because he sensed what she would do! Instinct > Trials. Unless the “instinct” is Daenerys’. Then it’s paranoia, even when the people she suspects of plotting against her are plotting against her.

When Arya killed two men, baked them into a pie, fed them to their father, slit his throat, smiled faintly as he died, cut off his face, then killed every one of his bannermen, with no knowledge of whether those men had been there at the Red Wedding, or whether they’d spoken against it, that was not a sign of her being a villain. Because if it’s a Stark, we understand complicity.

Besides, Arya is not a ruler. Only rulers do harm. Not explorers! Explorers who believe “I’ll never know her, she’s not one of us”, have never done anything bad in all history. Happy Columbus Day, btw.

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.

Flufftober Day 25 – Resilience AU where robert only went to prison for a few months (shh just go with it)

AO3 link here

When Robert walked through the door, barely 20 minutes after he’d left, Aaron looked up in surprise.

“Hey, you’re back early,” he said, smile turning tentative when he saw the dark look on Robert’s face.

“Wendy showed up at Vic’s.”

Oh.

“Right. Guessing she kicked off at you, then?”

Robert sighed and shrugged his coat off before moving to join Aaron on the sofa.

“Yep.” He picked up Aaron’s legs and sat down, placing them on his lap. “So Vic asked me to leave.”

“Seriously?”

“Said my being there was upsetting her.”

“But Vic invited you round for tea. And what, that cow shows up unannounced so you have to be the one to go?”

“Apparently,” Robert shrugged, looking tired and upset. “Y’know, it was bad enough when Vic used to do it with Andy. But at least then, I got why, we were both her brothers. I didn’t blame her for feeling stuck in the middle. But siding with her, with that scumbag’s family? I don’t understand it.”

Aaron dropped his head back in frustration, silently raging on his husband’s behalf.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, stroking his foot against Robert’s thigh.

It was safe to say, things between Robert and Victoria had been increasingly strained for the last year. Ever since the day he’d whacked Lee Posner over the head with a shovel, really.

Then not long after that day, the news came – Lee was dead. And for a few horrible, terrifying hours that Aaron never, ever wanted to experience again, they’d thought Robert would be going down for murder, only for the doctors to reveal that the cause of death had actually been a ruptured aneurysm. It had been lying there in his brain for months already, and would have soon killed him whether Robert had hit him or not.

It had taken a bloody good, bloody expensive lawyer, but they’d managed to whittle the charge down to GBH. Between Robert’s cooperation with the authorities, his squeaky-clean record and his position as an upstanding member of the community (Aaron had to bite down a smirk when he heard that in the gallery), he was sentenced to just one year in prison. And he barely served six months of it.

But six months was all it had taken for Victoria to fully align herself with the Posners. By the time Robert returned to Emmerdale in the spring, Lee’s family had moved into a cottage in the village, and Vic had formed a new relationship with Lee’s brother, Luke, and bonded with Wendy over Harry. After everything Robert had gone through – what they’d all gone through – the way Victoria welcomed them with open arms was painfully difficult to comprehend.

But Robert had gritted his teeth, tried to get on with things, kept his distance and refused to react to Wendy’s furious screeching. It didn’t matter how many doctors told her otherwise; as far as the old bat was concerned, Robert was the one who’d taken her precious rapist son away and deserved nothing less than a life behind bars. She never missed on opportunity to tell Robert so, either.

Victoria usually put up a half-hearted defence on Robert’s behalf, but refused to actually stick her neck out for him and tell Wendy to back off, too reluctant to rock the boat with her newfound… family? Just the thought of it was enough to make Aaron laugh bitterly.

Now, it was another six months down the line and Robert’s resilience was beginning to waver. He tried to hide how much the constant harassment was getting to him, but Aaron wasn’t fooled. He knew the only thing keeping Robert going at this point was having his support and knowing that, for once, the majority of the village was also firmly on his side. The Posners were the most unpopular residents Emmerdale had seen for quite some time, and it was rare for Wendy to get more than 30 seconds into one of her tirades before one of their neighbours appeared and told her to do one.

At the weary look in Robert’s eyes, Aaron sat up and crossed his legs, leaning into him.

“We can’t go on like this,” he said quietly. “It’s making you miserable.”

“Yeah?” Robert sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What d’you suggest, run her out of the village with pitchforks?”

“Don’t see why not, I can make a few calls. Bet there’d be loads willing to give us a hand, Sam’d definitely lend us the forks if nothing else.”

Robert huffed a small laugh, before sobering quickly and shaking his head. “We can’t start anything with her. I can’t let things escalate like they did with him.”

Him, being Lee. The reason Robert went to prison and the reason why he’d been quiet and cautious ever since, shying away from any confrontation that presented itself to him.

“For Christ’s sake, Rob, we can’t even take Seb out without having to worry about bumping into her.”

“You think I don’t know that? Look, we just have ignore her, she can’t keep it up forever.”

“But Rob – ”

“She’s just waiting for an excuse, Aaron,” Robert snapped, cutting him off. “If I rise to it, if I lose my temper and slip up just once, she’ll be on the phone to the police and trying to get me back inside!”

“That’s not happening, I won’t let it. Six months away from you was more than enough, trust me.” Aaron cupped a hand on Robert’s jaw and tilted his head. “And I was actually thinking of something a little more official.”

He pressed a quick kiss to Robert’s cheek and pushed himself up from the sofa, heading for the kitchen.

“What’re you doing?” Robert frowned at him.

“Hang on a sec.”

Aaron pulled a notebook out of a drawer and returned to sit next to Robert, flipping it open.

“Here.” He pushed it into Robert’s hands.

Robert scanned over Aaron’s handwritten notes, turning the pages slowly.

“What’s… ”

“I started making a note of all the times Wendy’s harassed us. All the times she’s attacked you in the street. Or in the pub, the cafe, wherever. And I’ve put down any witnesses I can remember.” Aaron pointed at some of the names of villagers he’d written down.

“Why?”

“So we can use it as evidence to get a restraining order, make sure she stays away from our family for good.”

Robert’s head shot up to stare at him. “You think that’ll work?”

“I don’t see why not; I’ve looked it up and the shit she’s been pulling definitely fits the criteria. It has to be worth a shot, right?”

Robert paused for a moment, a small smile creeping onto his face. “We live in a tiny village, it’d be nearly impossible for her to keep to it.”

“So if she didn’t want to risk getting arrested, she’d just have to move out of Emmerdale, wouldn’t she?”

Robert’s smile widened into a full-on grin, smug and devious in a way Aaron’s hadn’t seen for a long time.

“That’s brilliant.” His face suddenly fell slightly. “God help us when Vic finds out, she’d be gutted. Not to mention pissed off.”

“I’m gonna say this as nicely as I can.” Aaron hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Vic’s feelings aren’t our problem. Especially considering she hasn’t given a damn about yours these last few months. If she’s angry, then fine, let her be. Then hopefully, in time, she’ll calm down and remember where her loyalties lie.”

Robert sighed, folding the notebook shut. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

“So, we’re doing it?”

“We’re doing it,” Robert said, squeezing Aaron’s hand with his own. “You’re a genius.”

“Been tellin’ you that for years, mate,” Aaron huffed, before his smile turned sheepish. “Alright, technically it was Nicola’s idea.”

“Nicola?”

“Yeah, she heard me complaining about Wendy and gave me some advice about it, told me to start keepin' a record of everything. Says she has a lot of experience with restraining orders, so she knows what she’s talking about.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Thought it best not to ask, if I'm honest.”

Outlander: Never My Love (5x12)

I... Have... Issues.

Cons:

I don't want to blame the show-runners too much for the story-line with Claire, as it is lifted straight from the books. But do you know what occurred to me as I was watching this? The rape was actually completely unnecessary to the story. Like - seriously. Change nothing else. Show Claire being beaten and bloody and tied up, and it's awful and it's hard to watch and the performance is raw and honest and all that jazz.

But why rape? Why rape again? We've already had a story-line about Jamie being raped, and a story-line about Brianna being raped. At some point it's just torture porn. And the fact that she is sexually assaulted makes Jamie and the other men's journey feel like this really gross macho revenge fantasy. Again, I know this is all lifted straight from the books. And let me tell ya - it's one of my least favorite things in the books, too.

They added in this interesting thing where Claire is fantasizing about a happy life in the twentieth century with all her family around her, at Thanksgiving. So we keep cutting between Claire tied up and crying in the forest, and these happy idyllic snapshots, of Jocasta and Murtagh, Ian in a uniform, Marsali and Fergus and their kids, Claire and Jamie happy together. There were things about this idea that I liked, but I had two big problems, as well.

For one thing, the thought that the fantasy Claire escapes to is of the future, of her own time, is... really sad, isn't it? It's not poignant, it's just depressing, to think that while Claire fantasizes about Jamie and the rest of her eighteenth century family, she longs for the trappings and safety of a twentieth century existence. That's not the sense I've gotten from her character at all, that she's still missing her old life. It felt really awkward and out of place.

And secondly, why did Brianna and Roger and Jemmy die in this little fantasy escape of Claire's? I guess it has something to do with the pain she feels at not thinking she'll ever see Bree and Roger again, but it felt out of place in the fantasies, which in turn felt out of place in the scenes.

Speaking of Brianna and Roger... I already felt like last week's goodbyes with them were really tepid and unmotivated. I didn't understand why they were leaving at that exact moment. In the book, as I said, there was a very clear reason for their departure. But here, they go through the stones, and end up back where they started. Ian is startled to see them, and it turns out that when Brianna and Roger thought of home, it took them back to where they started, because the Ridge is home to them now.

Ugh. Barf. That's... way too cheesy for my taste, I'm sorry to say. And it makes last week's weirdly underwhelming goodbye... even more underwhelming. After all of that, the Mackenzies are just content to stay in the past? And it just made the plot more confusing, because this final episode wasn't about them, and their choice to stay after all. It was about rescuing Claire from Lionel Brown. So Roger shows up, Jamie is glad to see the family, but there's no time to really process it - Roger is coming along on the mission to save Claire. Why not change it up, so that Roger and Bree decide to leave, but before they can set off, the attack happens and they have to stay because Claire was taken? Then they could have a talk, after it's all over, about how they don't want to leave while things are so uncertain, and maybe they don't want to leave at all.

This season's timeline is very disjointed to me. We just saw Marsali give birth to her baby girl, right, but now she's pregnant and showing again? When was it that months passed without my noticing? Did anyone else feel some whiplash with all of that?

I'll finish off this "cons" section by circling back to a complaint I already made last week, which is that this did not feel like the natural culmination to a season of television. The Browns were barely characters, the whole subplot about Claire being Dr. Rawlings was hardly a thing. This was a season about Bonnet, about Roger almost dying (and oh boy that didn't get very much screen-time did it?), it was a season about the War of Regulation. This attack on Claire feels like it came out of nowhere and only existed to make something dramatic happen in the finale.

Pros:

Okay so I didn't actually despise this episode, despite my litany of complaints about it.

To start with, while I had some problems with the revenge fantasy aspect of Claire's rescue, I did think the fight choreography was really good and conveyed the brutality of the violence being committed. That's something Outlander very often gets right. The image of Ian and Fergus looking down on Claire as Jamie kneels beside her, so much compassion and honor for their mother-figure... that was really powerful. And Roger taking a life, the significance of that, and the way he confessed it to Brianna in the dark... all of that left quite an impact. I also love how seriously Jamie takes Claire's oath as a doctor, that she will do no harm. It's a great moment from the books that was borrowed here, where Jamie says that Claire cannot kill for herself - "it is I who kills for her."

While I question the whole point of the twentieth century fantasy stuff, it was still fun to see everyone in more modern, recognizable clothing and hair-styles. Very much of the '60's, but still. It was strange to see Marsali with the long straightened hair, and Jocasta and Claire with their conservative shortened styles. Seeing Ian and Jamie in modern garb was legitimately disconcerting, which goes to show how wonderful this show is at total immersion. The setting and time period is very solidly 1760's, and I get totally swept up in that to the point where it was really fascinating and kind of fun to see them all in this different setting.

I'll go ahead and say that Caitriona Balfe did a great job with her performance. It was hard to watch the torture porn but I did appreciate her dedication to Claire's experience, and she did a great job with some frankly clunky dialogue when she was listing all the trauma she's experienced and talking about how she won't be broken by this.

The real show-stealer of the night, though? Marsali. This is the best thing that the show-runners have changed from the book to the show. Placing Marsali in the position as Claire's protege, giving her more personal agency and more to do outside of being a wife and a mother, paying off the difficult beginning of her relationship with Claire. All of this is top-notch stuff. When Claire comes back after Jamie rescues her, we see her and Brianna embrace, and that's sweet or whatever, but I felt so much more when I saw Marsali approach, with her face all bruised, to embrace Claire. They weathered the attack together.

And then Marsali killing Lionel Brown... chills. When she said "I've taken no such oath," and then Jamie finds her and she's freaking out about killing him, asking if she'll go to Hell. There was just so much going on in that performance, so many layers to what was happening, and I was totally spell-bound.

I try not to harp on and on too much about the books vs. the show, but in this case I want to praise the show for taking out a part of the book that I hate, which is Jamie being worried that Claire might be pregnant from one of her rapists, and wanting to have sex with her right away so he can have plausible deniability that he might be the father. I am just... grateful that they didn't include this aspect in the show. It's gross. I don't want to deal with it.

In place of that we see Claire grieving what has happened to her, we see her telling Lionel Brown: "I will do you no harm," we see her breaking down but finding inner strength, and we see her curled up in the arms of her husband, taking strength from him. I really wish this story hadn't happened like this in the show, but I did appreciate the care and attention given to the aftermath.

So there you have it. This season was... disjointed at best. I really do wonder if season six will be the end of Outlander. It would make a certain amount of sense, given how many of the plot threads from the books have been excised/shortened into a more streamlined format for the show. Unfortunately, I feel like there were a lot of misses this season, and I hope they can come back with something stronger in the future!

6.5/10

Klarosummer - Waterfall || Taw'um Alruwh

@klarosummerbingo​

Warnings: some violence and mentions of Damon’s abuse of Caroline. Nothing graphic.

Caroline fluffed her curls, getting them to sit just right as she stared into the water’s reflection. Some would consider it impractical to trek all the way out to the Falls to fix her hair, but...

The young blonde bit her lip. But there was something about what she saw when she looked into the water. She saw herself, of course - and maybe it was just some odd light refraction illusion - but she always thought what she saw appeared a little more confident. As if the version of her in the water was just a bit stronger and wiser.

Whatever, so it was a little silly, but it wasn’t like she was hurting anybody. It was just the town legends getting to her, that you could see your true self in the Falls.

The chime of her cellphone pulled her out of her thoughts. 7:25 its clock announced cheerfully, and she knew she should get going. Caroline gave her hair one last pat and winked at her reflection. 

“Wish me luck with the other brother, kay?”

She whirled around, heading back toward school, a slight bounce in her step.

Caroline Salvatore had a nice ring to it, didn’t it?

---

Her chest screamed in agony, and she couldn’t process if it felt like it was burning or freezing. If it was being crushed or split open.

Her breaths were ragged and wet, the taste of copper on her tongue. Was she dying?

I don’t want to die!

She whimpered, the words only sounding in her head, her lips twitching uselessly.

The roar of the falls was in her ears and still the formation of the rocks funneled his voice to her.

How could she have ever thought she wanted that-that monster.

He was laughing at her. As if her death was amusing. Crowing about how she took care of his cleanup for him. Why it wouldn’t even be an animal attack. Just another sad teen suicide.

