Pei Ming Week Day 4: Sacrifice

Today I give you 3 drabbles because I went from having no ideas to multiple ideas! xD

Huge thank you to @kefis for the prompts @ococor for cheerleading <3

The first two are sort of related, the last one is not

I.

“I still say we should be helping Xianle,” Pei Ming grumbles. “This is disgraceful.” “Yong’an is the practical choice,” Rong Guang replies. “Xianle’s fall is a given. May as well farm goodwill with the future king.” Xianle has their prince, Pei Ming wants to retort, but the words taste like bile. Once again, his mind is dragged to Yushi, to the beloved queen that won her kingdom a scant few months. Already they don’t speak of her. Is Xianle’s god-pleasing prince doomed to the same fate? Rong Guang pats his shoulder. “There’s nothing praiseworthy about self-sacrifice. You should remember that.”

II.

“For his Highness,” the scrawny excuse of a soldier mutters as he swings his splintered practice sword. So young, head wrapped in bandages, a sword slipping from his grip, and still ready to sacrifice everything for some prince. There are many things Pei Ming wants to say to him. Dozens of scoldings, criticisms of his priorities – “Hey,” he called out despite himself. “Your sword grip is wrong.” Pei Ming gives some pointers and leaves, saluting the soldier in his heart. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering. This child won’t survive the battlefield anyway. His prince will never know his sacrifice.

III.

“How could you do this?” Pei Ming shouts. “This is your future – your divinity! How could you just throw it all away? And for a girl!” Pei Xiu forehead smacks against the ground.  “I have no regrets, General,” he pleads, voice quivering with emotion unfelt in two hundred years. “She sacrificed everything for my ambitions. She never deserved her fate. Even if I’m to be a disappointment in your eyes, this path for her freedom is a small price – please understand.” Pei Ming does not understand. Despite being heralded as the God of Love, he’s not much of a romantic.

when i started watching harley quinn TV, about the last thing i expected of it was to be feminist in any way. i mean, it's an adult comedy cartoon. it's based on 2016 suicide squad's take on harley. the poor woman doesn't even wear any pants. but man, the more i think about it, and the more i consume other dc content featuring those characters, the more appreciative i am of its takes on its female cast.

let's talk about ivy. i watched the btas episode 'house and garden' today, and was honestly appalled by how blatantly male it all felt. in this episode, ivy 'rehabitilates' herself by getting released from arkham, marrying her therapist (which nobody even pointed out is illegal?!), taking care of his two kids from a previous marriage, and basically living the perfect suburban housewife dream. when batman suspects she's up to some shit, she tells him she's never been happier, and no longer has any need for crime. of course it turns out to be an elaborate ruse, but the ending reveals that she wasn't completely insincere -- she does, in fact, dream of having a husband and children, something she cannot accomplish due to the infertility caused by her powers.

unfortunately, this episode must have had a serious impact on ivy's characterization, as the book 'cycle of life and death' from 2016 is heavily founded on it. in my humble opinion, it's terrible. i mean, i get it, it was the nineties and written by men, and tv writers only really started picking up on how to write women as complex multilayered beings in recent years, but damn.

ivy's original character is already rooted in a very male, distorted perception of women. she's a textbook femme fatale-- she's dainty, gorgeous, scantily clad, and her powers are seducing men into doing her bidding. and to pile further on top of her misogynistic foundation, the only way they could think to humanize her is by forcing more of their stereotypical male perception onto her-- how do we show she's a sympathetic character? by making her deep down a 'normal woman', who has normal woman dreams of being a housewife with children. the rather blatant subtext that she turned to a life of villainy because her infertility denied her that dream -- a failed woman that has turned into a despicable monster -- only makes this depiction all the uglier. i'm actually amazed this take on her character managed to survive all the way to 2016.

but then you have hqtv ivy, who takes all that and unceremoniously dumps it in the trash. it rethinks the basics of ivy's personality and attitude from the ground up. she's a misanthrope -- the only company she seeks outside of her plants is harley -- why would she make a villain career out of seducing men? why does she have to be sensual and coy? no. instead, she's awkward, stoic, and anti social. she dresses a whole hell of a lot more practical, she's blunt to a fault, and wastes none of her time trying to appeal to men.

the sexual element of her powers has been removed, or at the very least severely limited-- no more poison kisses or seducing men to do her bidding. the only scene that incorporates that element at all is when she has to peck a bunch of dweeby 12 year old boys on the mouth to reverse the effect of her toxin that's been slipped into their bar mitzvah punch bowl by mistake. it's ridiculous, it's absolutely mortifying for her, and it's funny. nothing about it is remotely sexy.

as for her dreams of becoming a housewife... well, ivy very clearly doesn't know what she wants for her future. or rather, she's so repressed that she doesn't allow herself to want. she always saw herself ecoterroristing it up solo-- but then harley happened, and she found herself going soft, and opening up to other people through harley's influence as well. she allows herself to acknowledge that she's lonely, and that she does crave human connection. specifically, she craves harley -- but that's a part of her she had to seal away, out of fear of ruining their friendship. this leads her to pursue a relationship with kite man (or rather: be pursued by him), even though at every step of the way she pretty obviously has to force herself farther into it.

it's not that she doesn't like kite man. the opposite. she can tell he's a good guy, he treats her so well, he cares for her so deeply. for someone like ivy, coming from a life of abuse and isolation, that's rarer than rare. and that's why she forces herself to overlook all their differences, all the aspects of their relationship that clearly aren't working, and clings on to it regardless. finally, someone genuinely wants her, cares about her. she'd have to be stupid to let that go, right?

but she doesn't want it. that's spelled out the most blatantly on their wedding day-- while he's reciting his dream future of them living in a nice house with a white picket fence, a dog and three kids, ivy is horrified. unlike btas' ivy, who would've surely been delighted, it's completely removed from anything this version of ivy ever wanted for herself. and in that moment, she realizes she fucked up. she locked herself into a life she never wanted because she thought it was the best she could hope to get.

and then their wedding goes up in literal flames, kite man calls it quits, and ivy finally lets herself pursue what she really, truly wants: harley.

it's such a great, fresh take on ivy's character. she's written as a woman, but not some male writer's narrow view of one, but an actual honest, human woman. her struggles and insecurities are incredibly relatable to me as a female viewer, because she's allowed to breathe and grow and have depth outside of the list of stereotypes female characters are so often shoehorned into. she's aloof, she's cynical, she's a loner; she's carrying years of trauma that's made her insecure and closed off, and she's just starting to grow past that; she's desperate for love but forces herself to settle for tepid affection because she's too scared to pursue anything more; she's a genius biochemist and a badass with the power to control all of plant life, but she's fucking chickenshit and wishy-washy and doesn't know how to be honest with her feelings, leading her to hurt those she cares about. and the fact that they took btas' ivy's dream of getting married and having a family, and used it as a stepping stone-- subverted it as part of ivy's self-realization and growth-- that's just the icing on the cake.

hqtv ivy is hands down the best take of this character i've seen to date. god bless, i cannot wait for season 3.

The biggest failing in my hero academia is the heroes inability to recognise a failing in its own practices. Aka, heroes are blind to the failings of hero society. Pro heroes and heroes in training alike cannot understand how having a society dependent on heroes inherently creates prejudices as well as inaction in the society. 

In chapter 281 Shigaraki said “heroes have been pretending to protect society, how many times in the past throughout multiple generations have they turned a blind eye to things they couldn’t protect? Or silently swept the filth of society under the rug. It’s been building up so frivolously” during this speech there is a flashback to him, a wreck on the streets, with someone passing by thinking “soon, someone, a police officer or hero or someone will come help you” he then continues by saying “The resulting rot emanates from within and decay ensues. It's the small accumulation of this rot, the trash being coddled by being protected all the time. The roleplayers who only serve to spoil a meek society. The destruction that will ensue, is merely a result of all the reckless grandstanding you’ve accumulated. That’s how the muck gets cast out, that's how they break and retaliate. That's how it loops back again. And again. And again. Simple right? You don’t need to understand, in fact you’re incapable of understanding, that's the dichotomy of ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’” and endeavor just replied “thanks for your monologue but you’re already dead” and deku says “I can’t forgive the likes of you”. 

They never stop to consider what he said, to them it's just the psychotic rambling of a villain, someone to be beaten and then forgotten, someone who never received an education per traditional standards and thus has no valid opinions on the world.

Heroes existing has given way to a mass application of the bystander effect where before it meant that if there are more people in a situation people are less likely to help because other people will probably help instead, this time the citizens stop helping other people because they assume a hero will come in and do the saving so they don’t need to do anything. This goes back to that cut in of Shigaraki’s speech when a lady left him in the streets saying “someone else will help you”. Hero society stripped the citizens of their individual drive to help others because now helping others has become a career and ceased being a moral and empathetic obligation

Hero society has also created the idea of “heroic” versus “villainous” quirks. This in turn created a whole system of bullying and shaming people who have stereotypically villainous quirks simply for being born regardless of how they act and behave. This distinction between heroic and villainous quirks is what allowed Bakugou to be praised for his quirk and put on a pedestal despite a god complex that caused him to bully and suicide bait other students while simultaneously causing Shinsou to be bullied, ridiculed, and ignored for having a villainous quirk even though he was a quiet dork who likes coffee, cats, and wants to be a hero. 