Her tears were burning against her face that was rapidly going numb and cold.

I don’t want to die...

---

Caroline had lived a very long time. Centuries upon centuries. Long past anyone she had come to care for, human or supernatural. They all left her in the end, either taken from her while she was elsewhere, by foolish enemies that would pay for their crime thrice over, or by their own will, wishing to take their final rest.

She didn’t begrudge them that, though it made her existence rather lonely. Loves had come and gone. Friends and partners and companions. So, selfishly she took the most comfort in herself. Catching glimpses of the other lives she could have led.

Never though, had one cried out so strongly that she could hear them. 

The voice was young, so young, and dying. Dying while having barely lived at all.

Caroline frowned, unthinkingly reaching out to the dying girl, and to her surprise, she fell through the water.

---

“Hello, Caroline.”

She blinked rapidly, unsure how she had gone from dying to...whatever this was. There was nothing but blackness and one other figure. And she forgave herself for her no doubt idiotic expression considering said other figure was herself!

The other her smiled, looking a bit amused. And Caroline bristled at the apparent condescension. She opened her mouth, about to snap something rude, but they read her irritation and their expression became a bit apologetic before smoothing into solemnity.

They spoke hurriedly before she could.

“I wish I could better explain things to you, Caroline, but you don’t have much time. Your body is still dying and once it does you’ll lose this opportunity to choose.”

“Choose? Choose, what?” Caroline’s brow furrowed, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Is this like Harry Potter?”

They looked momentarily confused before recognition sparked. “I suppose that is somewhat accurate, yes. Unfortunately you cannot return. You are human with no magic of your own, I am sorry to say that you’ll just pass out again and die. Truly, this time.”

Caroline frowned, the hope she hadn’t even realized was blossoming crushed in her chest. She crossed her arms, glaring at them. “Then, what? You’ll go?” She meant it sarcastically, but at the slight shift in the other her’s face, she shrieked. “What, is this body snatchers?!”

“No, our bodies will swap places. Mine is not human and will survive the process, while yours will be destroyed.” She spoke quicker, cutting off Caroline’s indignant questions about what the point would be then. “Your soul however is strong enough. It will be able to pass through.”

She was still confused and frustrated. “But you just said that your body will be going to where I am.”

“There are infinite versions of you Caroline and infinite worlds for them to inhabit, as is the case for everyone. Your soul will find its best match.”

Appalled, Caroline retorted, “I’m not going to steal someone’s life!”

The other her stepped closer, expression soft and a bit proud. “It won’t be theft. Two souls can’t occupy one body, wherever you end up, that version of you will have already passed on. Now, I understand this must be a lot for you to process and it’s a momentous decision, but you’re almost out of time.”

As if her words were a signal, the blackness surrounding them seemed to crack and shudder.

Panicking, Caroline began to ramble, words tripping over themselves. “Okay, okay, so like second chances. You go to me. I go to like some coma patient version of me or something. And no one gets hurt? They’re already dead. I’m basically almost dead. And-and you’re whatever you are?”

“Yes,” they nodded.

Caroline ran shaking hands through her hair and took a deep breath.

I don’t want to die.

---

The ancient woman kept her eyes closed through the journey, though she felt her arrival. Water and rock and blood suddenly assaulted her senses where there had been unnerving nothingness before.

With the last connection she had with that odd nexus of worlds she sensed that the other her had also arrived safely. She even got the impression that good things awaited her.

Good luck.

Even as part of her was wishing the other version of her well, the rest of her was processing the events that had occurred in this world. Perhaps, it was a bit duplicitous of her to not have warned the young girl that she would get a semblance of her memories, but she didn’t want to be clueless. And there had been no time to offer the necessary reassurances. 

Standing up, Caroline squeezed the water out of her hair, absently noting she would also need a change of clothes. Above her, the cackles of some obnoxious young vampire cut off.

He flashed down, severely invading her personal space as he stared wide-eyed at her.

“That’s impossible!” He spat. “You were dead.”

Caroline’s lip quirked. “For centuries now,” she drawled.

He spluttered. “But I compelled you! You were just some useless, weak little girl!”

Her amusement quickly faded, events the girl herself hadn’t known had happened flashing through her mind.

Expression dark, her arm shot up to crush his throat.

She had no tolerance for rapists.

He dangled in her grip, weakly clawing at her arm as he choked. She contemplated tormenting him, the type of suffering she could bring down on his head.

But then she thought of the girl he had assaulted and chased to her death. The happiness that girl now had an opportunity to have. Recalled ancient memories of her own beast of a husband. The being she had become after her friend defied nature to help her. And she decided she and the girl both deserved better than to dwell on this cretin.

“Feel fortunate,” she told him. “You’re not worth my time to torture.”

With no fanfare she plunged her other hand into his chest and ripped out his heart. She didn’t bother to watch the light fade from his eyes, simply chucked both his corpse and heart into the woods like the trash he was. 

Let the animals have a feast.

---

Caroline twirled her pen, wondering for the millionth time how the other Salvatore could tolerate going to school. She had to be here because the whole town knew who Caroline Forbes was. Mass compulsion wasn’t worth it when she was choosing to stay.

After all, there was an unusually high occurrence of supernatural drama here and she wanted a front row seat. At least that part was interesting. Plus, she considered it a bit of a homage to the other version of herself that she carried out some of the gril’s dreams. And winning Miss Mystic Falls was actually somewhat amusing.

Not to mention the worried murmurs she had overheard from the rest of her “friends”. Originals? Doppelgangers? Curses? This supernatural world sure had some fascinating things.

And with some fantastic acting (if she did say so herself) she passed herself off as an accidental turning in the aftermath of what Damon had done. (Oh my god! He-What did he do to me? What’s happening to me?! Please, don’t kill me!) 

It certainly won sympathy points from Elena and her disdain for Damon got Stefan to be, at least publicly, quiet about his concern for his vanished brother. It also helped that no body was found.

Caroline smirked, amused by her own thoughts. Those animals sure ate well that night. 

Still, despite supposedly being a new supernatural now, the others mostly kept her on the outer edges of their drama. Perhaps as some misguided attempt at protection. But while it made information gathering a little harder, overall it made her life more convenient. The less time she had to spend acting like a teen aged girl the better, really.

Her eyes shot up as Alaric walked into the room, pen now still and firmly gripped in her hand. Her instincts were blaring that something was off.

She watched with curious eyes as the man asked what they were learning, flipping through one of his notebooks. Odd. Alaric leaned toward the disorganized side, but he rarely forgot his lesson plans.

One of the girls in the front row, Dana she believed, reminded him that they’ve been covering the 60′s as the silence stretched.

“Right. The 60′s,” he repeated, still not sounding particularly prepared.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched him spend a long moment staring at Elena, an abnormal interest in his eyes. It didn’t seem to be lecherous, and Alaric hadn’t sent that type of warning bell ringing, but if she was wrong...

Her grip tightened, near cracking the plastic shell of her pen.

“The, uh,” he coughed as he turned to write on the board. “The sixties.”

Her eyebrow rose as she watched the man literally write ‘The 60′s’ on the board. That was useless.

“-wish there was something good I could say about the sixties, but...” He turned around, continuing to fail at teaching. “Actually, they kind of sucked. Except for the Beatles, of course. They made it bearable. Uh, what else was there? The Cuban missile thing, the uh...we walked on the moon. There was Watergate.”

Elena apparently took pity on the man.

“Watergate was the seventies, Ric. I-I mean, Mr. Saltzman.” She hurriedly corrected as several people stared.

“Right. It all kind of mushes together up here, the sixties, seventies. Thank you, Elena.“

And though Caroline continued to observe the man, he didn’t do anything else suspicious save lecture with little coherence. Continuing to mention random things that occurred in the sixties. Seeming to just list them as they came to mind.

At the end of class, she waved the others on when they glanced questioningly at her, mouthing that she had a question as she gestured toward Alaric.

Leaning back against one of the front desks, she watched as the man shuffled some more papers around. Managing to read some of the print, she was pretty sure he was just trying to get rid of her.

Too bad. 

Clearing her throat, she called, “Mr. Saltzman?”

He looked up, a quickly smothered flash of irritation on his face.

“Yes, what is it?”

She cocked her head, wondering how she was going to play this. She was around 98% positive now that this was an impostor. Possession, illusion, shapeshifting, something to that effect. And if it were any of those things, even if he had an informant, he couldn’t know much about her. Being on the outskirts was once more to her benefit.

Well, I was just complaining about boredom...

She rushed forward, slamming the man against the chalkboard, her forearm pinned across his throat. There was shock and barely hidden rage in his expression.

Her eyes dilated, noting with rising interest that she couldn’t compel him.

“What are your intentions with Elena? Are you some kind of pervert?”

---

Whatever Klaus had been expecting from the blonde baby vampire it hadn’t been this.

Although her audacity was rather infuriating she hardly knew who he was, and her reasoning was arguably admirable. He did value loyalty after all.

So, deciding to go along with it, he reminded her he was on vervain. Then, made up some nonsense answer about being particularly concerned about Elena, name dropping himself as a reason.

Her eyes were still narrowed and suspicious, but she backed off after a moment, letting him fall from her grasp. His landing was awkward with a little stumble in order to maintain his ruse.

She smiled at him, a surprising and delightful amount of malice in her expression. “Of course, Alaric. Rest assured though, if I discover you lied to me and you have nefarious reasons for watching Elena...Well, let’s simply say I will delight in feeding you your internal organs. For decades, if I have to.”

With a little parting wave, as if she hadn’t just delivered a gruesome (by human standards anyway) threat, she turned and strutted from the room.

Klaus leaned back against the chalkboard, staring after her, a little intrigued despite his better judgement.

Perhaps, he should start looking into backup vampires? He might actually regret killing that one.

---

Making her way down the hallway, Caroline processed what she had sensed when she tried to compel definitely-not-Alaric.

Vampire and wolf.

A hybrid.

Her eyes flashed gold as a smirk curled on her lips.

Fascinating.

---

Author’s Note: Title is “Twin Spirits” aka “Soulmate” in Arabic the closet I could get to Egyptian which has one of the oldest stories involving the concept. Ancient Greece does as well, but I’m trying not to repeat the languages used in the titles. (Viaggio and Cuore Malato don’t count since they were technically the same story). 

Considering how this one turned out, I’m quite pleased that “Twin Spirits” really fits though: both soulmates and parallel selves. Also, if you’re curious, I imagine the formerly dying Caroline went to some All Human AU where she’ll get her happily ever after with that version of Klaus ;) I’m a sap, what can I say?

Rape! Murder of a woman's dignity.

In India, the number of rape cases are rising every year and all that we are doing is marching in large numbers with candles in our hands and banners saying “Stop Rape!” Does it change anything? Does it protect the woman who is walking alone on a road at night? Does it stop the men who are chasing that woman? Well, I don’t think so. Then why the hell are we doing it?  Because we’ve been doing this from eternity and want to do it every single time that happens. All we do is either blame the victim for provoking the men by dressing up in the wrong fashion or just curse the rapist. It’s been in our habit from ancient times that whenever we face a problem in our life we always trying to run away from it instead of facing it courageously. I don’t know why people don’t understand that by asking a criminal to not commit a crime is similar to provoking him for doing it. Do you think that you would ask a man to not assault any woman in his life and he would obey it? Hell no. I’ll tell you why, because he doesn’t know how it feels when someone tries to steal your dignity from you. Nobody taught him that.

That is the root cause of all this. In our society a woman is treated like an object or more like a robot, when she’s not married she does everything for her family and after she gets married she’s entirely the property of her husband and his family and she has to do whatever they ask her to do. We never tell our boys, that girls are also equal to them and they are to be treated with respect too. We never teach them that if they misbehave with a woman what could be the consequences. They grow up with this mentality and when they try to do something wrong it never crosses their mind that whatever they are going to do that woman could also happen with their own sister or mother or wife. Because even then, they all would be accusing the women herself that she might be wearing a short dress or she was out there late night and all that.

This conservative approach of people towards this thing is the reason why these people have no fear of assaulting women. Every time something bad happens it has to be the lady who provoked the man otherwise he wouldn’t have done that. If we want to stop the crimes against women then a “Candle March” isn’t going to do anything. We need to change the mentality of those people who think that a woman is nothing more than an object for having sexual intercourse. We need to start teaching our kids moral values right from the start like it was done in early Indian culture. The purpose of education is not to make a human capable of earning money but it is to tell them how to behave in a society like a human even after already being a human because if we don’t know how to be sensible, smart and kind in this world then there’s no difference between us and the animals.

I’ll share an incident with you which happened when I was in the High school. So one of my friends was telling us that once in their housing colony a family from a different community came to live there as tenants but since they were from a different community they weren’t getting so much respect in because they were the only family from that particular community. That family had a beautiful girl who was a crush of many boys. But since they were like isolated from that society not many could get to talk to her. One day a group of punks decided to take their avidity of getting near to that girl to the next level and invaded their house.

Now I don’t need to elaborate on what happened next because you probably would’ve guessed that already. Now a question arises that why these boys decided to do that? How they dared to do such a crime. I’ll tell you why, because the leader of those punks was the son of that village’s Sarpanch (A Mayor like personnel who is in charge of everything in a village in India) plus they did this to a girl who was from a family no one would support if anything happens to them and that’s what happened indeed! Can you believe that? A girl’s dignity was attacked brutally and no would stand up for her just because she was from a different community or race? Is that the humanity we talk about? Is that even in human nature? I don’t think so. Even the police didn’t help them because that guy’s father had a little dominance over anything that happens in that society. So eventually they had to leave the town because they had no choice.

Now all of this happened because of the reasons I explained at the start. They had no respect for a woman. They thought they could do anything in that village and no one would stand against them and that’s what happened too. Now the friend who was telling us that story was kind of laughing about it so I asked him what’s so funny about it. A girl was sexually assaulted and you find it funny? He said so what? I should cry about that? What I could’ve done if no one wanted to stand up against those bastards. Then I asked him- if that girl would’ve have been your sister or mother would you still find that funny huh? Then he suddenly got furious and said watch your mouth bro otherwise I’ll crack it. I said I’ve said nothing wrong and if you care about your sister or mother so much that even having a thought of something bad happening with them made you so much furious then just think about the family of that girl who actually had to bear that pain. They didn’t even get justice for what has been done to them and somewhere in her mind that girl will still be having the nightmares about that incident and bearing the pain and agony that society provided her as a gift

After that, my friend didn’t talk to me for days because somehow my words did pierce his armor of conservative thinking. After a few days, he came to me and he said he was sorry about that and I was right. They had to stand up for justice but they didn’t. He also said that he shouldn’t be laughing about that and he’ll never do that again. Now that is what needed to be done, we need to teach the moral values to our kids right from the start rather than worrying about which public is school is best in town for their education. Because schools don’t teach your children how to be a sensible person, it’s their parents who are responsible for raising a child who will be a good human being to this society rather than being a punk.

With this, I rest my case, My Lord!

Sara: A Grieving Mother is a Huge Piece in the Fuugen Puzzle

I was recently asked by an anonymous messenger about the relationship between Mugen and Sara. Not knowing if Mugen had feelings for Sara or not, it made them question Fuugen. Time to clear up some doubts.

Links to specific scenes are underlined.

Mugen and Sara have a very interesting character dynamic. But do I consider it romantic? Not at all. (Someone is bound to disagree with me). But whether you decide to believe in Fuugen or not, it is very clear that each scene with Sara, we get scenes between Fuu and Mugen. Sara’s episodes have them spend so much time alone together.

Firstly, Mugen flirts with every woman he finds attractive. Which would total to being around 6 in the series total (not counting manga, cause boy, there’s more). Hotaru, Budoukiba, the two girls he stole food from, Yatsuha and also Sara. So, it is not as if Sara is the only woman he finds attractive or has flirted with. In fact, Fuu would be the unique character in that, he comments on her appearance and then puts it down. Anyone who argues “She’s like a sister figure to him”, will then be thrown off by the fact Mugen asked to see her boobs...comments on her no sex appeal multiple times, remarks that she was probably raped and dumped etc etc. Not things you should ever say to someone you’d consider your sister figure.

Fuu changed Mugen. Fuu makes Mugen care. Mugen made sacrifices for Fuu. Mugen never hurt Fuu, and always came back to save her/help her find her father despite his repeated “attempts” to leave.

I do not see Sara representing a romantic figure to Mugen at all. As YouTuber Final Rantasy pointed out in the video Fuu’s empathy: how a friendship changed killers into warriors, he explains how Fuu’s empathy rekindled Sara’s humanity and allowed her to see a mirror of her lost son in Mugen, thus causing her to spare Mugen’s life, not once, but twice. Link to this part of the video is here.

Sara represents a maternal figure for Mugen. Now, let’s get into it.

Unlike Fuu, Sara is not a character who changed Mugen for the better, or made him see differently on anything. She is not a catalyst for Mugen’s character growth, besides for his first time feeling pity over killing someone. BUT, that doesn’t mean she is not important. She is SUPER important for us viewers.

Sara reveals what kind of person Mugen was already. Before Fuu and Jin.

Because of their dialogue, and also the storyline of episodes 13 and 14, we find out that Mugen is not just this cocky, arrogant, womanizing asshole. He knows of sorrow and suffering due to his upbringing, the betrayals, and stigma attached to his criminal past. Not only that, but we see he believes that no one has ever loved him. Mugen may actually be lonely.

The first convo we see this, is where Mugen sneaks into the hot spring with Sara.

“I have walked in darkness for a long time. But people can grow accustomed to anything. Even if you can’t see, you become able to sense other things. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“That’s a load of bullshit. Nobody who’s happy could sing that song of yours.”

This reveals that Mugen must feel something from her music; something sorrowful. And to feel sorrow, one must understand it.

After a brief, comical moment of Fuu and Mugen seeing each other naked...and Mugen also saying he didn’t make a move on Sara…(BY STANDING UP TO SHOW FUU HIS PENIS WAS NOT ERECT. LMAO THIS KILLS ME), Mugen then leaves and Fuu talks with Sara.

Sara asks Fuu what Mugen looks like. She has an image of him in her head. Fuu’s response is pretty hilarious. She goes on a whole tangent about how unattractive he is, and how she shouldn’t go with a guy like that.

Sara’s response is ambiguous.

“What?” she says, with an almost eerie seriousness. This “what” is so. Damn. Important.

This can mean two things:

1. She is confused why Fuu goes on a tangent. Like saying “Huh?” Fuu misinterpreted Sara’s reason for wondering what Mugen looked like, as her being interested in Mugen romantically. This clearly isn’t the case. Why would she want to know what Mugen looks like, if her end game is to kill them all? Because she never got to SEE her own son grow up.

2. OR, she is asking why Fuu has the need to go on a tangent. It is clear that Fuu is embarrassed after spouting all these bad things about Mugen almost defensively. If this was the reason why, this connects into three later scenes that she shares with Fuu. The first is when the two are going to sleep. She tells Fuu “One thing I cannot read are people’s feelings.” Then she asks “Which is the one you don’t want to leave?” Fuu gets embarrassed and hides under the blankets (We see Fuu picks Mugen to stay later). The second scene is when she asks Fuu if she really wants to continue the journey to the end. The third...is when Sara goes to kill Mugen...and stops because Fuu begs for his life. She realizes in these three scenes...why Fuu goes on that tangent…

Fuu does not answer Sara’s “what” and just mumbles, and hides her mouth in the water, blowing bubbles. Fuu later stomps to Mugen’s room, opens the doors, and with a blush on her face, apologizes to Mugen. This confuses him.

Fuu apologized for two potential reasons.

1. She is sorry for calling Mugen ugly. Because he is not.

2. She is sorry for assuming Mugen made a move on Sara, when he did not.

Hmm….

As for Fuu and Sara’s conversations, there is a moment where Fuu asks Sara if she has a son or a daughter. Sara had a son. Had she had a daughter, she would most likely have more connection to Fuu, especially since Fuu was separated from her father and also was raised by her mother until she passed away. Instead, they chose to write Sara being separated from her son, to have more a connection to Mugen.

Now then, more on Mugen and Sara’s convos:

“I wonder if my son would like this.”

“Beats me. As far back as I can remember, I never had any parents. I wouldn’t know.”

Mugen and Sara have deep conversations, yes. But they are never happy or lighthearted ones. Every meaningful conversation the two ever have is pertaining to the same concepts: sadness, his parents, and her child. Or all in one.

“You and I may be a lot alike. I never knew the meaning of the word happiness. The closest I came was when my son was born.” This reveals something about Sara, along with her other line: “It’s as if you have never once been loved. It’s as if you are like me.”

Sara was not loved by the father of her child. Sara had never known happiness, even when she met the father of her child. Sara is implied to have been raped.

In fact, I am positive that this is the case.

According to the Roman Album of Samurai Champloo, the episodes about Sara the goze are inspired by Zatoichi, the infamous blind swordsman of Japanese filmography. Well, after Samurai Champloo, a movie was made in 2008 called Ichi, telling the story of a blind woman taken in and raised BY Zatoichi. Guess what. She was a goze musician. Also, guess what. She was a trained assassin.

Icing on the cake? Ichi was raped, and was kicked out of her goze household as a result. Goze must never marry and remain celibate if they continue performing for charity. The reason behind this, if they have lovers or husbands, they must be getting financial support and no longer needed charity. Of course, women throughout history were obviously raped but that was no excuse.

Remember when Fuu asked where the father was? Sara’s only response was  “The father is no longer around.” And she smiles.

In Ichi, her rapist tries to attack her again, and she ends up killing him with a hidden blade HIDDEN IN HER CANE. YES. CANE.

Ichi had to be inspired by Sara. This then goes back to the idea, that Sara’s son was a result of rape.

Now as for a more personal fan theory about this: Mugen may also be the result of rape. Mugen was born on a penal colony in the Ryukyuan Islands, and as far back as he can remember, he had no parents. Neither a mother or a father. According to Koza, this place was a living hell. If the people on the island were Japanese criminals exiled there, aside from the native Ryukyuans...and Mugen was born there, it is a high possibility Mugen’s mother was raped by a criminal.

Rape seems to be a theme in episode 13 and 14. Mukuro killed Koza’s mother for unknown reasons. And despite the claim that he is her “brother”, Fuu points out they look nothing alike. There is also a clearly sexual scene where Mukuro rubs his thumb along Koza’s lips as she stares in fear. She also tells Fuu she “wishes her brother were dead”. Then, Mukuro sells Koza off to Shige to be raped in exchange for the help to raid the gold from the ship. He did not know that Koza actually wanted to be with Shige and betrayed him. So yes, rape must have been a part of Ryukyuan life if it was so clearly tied to Koza.

If this is the case of Mugen’s mother, then that shows yet another sign of Sara being a parallel.

But regardless of rape theory, Mugen was separated from his mother for some reason or another just as Sara was separated from her child.

Fuu picks Jin to leave with Sara so she may see her son. Watch this scene here.

“Why him and not me?!” Mugen yells.

“It’d be too dangerous being alone with a guy like you.”

Um. Fuu. Fuu honey. You will be alone with him then...

“And she’s safe with this bozo?!”

“Jin would never do something like that!”

Notice his shock at that declaration, and then how he closes his mouth, and shuts up as she speaks. Mugen seems upset that she supposedly sees him as a bad guy taking advantage of Sara, rather than Jin. He makes no further argument about leaving with Sara.

We know Fuu is lying. She doesn’t send keep Mugen due to him being a pervert. Earlier, Sara asked who she didn’t want to leave. And Fuu broke down in tears about it, and ran away. Obviously, she cares about both Jin and Mugen, but she inevitably chooses Jin to go, using Mugen’s pervertedness as an excuse. She didn't want Jin to leave either, but the moment she cries over his departure is more comical in nature.

Notice how Mugen parts ways with Jin and Sara. Parts. Ways.

See, Jin is suspicious of Sara and that’s why he left so willingly. Mugen and Fuu were not. Mugen had no idea if he’d see Jin again. The fact that he was WILLING to leave not only Sara, but JIN, to help Fuu find the sunflower samurai speaks volumes of his relationship with Fuu.

So if you think he had feelings for Sara, or if you think Sara interferes with the fuugen ship...please remember this detail. Mugen obeyed Fuu, and was willing to say goodbye to Jin and Sara to travel all the way passed Nagasaki with Fuu alone. And when Fuu cries over Jin, he gets annoyed, stomps away and continues ahead of her. So he is serious about fulfilling his duty.

When Mugen and Fuu take Sara back to the shack for recovery, something is off about Mugen. He stays a far distance from Sara, and then runs off to find Jin, despite Fuu’s worried protest. Honestly, this is a really cute moment of Mugen; how he obviously cares a lot about Jin’s safety and searches until sunset for his body (excuse is, he wants to be the one to kill him). Instead, he finds Sara’s weapons...and figures it all out.

At the first moment of him realizing Sara “killed” Jin, he had no hesitancy in going to kill her. I am sure he felt betrayed when he kicked the firewood, but I think that Mugen was far angrier that Jin was “dead”. These two are best frenemies. Mugen going to avenge Jin is also a mirror of Jin going to avenge Mugen by killing Mukuro in episode 14. Later on, even after Jin is alive, he is still willing to fight her again to protect himself, as well as Fuu and Jin.

Imo, the craziest moment in the story was when Fuu saw them fighting. Sara’s wording summed up everything.

Sara almost kills Mugen, and then says this line: “I can see without seeing. Powerful rage swirls within you. I cannot tell whether or not it is sadness. It is as if you have never once been loved… It’s as if, you are like me.”

But then Fuu jumps on top of him after he collapses, throwing her life in the way to prevent Sara from killing him. Sara actually gasps here, eyes widening. She is surprised. She was wrong. Mugen’s face in this scene also looks surprised. He too did not expect anyone to care about him that much, that they would throw their life in the way. Mugen does have someone who loves him. It can’t be more blatant than that. Sara. Just. Said. Love. And then Fuu did that.

For that reason, Sara turns away, even though her orders were very clear to kill them all. And she does end up coming back to fight Mugen again. Why she stopped here is very obvious, then. She couldn’t bring herself to kill Fuu or Mugen here, after such a huge act of sacrifice.

Reminder: Fuu never did anything like this for Jin.

When Sara takes pity on him, and leaves, Mugen is still angry despite his condition and still wants to fight her.

After this, we get to see Fuu apply a salve to Mugen’s face. Then another scene where she tries to talk him out of fighting her.

Later, when Mugen goes to kill Sara...Fuu wakes up, looking for Mugen and says his name.

Was Mugen bothered by Sara’s death? Yes. It is the only person that we see Mugen regrets killing. They were different though. Mugen loved battle. Sara saw only sorrow from it. Him being pissed off about her death, was not the fact that she died. It was the manner of how she died. Mugen had every intention to kill her, or die trying. He even seemed excited about it, just as he was excited to fight Jin.

The fact that she held back...and also...her reasoning for wanting to kill him was never for the joy of fighting. It was solely for her son, which in the end, was a futile effort.

His eyes in this scene are extremely soft when she mentions her son. Mugen empathized with her, and also pitied her. And that shows a lot about Mugen. She says that no one can escape the government no matter how far they may run. Even him, Fuu and Jin are still wanted.

Sara’s last words to Mugen relate to him being like a son she was never allowed to have.

“I figured it out today...my son died a long time ago. I was just being used.”

“Then why…?”

“I can’t fight them. They’re the government.”

“I want you to live, Mugen.”

Mugen must live on. By holding back, and allowing him to kill her, Sara, in her own way, saved Mugen’s life. She was unable to save her son, and this was the only way she was able to redeem herself.

Sara had conversations with Mugen about her child. And Sara had conversations with Fuu about Mugen. “I can’t sense people’s feelings.”  “Which one don’t you want to leave?”

These episode featured lots and lots of scenes of Mugen and Fuu together. Jin barely interacted with them and had less screentime, most of which was separated from them; fighting Sara, and being trained to fish by Jonny.

This episode was about Mugen’s past way of life, and Fuu’s feelings for Mugen saving him from a life of sorrow.

Sara let Mugen live, solely because she saw that he deserved to live in place of her own miserable existence. A life worth living. Mugen was not like her anymore. He found happiness. He found people who care about him. He found someone willing to die for him.

One last thing: The repeated symbolism of a pinwheel is used throughout Sara’s episodes.

From what I can gather, a pinwheel seems to represent childhood innocence. Numerous anime use it this way: The Hakkenden has an image of a pinwheel torn apart when the virgin princess is forced to marry a dog, to fulfill the bargain of whoever killed her father’s enemy. (This sounds awful, but anime explains it). Cowboy Bebop has Ed find a pinwheel in her orphanage, and then she hands it to Spike. Cowboy Bebop’s director is the same as Samurai Champloo too so it clearly has the same symbolism.

First, Fuu sees one when a child is being carried on a woman’s back… Later, at the festival, the assassin is selling pinwheels. Lastly, when Sara realizes her son is dead, a pinwheel flies off into the wind.

There is one other appearance of a pinwheel in Samurai Champloo. In episode one, Mugen flicks a pinwheel outside of Fuu’s restaurant, right before he meets her for the first time.

The colors are very similar too.

Coincidence? I think not.

While the pinwheel flick could have been a simple start of a journey, it was also Mugen meeting the most innocent woman in his life. One who did not betray him, and showed him more empathy than anyone else.

And the same color pinwheel in episode 20, may symbolize Mugen is the son figure for Sara, after losing her own.

Perhaps this will help you see a new outlook of Mugen’s relationship to Sara.

I Felt Safe in America. Until El Paso. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/opinion/sunday/el-paso-shooting-immigrants.html

Below are two editorial pieces written by Hispanic AMERICANS and their thoughts on America after the El Paso shooting. We CANNOT LET HATE WIN. WE MUST STAND WITH OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

I Felt Safe in America. Until El Paso.

It is because of people like me and my daughter that a gunman did what he did.

By Fernanda Santos, Ms. Santos, a former national correspondent for The Times, teaches journalism at Arizona State University. | Published Aug. 10, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 10, 2019 |

PHOENIX — A good friend who is moving to Chicago had a going-away party at a downtown brewery recently and I stopped by to say goodbye. He is an artist from Iraq who escaped to the United States in 2013 to save his life. In Iraq, Mahdi Army loyalists had chased, beaten and threatened him because he had dared to sketch nude pictures — practice for his entrance exam at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts. Here, he is free.

I wasn’t running from anyone when I settled in the United States 21 years ago, but I understand the idea of being free in America: For me, it has meant being free from the senseless violence of everyday life in Rio de Janeiro, from where I came. Since moving to the United States, I’ve married a white man, given birth to our daughter and moved to Arizona, where I’ve written about immigrants and the border and gotten to know both well.

I blend in seamlessly in Arizona, where about one in three residents is Latino. As a naturalized citizen, I felt safe here even when a campaign against illegal immigrants led by the infamous former sheriff, Joe Arpaio, targeted Latinos. One day after Donald Trump’s election, a man approached me while I spoke Spanish on the phone outside a coffee shop and screamed, “Speak English.” The experience rattled me, but still I felt safe. I did, however, start carrying my passport card in my wallet, just in case.