This is also the reason why I don’t agree with Shinsou being placed in the dekusquad, as previously mentioned, deku cannot see any failing in the hero society. He idolized everything that the hero society stands for and would take a “don’t let other people dictate how you live” approach to shinsou rather than addressing the fact that Shinsou was hurt because the hero society perpetuates stereotypes and the bystander effect it creates prevented anyone from stepping in to ever help Shinsou. 

Similarly Deku doesn’t seem to believe that hero society failed by allowing Endeavor to be the number one hero despite what he knows endeavor did to Shouto and the rest of his family. The story basically says “yeah he's a bad person but he's also a good hero so the fact he hurt his family shouldn’t matter” this is why the top three all go to endeavors agency to train, It falls into the category of how hawks killed twice and despite the fact that we all loved him as a character and he had a good personality he still hurt people and needed to be stopped. Endeavor should also be stopped but he won’t be because hero society doesn’t care that he did something bad as long as the good he does outweighs the bad. 

I’ve said it before and I'll say it again though, hero society is to blame for many villains including Shigaraki. Shigaraki could be a non issue if someone had stepped in to help, be it a random person on the street or a hero. If he had been helped, if this society had more kindness and less bystander, then many of the issues that shigaraki faced or prejudices that he gained, would never have happened to him, the same applies to the majority of the villains in the story. Many of them were not inherently bad, unlike H.H.Holmes who said "I was born with the very devil in me, I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to song, nor the ambition of an intellectual man to be great. The inclination to murder came to me as naturally as the inspiration to do right comes to the majority of persons.". The villains in My Hero Academia are products of their surroundings, hurt, ignored, ridiculed, shamed, and discarded. They were broken and in trying to put the pieces back together they realized they couldn’t quite do it right, society had stolen a couple of their most important pieces, and they wanted to take those pieces back from the ones who took it. So they banded together and they wanted things to change, they didn’t want to hurt people they merely wanted people to stop hurting them.

Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating. 

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is: 

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational. 

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there. 

Think I’m overreacting? 

Examples: 

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions. 

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer. 

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked. 

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.  

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

This week on Great Albums: how the heck have I gone this long without a deep dive on Ultravox?! I mean, I named “Passionate Reply” after one of their songs, for crying out loud! Find out what makes *Quartet* my very favourite of their albums. Transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’m finally getting around to talking about one of my all-time favourite bands: it’s Ultravox, and their 1982 album Quartet. Quartet was the sixth album to be released under the Ultravox name, and the third to feature their best-known lineup, fronted by Midge Ure. While the band’s classic lineup would never match the impact of 1980’s “Vienna,” they enjoyed fairly consistent mainstream success through the mid-80s. Their preceding LP, Rage In Eden, produced only two singles, but both were well-received.

Music: “The Thin Wall”

While none of the four classic lineup LPs are what I’d consider skippable, I do think Quartet is the strongest of them overall, as an album. Vienna has great highlights, but feels like a varied patchwork of different ideas. Quartet, though, is probably their most cohesive work, both musically and thematically--in addition to boasting some of the most iconic singles of their career, like “Hymn”:

Music: “Hymn”

The sweeping grandeur of “Hymn,” and the way Ure’s powerhouse vocals propel the insistent urgency of its pleading hook, make it a very easy track to fall in love with, and it’s easy to see why it was a hit. We can read its lyrics as an earnest request for a just reward from God, or the vain wish of a crass and selfish believer who wants what God is too good to give, or perhaps the struggle of someone who wants God to make the world right, but knows there is no God listening...or, more darkly, that the God listening isn’t benevolent enough to fix things. Given that “Hymn”’s music video portrays each member of the band making a deal with the devil and being consigned to Hell for it, at least some level of irony is probably intentional. It could be argued that Quartet is a concept album about music itself, and the choice of the very meta title of “Hymn” for this track makes it fit in nicely alongside tracks like “Serenade” and “The Song.”

Music: “The Song”

A memorable closing track if there ever was one, “The Song” is perhaps the clearest representation of the motif of music as a dangerous, but irresistibly beguiling force, that draws us in against our will and does with us whatever it wants. The emphasis on rhythm really sells that idea here, seeing as rhythm is far and away the element of music we are most likely to react to involuntarily--tapping our feet, swaying in time. Quartet is the Ultravox album where their percussionist, Warren Cann, really gets a chance to shine. While Cann had a background in playing traditional rock drums, he also fully embraced the potential of mechanical percussion, and the allure of hypnotically perfect rhythm. Rather than seeing it in opposition to his practice, Cann would go on to combine elements of both live drumming and electronic percussion on many Ultravox tracks. Cann also delivers some backing vocals, in his deep, Canadian-accented voice, on the track “We Came to Dance”:

Music: “We Came to Dance”

The dark and slinky “We Came to Dance” would prove to be a successful single for Ultravox, though the single version would omit Cann’s spoken part in that bridge. But lest you think every track on Quartet is entirely percussion-propelled, look no further than the single that preceded it, “Visions In Blue”:

Music: “Visions In Blue”

With its tinkling piano, tense moments of silence, and one of Midge Ure’s more dramatic and virtuosic performances on lead vocal, “Visions In Blue” is a slice of baroque pop that bears a strong resemblance to “Vienna,” Ultravox’s original smash hit. Overall, Quartet has a bit less rock and roll to it than much of Ultravox’s other work, and particularly when compared to the heavier guitar solos of their preceding album Rage In Eden. That said, there are still several tracks here that are more guitar-driven, such as “Mine For Life” and “When the Scream Subsides.”

Music: “When the Scream Subsides”

The cover art for Quartet was designed by the famed Peter Saville, who would work with Ultravox for several of their best-known releases. Saville was inspired by renderings of architecture, and the four traditional views or angles from which a building is shown on plans or blueprints. From left to right, the cover of Quartet presents an imaginary building from each of those angles.

Given the more overt riffs on Cubism and Surrealism found on some of the single sleeve designs from the same period, I’m tempted to think the ghostly, empty architecture portrayed in the “metaphysical paintings” of Giorgio de Chirico may have also been an inspiration here.

The title of Quartet also suits the fact that at this point in their career, Ultravox were, indeed, a four-person band. While somewhat prosaic in that sense, I like that it calls attention, once again, to that theme of “music about music” that I mentioned earlier. While a lot of rock bands are comprised of four players, the term “quartet” is more strongly associated with classical and jazz, and I think those connotations enliven the baroque touches of tracks like “Visions In Blue.”

After Quartet, Ultravox would release one last album with their classic lineup, 1984’s Lament. Like Quartet, Lament would stick to a more cohesive theme--as its title implies, it’s a fairly morose and despondent album, with more gothic themes than their prior work. Lament was also a hit for them, with the single “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” becoming one of their best-known and best-loved tracks.

Music: “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”

Lament was the last album to feature Warren Cann, who was dismissed over creative tensions during recording sessions for their 1986 follow-up, U-Vox, shattering the classic lineup that had brought them so much success. While Cann’s absence is far from the only thing wrong with U-Vox, I do think it played a significant part in the album’s poor reception, which would eventually lead to the abandonment of the Ultravox name altogether.

My favourite track from Quartet is “Cut & Run.” While I like it mainly for its thin synth blasts in the beginning and those delightfully 80s breath samples, it’s also one of the most sinister compositions anywhere in the Ultravox catalogue. “Cut & Run” basically glorifies suicide, in a pretty straightforward manner, portraying the act as “something spiteful and true.” To contemporary ears, it’s truly almost shockingly taboo, and I can’t imagine any artist getting away with it nowadays--especially not when placed alongside “Hymn,” and the demonic themes of its music video. Ultravox basically did substantially more than Judas Priest ever did to encourage devil worship and suicide, but I suppose their foppish synth band aesthetic let them off the hook? Listen for yourself, and see what you think. That’s all for today--thanks for listening.

Music: “Cut & Run”

Friday Releases for August 6

Friday is the busiest day of the week for new releases, so we've decided to collect them all in one place. Friday Releases for August 6 include The Suicide Squad, Dreams Still Inspire, Kings Disease II, and more.

The Suicide Squad

The Suicide Squad, the new movie from James Gunn, is out today.

Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave… and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.

Annette

Annette, the new movie from Leos Carax, is out today.

Los Angeles, today. Henry (Adam Driver) is a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humor who falls in love with Ann (Marion Cotillard), a world-renowned opera singer. Under the spotlight, they form a passionate and glamorous couple. The birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious little girl with an exceptional destiny, will turn their lives upside down.

John and the Hole

John and the Hole, the new movie from Pascual Sisto, is out today.

A desperate game of survival unfolds after 13 year old John traps his family in a hole in the ground in this unsettling psychological thriller.

Naked Singularity

Naked Singularity, the new movie from Chase Palmer, is out today.

Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi (John Boyega), a promising young NYC public defender whose idealism is beginning to crack under the daily injustices of the very justice system he’s trying to make right. Doubting all he has worked for and seeing signs of the universe collapsing all around him, he is pulled into a dangerous high-stakes drug heist by an unpredictable former client (Olivia Cooke) in an effort to beat the broken system at its own game.

Playing God

Playing God, the new from Scott Brignac, is out today.

A brother & sister con-artist duo find themselves scamming a grieving billionaire by convincing him they can introduce him to God, face-to-face.

Rising Wolf

Rising Wolf, the new movie from Anthony Furlong, is out today.

A young woman wakes, trapped, kidnapped in an elevator of a super high­ rise building at the mercy of her tormentors. This stylistic thriller, set in Shanghai, explores a young woman’s instinct to survive in a situation out of her control. Trapped, without any form of escape, and cocooned in the belly of the beast, Aria is forced to adapt her thinking, her beliefs and her endurance. This is the first of the journeys that assault her mind and her senses, pinning her down in anguish only to emerge connected to abilities that define who she truly is.

The Swarm

The Swarm, the new movie from Just Philippot, is out today.

Virginie lives on a farm with her children Laura and Gaston and raises locusts as a high-protein crop. Life is hard: money worries and practical problems are piling up, tensions with her kids and neighbors are running high. But everything changes when she discovers the locusts have a taste for blood.

Vivo

Vivo, the new movie from Kirk DeMicco and Brandon Jeffords, is out today.

A music-loving kinkajou embarks on the journey of a lifetime to fulfill his destiny and deliver a love song for an old friend.

Mr. Corman

Mr. Corman, the new TV series from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is out today.

From writer, director, executive producer, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“500 Days of Summer,” “Inception,” “Don Jon”), ”Mr. Corman“ follows the days and nights of Josh Corman, an artist at heart but not by trade. Things haven’t been going his way lately – his lifelong dream of a career in music didn’t pan out and he finds himself teaching fifth grade at a school in the San Fernando Valley, his ex-fiancé Megan has moved out and his high school buddy has moved in. Aware that he still has a lot to be thankful for, Josh struggles nevertheless through universal feelings of anxiety, loneliness and self-doubt.

Dreams Still Inspire

Dreams Still Inspire, the new album from Abstract Mindstate, is out today.

King’s Disease II

King’s Disease II, the new album from Nas, is out today.

3- Artist Interview

Ramallah - Homeland - Starving

Introduction and definition (personal card): Able and glamorous make-up artist Janet Sabhi Karker Badar, 43 years old from Jerusalem (Born in 13/10/1972), married with three daughters, finished high school at Mar Mitri High School, Jerusalem, after which she learned several courses on various subjects: art, art, composition, etc. She's been living in Nazareth for four years.

I've worked in nursery for many years and I've also worked in beauty and beauty sales, and I've worked, and I'm still working, as a drawing teacher, where she teaches drawing and art courses for kids. L.L. is a capable, active and creative figurative artist who has held numerous art exhibitions in Nazareth City and other villages and countries, both locally and abroad. It has achieved a great deal of local, Arab and international fame and has written about it and covered its news, artistic activities and exhibitions of various kinds (newspapers and magazines on Internet sites, radio, television and space).

She is considered to be at the forefront of the country's figurative artists in terms of the artistic level and depth of creative experience and in her human and philosophical vision through her paintings and paintings, which are remarkable, distinctive and mystical and reflect many aspects of the reality of life, the mysteries of existence and the metaphysical dimensions.

Question 1) At the beginning of this meeting, we want to talk about the beginnings with the drawing. When did you start doing this beautiful hobby and how did you get into this?

I started from a very young generation as a child. And then I started working to develop and refine this talent until the generation of 22 years, where I became a well-known and professional art artist, and I also studied this subject at a number of art institutes to develop talent. And I love very much this area that got me into it, and I keep going on in it, and I put a lot of my time and my energy into it.

Question 2. Who first encouraged you and took your hand to develop this talent?

The first to encourage me, to take my hand and to support my mother and husband later, thanks to them and their support, I went on and on, despite all the circumstances and difficulties we face as local artists at all levels (because the local artist can not easily continue to give in the local Arab world) until she reaches her high profile and success.

Question 3: The difficulties and obstacles you faced at the beginning of your technical career?

The thing that limits the giving of an artist, especially a painter, is that society and people do not respond adequately to figurative art, as well as the kind of art school that plays a role in how well people accept and respond to works of art. I belong to an expressionist school that is radiant of philosophy and full of mystery and symbols, and of course not all people understand or rather taste this kind of art.

And the most important thing for me is that I deal with art as art and to serve purposeful and real art as a sacred message before I satisfy the tastes and mindsets of certain people or groups of society who tend to be easy, clear and superficial and do not bother to study and analyze paintings and to understand them properly, deeply in their meaning, objectives and metaphorics, which carry a message that is like me and dimensions. These were the most important obstacles and difficulties I have faced and continue to experience.

Question 5) You are now a renowned artist, known locally and abroad. How did you get so popular and so widespread?

I arrived thanks to my efforts, my fatigue, my faith in my message, my continued giving and my creative level. It happened that an artist from Jordan named Isaiah Awwal, President of Al Balqa - Jordan - held and participated in an exhibition of painted gold ants and painting courses, from which I was the starting point of fame and widespread dissemination.

I also set up numerous art exhibitions in-house through the Creative Society and other independent exhibitions, including a personal exhibition and a church exhibition. And then I took part in exhibitions of figurative art in France, Morocco, Amman, Irbid, Jordan, Nablus, Tel Aviv, and so on. There are art critics locally and abroad who have highly praised my works of art, paintings, paintings and level, and how colors are used, mixed and shaped.

Question 6) Every person who is successful and famous, regardless of their type of work and specialty, is increasingly in favour of paying a tax for the success he's reached, and you've achieved a very high profile. How are you and the envy and the decency and what is the tax of success that you have introduced?

For me, I am a loving and transparent human being, my heart is great, I am adept with faith, I love good, I don't care and I care about envy and decency... I consider envy as a stone on which I can step and pass and complete my path, my walk and my message. Every artist and every human being is successful, regardless of his field and type of success and his career. He will certainly grow in favour of him and find and be subjected to certain obstacles and obstacles, but the human being is the creator and believer in his gift, his creativity, his noble message and his great faith in the Creator.

There are several schools in figurative art, such as classical, eclectic, realistic, surreal and abstract. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What art schools do you belong to?

I belong to expressionist school or rather mix expressionism with abstraction.

Why?

Because I like to eress what's inside me and what I feel and feel. It's something spiritual and spiritual and I want to go out and tell myself about myself, and I find myself and my being in these figurative techniques that I mentioned. But I've already walked through all the formative schools, the most important of which is reality school. But I devoted all my artistic skills to expressionist school.

Is innate talent the key to creativity, or does talent need to be studied to refine and develop talent?

Talent is created with man and God telling him you're talented, and talent is very important, but a person has to develop it by studying theory and continuing to work and practice in this talent. The refinement and development of talent requires effort, time, perseverance, and talent without study, perseverance, and action.

Is everyone, no matter what his quality, his metal, his level of culture, and even if he doesn't have the innate, ornate talent for painting, he can become a figurative artist (painter) if he teaches this subject at institutes and universities?

It can be painted, but its giving remains limited, superficial, and does not reach the top of the agenda. It stays where it is because talent is the foundation. Without talent, man cannot be an artist. Talent is a seed and a gifted person must develop it to grow up and bear fruit like a tree or plant. Without the seed and the foundation, it's impossible for a person to become an artist.

Question 10) Is the element of faith so important in how much the artist gives, creations and shines?

A hundred percent say that faith is the element of success, and a phrase like fresh air, which an artist inhales, without it, is not artistic creativity, glamour and distinction. I can't believe, nor can I believe, that an artist and a creative human being have come to fame and succeed without faith. If he does achieve some fame, he will eventually fall and fall, or commit suicide, and there. They have literature and work on these and other subjects, but their end is depression, madness or suicide. The foundation for lasting, eternal and immortal success is faith in the Creator.

Is the appearance of an outsider a reflection of the psyche, the nature and quality of the art he presents and the subjects he brings through art, especially you are a beautiful, elegant, charming and ever-glamorous girl. Did your external appearance and your formal and spiritual beauty also influence your creative feathers and the beauty and charm of the paintings you paint?

First, spiritual inner beauty goes up and out and dominates and affects everything positively, which is the basis, and of course, external beauty has a sort of positive effect on the quality of art, but only slightly.