That sense of safety changed when a young white man opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso last Saturday, making targets out of brown-skinned people. I read the suspect’s manifesto  Sunday morning and, for the first time, I did not feel just like an immigrant. I felt like a target. I looked at my 10-year-old daughter eating the chocolate-chip pancakes I’d made and realized that she could be a target too. Citizenship, it turns out, is an illusory shield. In the eyes of that gunman, I am not American but an invader, an instigator. It is because of people like me that he did what he did.

Segregation was codified in this country in the days after Emancipation, when Southern states enacted laws that clamped down on African-Americans’ newly found freedom to vote, own property or attend public schools. But Jim Crow extended beyond the South: It took the Supreme Court to force Arizona to stop requiring voters to take English literacy tests, and that was years after the Voting Rights Act had already banned such tests.

But if legal segregation has largely fallen before court rulings, anti-minority and anti-immigrant attitudes have not. Last month, at a Republican event in Phoenix, State Senator Sylvia Allen, who is white, said, “We’re going to look like South American countries very quickly.” Ms. Allen, who later apologized, blamed it on the fact that white women are not reproducing fast enough and on the immigrants who are “flooding us and flooding us and flooding us and overwhelming us so we don’t have time to teach them the principles of our country.”

Last week, a fund-raising email by the Arizona Republican Party called the arrival of Central Americans at the border to assert their legal right for asylum “an invasion,” echoing language commonly employed by President Trump.

This is the language of white supremacy today: that we must stop immigration because Latinos will distort American culture and replace “real Americans.” But by “American culture” they really mean white culture, a definition that, to them, doesn’t apply to people like me. Or to black people, Muslims, Asian-Americans and many others, including mixed-race Americans like my daughter.

In his manifesto, the El Paso suspect employs this narrow definition to justify the unjustifiable. He says much more in that screed, most of it vile. Some, though, reminded me, in a good way, of the young undocumented immigrants I’ve met in Arizona. “Inaction is not a choice,” he wrote, reminding me that before elections, many young immigrants, including so-called Dreamers, knock on doors and share their stories, hoping to persuade their neighbors to do what they cannot, which is to vote. For those Dreamers, inaction is indeed not a choice.

There are Walmart stores all along the southern border. If you visit one of them on a weekend, you’ll see a parking lot full of cars with Mexican license plates. In Douglas, Ariz., a city whose mayor was born in the Dominican Republic, Mexicans who cross into the United States on foot to buy discounted clothing and housewares leave their Walmart shopping carts at the border crossing.

While I was at a Walmart in Phoenix shopping for school supplies the other day, I could see the kinds of people who make up this state. There were mothers speaking Spanish to children who spoke to one another in English, Muslim refugees from Africa in brightly colored hijabs, black families and white families too.

When school starts later this month in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, one school will be missing its principal, Elsa Mendoza Marquez. She was among the 22 people killed in the El Paso Walmart, just across the Rio Grande from Juarez. A dual Mexican-American citizen, she too was shopping and was gunned down while her husband waited for her outside, in the parking lot.

What the El Paso gunman failed to realize is that the immigrants he so hates are, like him, struggling to make sense of a changing country and claim their rightful place in it. He chose a rifle to claim his place. My Iraqi friend, who is off to pursue a master’s degree in art in Chicago, chose a brush.

The Dreamers I’ve met have chosen the power of civic engagement to fight their fight. And that, to me, makes them better citizens than plenty of the people who call themselves “real Americans” these days.

El Paso Was a Massacre Foretold

Those who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country.

By Jorge Ramos, Mr. Ramos is a contributing Opinion writer. | Published Aug. 10, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 10, 2019 |

Leer en español

EL PASO ­— “I don’t know why he took my boy’s life,” Dora Lizarde said. Her grandson Javier, 15, was the youngest victim of last weekend’s massacre, killed by a bullet to the head. “Fifteen years old; he still had so much time to live,” Ms. Lizarde told me in an interview this week. “I don’t know why he took him away, I don’t understand. He is young, too.”

Patrick Crusius is young, too.

Police have charged Mr. Crusius, 21, in the mass shooting that killed 22 people at a crowded Walmart here on Aug. 3. Nineteen of the victims had Spanish surnames, making this the worst attack on Latinos in modern American history. The Mexican government has labeled the killings a terrorist act, given that eight Mexican citizens were among the dead. And, yes, it is a hate crime.

The massacre of Latinos in El Paso is the latest and most brutal reaction by a young, white American against a future that might be dominated by minorities. The fact that this attack happened is unsurprising: What else can we expect when racism and hatred of others is promoted from the top down in a country where there are more guns than people?

Authorities have said that Mr. Crusius posted a 2,300-word manifesto online minutes before the attack. In it, he said the attack was in response to a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” “It makes no sense to keep letting millions of illegal or legal immigrants flood into the United States,” Mr. Crusius supposedly wrote, “and to keep the tens of millions that are already here.” Those words startled me — not only because they were so hateful, but because they could seamlessly fit into speeches given by President Trump, by some members of his cabinet and by many right-wing politicians.

While Mr. Trump insists that he does not have “a racist bone” in his body, his history of making racist remarks says otherwise. After years of suggesting that President Barack Obama had not been born in the United States, Mr. Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by likening Mexican immigrants to criminals and rapists. He recently said that four congresswomen of color should “go back” to the countries from which they came. The list goes on. When the most powerful man in the world uses such toxic rhetoric, we should not be surprised when others mimic him.

Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso and a Democratic presidential candidate, recently told me that he is convinced Mr. Trump influenced the attack. Mr. O’Rourke — who along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democratic candidate for the presidency, has said in recent days that Mr. Trump is a “white supremacist” — responded to a tweet from the president by writing: “22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism.” Other leaders and politicians, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also lost their patience with Mr. Trump. “I don’t want to hear the question ‘Is this president racist?’ anymore. He is,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said recently.

The president’s xenophobia, and that of many of his supporters and enablers, is rooted in a dread that the day is soon coming when they will be a minority in their country. While non-Hispanic whites remain a majority of the population in the United States, in less than 30 years that may no longer be the case, according to projections. This sort of demographic revolution is putting Americans’ tolerance to the test. Most of us welcome an increasingly diverse country, but many, like Mr. Trump, resist the country’s multiethnic, multicultural future. Some react by walking into a store and murdering innocent people.

The most racist Americans who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country. I’ve lost count of all the massacres I’ve covered as a journalist. After each shooting — Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Parkland — I thought we might have reached the limit of Americans’ tolerance for such horror. But it wasn’t so. I fear that the killings in El Paso won’t change anything, and that I soon will be back on another flight headed to cover the next massacre. And then another. And another after that.

I have lost hope that the United States will ever pass laws that limit access to firearms. Like many parents around the country, I’ve had difficult conversations with my children in case they find themselves in a situation where someone is shooting at them. “Try to escape, hide or fight,” I tell them. “But don’t stay still. Gunmen have a lot of bullets, but not patience.”

Still, even if we could somehow solve our gun problem in America, our racism problem would be far more difficult to eradicate. Hate-group activity is on the rise, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And anti-immigrant rhetoric has already appeared in slogans shouted during the 2020 presidential campaign.

I crossed the border from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, one morning this week. For many years, Juárez was considered one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico because of the presence of drug cartels. Yet on this visit some people I spoke with told me that they didn’t dare cross into El Paso with their families. When I asked why, some said that they feared being hunted for being Mexican, and all said that racism was a factor.

Nobody should live in fear because they are Mexican nationals in the United States or members of the Latino community. But that’s where we are now in this United States of Trump. The abundance of weapons of war on the streets and Mr. Trump’s unending racist rhetoric are indisputably connected to the massacre in El Paso. What happened in this city was a massacre foretold. Words matter. When they are filled with hate, they cause great damage.

Mr. Ramos is an anchor for the Univision network and the author of “Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era.”

Feminism and gender equality: Why does it suck?

First of all, this article is for Feminists, and is not contraindicated for women who are drawn into the Feminism movement without understanding the political tricks of the wire-pullers behind. I respect every woman. They are half of this world. I bet you'll agree with me on one thing: Women have always been honored for their direct and indirect contributions to human civilization. Because of that, I feel I have a responsibility to protect them from the malicious conspiracy of the Feminism movement.

In Vietnam, the liars call Feminism Feminism. But what RIGHTS? Where is the RIGHT? Which word in “Feminism” has RIGHT in it?

I call Feminism the Supreme Feminism

The press, as well as the simps with their pussy on their heads, praised this toxic choleraism, making the sisters think that this was a movement to fight for equal rights for women. I say,

My body is like a drop of rain. Seeds go to the castle, seeds go to the field to plow

Even if the raindrops don't have the same starting point, how can there be equality in this world? Can anyone try to name an equal country for me? There is no right. The leftists always do not draw two words EQUALITY to attract losers in society. Gender equality, income equality, racial equality, class equality? An all-too-familiar scenario for shepherding stupid sheep.

Want to know toxic feminism? Ask the Feminists!

Going back to the Mao or Bolshevik era in the mid-twentieth century, also with the scenario of class struggle for equal rights, a series of bourgeoisie were denounced, executed and executed [1][2]. Today, gender equality has the same color. There will be a day when the men - the object of attack by the struggle group - will fade away like the bourgeois in the revolutionary era. Of course, similar massacres are hard to come by in the modern world, but it will be done more delicately, instilling slowly and killing you like a Poison Mushroom. Remember, there is NEVER a struggle for equality that stops at the balance of interests, but it is always directed towards the exclusion and elimination of that object from society. If you think I'm taking it too seriously, you can check with the hashtag #KillAllMen on social media to see if it's terror enough. Too obvious for the toxicity of the modern feminist movement!

Looking back at Feminist's harsh words to men, plus the cheers of the left-wing media, do you see the danger? They inject young girls with the image of men as scum – lustful, slutty, wretched, etc. ALL MEN ARE WRONG is the mindset you can easily see in young girls these days. .

I know many female friends who have suffered a lot of hurt, even humiliation when going through toxic relationships with some assholes. I'm not defending those fuckboys. But women, the gender that is dominated by negative emotions [3][4][5] , after the breakup of a love affair is often easily lured into movements that boycott men with extreme arguments such as :

1. Women suffer many disadvantages when getting married and having children. Men do not have pain in childbirth, so they never appreciate this sacrifice of women.

2. All men are rapists [6] .

3. Women in the past could not study, could not participate in elections, so they always lost compared to men; Moreover, women are bound by many strict dogmas, marriage must be completely dependent on their husbands.

However, NO ONE told them:

1. The man carries the national responsibility on his shoulders. He could die, be stabbed by swords, shot by bullets, burned alive, dismembered, etc. on the battlefield to protect women and their children at home.

2. Even if two people have a completely voluntary relationship, if the girl accuses the boy of raping, he will still have to go to prison to schedule a schedule [7] . On the other hand, if a man alleges that he was raped by a woman, guess what percentage of him will win the case?

3. A man is by default the one who provides and protects his family for the rest of his life, and at the same time is the one who bears all the responsibilities – that is an inescapable destiny. He will be despised by people and despised by society if he cannot afford to take care of his wife and children. More than 150 years ago, if the wife committed a crime, it was the husband who would be punished or imprisoned under Coverture laws. Also in the old society, women can't vote, and men... can't vote anyway?! In feudal times, was the potato gourd? Kings follow the tradition of passing from father to son, but there is no election. Only in Western society do women have the right to vote, but under Coverture law, the husband will be the representative of the will of both.

No school, school, or newspaper tells today's boys and girls about these things. And young people are easily attracted by the new radical movements, resulting in society spawning the following groups:

The conspiracy behind the cover of gender equality: Breaking the gender line

The interests of men and women are inherently balanced, only when Feminism movements arose, that balance gradually tilted to one side. Worth mentioning, this bias is NOT beneficial to women, but only to benefit the policies and voting of the left. By taking advantage of the image of the LGBT community, Feminists argue that there is no difference between men and women, thereby breaking down gender boundaries. What is the result? It's the FEMALE, I'm not mistaken, the WOMEN are the recipients.

When it goes beyond the limits of the laws of nature, breaking the gender line has dire consequences for women.

Typically, Fallon Fox, a male MMA fighter (transgender) allowed to compete in the women's category, caused female boxer Tamikka Brents to break her skull and brain injury in just the first round. Another example is Mary Gregory, a transgender man who broke the record of four female weightlifters in a single day [8] .

So, does this movement really bring equality to women, or does it only increase social injustice? Of course, the madness of these guys won't stop, just think that one day when the genders are no longer distinguished, men will be able to enter the women's toilets!? Oh what a disaster!

Men and women are inherently different

Back in the beginning of the world, Eve was born from the body of Adam. She was not born from the bones of Adam's head so that she would rule over Adam; nor was she born from the bones of Adam's feet to be trampled upon by Adam; that she borne from Adam's rib that the two might be equal, under Adam's arm that she might be sheltered, near Adam's heart that she might be loved.

Both men and women are born different, taking on different roles in life. There are areas for men to control, and there are areas for women to control. Although there are many studies that have shown differences in brain thinking in both sexes, Feminists still try to deny this difference. Again, this distinction is a FACT (truth). Therefore, to deny this difference is to bend the truth.

Correct. Bend the truth is what Feminist is doing.1. Feminist: “Women must be treated like men”

There's a saying that goes, "Women can do anything a man can." However, history has always shown the opposite. Women rarely choose to confront, take responsibility for key decisions. This is easy to see that even in family relationships, the wife always gives her husband the right to decide when there is an important issue. To emphasize, this behavior is NOT BAD at all. Because it is the NATIONAL, the divinity of a woman.

I am not saying that men or women are better, but since ancient times, men have been identified as the ones who take the lead. He must be RESPONSIBLE and stand to solve his own and the woman's problems.

Therefore, women need to be treated like EVERYONE, not LIKE MAN. Again, I respect every woman. But if you want to win the respect of society, you must learn to be responsible… like a man.

2. Feminist: “Women must have the same salary as men”

In fact, it is not men who are paid more, but women who always choose lower paying jobs [9] . However, how to choose a job, it is completely the freedom of each person. Feminists want to force girls to work against their wishes, it can be said that it is an unethical behavior.

3. Feminist: “Women should be allowed to do men's jobs”

Everyone is given equal opportunities, but each gender has qualities that make us superior to the other half in some areas. For men, it's physical health, hard work is naturally suitable for men. For women, it is the ability to care, so women dominate the nursing field. Such division of labor is to ensure the highest economic efficiency for society. So, women don't need to do the work of men, they just need to do the work that they feel LIKE and DO GOOD.

4. Feminist: “Women must be treated by law in the same way as men”

The law is now “favoring” women, that is the reality, due to pressures from far-left movements. Specifically, we have women's rights, children's rights, but not men's rights. Even in the US, when it comes to legal protection, men even lose to dogs and cats. That is the imbalance caused by the Feminist and the leftists.

There is a funny story like this: “Oranges look both beautiful and delicious, so they are often used as juice; and the bitter melon is both bitter and rough, so no one has ever forced it to drink. Then one day the bitter melons rebelled to overthrow Orangeism. Proponents of bitter gourd believe that oranges can make juice, so can bitter melons. As a result, after years of struggle, the government passed the Plant Equality law, according to which anyone who drinks orange juice but does not drink bitter gourd juice will be jailed.”

Sounds absurd right? In short, men and women are inherently different. Both sexes are born to DO BETTER what the other cannot be in charge of. Orange has its own application, so does bitter melon. We cannot use others to measure ourselves. Doing so only shows that you are lowering your self-worth.