Question 12) Where do you understand the subjects of the paintings you paint... And how does the suggestion come?

I am a spiritual human being and I am inspired by the themes of the paintings that I draw from my deep belief in the Creator whose ability has been blurred. Art is a message to me above all things and a God-given talent that God has placed in us.

In my opinion: i really get inspired and motivated from Janet .This artist is an example for motivation . I really love her art work ,because they are powerful and they give me the strength and power . I hope to be like her in the feature.

The Backstory

Part 15 of Seventy Percent

Series Summary: When you left on your trip to Vegas, you’d planned on letting loose for one last weekend before heading back to reality and getting your affairs in order so your best friend wouldn’t be left cleaning up your mess when your cancer finally ended your life. What you hadn’t counted on was waking up married to a celebrity who has a knight-in-shining-armor complex, connections with an oncologist, and amazing insurance…

Chapter Summary: You and Sebastian sit down and you finally tell him about your past

Word Count: 1,757

HGTV was playing in the background, but neither you nor Seb were paying attention. You were curled together in the recliner with a heavy blanket over your legs. He still had a few hours before he had to head out to his interview with Jimmy Fallon, so this was the best time to tell him about your past. Enough time that he could process everything and not be too burdened during his interview, but not enough time that the two of you would drag out every damn detail. There were parts that you wouldn’t tell him, but most of it, you wanted him to know.

You just had to figure out how to start.

“You grew up in Wyoming, right?” He prompted, as if sensing that you were stuck before you had even begun.

“Yeah.” You sighed heavily, shoring up your courage. “It was just me, my sister, and my parents. If I have any cousins or aunts, I don’t know about them. My, uh, my dad was… you know what? I’m just gonna say everything really quick to get it all out there. I think that’ll be easier.”

He nodded, rubbing his hand along your spine. You tucked your head into his neck, hoping that the lack of eye contact would make it even easier.

“Alright. Ever since I can remember, my dad has been an alcoholic. Abusive too, but I didn’t realize until later. He took out most of it on my mom and sister, since she was older. But then, uh, my sister, Eliza, moved out when she turned sixteen and it was just me and my mom.”

“How old were you?” he asked in a pained whisper.

“Eight. She’s eight years older than me. He died when our house caught fire when I was sixteen. Cigarette left burning. His fault.” Your voice broke on the last two words, but you powered through. “Luckily mom was in lockup for the night for drunk and disorderly or something and I was staying with Jaz. That was… it’s fucked up to say, but that was the best day of my life.”

His hand moved up your back and settled on the back of your head, holding you closer. That simple action drew a wave of tears to your eyes that had you blinking quickly, trying to hold them back. God, you didn’t deserve him.

Remembering the truth of that day… you really didn’t deserve him.

“Um, so that left me and my mom. She… She was an alcoholic too, but more of a neglectful alcoholic. Thank god for Jasmin and her family. I don’t know what I would have done without them. They kept me alive and sane until I was old enough to get a job and basically support myself a few months after my dad died. I thought it was over, then. Up until then, my family was just that trash family that other people in town gossiped about to feel better about themselves. I got some pitying looks, and that was it.

“Then my sister went and got arrested. Everyone expected me to take in her two sons when she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.”

“What did she do?”

A bitter laugh escaped your throat. “Fucking murdered her boyfriend. Abused her kids. Assaulted a police officer. She… she didn’t have a friend like Jaz. Or a support system like Jaz’s family. But that’s still no excuse. None at all. They’re her kids. She knew what it was like to grow up being a punching bag. She…” In an effort to control your budding anger, you took a deep breath and turned your face into Seb’s neck for a second, letting his familiar scent calm you.

“So when she was sentenced to twenty-five to life, the entire town assumed I would adopt the kids. I mean, they were my nephews and all, but everyone was acting like it was my responsibility to raise them. But… But I was barely eighteen. I couldn’t even take care of myself and I didn’t want to put them in a position where I—where I might snap like she did. It wasn’t fair to them. And they were young enough that they were adopted fairly quickly and now they’re with some family down in Georgia growing up with cute little Southern accents. Their parents send me letters sometimes. Pictures too. The boys are happy. And I know I made the right decision, but if you listen to what everyone else said, then you’d start thinking I was a selfish bitch who didn’t respect family values as if they’d all forgotten the kind of values my family taught me. I-I-I know I made the right choice. They’re happy. So fuck what everyone else thought.”

“People make far too many judgments based on far too few facts,” Sebastian whispered against your hair.

“And far too many assumptions,” you mumbled.

He held you in silence for a few minutes, just stroking your hair.

“You know what the worst thing someone said to me was?” You asked a bit later, after your heartbeat had calmed down from its angry beating. “When word got out that I had cancer, someone from my hometown told me that God gave me cancer as punishment for not adopting my nephews. For thinking someone else could raise them better than their own blood. Years later and they still couldn’t let it go.”

Not that they were entirely wrong. Your cancer might have been punishment from God, but not because you didn’t adopt your nephews. There were far worse things you’d done.

“That’s—” He couldn’t even find a word to describe how that made him felt. And you completely understood.

“Rude? Horribly offensive? Fucking ignorant? Welcome to small town Wyoming where the bible rules and if you say you’ve never shot a gun you’ll be shunned until you do.”

“Fuckin’ hell, sweetie, that’s… God that’s horrible.”

“People suck,” you said simply. “I just… I wanted you to know. You know, in case this shit hits the news or whatever. And also… Also, I just wanted you to know. I wanted to tell you. Regardless.”

He slid his hand to your chin and tilted your head up until you were falling into his blue eyes. “Thank you, Y/N. Thank for telling me; trusting me.”

“Thank you for being someone who doesn’t suck,” you responded in a weak effort to lighten the mood.

You only had a second to register his soft smile before he leaned forward and brushed his lips against your cheek. “I always knew you were strong. I mean, to go through cancer treatment like this… but now?” His thumb rubbed against your cheek, nearly touching your lips. Your eyes closed at his touch, face leaning into his palm. “Sweetheart, I think you’re the strongest person I think I’ve ever met.”

Just as you were about to argue his statement, he leaned forward again. This time his lips brushed just at the corner of your mouth and lingered, wiping away every single word you’d ever known. He finally pulled away a hairsbreadth and the air between you two was super-charged. All it would take was a tilt of your head and you’d be kissing him properly.

But you couldn’t do it. You just couldn’t.

After a moment more, he drew back, pausing only to press his lips to your forehead briefly. “So, your sister and mom are still alive?”

“No.” Your voice was surprisingly strong. Barely wavering. “My sister’s still in prison, but my mom died a few months after I turned sixteen. Another reason the town seems to hate me. They think if I’d stuck around more, she wouldn’t have killed herself but that wasn’t my job. I was a kid. It wasn’t my job to keep my parent alive.”

“Killed herself?”

“Drunk herself to death, I guess.” It was an explanation you’d said many times before. One that wasn’t entirely accurate, but the closest to the truth you could get. “Suicide wasn’t the official cause of death, but I knew. She drunk too much. I think she was shooting up with something, too. They called it an accidental overdose. Said if I’d been there, I might have been able to call 911 and save her. But they didn’t know us. They didn’t know what happened in that house. I… I don’t blame her. She didn’t want to be saved. She let him break her. My sister became him.”

“And you? What do you think you did?”

“I think… I think… I don’t know. I made a lot of bad decisions in college, but that’s just college. I think I would have turned out differently if I hadn’t spent so much time with Jaz’s family. But even then… I don’t know, Seb. I just know that I never wanted to make anyone feel like I did. It took me my entire college career with campus therapists to work through shit. And there’s some things I haven’t told anyone. And I’m going to be working through everything for the rest of my life. I know that. I think I just became more aware. Aware what kind of affect my words might have on someone else. I’m cautious about everything. Maybe that’s why I went into data security. I didn’t have anyone, really, to protect me.” By this point you’d practically forgotten you weren’t alone. You were just musing aloud. Putting together parts of your therapy sessions with your own emotions.

It was something you’d never done.

Even in therapy, you hadn’t opened up all the way.

But here? With someone you’d met a month ago?

Here, you felt safe. Loved, even.

“What about Jasmin?”

“She tried. But her family was amazing. She just couldn’t understand my family. She was always sympathetic, but never really knew how to help. And, honestly, I wouldn’t ever want her to know how to help. I never want her to be in the position to understand.”

“I guess I get that.”

“’Sides, this way I had her to pull me out. She pushed me to move on. Helped me figure out how to… not become them.”

Silence, once again, fell. Even telling the barest bones of your past had exhausted you and you couldn’t move from Seb’s lap even if you wanted to.

It was nearly a half hour later when he spoke in a soft voice, his words drawing a soft laugh from you. “At least I don’t have to go through the meet the parents shtick.”

Think that’s all of it? The worst of it? 