If you're not equal, don't be equal

It is ironic that Feminists are always anti-men, but covet their values. Value is something that takes effort to build, but cannot be asked to be recognized or given by others. To me, the value of a person lies in their usefulness. So be useful to family, friends and society; study and work kindly; serve and love the community. Don't compare yourself to others. Also, don't put others down, because it doesn't raise your self-worth. Because only what you do shows who you are in this world.

All credit goes to trantuansang.com.

IMMORAL PROFITS: Why Are Big Corporations Still Allowed To Profit From Rape Videos?

This article isn't about ethical pornography, it's about rape and sexual abuse and big corporations that are allowed to profit from human misery A Canadian student says: 'I've not problem with consensual adults making porn. Who cares?' but the problem is that many people in pornographic videos, especially those on user submitted content generated video tubesites. Just after she turned 14, a man had enticed Jane* to engage in sexual play over Skype, and he recorded her, and posted a clip, along with her full name, on XVideos, one of the worlds most-visited pornography tubesites. Google searches helped direct people to this illegal footage of child sexual abuse. Jane had recounted how she begged XVideos to remove the clip, but instead, said the website hosted two more copies, so hundreds of thousands of people could leer at this most mortifying moment of her life, preserved forever as if set in amber. That happens all over the world: Women and girls, men and boys, are sexually assaulted or secretly filmed, and then a video is posted on major websites like XVideos that draws traffic through search engines, while the initial video assault may be brief, the attack on dignity becomes indeterminable. 'The shame I felt was embarrassing,' Jane had said. Mr Kristof wrote in December about Pornhub, a Montreal-based website that pioneered access to free porn uploaded by anyone - so called tubesites that are like YouTube but orientated to the adult market and selling nudity and sex. Since the article was written and published, credit card companies have stopped working with the tubesite, and the site has removed more than nine million videos in response, with the Canadian and US Governments cracking down on the company's practices. However this isn't isolated to one company. It was noted at the time, that exploitation is rooted not in a single company, but in an industry that operates with some impunity and punishing one corporation may simply benefit it's rivals, after all, remove a brick, it makes a building unstable, knock enough bricks, the wall comes tumbling down. That's what is happening here because when Pornhub deleted videos, millions of outraged customers flooded to it's nemesis, XVideos, which has even fewer scruples. A veteran European Pornographer called Pierre Woodman, said that while Pornhub has been damaged financially, XVideos see Mr Kristof as a 'Santa Claus In Newsprint'. That's not a comfortable feeling and it doesn't sit right, and we need to knock more bricks out of the wall, rein in the entire rogue industry, and for now, the behemoth that is XVideos, bolstered by Google, and other search engines. 'We are the biggest adult tube in the industry, with an average of two billion daily impressions worldwide,' boats XVideos, which SimilarWeb ranks as the seventh-most-visited website in the World. Two slots behind is a sister website with almost exactly the same content, XNXX.com, and each get more visitors than Yahoo, Amazon or Netflix. XVideos and XNXX appear to be owned by mysterious French Twins and based in a nondescript office building in Prague not far from Wenceslas Square. This building is the hub of a porn empire that gets six billion impressions a day and inflicts anguish all over the world, and raises an important question - Why do they get away with this? Heather Legarde, a young woman in Alberta, felt the world crashing down on her last August, when she had discovered that her ex-husband had posted intimate videos of her online, and she said that people around the world were gazing at her naked body. 'I'm all over the internet,' she said sadly; 'Not what I wanted to be famous for.' What's worse, in one video her former husband sexually assaulted her as she lay unconscious on the bed, which Legarde had no recollection of the assault and no idea how the video was made, apart from a clue in the tag: 'Sleeping Pills.' Some 200,000 people had watched her being assaulted while she was drugged and unconscious, so on that day in August, mortified and dizzied by the betrayal, Legarde prepared to tie a noose. 'I was standing in my garage under a beam, holding a rope,' she recalled. But finally, she changed her mind: 'I said to myself, "If this is your solution, he'll do this to someone else tomorrow".' So Legarde resolved to own her story and fight back: 'So it doesn't have to happen to other girls.' That's why she agreed to be quoted by name in the Times column, but her path through the life is now paved with daily humiliations, she regularly finds herself searching for her naked videos and begs websites, sometimes successfully, to remove the ones she finds. 'How do you get your head around 200,000 guys masturbating as you're being assaulted?' she mused. A great majority of videos on XVideos and other tubesites are not of children or of unconscious women, most of the bodies are writing by choice. But it's easy to find videos where the posting or the activity wasn't consensual. A major study published by the British Journal of Criminology this year found that one in eight videos on three major tubesites - XVideos, Pornhub and XHamster - depicted sexual violence or nonconsensual conduct. Some show intoxicated or unconscious women or girls being raped, while others are from spy cams in locker rooms or breach changing rooms and show unsuspecting women or girls, (and, less often, men and boys), undressing or showering. Racist epithets and humiliation are on display; as are misogynistic videos of supposed feminists being degraded and tortured, and many of the videos depict rapists, real or fake, forcing sex on children or adults who are trying to fight back. One on XVideos was captioned with a girl's protest: 'This is not right, Daddy, stop, please.' XVideos guides viewers to videos that purport to show children: Search for 'young,' and it helpfully suggests also searching for 'tiny,' 'girl,' 'boy,' 'juvencita,' and 'youth porn.' Many of those on the screen will be young-looking adults, but some will be minors whose lives have been badly damaged. 'I think about suicide,' a Thai girl called Jenny* said, and she explained that when she was in eighth grade, a man reached out to her on Facebook and suggested that she could make money form modelling, and he advised her to send videos of herself, including naked videos to give a sense of her body; these would be kept strictly confidential, she was assured. Jenny sent him the videos, but she was never paid as promised, and said she forgot about the whole episode - until a friend had alerted her that her naked videos were on XVideos, Pornhub and at least one other site. 'I just wanted to die,' Jenny said: 'I didn't want my parents to know.' Jenny is smart and well educated, and is a beautiful singer, and she had hoped to become a music star in Thailand: 'I don't think that's possible now,' she stated: 'My dreams are going to end because I have naked pictures on the internet.' The Hug Project, a nonprofit in Thailand that works with trafficking victims, got XVideos to remove Jenny's videos, but Jenny quit school because she couldn't handle the humiliation and every day she gets messages from strange men, sometimes with photos of their genitals. Jenny is furious with herself for sending the videos: 'I had the potential to do something great, but now I can't,' she said. She agreed to be quoted, despite her shame, because she wanted other kids to understand that in the internet age, some mistakes are forever. The abusers aren't limited to obscure pornographic websites either. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and other sites are all sprinkled with child sexual abuse imagery. One woman, Adrianna*, from Illinois, had been trafficked, and her pimp had posted naked video clips of her that had been sitting on Twitter for six years; she said Twitter had ignored her pleas to remove them. When asked to have them removed after the fact by a prominent Times writer though, and they were removed within hours. Not everyone has the opportunity to rely on Newspaper columnists to aid them though in order to get nonconsensual nudity removed, and it's not a scalable solution either. Meanwhile a web search of Adrianna were still on XVideos, despite her efforts to have them removed, and they had collectively been viewed more than 100,000 times. 'The trafficking was one thing,' Adrianna had said: 'But I feel I'm being exploited all over again.' Google is a pillar of the sleazy ecosystem, for roughly half the traffic reaching XVideos and XNXX appears to come from Google searches: 'The porn tube sites are obsessed with their Google rankings because Google is their lifeline,' said Laila Mickelwait, the president of the Justice Defense Fund, which fights against online sexual exploitation. 'Google is the primary means by which they drive traffic to their sites.' A recent search with the words 'rape unconscious girl' using Google's video tab directed people to scores of videos celebrating just that, including one in which a woman first appears to be strangled to death (presumably acting) and then her 'corpse' was violated. A google search subsequently done for 'Schoolgirl Sex' turned up video results of teenagers having sex of all kinds (on a bus, with a 'stepbrother,' etc.) on XVideos and XNXX, with most of the people in the videos possibly over 18, but no way to be verifiably sure. The Times reached out to Google to help them understand its reasons for complicity with companies that monetize from child sexual abuse, but there were no satisfactory responses. Google has it's limits though, and when the Times reporter tried to search 'How do I poison my husband,' the results were literacy or humorous, not how-to instructions. The top responses to 'How Do I Commit Suicide' were for a suicide hotline. So Goole can demonstrate responsibility, it can demonstrate and remove toxic moral materials, so why not rape videos? XVideos and XNXX appear to be owned by the twins Stéphane and Malorie Deborah Pacaud (sometimes rendered as Deborah Malorie Pacaud). The Pacauds, 42, avoid the media and didn't respond to any inquiries, but others in the industry said that Stéphane Pacaud began the business in about 2001 by copying images from pornographic magazines and putting them on a simple website that became XNXX. Fabian Thylmann, who helped build what became the Pornhub empire before selling it, described Stéphane Pacaud as a loaner who devoted himself to his websites and other solitary pursuits. 'Even when in Vegas for conventions, he was often just in his hotel room working,' Thylmann said in 2012, and when he offered to buy XVideos for $120 million, but Pacaud cut off the discussion and said he had to get back to playing a video game. 'I'm too busy,' Pacaud had said, as Thylmann remembers the conversation: 'I've no time to discuss this now. I'm playing Diablo II.' The Pacauds' empire became WGCZ Holdings, a company that appears to have been recently renamed to WebGroup Czech Republic. It controls at least 60 companies worldwide, including some in the United States. Many of us were inspired by Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution in 1989: Is it too much to ask that the heirs of that revolution not inflict rape videos on the World? The Czech police and prosecutors say that they are investigating XVideos and tis affiliated sites, and the Czech press is publishing exposés about WebGroup's practices. Under pressure, XVideos has removed some paedophile search terms over the past few months, but the clean-up doesn't go that far, with a search for 'twelve' on XVideos suggesting 'related searches' of 'training bra,' '7th grader,' and 'elementary,' according to the Times. So what can be done and how can it be done, how long will it take, and will it be effective? A starting point is going to be to recognize that the issue is not pornography or the pornography industry at all. The issue is about child exploitation, and how we can be sex positive, and exploitation negative. It's a fair objection that cracking down on illegal pornography is sometimes a game of whack-a-mike, but while oversight won't eliminate problems of the internet, it can vastly help reduce them. Copyright protection is a priority for U.S. Government, so mainstream porn companies mostly have learned not to steal content; when they do, they get sued and lose. If the United States and other Group of 7 Countries cared as much about abused children as about video piracy, maybe it can make XVideos equally vigilant about rape videos. While there are no simple solutions, there are three steps that could help. First, PayPal and Credit Card Companies should stop working with ALL companies that promote illegal videos and not just single out Pornhub. PayPal in particular props up XVideos because it used to pay for ads, Mastercard took the important step of announcing that porn websites can only carry on accepting payments if they verify age and consent of each person in sex videos; other card companies could follow suit, and should follow suit. Second, search engines should stop leading people to rape videos and stop directing people from the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo to websites with a long record of distributing them. Third, we should create accountability in criminal and civil law, for that's the best way to incentivize companies to clean up their act. In March a girl who was trafficked at 14 and forced to appear in sexual videos filed a lawsuit against XVideos, but such a suit faces difficulties under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Bipartisan legislation before the House and the Senate would make these suits easier to pursue, which could be a gamechanger by harnessing capitalism to induce better corporate behaviour. 'There's always some enterprising lawyer waiting to pounce,' said Marc Randazza, a lawyer who has represented XVideos and also victims of nonconsensual porn: 'If you put civil remedies in, you would have a platoon of lawyers fighting to help you if you were a victim of nonconsensual porn.' Facing this privatized accountability, companies like XVideos would themselves rush to remove nonconsensual imagery, and we would have aligned the interests of porn king pins and their 14-year-old victims. Some worry that a crackdown would financially harm sex workers who sell videos of themselves, but these three steps would not kill that porn industry, or the porn industry in general. People in the adult content industry say that companies like XVideos have a perfectly good business model with just consensual adult content. Without accountability, corporations are tempted to avert their eyes, the most exploitative companies profit the most, and this creates a race to the bottom. The cost is borne by the unsuspecting children and adults who often didn't know their content is there in the first place. A 16-year-old girl in Perth, Australia, a good student and popular in school, took a naked photo of herself while standing in front of a bathroom mirror, and she sent it via Snapchat, so that it would automatically disappear in seconds, to her 17-year-old boyfriend, with the words: 'I love you. I trust you.' The boyfriend took a screenshot before it disappeared and shared it with five of his friends who in turn shared it with 47 of their friends, and within a few days, more than 200 people in the school had a copy. Someone uploaded it to a porn site and named the girl and her school; over three months, and with the help of online searches directing people to the site, the photo was downloaded 7,000 times. The family moved to a different city, but students there found the image as well, so the family fled to a different state in Australia. Paul Litherland, a former Australian police officer who worked on the case, said that the photo was posted on porn websites all over the world, and she felt she could never escape. She refused to attend school, and she self-medicated with drugs. Then at the age of 21, she took her own life. These are the stakes in which people are gambling with every day. There is more than financial and monetary gain at stake - lives are at stake! *Names changed to protect identities of victims. Read the full article

Kindred

by Octavia Butler (1979)

This was easily one of the best books I’ve read in a while.  I finished it in only a few days.  It’s a 9/10, maybe even a 10/10.

The writing style feels almost made-for-the-screen, as it is pretty dialogue heavy, but also very plot driven.  (Note: there is no movie, but there is a graphic novel). There is not a lot of descriptive paragraphs, but the writing is still very vivid and detailed, giving just enough information at just the right times for your brain to see the scene clearly, but not be distracted from the plot.  Sometimes the dialogue felt a little bit unnatural, but only because the events of the book (fantastical time-travel) are quite unnatural.

The publisher, on the back cover, claims this book is Science Fiction / African American literature, but I think I might disagree.  I mean, it’s definitely A. A. lit, but I’m not sure it’s science fiction? There is no time machine or other works of science involved.  Instead, what connects Dana to the past is her own history, her own spiritual connection to her ancestors, specifically her great-grandmother and grandfather, Alice and Rufus.  I think that makes this book fantasy and historical fiction.  Obviously, Butler did a lot of research to make the book’s setting in Antebellum Maryland historically accurate, and in some ways, it reminded me of The Land by Mildred Taylor.  I loved that book when I first read it in 7th grade, before we read it in class, and I think it had a big impact on the way that I think about race.  That book was so sad, so vivid, so real, and it introduced me to the feeling of being stuck in a system stacked against you.  Similarly, Kindred helps one understand how slavery could never have ended with just one proclamation or even one lost war.  The ideals of slavery were so forced on both white, black, and mixed people that extricating oneself from it was nearly impossible, especially for white folks.  It was never an individual problem, it was always societal.  Even Rufus, who had all the ingredients to be a “good white man,” couldn’t even do the bare minimum for Dana or Alice, woman he claimed he loved. 

At the same time, Rufus could have made a positive difference in the lives of the people he owned, and I think it says a lot about the white psyche, even today, that we so often say we want to do good things, but ultimately feel as though we cannot be expected to act outside our own best interest.  I feel that for myself sometimes: like it is so ingrained that we must do what’s best for ourselves, and that we should expect everyone else to do the same, and somehow that will equal out to having things be best for all.  Sure, in an ideal world that MIGHT be true (I’m not sure what an ideal world would even look like), but unfortunately, there’s almost always a power dynamic or some other unevenness.  Rufus was de-facto put in charge of all these people, even though he never asked for that, never qualified for that, and I think that must be one of the excuses he uses to justify his actions.