CHAPTER 16: THE FIRST PAPARAZZI AMBUSH

if you dont mind explaining, what did the organisation do that it gives you such reaction? im not jw/exjw myself, im just following this blog because i wanna keep myself educated on all sorts of issues, but if you dont want to its absolutely fine

I mean Jehovahs Witnesses are blatantly a cult. That’s been explained pretty thoroughly by a lot of people.

I guess “this organization is a cult” can be hard to understand what that actually means. On a personal level, it defined my entire life. When I introduced myself to new people, the first thing I said was that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was my entire identity. I actually think of myself back when I still believed in it as a completely different person than who I am now. I consider my old self to be dead, and so does my family.

When I told them I wanted to leave the cult, they mourned me. They cried for months. They raged and got angry. My sister refused to even look at me for days. In the span of one sentence, I lost my whole family, all of my friends, and my entire community. I was shunned, and they blamed me for abandoning them.

And I knew that would happen. They had always made it perfectly clear that love was conditional. I was told flat out— multiple times— that I would get kicked out of the house if I got disfellowshipped. My dad told me as a child that he would stop supporting me if I ever went to college, because every Witness he knows who’s ever gone has left the Truth. He also told me that the day I turned eighteen he would make me pay rent to keep living in his house unless I was preaching full time. All of that later turned out to be empty threats and a doctor told me that last part was actually illegal, but my family made sure I grew up believing it.

I was only loved so long as I followed the rules. This is standard practice for Jehovah’s Witnesses. I am lucky I got off as light as I did and wasn’t kicked out on the street. Even that only happened due to a technicality and how obviously mentally ill I was at that point.

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology is the reason I started self-harming. I was afab and when I was fifteen I spent a month asking why God thought women were innately lesser than men. That culminated in a big family discussion where I got anxious enough to start scratching at my lip over and over until I had a massive gash. My family watched. My mother made a token protest that I listened to for about three seconds. I walked away from that conversation with the knowledge that I needed to keep my mouth shut because certain questions were actually not allowed and a brand new bad habit.

I created an entire system for myself based on rigid discipline and punishment and the idea that any mistake meant I didn’t deserve to feel un-miserable, which is exactly the sort of mentality that this all-or-nothing religious purism breeds.

I was institutionalized in hospital psychiatric wards four times in the year after I left, and one more time about a year after that. The high school attempted to put me in foster care then, out of concern for my safety if I continued living in that environment. My mother supported the idea

The first time I remember sincerely contemplating suicide was when I was thirteen. My thoughts then were just that I figured I would never be able to hold off killing myself long enough to live to be eighteen. I felt trapped. I was specifically thinking I would never have the guts to be able to pry myself out of the Org and so I would be stuck in it forever. The JW lifestyle is miserable in a way I can’t express

I have comforted my little sister while she’s had a break down crying in the bathroom during meeting because the talk was about Armageddon and she didn’t think our dad would make it into Paradise. She had to stop attending public school because of panic attacks. She was suicidal too at one point, but our mom thought she wasn’t as bad as me and therefore was making it up for attention

Jehovah’s Witnesses by and large treat mental illness with prayer and talking to the elders. The majority of teenage girls in my congregation had severe unaddressed issues. The Society has whole articles on how sometimes the answer IS demonic possession. Their version of Paradise is a eugenics fantasy

At one point an elder comforted my family by telling them that Jehovah likely didn’t view my choice to leave as legitimate due to my mental issues. They have official articles calling all apostates “mentally diseased,” and how am I supposed to argue why that’s wrong?

The majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings are bigoted and hateful. They have a cute little kids cartoon that compares the evil gays to terrorists. I was taught the mark of Cain and curse of Esau were responsible for the existence of other races. JW women are required to submit to their husbands and fathers no matter what, and divorce is a sin that will get you shunned. Trans people are forced to live as their agab, gay people have to remain celibate and never date. The elders reserve the right to out you to whoever they want, whenever they want.

There have been so many talks that have sent me running off somewhere private to cry and panic

There’s this little girl in the hall who was friends with my sister. She had needed a blood transfusion when she was a baby. Her parents had been willing to let her die, but the courts stepped in and took her away for a few days. She was given the blood transfusion, lived, and at thirteen had a crying breakdown in the middle of the hall because the talk had just said she would never make it into Paradise now. Usually though, if you’re old enough to speak for yourself, they let you die

My parents have had three bankruptcies and they mock me for saving money. They live as if the world is going to end at any moment. There’s no such thing as a future

The world has been about to end since my grandma was little. That’s a running joke. She’s lived through more changes to the Org than I’ll ever know about. My family has been ruthlessly controlled by this organization for generations. My family aren’t allowed to accept me even if they wanted to. I’ve seen this Org ruin so many people’s lives in a whole variety of ways. Three other kids I grew up with have been disfellowshipped since becoming adults. There are others who I don’t think could leave unless they literally ran away in secret

JW ideology loans itself to a certain style of parenting and that has consequences. They control every aspect of members’ lives. Behavior, dress, speech, career, free time, friends, which family you’re allowed to see, what media you can consume. The thoughts you are allowed to have. I’ve been sent into a spiraling panic before over the idea that “I shouldn’t be thinking that”

The Org barred outside ideas and all criticism. They forcibly kept me in the dark. Members are intentionally isolated from not just all outsiders, but also all outside opinions. I was raised in a way intended to make me an outcast everywhere but within the Org. I was told never to read about Jehovah’s Witnesses from any writer other than the Society itself. I was told never to listen to its critics. I was told that reading forbidden books would get me possessed by demons

The Society controlled and defined my entire life and somehow still manages to do so even after I’ve left. Every member I know has been hurt by it. I’m just the one who won’t forgive

there’s this thing called the “perfect victim myth” that a friend of mine introduced me to, which is the myth, even the requirement, that a person’s pain and trauma is only valid if they were on their best behavior, did nothing wrong, and can in no way be faulted for contributing to their own terrible situation. trauma is only trauma if you sat there as an unsuspecting, poor faultless blameless disempowered victim, and terrible things were inflicted upon you without any of your input whatsoever. it’s only if you did absolutely zero things wrong that you’re allowed to be considered a victim.

therefore, akechi did things wrong, and therefore cannot be a victim of anything on his own end. right?

i cannot stress enough that this is simply not how abuse, abusive behaviors, or trauma works in real life, and that believing such a thing does a disservice to not only all people who’s been victims of abuse, but also anyone who believes such a myth.

look--insofar as persona 5 is a game in which the main characters are all victims of someone else doing something bad to them, i think yusuke is probably the best example of an unfortunate real-life victim situation, so let’s talk about yusuke for five seconds: he actively prevents the PT from trying to save him, defends his abuser at the expense of himself, and even after he’s joined the PT, he sometimes oscillates wildly between “i hate madarame and refuse to even speak of him” and “i miss him terribly and still speak fondly about him and my time living with him.” he never really seems to unlearn a lot of behaviors he picked up from living with madarame--things like not caring for himself at the expense of art, not listening to his own hunger cues, and arguably has a whacked-out relationship with money due to madarame’s own whacked-out relationship with money. personally, i think he also has difficulty with respecting other people’s personal boundaries because madarame never respected his, hence him inviting himself to live with ann, or inviting himself to live with akira.

now consider a situation where yusuke drives the PT off, continues to live with madarame, drives himself into the dirt to supply madarame with his art, and eventually fulfills nakanohara’s prediction of killing himself in despair. is that yusuke’s fault? arguably, it is, isn’t it? someone extended a hand to him, and yusuke refused. even consider a situation in which yusuke successfully calls the cops on the PT, like he very genuinely attempted to in canon, and akira goes to jail because of violating his probation. what then? now it’s not just yusuke is at fault for his own suicide, but he’s also done a terrible harm to akira that will follow him for the rest of his life. what then? are we supposed to have sympathy for him now?

that’s not such an unusual situation. that happens. that’s why nakanohara warned the PT about it. it has happened before and will happen again, and not just in the gameworld of persona 5.

if you come away from that story believing that that’s yusuke’s fault, i’d say that you’re not wrong, but you’re not right, either. it is probably partly yusuke’s fault. is he still a victim? did terrible things still happen to him? that is also true. 

does it really matter if it was partly his fault?

also now consider the woman that shido was harassing. what about her? do we sympathize with her? she helped get akira convicted to save her own skin. is she a victim or an abuser? should i sympathize with her or not? arguably she should have stood up for herself in the first place, right? maybe she shouldn’t have left herself alone with shido, either. when akira came to save her, maybe she should have run. when the police came, she should have testified that akira did nothing wrong. she probably would have had her life ruined by shido for the rest of her life, in that he’d probably go out of his way to destroy her career forever after, and she knew that, but hey, she should have stuck up for akira, right?

then there’s makoto--makoto who did some pretty colossally stupid things re: the yakuza incident, makoto who still had the nerve to love her sister despite her sister’s vaguely-immortal legal practices, makoto who didn’t immediately refuse kobayakawa when he arm-twisted her into doing his dirty work. what if makoto had decided that the letter of recommendation was more important? do you know how badly makoto shot herself in the foot by pissing kobayakawa off? that letter of recommendation might have been the difference between her going to the best college in the country to graduate as a doctor in law, and going to a run-of-the-mill college for a simple undergrad degree. her pissing kobayakawa off probably didn’t make her sister’s life any easier, for that matter; half the reason why sae acts as ruthless as she does is because there’s so much workplace misogyny against women in the justice system, and sae’s little sister being a shit to her principal probably didn’t help at all. so who’s to blame for all this? are we allowed to sympathize with makoto? how about sae? how about kobayakawa--makoto refused to help kobayakawa, and that directly contributes to kobayakawa getting fucked over by shido because kobayakawa wasn’t able to give shido what he wants. am i allowed to feel bad for him?

a lot of the cast of persona 5 doesn’t do anything even morally grey in this respect. the game goes out of its way to inform us that akira did Zero things wrong in trying to defend that woman from shido. ann is nothing but a perfect victim on her end, and is the model of a victim who resisted; she tried to run away, tried to tell kamoshida to stop, even had a good long sympathetic cry in an animated cutscene. haru is the exact same way. (ryuji gets put through the meatgrinder by his old track team for his actions, but if anything, ryuji has the opposite problem--he did everything right, and was punished for it. he’s the situation in which the woman stands up to shido and gets brutally destroyed for it.)

the point that i’m trying to make is that issues of victimhood and abuse get really messy. shido has a lot of dialogue that implies that he groomed akechi to do what he wanted, and there’s dialogue that tells us that akechi willingly volunteered himself for the role. both of those things can be true. we can acknowledge that akechi probably didn’t have much other options in his life besides his half-cocked plan to get revenge on shido. we can acknowledge that in all likelihood, i don’t think akechi ever really thought he’d live for very long; either he dies in poverty or he goes out with a bang against shido. we can acknowledge that simultaneously he probably did have other options that he should have chosen, like working a shitty low-wage job for the rest of his life because of his parentage.

so was akechi forced into this situation or not? if we can answer that question, things will be simpler, won’t it? we can say definitively: akechi had a choice, and therefore it’s his fault. akechi didn’t have a choice, and therefore it’s not his fault. 

so which is it? was he forced or not?

the truth about abuse is that the victim always has agency. always. ALWAYS. and because the victim has agency, it is often very difficult to say that the victim was “forced.”

the victim is always making choices for themselves. the victim always feels a modicum of control. the victim is always telling themselves that they could walk if they really wanted to; they’re staying because they’re going to make the situation better; they’re going to work hard and achieve their goals, even. this is the case of people looking at a battered woman and saying, good god, why doesn’t she just leave him? isn’t this a simple issue? is she being literally forced to stay with him? if she’s choosing to stay with him, is she really still a victim or a battered woman?

the truth about abuse is that it relies on pressure, and on limiting options. very rarely does abuse ever force anyone. in yusuke’s situation, there is enormous pressure for him to stay with madarame, both because of emotional ties, yusuke not having legal rights as a minor, yusuke not having the financial means to support himself, and simply the career prestige of having been madarame’s student--but is yusuke being forced to stay with madarame? arguably no. for the woman who accused akira, there’s pressure to do as shido says. but she has the option to refuse shido only in technicality, in the same way that someone being mugged technically has the option not to hand their wallet over, and consequently get shanked or shot.

as for akechi, there’s a lot of pressure to comply with shido, even when akechi feels like he’s doing it willingly, and even when akechi IS doing it willingly. there’s a lot of pressure to do terrible things such as murder, that akechi could technically say no to. akechi retains agency throughout his entire story, even when his agency is highly pressured to operate in ways that serve only shido’s benefit.

this is because akechi is a far more realistic victim than most victims of abuse in most media. he retains agency. and sometimes having agency means that you are highly pressured to do bad things.

this is the other thing about the “perfect victim myth”--a lot of it relies on arguing, “well, the victim is a victim because they had no other options.” that is to say, someone can only be a victim if it’s clearly demonstrable that they had no agency whatsoever in the situation. and this is simply not true. not of real life victims, and it shouldn’t be so for fictional victims.

and, not to mention, sometimes having agency means that you just straight-up do bad things because you’re coping badly. i mentioned earlier that i don’t think akechi intended to live very long, and that comes primarily from his willingness to sacrifice himself the instant he decides not to go through with his plan to kill shido. for a lot of kids in shitty situations growing up, it’s very difficult to see yourself growing up and having a fulfilling, happy future as an adult. if you’re not intending to live very long, why wouldn’t you consider all bets off? it’s not like you’re getting through this alive.

the other unfortunate fact of victims retaining agency is that they don’t always use it well, especially when they’ve been thru some shit, and this is almost always used against the victim to say, “well, you should have done this instead.” the entire thing smacks of ways to gatekeep “victimhood”--this magical status that lifts someone above criticism, above having flaws, and above the unfortunate status of being a human being. it’s a way of saying that certain characters are not allowed a right to their own pain because they didn’t fulfill certain criteria. it’s also a way of dehumanization, and avoiding the fact that real life is complex, and that doing good, doing bad, and even just doing living with other people is messy and often painful even at its best.

when someone acts out and makes bad decisions because they’ve been through a terrible situation or are in a bad headspace, obviously this does not excuse their actions, but it is possible to not excuse their actions and understand that people do not always cope well. coping is not always a cute waifish girl in an indie road trip movie. coping is not always a cute waifish girl crying in a bathtub. sometimes coping is being in such a headspace that you’re A-Okay with being murdered by your cognitive double because you don’t have anything else to live for. sometimes coping is latching on to the idea that if you just get revenge on the person who did this to you, maybe then you’ll be okay.

in the myths, the perfect victim is never responsible. the perfect victim is never an active player in their own lives. the perfect victim always copes well, according to the script, and never inconveniences anyone else. the perfect victim is always a heartwarming and uplifting story for other folks to feel good about. the perfect victim is, in a lot of ways, neatly packaged, bundled up, sanitized, and further dehumanized by removing their flaws.

i strongly do not recommend subscribing to the perfect victim myth. it benefits almost nobody, except for abusers who get to claim they didn’t abuse anyone because their victim didn’t fit the perfect victim model.

ultimately, my point is that i understand if akechi is not your cup of tea. lots of characters are not my cup of tea. i will never be a die-hard fan of, say, hifumi togo. i like her well enough, but she’s not for me.  you can dislike akechi!! nobody said you have to like him!!!

but i strongly dislike when people bring morality, victimhood, and rhetoric of abuse into justifying why they don’t like akechi.  but when you start talking about the reasons why akechi is the absolute worst and nobody should be allowed to like him because of reasons you’ve pulled out of the perfect victim fallacy, you’re doing a disservice to literally everyone everywhere who’s ever been in an abusive situation. no, not even that--you’re doing a disservice to everyone everywhere who’s ever suffered pain because of what someone else did to them. you become part of the rhetoric that invalidates people’s suffering and keeps us thinking of victimhood/abuse/trauma as a black and white issue.

and ultimately you’re doing a disservice to yourself, because one day, someone will hurt you, and you’ll believe that you don’t deserve to feel bad about it because you weren’t the perfect victim. 

do yourself a favor and quit it.

top 5 moments of all time for miss galathynius bc i'm a wildcard like that 🥴

SORRY I NEVER ANSWERED THIS i got super busy for finals ok so. i simply cannaught pick 5 so i’m going to wax poetic for 200 bullet points (but top 5 moments if i HAD to choose are bolded)

the whole scene where she beats rolfe in a (short, lmao) fight and makes him sign the documents saying he won’t sell more slaves in tab and she reveals she memorized his signature and stole his ring

all of the assassin and the healer. being just totally pissed off and drinking all the time and looking for a fight and then getting her shit together and teaching yrene to defend herself

racing with ansel on asterion horses through the desert and feeling free in the first time in forever... i’m Emotional

the party in tab

putting the spider silk in sam’s suit and saving his life and not telling him... all the samlaena scenes in general tbh

first scene in tog when she mouths off to everyone... that was the first thing i read of her and i fell in love immediately 

meeting nehemia and speaking eyllwe with her so chaol can’t understand them. especially the scene where she turns around “sneers” at dorian nvsnfkdl i love that wording 

telling dorian outright that she doesn’t exist for his entertainment

beating grave in the fight obviously 

wearing the red dress in tog and telling archer she’s trying to kill him instead of fuck him and just being so unimpressed with him overall

maiming chaol’s face and trying to kill him after he gets nehemia k*lled 

torturing grave. we love revenge in this house

killing baba yellowlegs

using wyrdmarks to do necromancy... honestly every time she uses wyrdmarks. i love witchy!aelin

killing archer

saying fuck it and drinking on the rooftops in hof

“because i am lost and i do not know the way” even though it K I L L S me

when she first shifts into her fae body and runs with rowan through the forest + it’s so joyful

setting a trap for the skinwalkers

scene where she burns out and rowan sees her scars and then she sleeps in his bed... the Tenderness of it all.......