The book explores the difference between White Sadness and Black Sadness. Here, the black sadness is everywhere: Sarah losing her children, but keeping one and living for that girl; all the other people who lose family members forever to causal slave sales and the fear that they could be punished in that way at anytime; the way the field hands dislike Alice, Dana, and Sarah for their proximity to whiteness; the patrollers and the precarious position of even the free Black people; the hopelessness of trying to run away; the constant threat of rape and then the dispensability that comes when the white man is no longer interested; the violent punishment and the over-working; the total lack of control over one’s circumstances, one’s job, one’s religion and education, one’s family, even one’s own morals; and the idea that no one can enact revenge on the slave owners without hurting everyone else.  |I mean, I could go on, the book is steeped in sadness for the characters and anger for the readers at the apparent helplessness of these strong, smart people.  Dana says it best when she talks about how she does not have the endurance, the strength, that the enslaved people do, because I feel the same way.  I do not have the will to live like some of these people do.  I’d rather be dead than enslaved, but Butler shows how the enslaved people both do and do not feel that way.  It brought up so much anger in me when Dana kept saving Rufus, and he kept treating her like shit.  Made me want to kill that little fucker myself.  But, at the same time, she simply cannot do that until her grandmother is born. This is very similar to the position Alice or Sarah is in: “I would kill that fucking devil, but that would tear apart my family and the family of everyone I know, and definitely come back on my kids.”  What a genius way to portray this.

There’s a lot to be said about what’s wrong with Rufus, but I think one of his driving motives is his sadness.  This is why Dana is called to him in the first place, I think, because he is sad and reckless.  He does not feel loved by his father, who arguably had never been shown love by his own white parents. He was probably raised by black woman who he was simultaneously taught to disrespect.  That’s probably also why he has no respect for Rufus’ mother, and why, in turn, Rufus also has no respect for her.  She probably also did very little of the work to raise Rufus, even if she tries to be there for him.  Her own psyche is so damaged by the messages of slavery and misogyny that her weak brain cannot possibly understand her place in the world or how to feel about it. It’s funny that after her husband dies, Margret is able to be friendlier, more open, and even less racist. Rufus’ only friends seem to be black people, who are probably a bit weary and cautious around him, because their little “friend’s” father can decide to beat or sell them or their families at any time.  So Rufus never learns true friendship, true love.  He doesn’t understand and cannot work on the different parts of himself because he does not have the vocabulary or the experiences to differentiate selfishness, empathy, and justice.  This makes him sad, lonely, and angry.  He should have listened to Dana, but there is no space in his head to understand a smart Black woman.  I don’t mean to sound like I’m excusing him in anyway, he’s the devil, but Butler made him a very dimensional character in a way that makes me reflect on my own whiteness and how I experience whiteness in the world.  Still, it is mind boggling how Rufus again and again has a chance to make the right choice, or a better choice, and chooses something else.  It is clear that he has no sense of morality or objectiveness, only his perception, his desires.  His father, on the other hand, is painted to be a much more close-minded, violent, and cold man, but he still has intacted, yet warped, sense of morality, at least towards other white people. At least, Dana and Rufus seem to believe this, but there is very little evidence of it in the book.

Being white is all about mixed and purposefully misleading messages.  My favorite is how we are taught to fear black men, even though most violence enacted on white woman is from white men.  However, the fear of blackness keeps us from suspecting the white pedophiles, abusers, and rapists in our midst.

It would not be a proper remembering of this novel if I didn’t at least briefly mention Kevin, the white husband.  In 2020, we are no longer marrying dudes that doubt our intuition, who makes us unpack all the boxes, who hold their career success over us so that they can hopefully cajole us into doing their secretary work.  Like the fact he didn’t even consider coming back with her again, even though she was in much more danger their then he would be.  All around, I found him unimpressive.

Alice was also interesting.  It was almost as if Dana felt more kinship with Rufus than with Alice, which makes sense given her circumstance -- that she was called to the past by Rufus’ potential deaths.  Still, sometimes I forget that Alice is Dana’s great-grandmother, because she doesn’t seem to connect with her as inimitably.  At the same time, Dana knows that she is doing Alice a disservice, knows that there are things worse than death, and still, plays a role in creating Alice’s hell to save Dana’s family’s own existence.  Perhaps that is why she cannot be as close to Alice, just like some of the people who work in the fields hate Sarah and Dana.  Perhaps it is a way to illustrate the contentious relationships between black people in that era created by the white people or more specifically, created by the white people’s power and privilege.  I read some on the internet about black unity and black community, and it seems like some of these trends still play out today.  I read on sishi.rose’s instagram today about how when she spoke out about racism in her workplace, black people where some of the most skeptical.  Even today, there is issues in the black community regarding proximity to whiteness on both sides (ie both “your too close to whiteness” and also “I want to be close to whiteness”).  I can’t really speak much more about that, but I haven’t read many narratives about the negative aspects of intra-slave relationships.  It was also interesting to hear about how they created justice within their enslaved communities.  Obviously, the want justice between themselves and the whites, but because that was unobtainable, it felt so... vindicating? empowering? surprising? in the plot when they got to do that in their own community.  A few of them beat up the woman who tattles on Dana when she runs away -- that woman, too, displays more morality in her pinky finger than Rufus has in his entire body when she refrains from telling on her attackers.  Is she scared of being attacked again or being ostracized for her actions? Or does she know that telling on them could lead to their deaths or their movement away from the plantation -- is morality innate or enforced by our surroundings?  Either way.  When that man gets sold and his family blames it on Dana, I think it is Alice who later sets them straight.

All in all, it is a riveting story, that makes a lot of points about race relations in America not only 200 years ago, but today.

Outlander: The Deep Heart's Core (4x10)

I know that I need to talk about this week's episode, but I'm already just so pumped to see John Grey next week. I'm predictable like that. Also, this episode was really not my favorite, and I've got a lot of things to say about it, so buckle in.

Cons:

I always admire stories where everyone is a little bit wrong and a little bit right, where you can see and sympathize with all sides of the story even if you know that various people should have handled things differently. I think that's what this episode is going for - Jamie is wrong, but his motivations are understandable. Brianna should have been more honest, but her reticence also makes sense. I want to like this story - I want to believe they did justice to this bizarre scenario, but I think there are a lot of things here that just fall flat.

For one, let's look at Jamie's story here. He is the survivor if a truly horrific rape, and that is discussed at the start of this episode with a great amount of candor. And yet when Bree and Claire realize that Jamie beat Roger, the man he believed raped his daughter, they both condemn his actions full-force. Let's take a second and think about how things would have been different if Jamie had beat up Stephen Bonnet. Claire and Brianna might have been a bit horrified at the brutality, and concerned that Jamie would go off the handle like that, but I doubt they would have turned on him for it. Sure, maybe Jamie shouldn't have trusted Lizzie's word, but are we supposed to blame Jamie for being a little bit irrational when it comes to the subject of rape? He just found his daughter, he's just forming a relationship with her, and now he's confronted with the fact that she has suffered through something enormously traumatic - an experience he can relate to first hand - and we're supposed to be pissed off that he's not acting rationally?

But then there's the flip side of this - Jamie forces Brianna to confront her own weakness in order to realize that she is not to blame for being unable to fight off her attacker. On the one hand, this seems like just the sort of wrong-footed yet well-meaning thing that Jamie might do, in the same way that he takes physical punishment between parents and children completely in stride. He doesn't see anything wrong with putting Brianna through something traumatic in order to shock her into a realization that he believes will help her in the long-run. That could be an interesting thing to explore. But... in this scene, Bree is furious that Jamie is doubting her about being raped. The conceit of the scene is that we know Jamie wouldn't really think Bree was lying - he's just trying to force her to confront reality. But later in the episode, Jamie does doubt Brianna about her experience, so it kind of undercuts the point of the earlier scene. Also, we don't get to see what Brianna thinks of Jamie's methods. Is she cool with her father physically restraining her and terrifying her? We don't really get to explore that.

On the flip side of the flip side, though, you've got to confront the fact that the plot contrivance of what happens to Brianna is pretty confusing, and you can hardly blame Jamie for being turned around. Brianna says she was raped. Jamie attacks a man he believes to be the rapist. Brianna then says that she did have sex with that man, but that it was consensual. Jamie is, understandably, horrified that he attacked an innocent man based on inaccurate information. Can we really blame him for not immediately jumping to the conclusion that Brianna had consensual sex and then was immediately raped by a different guy on the same night? That's... pretty unlikely. Sure, Jamie shouldn't have accused Brianna of being untruthful, I guess, but he's pretty shaken up! Jamie is a fair and honest man, and he's probably utterly devastated that he has wronged an innocent man, and one who his daughter has apparently wronged in some way by accusing him of rape. Obviously that's not what Brianna has done, but I'm having a hard time being too angry at Jamie for his overwrought reaction in this moment. Especially since, as the episode had already established at an earlier point, Jamie was raped, and it still haunts him and is very traumatic for him. The expectation that he would be completely rational given the circumstances is honestly pretty unfair.

Okay. Sorry, I guess I had more to say about that than I realized. There were also a few other smaller things that I didn't love about this episode. For one, I really wish they'd cut out that whole thing about Young Ian being enamored with Brianna. It adds nothing and doesn't really go anywhere. I wish Ian could just be a family member and ally to Brianna, without adding in the part where he has a crush.

The scenes with Roger stumbling around with the Mohawk were a little too long and repetitive, and they also made me go back to one of my oft-repeated complaints about this season, that the native characters don't feel like humans. The narrative has once again positioned them as villains, so in a way it makes sense that they are scary and unapproachable from the perspective of Roger, our viewpoint character. But why haven't we seen evidence of native characters just... smiling? Being themselves? Having normal conversations and interactions? I'm sure we'll get that moving forward, as I do know where the story is going, but honestly it just feels really icky to me that our only visual for most of the native characters so far is this really stoic-faced, serious, intimidating warrior image.

I'm going to discuss in a moment the fact that Claire was really the best part of this episode, but I do have to remark that her scenes with Brianna are sometimes a little awkward and stilted. Last week I was digging their vibe. I liked the way there seemed to be some separation between them, even though they clearly love each other. But this week... gosh. Both actresses are really acting their hearts out, but I honestly think there's just a fundamental lack of chemistry between them. When Bree says she's sorry for making Claire leave her, Claire says "oh, Bree!" and pulls her into a hug, and I just found myself rolling my eyes. This show has a lot of cheesiness and a lot of love in it, but usually the great acting and chemistry can pull it off. Here, I just don't know if I buy it.

Pros:

This isn't a bad episode, actually. The fact that I wrote so much in the "cons" section is more an indication of how seriously I take this show, how much I trust it, and how much I want to hold it to a high standard. My complaints about Outlander are usually not black and white. It takes me quite a bit of time to work my way to what I'm really feeling about something, and this episode is a prime example of that. I had concerns about the way that Jamie and Brianna's relationship and their characterizations were being treated, and I had to talk about it. I imagine that a lot of people will disagree with me, and I can see how this episode might be a bit polarizing. All of that to say: there was plenty here that I quite liked.

I know I just said that Claire and Brianna's chemistry is off, but I actually did really love the scene where they discuss abortion. It's a complicated question, but Brianna holds on to the hope that the child might be Roger's. Even if it isn't, she'll still love it, she's sure. This situation puts Brianna to the test, as she needs to make a difficult choice. If she chooses to keep the baby, and if she wants to go back to her own time, she needs to make that choice immediately. They don't know what would happen if Brianna tries to cross over with a babe in arms, but they do know that it's possible to cross through pregnant, since Claire did so. Of course, this is all while Brianna and Claire mistakenly believe that Roger is back in the 20th century. When they find out otherwise, it changes Brianna's options significantly. She wants to keep the baby, but she can't leave without Roger. See, this is the kind of plot contrivance that leads to good storytelling, because it puts Brianna at the center of her own story and forces her to confront some difficult realities and make some complicated choices. I loved watching her grapple with all of these moving pieces.

I also liked the way Claire was positioned in this episode. She loves Jamie more than her own life and soul, and we've seen that time and again. But her loyalty to Brianna has to supersede that, in some way. When Brianna is calling Jamie a savage, Claire can chastise her a bit, but she also can't take her arms from around her daughter and go to comfort her husband. In some ways, Claire's choice here is obvious, but in other ways, how can it be? The situation is so muddled, and despite my complaints about the way it was portrayed, I liked the way Claire had to balance different loyalties and conflicting perspectives. I liked the moment when Jamie tries to appeal to Claire, and Claire remarks that he lied and said that his hand injury was from hitting a tree. Jamie tries to defend himself, but Claire is clearly furious. However, unlike with Brianna and Jamie, her fury is not potentially relationship-ending, and neither Claire nor Jamie think that it is, even if in this moment Claire needs to be on Brianna's side, 100%.

Murtagh continues to be a delight. There have been moments here and there when I've worried that the story wouldn't be able to accommodate him, but for the most part it's working really well. One thing that this season has cut back on significantly is the sense of the people in Jamie's vicinity. Fergus and Marsali are in Wilmington, and we're not spending time with other settlers yet. Having Murtagh there as a representative of the Scots community is a smart thing to do. I particularly like the scene of Murtagh and Jocasta reuniting, because it adds flavor to the reality of these characters, and to the past that we know about only through little passing moments. Jocasta and Murtagh talk about Ellen, the grandmother that Brianna will never know, and then Jocasta feels Bree's face and smiles, because she feels the familiarity of it. That's good storytelling and world-building, and gives a sense of the inner lives of these various people. Of course, I'm still worried about how Outlander is handling the slavery issue. We'll have to see how it's addressed in next week's episode, once Brianna has had a chance to orient herself to River Run.

A couple of little things to praise before I sign off on this over-long review: I liked the montage scenes where we see the happiness in this odd little family. We see that despite Brianna's difficult situation, she is enjoying being here with her mother and father, with Ian, Rollo, and Murtagh, with Lizzie. It's really cute. I also liked the moment when Brianna assures Jamie that she doesn't resent him for taking Claire away from her... she didn't come back in time just to find Claire, but to find Jamie too. That's adorable. Finally, despite my continuing problems with the way that rape is used as a storytelling device, I thought that Brianna's dream about Roger and Stephen was excellently performed, and it showed quite vividly the difficulty of Brianna's choice. Obviously it's not Brianna's unborn child's fault that he or she might be the product of a rape, but Brianna's revulsion when she thinks about Stephen being the biological father of her child should not be discounted. We might be able to say rationally that it doesn't matter, but the human mind doesn't work that way, and Brianna has been through something awful. Of course it would be a factor in her decision-making and the way she's thinking about this whole messy situation.

Whew. That was a long review. Next week, we'll get to see what Roger decided to do about that magic-stone-back-to-the-future that he conveniently discovered. And we'll also get to see John Grey at River Run, and perhaps Fergus in Wilmington? All my faves in one episode? Yes please!

6.5/10

I

By The Powers That Be

I spent my Saturdays the way most haggard and weary husbands do; clutching a purse while seated on any available surface I could find, waiting to finally go home. Only I was not a haggard and weary husband, but a haggard and weary bigender babe holding the purses of my two best friends. We were in a local indie clothing store that they knew and I knew we would be leaving empty-handed. But I also knew that it wouldn't stop us (read: them) from spending a minimum of two hours browsing all the clothes and knick-knacks. The inventory rarely changed but we stopped here during every trip downtown regardless. I highly suspected that Marcie had a crush on the hipster girl who ran the cash register.