sneaking out in the middle of the night to train 

the final battle at mistward......... as immy put it “aelin, using the very magic that frightened her and caused her to be shunned by people she loved to protect mistward whilst simultaneously putting herself at the mercy of things she knew would kill her because she was actively suicidal but wanted to go out helping those who had taken her in >>> anything any male tog character has ever done or has the capacity to do”

rowan taking the blood oath to her after she threatens to burn maeve’s city

ALL OF QUEEN OF SHADOWS LITERALLY FUCKING ALL OF IT THERE IS NO SCENE THAT IS NOT ON THIS LIST BUT ESPECIALLY:

meeting with ar*bynn in the vaults and then wrecking the place

meeting nesryn for the first time

absolutely going off on chaol the first time they see each other again, and bitching him out again on the rooftop of her appt

reconciling with lysandra and deciding to get sweet sweet revenge with her

freeing aedion

manipulating lorcan into killing the wyrdhounds for her

fight at the vaults

THE SCENE AT DINNER WITH AR*BYNN WHEN SHE’S LIKE “WELL IF YOU’RE CONCERNED ABOUT MONEY YOU COULD ALWAYS SELL THE HOUSE OR STOP USING LYSANDRA’S SERVICES” LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING!!!!! THE O N L Y BENEFIT OF A TOG TV SHOW (BESIDES TO CORRECT THE SHITTY ELEMENTS OF THE SERIES WHICH IT INEVITABLY WON’T DO) WOULD BE THE ABILITY FOR ME TO TAKE THAT SCENE AND PUT THE ‘TURN DOWN FOR WHAT’ BEAT DROP OVER IT 

(and then their ensuing discussion in the living room. she plays him so flawlessly)

standing on the roof in the rain while arobynn dies being like “i just feel empty” :((((( baby

being an absolute goofball in the sin eater’s temple

fight with manon at the temple of temis hellooooooo

tricking lorcan into taking the fake amulet

oath to darrow at the beginning of eos as beautifully depicted by this edit (i HAVE to plug zoe as aelin i HAVE to)

taking back whatever that place is called for rolfe... turning all those soldiers to ash

convo with her ancestor’s ghost (brannon?) where she’s literally canonically like “well i’m suffering but at least i’m hot”

appearing in rolfe’s office and Ending His Whole Career... that whole part in skull’s bay where she manipulates him into helping her 

she’s not technically in this scene but “here’s to hoping you find more creative terms than the word “bitch” to call me when you find this. with all my love, aag” LMFAOOOO

reuniting with ansel holy fuckkkkkkkkk and just the way all her plans come together. schemey babie

every interaction with fenrys in that book too

the “you do not yield” scene where she punches the shit out of the iron coffin

telling cairn his dick was small after he tortured her for months

the scene where she escapes and its from lorcan’s pov

asking people to VOTE on when her fucking death should occur even though it depressed me that it came to that

SENDING THE GODS TO HELL.... I FUCKING LOVE “She was no lamb to slaughter. No sacrifice on the altar of the greater good. And she was not done yet... Aelin smiled and bowed. Far out, striding over the hills, the gods paused. Aelin’s smile turned into a grin. Wicked and raging… She had been a slave and a pawn once before. She would never be so again. Not for them. Never for them.” LIKE HELLO??????? AELIN GODKILLER INDEED

walking with all the women through orynth after the battle

practicing with rowan before her coronation bc she was nervous.... Shes Baby

and like 600 other things that i probably forgot!! basically I Am Aelin’s Whore 

Listed: Joseph Allred

Photo Credit: Susanna Bolle

Joseph Allred grew up in Tennessee and currently lives in Boston, where he’s found good company with acoustic musicians such as Glenn Jones and Rob Noyes. Like them, he makes music that can easily be tagged as American Primitive guitar, a category that Dusted’s Bill Meyer invoked in a 2019 review of two Allred cassettes that were issued on the Garden Portal label: “Of all the musicians who convened in Takoma Park, MD last year to attend The 1000 Incarnations of the Rose festival, Joseph Allred hews closest to American Primitive guitar’s mystical spirit.”

But Allred has also made music that has little to do with that approach, and is not even played on acoustic guitar. A quick survey of the seven vinyl albums and virtual basketful of tapes and downloads that Allred has released on Feeding Tube, Garden Portal, Melliphonic, and Scissor Tail Records since 2013 will turn up songs played on piano and harmonium, banjo instrumentals, and sound collages made from cell phone recordings as well as sonically rich and emotionally commanding acoustic guitar soli. Meyer also reviewed Allred’s newest release, Michael, out on Feeding Tube, noting that “his grasp of the essence of American Primitive guitar, which is that music is not just an idiosyncratic reordering of certain influences… that are played on a steel-stringed acoustic guitar, but an articulation of one person’s uneasy relationship to the wider world.”

Mike Gangloff – “The Other Side of Catawba”

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Mike Gangloff

This song was Mike’s contribution to Buck Curran’s 10 Years Gone tribute to Jack Rose that came out last year. In addition to being a moving tribute to his friend and musical co-conspirator, it points to the mystical, dirge-y side of the Appalachian fiddle tradition that I’m particularly fond of, evoking more than a bit the keening wail of graveside bagpipes.

Powers/Rolin Duo — St

St by Powers / Rolin Duo

A lovely ecstatic drone folk album from these lynchpins of the Columbus, OH cat-instagramming scene. Shimmery, rumbly, at once earth-planted and heaven-turned. 12-string guitar paints color washes like the album’s watercolor sun-scape cover and hammered dulcimer fills to the brim with echo, sometimes sounding on the verge of being blown apart by its own reverberation. It’s been providing a much-needed meditation and catharsis lately.

Ostad Elahi — The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi

Nur Ali Elahi was a Kurdish musician, mystic, jurist, and philosopher born in Iran to the Yarsani religious leader Hajj Nematollah. Despite showing a prodigious talent for the tanbur and being recognized as a master musician at an early age, he never played music in a professional performance setting, preferring to use the instrument, which accompanied him throughout his life, as part of a personal spiritual practice. The tanbur has an airy, ephemeral sound often described as dry or even ascetic, but it uses a rolling right hand technique that creates seemingly unending hypnotic swirls of notes.

Buck Gooter — Finer Thorns

Finer Thorns by Buck Gooter

I met Billy Brett and Terry Turtle about 10 years ago when the band I used to play in shared a spot with Buck Gooter on the lineup of a Harrisonburg, VA basement show. I thought of Suicide and Big Black with some primal Ramones-tinted sludge seeping through the cracks, but it was ultimately something uniquely weird in the best possible way. I didn’t get to know Terry as well as I wish I could’ve before he died last December, leaving Finer Thorns as his last album, but he was a special person and a true outsider art savant. I wish Billy the best as he carries the Buck Gooter flag forward on his own.

Stanley Brothers — The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers

My dad sang in a gospel quartet and I used to poke fun a bit by asking if it hurt his feelings that most of the gigs they got were at funerals. Maybe because I’ve experienced a lot of loss in the last decade or so I understand the special place gospel music has around death for some of us, but I think it can call us to start building a heaven on earth just as it imagines a place where our departed friends and lovers watch over and wait for us. These recordings made between 1949-52 are some of the finest gospel and bluegrass to be found and have been my medicine for homesickness and world-weariness.

Arvo Pärt — Für Alina

I did a transcription of this piano solo for a tape that came out on Michael Potter’s Garden Portal label two years ago and found my first experience with transcription deeply rewarding. Für Alina is a quiet, introspective piece, arranged to slowly unfold and then fold back up and consisting of two voices that move together against an occasionally sounding pedal tone. When I arranged it for guitar, one of the alterations I needed to make is that I put the two voices in the same octave, whereas on the piano they’re played an octave apart. Pärt intended the dedication to “Alina” as a consolation to a mother who had recently been separated from her daughter, so distance is a theme of the piece, but I found it especially poignant that the tension between the two voices seems much more pronounced when they’re put closer together.

Julian Bream — Dances of Dowland

The recently departed Julian Bream was a giant of classical guitar but his anachronistic lute playing technique and use of an instrument with some modern amenities earned him the ire of the more authenticity-minded lutenist community (apparently a fairly ornery bunch). I don’t recommend caring too much about the difference between the right hands of a classical guitarist and a dedicated lutenist, and I still love this album of Dowland renditions for the lute. Bream is a particularly good candidate to bring out the drama and flamboyance that can be extracted from the music, and it’s always a treat to hear the joy and mastery he brought with him to whatever era or instrument he happened to be playing.