My only saving grace was my tablet, which I was reading one of over a hundred books on. I was an avid, voracious reader and would usually be reading several books at the same time. In this case I was absorbed in Lord of Shadows, the latest book in my favorite series. I generally preferred the show over the books, but that was because the show was so damn amazing. The books were still greatly enjoyable, even if the older ones weren't that great.

I was just getting to a good part when I sensed a presence next to me. I glanced over to see a woman sitting next to me on the display couch. A double-take revealed that she did, in fact, look exactly like Jane Lynch in a crisp, white linen suit. I was baffled. I didn't know where Jane Lynch lived, but surely she wouldn't be anywhere near a dumpy little suburb like Campbell. Nor did I imagine she would sit next to me and stare at me with a smile that said she had many secrets and I knew none of them.

“Hello,” she said. Her tone was quite friendly, but I was still on edge. This didn't seem right.

“Um, hi.”

She cocked her head and studied me up and down. “Is this really what you're willing to settle for?”

I puzzled. “Excuse me?”

She gestured around at our surroundings. “Do you really want to settle for this...mediocrity?”

“...I don't follow.”

A snort. “I've been watching you for a long time and—“

“That's...really creepy.” I leaned away from her.

She shot me a glare that shut me up. “And I noticed that you have so much potential. You could be so much more than this. Why are you settling?”

Everything about this was unsettling me. “I'm happy with the way things are.” At her incredulous look I added, “...Mostly.”

“Well I'm going to change that,” she said. The smile was back and even more unsettling than before.

I nervously scooted away from her, as far as I could get on the couch, and clutched my friends' purses tighter. “I'd rather you didn't.”

She reached out to touch my cheek, to which I flinched away. “Tough shit, kiddo.”

“I gotta—“

I had started to say that I had to go, but out of nowhere my legs suddenly felt like jelly. I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up without falling flat on my face. I desperately looked around for my best friends in hopes to call them over to rescue me, but they were both occupied. They were separated and were talking to two different people that made me even uneasier. They wore the same white linen suits as Jane.

My attention was taken back to Jane as she stood up. She seemed too tall, much too tall. She took my face in her hands and I whimpered, finding myself unable to pull away. I couldn't move a single muscle.

“I don't want this,” I pleaded, afraid of whatever she was about to do. My mind was flooded with images of knives and guns or whatever else one could commit acts of violence with.

“You'll thank me later,” she said softly, stroking my cheek with her thumb.

“Who are you?”

“You may call me Jane if you wish. The short answer is that I am a member of the Powers That Be. We watch over all the universes. Normally we're not supposed to interfere, but...I think an exception can be made. Just this once.” She winked.

“Bullshit,” I blurted. She made herself sound to be some all-knowing entity, but those didn't exist. I believed in a lot, but this was hard to take.

“You'll believe eventually.”

Before I could respond, a feeling came over me. My skin fizzled with what felt like static electricity, making the hair on my arms and neck stand up on end. My vision went blurry, despite my glasses still being firmly planted on my face. By the time my vision cleared up, it was dark and Jane was gone. I don't know how it got dark so fast, because it had seemed to take only a few seconds. But there was darkness and I...wasn't in the store anymore.

The couch and I were still together, but my friends' purses and the store and Jane were long gone. Instead I was in a smelly alley like I'd never seen before. The jelly feeling in my legs was now gone, so I jumped up and walked out of the alley, clutching my purse like it was my last life line. Which it might very well be.

Glancing around, I found myself in a small commercial district of some kind that I didn't recognize. How did I get here? Where even was here? I tried to ignore the growing dread in my stomach as I looked for anything familiar. Nothing. But...

Suddenly I heard screaming. I nearly jumped out of my skin and looked around for the source. A couple stores down there was a woman on the ground, screaming in terror at the hulking figure above her. They were dressed all in black and had her pinned on the sidewalk. I had my phone out before I could fully comprehend the situation and I was shouting, “HEY!” as I approached. Most attackers and rapists ran at the sight of trouble, and surely they'd see me dialing 911 and run for the hills.

They didn't.

The attacker whipped around to look at me and I froze in my tracks. The owl demon. The owl demon from Shadowhunters. Surely it had to be someone in a cosplay or something. Just so happens that a fan of the show is also a rapist asshole. That theory was quickly disproved when he suddenly appeared in front of me, fast as The Flash. I screamed and took off running away from him. I didn't look back to see if he was chasing me, because quite frankly I didn't want to know. I didn't even look back to see if the woman at least got away.

It was in that moment I wished I wasn't such a lazy slob who spent all day on her ass. All I could think about was how I couldn't run very fast and how I was probably going to trip and fall on my face and die. I never tripped, but I did get knocked off my feet sideways into a wall. It was a brick wall too, so all the air got knocked out of me. As I gasped for breath, the owl demon loomed over me. This was it, this was how I would die. Or get possessed. One of the two.

Just as it reached for me, an arrow suddenly lodged in its shoulder. It let out a loud, angry noise and clutched at the injured shoulder, whipping around to see the offender. I stared in shock at Alec and Isabelle Lightwood as they stood across the street, Alec's bow already notched with another arrow.

“Get away from them!” Alec commanded.

The owl demon growled and zipped over, lunging at them. Isabelle knocked it away with her whip, sending it skidding back on the pavement while Alec sent another arrow flying into its chest. The owl demon, to its credit, yanked the arrow out and quickly disappeared, off to places unknown. As soon as it was out of sight, Alec and Isabelle ran over to where I still sat on the sidewalk against the wall.

“Are you alright?” Isabelle asked me with concern as she knelt down next to me. Alec stayed standing, looking around in case the owl demon came back for another try.

I was dreaming, this had to be a dream. I was still back on the couch in the store, having somehow passed out while waiting for my friends. These thoughts ran through my head as I gazed into Isabelle's deep brown eyes and nodded.

“Just stunned.”

“Come on,” Alec said as he reached down to grab my hand, hauling me to my feet. “We'll take you home.”

“I don't live here,” I blurted before I could entirely think it through.

“Where do you live?” Alec asked.

“California.”

“What are you doing in New York then?” That was Isabelle.

“Good question,” was my reply. They both looked at me like I was insane. Which I very well might be.

“I don't understand.” That was Alec.

“It's a long story. Short version is I'm here against my will. Or I'm dreaming. One of the two.”

“Well...Why don't we take you somewhere safe and you can tell us the full story.”

“I don't...think that's a good idea. You'll think I'm insane.”

Alec and Isabelle shared a look, a look that was meant to convey “We know more than this person”. In reality, I was in on it, in a really weird sense. “Why don't you let us decide that,” Alec said as he and Isabelle led me off.

“Where are we going?” I asked curiously.

“A place called The Institute. Normally your kind isn't allowed in there, but I think for this we can make an exception.” Isabelle explained. I had an unfortunate flashback to Jane. She said she was making an exception for my case as well. I wanted to complain that I shouldn't be allowed in the Institute, but I wasn't sure if I should tip my hand just yet.

“You guys don't have to,” I said sheepishly.

“Where would you even go?” Alec inquired. He took my ensuing silence as answer enough. “Exactly.” He did have me there.

After what felt like hours of walking, but was probably only several minutes, the Institute was in sight. Alec and Isabelle didn't start relaxing until we were walking up the pathway towards the doors. Alec opened the door and ushered Isabelle and I inside. Immediately we were accosted by a Shadowhunter I recognized as the asshole one.

“Who's this?” he said, clearly displeased with what he was witnessing.

“Izzy,” I explained.

He sneered at me before turning back to Isabelle and Alec. “Did you seriously bring a mundane to the Institute?”

Alec could barely contain an eyeroll. “She was being attacked by the owl demon and she has nowhere to go. What did you expect me to do, Raj?”

“Anything but bring it here!”

“Did you just call me an 'it'?”

“Raj,” Alec said warningly.

“I was gonna offer to leave until you called me an 'it'. I have a gender. I have two in fact.”

“What?” was the general consensus from everyone else.

“It's called being bigender. I identify as male and female, so I respond to both male and female pronouns. Just fyi.”

There was a beat of silence as everyone processed this. Then Isabelle spoke. “You owe us a story, if I recall.”

I groaned. “You have to promise not to lock me up after.”

“I think we can handle it,” Isabelle chuckled.

“Right.” I hesitated. “So basically I was sitting in a store waiting on my best friends when this woman who looked exactly like Jane Lynch approached me. She said she was a part of this thing called The Powers That Be and that she was going to help me live up to my potential. She touched my face and next thing I know I'm here in New York and the owl demon is attacking someone.”

“How do you know—“ Alec started.

I held up a finger. “Not finished. Where I come from, all of this—“ I gesture around us. “—is a TV show based on a book series. You guys are Shadowhunters who protect mundanes from the Shadow World which is filled with Downworlders like vampires and werewolves and warlocks. You're Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, you live here with Jace Wayland-slash-Herondale and Clary Fairchild, are friends with Simon Lewis who is a vampire who's dating a werewolf named Maia, and you're currently dealing with attacks by the owl demon who's working for an unidentified greater demon.”

“How do you know all that?” Alec asked me suspiciously.

“TV show, like I said.”

“Right. Do you know who the greater demon is?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

Before I could reply, there was a rumbling from the sky outside despite it being a clear night. “...I don't think I'm at liberty to say.” There was more rumbling, but this sounded almost...pleased.

“So not only is it crazy, it's useless,” Raj snorted.

I glared. “Stop calling me 'it'.” He ignored me.

“Well she's staying here whether you like it or not. It's our job to keep mundanes safe, and that's exactly what we're going to do,” Alec said firmly. There was no arguing with his tone, not even Asshole Raj. He looked decidedly displeased, but remained silent. I stuck my tongue out at him because I am a mature adult.

“Come on, I'll take you to your room,” Isabelle said with a smile, taking my arm and leading me down a long hallway. Eventually we stopped at a door which she opened upon an empty bedroom. It had no signs of anyone staying in it, like a new hotel room. I guess this is where I would be staying until they decided I would be safe to let loose on the streets. “This will be your room.”

“It's nice,” I said appreciatively as I walked inside and looked around. The walls and floor were a dark wood and the lights cast a soft, yellow glow. The bed was made with crisp white sheets and a slate gray comforter.

“We'll figure out the clothes situation in the morning.”

I arched an eyebrow. “I'm not gonna be here that long, am I?”

“Just until the owl demon is dealt with.”

“So an entire season. Fantastic.”

“Get some rest. I have a feeling you'll need it.” And with that ominous warning, Isabelle left.

I sighed, slipping off my shoes and my jacket, climbing into the bed. The Powers That Could Suck My Dick were at least kind enough to alleviate my insomnia, because I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next morning I woke up bright and early, a first for me since my school days. I reluctantly climbed out of bed and slipped my shoes back on when there was suddenly a knock on the door. “Come in,” I called.

It was to my great displeasure that Raj popped his head in. “Alec wants to see you in the library,” he said, sounding even less happy to be talking to me than I was to him.

“I don't know where that is,” I said as if it should be obvious, which it should be.

Raj rolled his eyes. “Come with me, mundane,” he huffed, opening the door wider so I could fit through.

“Wow, I'm not sure if that's better or worse than 'it',” I quipped as I very reluctantly followed him.

“You shouldn't be here.”

“You don't say.”

Raj stopped in his tracks and turned to loom over me, trying to be intimidating. I am angry to admit that it kind of worked. “You don't understand anything, do you? You're just a child bumbling in things you don't understand—“

“Look, asshole. I didn't ask to be here, okay. I was brought here against my will.”

“So you say.”

“What even is the point of this? I'm stuck here for as long as Alec and Isabelle say, so why are you yelling at me as if it'll get me to leave?” I said, waving my arms about angrily. He was really getting my blood boiling and I desperately wanted to punch him.

“Don't touch me, mundane!” Raj growled, recoiling as if he'd be set ablaze at the slightest brusgh.

“I'll do worse than touch you, you little—“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” came a familiar voice as a body stepped between me and Raj, the angry, spitting cats. It was Clary, and I was mildly shocked to realize that she was shorter than me. So tiny and yet could so easily kick my ass. “What's going on here?”

“Alec wants to speak with the mundane. He's in the library. You take it,” Raj spat before skulking off. I flipped him off behind his back, though I wouldn't have minded if he'd seen it. My pulse raged through my veins as I turned to Clary, who was now stuck with me, it seemed.

“I would say he's not as bad as he seems, but he really is that bad,” she said sheepishly. My anger ebbed a little, mostly because she was so tiny and cute. Even if she could kill me in seventeen different ways with her pinkie finger alone.

“Yeah, I've gathered that much,” I snorted. Clary turned and started down the hall, motioning for me to follow her, which I did. I wasn't in much position to say no to these folks. They were kindly letting me stay here for safety until the Powers That Be decided to send me home. Which would hopefully be very soon.

“So Alec and Isabelle filled me in on your story,” she said as she walked, passing various other Shadowhunters. I couldn't see her face, but I could tell by her tone that she was dubious at best. I couldn't really blame her. I still wasn't convinced this wasn't a dream or a hallucination.

“I know it sounds super crazy, but I swear it's true. I can prove it.” I jogged to catch up with her at her brisk pace and lowered my voice. “I know about the wish.”

I knocked into her after that, as she stopped suddenly in her tracks, a look of panic on her face. “What wish?”

“The wish to bring Jace back,” I whispered. “But it's okay, I won't tell anyone, I swear.”

She cleared her throat and straightened her back. “Good,” she said, moving again. I fell into step behind her, trailing like a lost puppy relying on someone to guide them. She eventually led me through a large set of double-doors into what I could only assume was the library. It was a giant room full of books, it was a safe assumption.

At the center of the room was Alec and Isabelle, no doubt doing some research on the owl demon or trying to puzzle out who the greater demon was. They both looked up as we approached, and neither looked too shocked to see Clary leading me instead of Raj.

“I was summoned?”

“Yes,” Alec said as he stood up straight. “I had some more questions for you.”

“Fire away.”

“I wanted to get a better idea of what your world is like,” he said.

“Just like this world, only minus everything supernatural,” I said with a shrug.

Alec, Isabelle, and Clary all looked as if that was the weirdest thing they'd ever heard. “Not even magic?” Isabelle said.

“Nope. I mean, there's illusionists, but no real magic. Angels? Probably don't exist. Vampires, werewolves, warlocks? Definitely don't exist. Magic? I wish.”

“So it's nothing but the mundane world?” Alec said incredulously.

I nodded. “Basically.”

“It can't be,” Alec said. “There probably is but you don't see it. Like here. Mundanes are perfectly in the dark about our world.”

“I—“ I paused. What if he was right? What if there was some secret supernatural world that was being kept secret via magic and other suck tricks. I mean, a supposedly all-powerful being just sent me into the world of my favorite TV show (supposedly), maybe such things were common and I was just glamoured against seeing it. I shook my head. “My head hurts.”

Clary, the closest one to me, put a hand on my shoulder. “It's okay. I felt the same way when I learned about the Shadow World for the first time.”

“I'm still not convinced that this isn't some kind of dream or hallucination, but this is just...” I shook my head again. “This just can't be real. It just can't be!”

Alec, Clary, and Isabelle shared a look between them that clearly said they worried for my intelligence/sanity. Alec approached me and gently took my hand...and sliced a knife across my palm.

“Ow!” I yelped, jerking my hand away as blood began spilling from the open wound. Clary hurried to my side to tend to it.

“Alec!” Isabelle scolded. Alec paid her no mind.

“Still think this isn't real?”

“You're a dick!” was my witty reply as Clary searched for something to stop the bleeding. Isabelle walked over with a handkerchief and pressed it against the cut in my palm. I hissed in pain.

“It worked, didn't it?” Alec shrugged, crossing his arms.

“That doesn't make you less of a dick.” He snorted.

Eventually the bleeding stopped and Isabelle and Clary got it bandaged up. I flexed my palm and winced. It stung like hell, and I wanted to slap Alec with it. I know it would probably only hurt more, but it made me feel good on the inside to imagine it.

“We need to take her clothes shopping,” Isabelle said once I was no longer in danger of bleeding to death (thanks Alec).

I piped up before Alec could. “I don't have any money.”

“Why can't she just borrow some from the others here?” Alec asked.

Isabelle gave him a Look. “She's a mundane, Alec, not a Shadowhunter. Shadowhunter clothes are made for fighting. And she needs underwear.”

Alec was clearly done at the mention of underwear. I was done at the mention of underwear. “Alright. I'll grant you guys some funds and you can take her shopping.”

Isabelle smiled pleasantly and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.” She turned to Clary and I, the former apparently getting roped into this. She didn't look too put off though. She actually looked like she might enjoy it. I guess even Shadowhunters enjoyed shopping trips. “Come on, let's go. We have a mission to do.”

“Wait, don't you need the money?” Alec called after us as Clary and I trailed after Isabelle, who was walking out of the room.

“No need. I have your credit card,” Isabelle called smugly over her shoulder as she sashayed out of the room.

“Hey!”

On Sexual Assaults: Me Too and Why I Didn’t Report

There are a lot of issues that I am very passionate and deeply invested in (racism, health care, belief systems…)   For me, all of these take a backseat in importance to sexual harassment and assault.  This is why the “Me Too” phenomenon really struck a nerve.  As I saw “Me too” post after post and comments on Facebook and Twitter, I was reminded of just how prevalent and ignored sexual harassment and assault is around the world and how far we are from truly admitting and correcting the problem in our very modern, very advanced society.

I was raised by a very strong, independent, knows who she is and what she wants-woman.  Of the many aspects of my belief system she impacted, none has been as influential as how I treat and view women. I was raised on gender equality.  My mom is a better hunter than her husband or any of her sons.  She is the most mentally strong person in our family.  If I had to pick anyone in the world to do what is best for me and watch my back, it would be her.  Trying to insult me by calling me a “mommy’s boy,” is futile.  I’m damn proud of being just that.

Besides being a “mommy’s boy,” almost all my close friends my whole life have been women.  For more reasons than I care to go into, I gravitate toward women more than men when it comes to friendship.  I find the vast majority of men boring, obnoxious, arrogant, and intolerable.  Because of this, whether from women I’ve dated or had close friendships with, I’ve been exposed to “Me too” from their point-of-view for thirty-plus years.  I’ve seen first-hand the short and long-term damage done to women by men’s overt and oftentimes completely ignorant behaviors.

One of the first times I was introduced to, “Me too,’ was when I was an undergraduate at Utah State University.  I was dating a woman who grew up in the same hometown as I did.  She was younger than me and I never really knew her growing up.  I was introduced to her by one of my younger brothers.  From the first time we went out, I could tell she needed sexual reassurance, positive sexual reinforcement.  By the third date (it usually didn’t take this long,) she confided in me that she had been sexually molested by some of her older brothers. She knew what had happened to her was wrong and intellectually she knew it wasn’t her fault but emotionally, her self-worth was tied to how sexually attractive and desired she was to someone else.  The upshot of this was she wanted and needed sex to validate herself. The damage caused by her sexual abuse was profound and very detrimental to her psychological and personal growth.

A few years later, I was dating a young woman who exhibited the very same traits like the one who had been assaulted by her brothers. Except, instead of needing sexual approval, she repelled any physical contact.  The first time I tried to hold her hand, she withdrew and the tension was palpable.  A number of dates later, she confided in me that one night while she had been out jogging, she was attacked and raped.  This was a good Mormon girl who had been told her whole life that being sexually pure was the one and only thing she had to protect until she got married.  She blamed herself for what happened to her.  She went to the other extreme of the first young woman I knew who had been sexually assaulted, anything physical was viewed as bad and she felt guilty for the most basic physical contact.

These two experiences happened in my early 20s.  Since then, from women I’ve dated and female friends, I’ve heard dozens of horror stories about sexual assault.  Because these stories came from someone I cared about, it was easy to tap into some form of anger-”How dare someone do this to someone I really care about!”  The thing is, it isn’t just about people I care(d) about.  If the majority of women I know have been sexually assaulted, it is not an irrational jump to conclude the majority of women, in general, have been assaulted as well.

Fundamentally, I knew this but it took a few years of real-life experiences to drive the point home.  I remember visiting a good friend of mine in Arizona and going out with someone who was a sister of one of her friends. On the very first date, she told me how she had been raped by her ex-husband.  For reasons I’m not entirely clear about, women have always felt comfortable telling me very personal and private things very early on in whatever relationship we have.  As flattered and honored as I feel about how comfortable they are opening up to me, I also feel very bad because some of the things they feel the need to tell have been horrific.  When I first saw the “Me too” meme, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest.  Deep down, my response was, “No fucking shit!.”  

Of all the women I’ve dated more than twice, I cannot think of more than a few who cannot honestly say, “Me too.”  I’m not talking, “Me too” to sexually harassment.  I’m talking about  “Me too,” to sexual assault.  These women all have come from middle to upper-middle class families.  The rate of sexual assault among the lower classes is much, much higher because they don’t have the means to speak up.  Whether being felt up at a bar to being raped, women endure unwanted contact from men more than is reported and certainly more than most of us want to contemplate because to do so is to admit some culpability to a massive moral failing.  This culpability can be something as minor as participating in sexualized jokes and comments to major things like sexual assault.   Some of the women I’ve known/know have handled and dealt with what happened to them well. Many have not.  I feel horrible for the ones who have not dealt with it well and understand why they haven’t.  We live in a society that is more than eager to blame women for whatever happens to them, especially when it comes to their sexuality.  

Whenever there is a report of sexual assault it is always skewed towards the women.  “Seven girls in South Port High School Were Sexually Assaulted by Member of the Football Team.”  The headline should read, “Members of the South Port High School Team Sexually Assaulted Seven Girls.”  Sexual assault IS NOT a women’s issue or problem.  There is NOTHING they have done to create it.  There is NOTHING they can do to prevent it.  Rape and sexual assault are entirely a men’s problem.  We are the ones who do it for whatever dumbass, egotistical, testosterone-driven, peer pressured reasons. In the same way racism in America cannot/should not be solved by minorities, sexual harassment and assaults cannot/should not be solved by women.

The parallels between racism and sexism are strong.  Not only is the problem not the responsibility of the victimized group, but the causes for both are also rooted in a long tradition of bullshit.  Racism is rooted in the unscientific, completely arbitrary notion that whites are mentally, morally, and spiritually superior.  Who makes and perpetuates these ideas? The people who benefit the most from it-whites.  Sexism is rooted in the idea that men are superior to women.  Who makes and perpetuates these ideas?  The people who benefit the most from it-men.  It is this fucking basic.  It is also, this fucking dumb.

When a man assaults a woman, it inevitably damages one or all the qualities I love most about women.  I don’t love women because they are women.  I love them because of who they, who I  was raised to be, and who I aspire to be.  For me, when a man sexually harasses or assaults a woman, it damages not just morality, justice, and equality, it damages the traits of humanity I hold dearest.  It damages people who I care about and love.  It damages a group who has done more for me than any other.  Whether they realize it or not, it damages the men who do it.  It also damages the men who don’t because it rightfully makes women defensive of all men.

Men who view women as inferior/disposable, live in a world that is devoid of women’s true value.  As angry as I get towards the typical male d-bag who views and treats women as inferior, a part of me feels pity for them.  Pity they will never know the true nature and value of women.  Pity they are so insecure they feel the need to play out their power issues on someone else.  Pity their self-worth is tied to a facade of superiority.  Of course, whatever pity I feel is outweighed by anger 1,000,000/1.  The damage done to women by these attitudes is far more important than men’s ignorance, egos, and arrogance and any pity I might feel.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt this way.  I’m pretty sure this is the result of how I was raised.  Anyone who knows me well knows the thing I have always wanted to be more than anything else is a world-class assassin.  Not an assassin who kills just for money or arbitrarily but one who takes out bad people.  In my list of “bad people,” pedophiles and rapists are at the top and I could/would take them out with absolutely no remorse.  In fact, I’d probably sleep better at night.  Often, when I say this, people tell me, “No you wouldn’t.  You say that but you don’t really mean it.”  Trust me, I mean it.  The reason I can say this with absolute surety is because of the damage I’ve personally witnessed to people I care about the most.

I’m glad “Me too,” raised awareness of the problem but it is meaningless unless men change their beliefs, their behaviors, their responses when other men behave in their typical brutish fashion. “Me too,” like “Black lives matter,” is great for starting a much-needed conversation but unless we take it seriously and continue the conversation to where it needs to go, the same behaviors will continue and more women will suffer.  I wish I could say things will get better but if the past has shown me anything, it is men are slow fucking learners and they especially don’t dare touch anything tied to their fragile egos.  Until they are truly willing to do this, “Me too” will continue to be a thing.

Addendum: The sexual assault nerve of victims was once again exposed and laid bare with the recent claims by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford that Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were in high school.  What Me Too did for giving women a platform to let others know their experiences with being sexually assaulted, this most recent exposure has brought out a very misunderstood but very important aspect of sexual assaults-why victims often don't report it.  This has given rise to another movement/hashtag #WhyIDidntReport.

All anyone has to do is read through the thousands of accounts of people, mostly women, who have come out and explained why they didn't report their assault or waited to tell anyone for years, to understand why. Fear-fear of retribution by a culture and society that views and treats women as second-class citizens.  Guilt-guilt of feeling somehow they were to blame for their attack because the language we use puts the burden and responsibility on them, not their assailants. Shame-shame of not being the “perfect daughter,” the “pure Christian,” the “loyal girlfriend/spouse,”... Realization-realization that not only will their story not be believed, it will be ridiculed and used against them.  

Just look at how the men in the United States Senate talk about Dr. Ford-”She's an opportunist,” “She is mixed up,” “If it really happened, she would have come forward years ago”...  Their responses are the most “humane” on the right. Some of the conservative base has been threatening her with physical harm, rape, and murder.  All of them, in their own especially fucked up way, is doing what they are with the intent of not only scaring Dr. Ford from testifying before the committee but more importantly, letting every other woman out there know, if you tell on one of us for sexually assaulting you, we will bring down the thunder on you, your life, and your family.  There is a word for this kind of behavior-”terrorism.”

Make no mistake, sexual assaults and everything tied to is a form of terrorism.  It is violence or the threat of violence to intimidate in order to achieve a particular end.  Sexual assaults are not about sex.  They are about power.  Power over another person in the most personal way.  The horrible treatment of victims of sexual assaults through intimidation and threats of more violence is terrorism added to the terrorism already committed against them.

Don't ever talk to me about America being a “Christian nation,” or how much we “respect women,” as long as we turn a blind eye to the real way we treat women, the way we talk about and address sexual assaults.  As long as there are thousands of untested rape kits in police stations around the country, we can't claim women are important.  As long as women's reproductive choices are not 100% in their hand, we can't claim that women are equal.  As long as men in power use their power to subjugate, denigrate, and silence women, we can't honestly say we respect them.  

There is a Me Too Train barreling down the tracks and picking up incredible speed.  It is going to run over everything and everyone in its path, without remorse, without sympathy, without a fuck to give because that is the way it has been treated by those it will run over and their enablers for centuries.  I, for one, will have no remorse for anyone caught in its wake.  I don't care if you are someone I know, love, idolize... if you are not on board with the underlying issues behind Me Too and Why I Didn't Report, you deserve what you get because the ethical sides of this issue are black and white.  If you don't understand or know the difference by now, you have no one to blame but yourself.

3| i'm probably annoying you with 3 anon asks at once - continued; my dissociation isn't severe most times, most times i can manage to autopilot my way through a day(s). sometimes i'm not as lucky; sometimes i wake up at 4am in the middle of the woods, not quite knowing where i am , with no part of me capable of anything good but to sit & wait until it fades just enough for me to find my way back home. but now i have a dog, and that helps sometimes , & if you would want to chat, i can unanon

I'm sorry it took me a bit to respond. You're not annoying me at all. It's helpful to talk to someone else who Dissociates. I unfortunately wasn't accurately diagnosed until February of this year. Only because I came out of one and had Dissociative amnesia of the past two years. My dissociated self did a lot of damage to my life. Among the catastrophic events were a bus trip to Toronto Canada (I live in Maryland USA) where I allegedly met a man I'd been having an affair with. Got divorced. Quit my job. And tried to kill myself three times. There's no exact moment I remember beginning dissociating, only that my rapist had sent me a message on Facebook and I had one of the worst panic attacks of my life.

I don't know what brought me out of it. I was leaving my therapist office and got to the parking lot and tried to think of what I needed to do the rest of the day. I couldn't remember. I tried to recall the day before, nothing. The day before that, nothing. And so on. One of the last vivid memories I had was starting a gaming stream on Twitch. Which is where I met the guy I had the affair with. But I never felt that way about him. I was madly in love with my husband. We'd just gotten married the year before. I was so confused standing in the parking lot. I went "home" only to find I didn't have my key. I called him but it went to voicemail, so u went to his parents house for the spare key. He walked out and got in a car I didn't recognize. I walked up and didn't understand why he was yelling at me. He thought I'd lost my mind. Honestly it felt like I had.

I went to my parents and the key on my ring was for that house. I went to my old room and my dog was there. I was afraid to tell anyone. I read through some journals I found and cried a lot. Called one of my sisters and told her I thought I was losing it. Turns out I worked at the same company as her. She helped me calm down and came over. We talked for hours. She told me the basics of how to do my job. I went to my therapist the next week and she wasn't surprised. She said in our sessions it was like I wasn't really there that she talked at me most of he time. She had thought it was the meds. They had me on a crazy high dosage of lithium. It was a month before I told the rest of my family.

I quit my job for a stay at home gig & changed my hair back to the way I had it. Messed up thing is looking in the mirror and not knowing who you are. Two years older, 40lbs heavier, wrinkles you don't recall, piercings and tattoos you don't remember having. It was a nightmare. I kept going to therapy where she diagnosed what was thought to be Bipolar II as Borderline Personality Disorder. Which ties hand in hand with dissociations and dissociative amnesia. They slowly took me off the meds, I went from 8 medications to 3. Life's getting more..normal I guess. But it's difficult to remember things and I started having some sort of micro seizures which were rare stress induced PTSD symptoms. I lost my new job recently. Ended up applying for disability. I hope to find out soon.

The diagnosis was an ah hah to my past. All the moments people remember that I don't. The majority of my childhood, most of my highschool & college. It's strange when someone tells you about an event and you feel left out.. even though you were there. Idk how long I've been dissociating. I also depersonalize and derealize. Both other forms of dissociations. And you're right About trauma. There's no fix. There's no medications for dissociating. Therapy, antidepressants, anxiety meds. That's all that can be done. Most grounding only brings me to a simmer. I still feel dissociated. I wanted to move out, but its the general consensus I shouldn't live alone. So my depression has gotten pretty bad. I have nothing to distract me during the day, I nap a lot, no motivation to draw, or exercise, or play games. Nothing I enjoyed interests me.

It's so difficult to explain to people so I've become pretty isolated.

This got long. That's for reading though. Yes we can talk if you're comfortable with that.