Popol Vuh — Spirit of Peace

Music can be weaponized and used to challenge oppressive structures in overt and destructive ways, but in the hands of those like Florian Fricke, it creates spaces for self-transcendence and communion with the Divine, which builds the foundation necessary for successfully transfiguring those structures or building new ones. It allows us to enlighten and empty ourselves, to become conduits for Divinity and activate it in the world. Like much of Popol Vuh’s music, Spirit of Peace speaks from soul to soul.

Alan Sparhawk — Solo Guitar

I’ve been experimenting with an electric guitar a little after having gone two years or so without plugging in at all and using some of that time to think about what the electric guitar excels at or might be uniquely capable of. Alan Sparhawk’s Solo Guitar came out the year after he had a well-documented breakdown that led to the cancelling of a 2005 Low tour and an eventual hospitalization, and this album stands out to me as a testament to how bleak and alienated the electric guitar can sound. It’s also a reminder of what made me put the electric guitar down for so long to begin with. It’s a beautiful album, but sometimes I can’t help but hear audio renderings of hellscapes Alan must have been fighting through.

Dorothee Soelle — The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

Dorothee Soelle was a German Protestant theologian who came of age against the shadow of Germany’s horrific deeds during World War II. She spent her professional career as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and Cold War arms race, patriarchal renderings of God, and a perversion of Christianity she called “Christofascism.” The Silent Cry stands as one of her most important and widely read works. She imagines an imminent, politically engaged mysticism, one equally at odds with the violent, patriarchal exploitation enacted by capitalism, and other-worldly mysticisms that refuse social analysis.

Ariahd’s backstory

for real this time. also the lexicon is a separate post now because it got way too long; you can find it here. @sapropel here’s the massive wall of text as promised!

The Life of Ariahd of Leknos

The Yianlai believe dragons are the offspring of the god of choas, their goddess Valena's greatest enemy. When the Yianlai Empire invaded and conquered the north, their dragon-hunters began killing off the high dragons, until there was only one small population left in the Razka Mountains of Dymaexei. A warlock from the city-state of Leknos stumbled upon an orphaned clutch of high dragon eggs in the high mountains. The mother had been killed by dragon-hunters while defending her nest. Although luckily the clutch had remained hidden from the hunters, it had gone without being warmed by the mother for so long that, despite the warlocks’ attempts to save them, all but one of the developing dragonets died in their eggs. Ariahd, the only one of his broodmates to survive, was carefully nurtured to hatching by the warlocks. He formed a fast connection with Enos, the young daughter of the head warlock, who helped her father care for him after he hatched. As he grew they became close friends, communicating by writing, since as a dragon Ariahd had no ability to form human-like speech. He and Enos altered the Dymae alphabet into cruder forms that would be easier for him to scratch into the dirt with his claws, and even invented pictograms, creating their own shorthand script.

The imperial occupation of Dymaexei meant that Ariahd’s existence had to be kept a secret. Because of this, he grew up very sheltered, unable to venture beyond the high walls of the monastery, his only knowledge of the outside world coming from stories told by the warlocks, and the travelers’ accounts that Enos found in the library and read aloud to him. The two would occasionally sneak out to fly in the mountains surrounding the city, careful to stay under cover of darkness.

While his earlier years were happy enough, as he grew older he began to become aware of the fact that he was likely one of the last of his kind, which affected him deeply. Over the years, as Enos joined the order’s ranks as a novitiate and then as a fully fledged warlock, Ariahd also came to envy her freedom and the ease with which her human form allowed her to move through the world. As she grew older and learned magic of increasing difficulty and complexity, her formidable skill with sorcery was also a source of jealousy for him. He knew he had it in him to be just as powerful, but his dragon’s form was ill-suited to working the complex rituals of human sorcery.

Years passed, and as Ariahd neared thirty years old--still a child in dragon years--he became increasingly restless; as Enos’ duties within the order kept her occupied, he took to wandering the mountains alone, straying further and further from the monastery each time. On one such flight, unbeknownst to him he was spotted by imperial troops. Soon imperial inquisitors were dispatched to Leknos, with orders to dispose of Ariahd and execute the warlocks both for practicing sorcery, a heresy, and for sheltering a dragon. The monastery was attacked, and in an act of rash bravery Ariahd flew out to try to confront the attackers directly. He managed to kill a number of imperial troops but was mortally wounded himself; the distraction he provided allowed a large number of the order, including Enos, to escape into the mountains with the preserved dragon souls. 

The remaining warlocks dragged the dying Ariahd back behind the safety of the monastery walls. Desperate, in agony, and afraid, he begged them to preserve his soul in a vessel to keep him from truly dying. The warlocks agreed. After performing the ritual, they hid Ariahd’s soul vessel in the relic vault, which was located deep in the maze of catacombs carved into the massive rock bluff the monastery sat on. They resealed the relic vault, then committed ritual suicide rather than be tortured and executed by the inquisitors.

Ariahd's soul laid dormant, trapped in its vessel in the vault as the years went by. Fifty years later, it was discovered by a Nephiri sorcerer, Yupal. On the run from inquisitors, she had fled across the Mysskaean Sea to Dymaexei and settled in Leknos thirteen years before, where she took up a new identity, married a Leknosian man, and had a daughter, Lys. When Lys was thirteen, the Great Plague struck the Mysskaean. After ravaging coastal Dymaexei, it reached Leknos, carried by those fleeing the ravaged ports. In no time it began running its way through the city; Yupal and her family fell ill, and her husband succumbed to the Plague, leaving her and their daughter alone and close to death. Desperate to save Lys’ life, she broke into the relic vault in the monastery, hoping she'd be able to find something there to heal her. She sensed the strong magic emanating from Ariahd's soul vessel, and stole it. By the time she had returned home, Lys had died. In desperation she attempted to use necromancy to channel Ariahd's life force to resurrect her child, but accidentally opened a conduit that allowed his soul to enter the girl’s body and fuse with her soul, creating the last Walking One.

 Ariahd was taken to the monastery’s infirmary, where the monks were doing their best to heal the gravely ill. For days he lay in a deep sleep, as the two souls within his body fused into one, and the monks caring for him feared he would die. Finally, he awoke. Unable to speak or write with his new hands, he had no way of telling the monks who he was or what had happened. At a loss, the monks asked Phare, a senior monk and accomplished healer, to attend to him. She had been a novitiate before the inquisitors’ attack on the monastery and the warlocks’ extermination, and when she used magic to examine Ariahd’s soul she realized immediately what he was. Phare informed the monks, and they made the decision to take him in (along with countless other children orphaned by the Plague), and began teaching him to be human.

 For about ten years he stayed with the monks, at first simply learning to live in his new shape but later becoming a novitiate within the order. During his tutelage he discovered he had a gift for art, which the monks had him put to use illustrating sacred manuscripts and decorating the monastery with frescoes of scenes from Dymae mythology. Under the monks’ guidance he also began retraining in the basics of magic; while he had mastered basic magecraft as a dragon, in his new form he had to completely relearn how to connect to and channel his own power. When he was skilled enough, they introduced sorcery into his studies, which he quickly excelled at without the restraints of his dragon’s shape.

Despite how much he enjoyed his new life with the monks, over the years Ariahd once again became restless, longing to see more of the world that he’d been cloistered from his entire life. When the time came for him to become a fully ordained monk at twenty years old (his body’s physical age), he decided to leave the order instead, and depart Leknos to seek his own purpose in life.

When it came time for him to leave, he hitched a ride with a loggers’ caravan to the port city of Kymospa and from there caught a ship to the island of Temuz, where he hoped to further refine the painting skills he had first developed at the monastery. While apprenticed there under a master artist he fell in love with Talit, daughter of wealthy cloth merchants and a fellow apprentice. They became lovers, and remained so for the three years of their apprenticeship. During their scant free time outside of the painter’s workshop, Talit taught Ariahd how to sail among the islets and sandbars in the sea surrounding the island. He also started to take a renewed interest in sorcery, especially weather-working, an ancient discipline practiced by Mysskaean seafarers to turn the wind and sea in their favor. It was at this time that he began to feel uncomfortable with his body and realized he thought of himself as a man. At the urging of Talit, who was also transgender, he sought out a physician and sorcerer specializing in flesh-sculpting to help him transition physically. Up until this point he had been using the name Lys, which had belonged to his human host, and which the monks (all except Phare) had called him. He renamed himself Ariahd, which means “he who sees clearly”.

The more Ariahd explored sorcery, the more fascinated he became with it. As the end of his and Talit’s apprenticeship neared he confided in her that he planned to depart Temuz for Dossiwarri, and enroll in its famous Chabawi University to study under the master sorcerers there. Talit, wishing to pursue her own career, was not willing to accompany him to Dossiwarri. The two parted amicably, and remained friends until her death a century later. Talit would go on to become a well-known and sought-after painter, commissioned all across the Mysskaean, and her and Ariahd’s paths crossed often. 

Three years after arriving in Temuz, Ariahd bid his master and fellow former apprentices goodbye and set sail for Dossiwarri. Upon arrival in the city, though, his money and belongings were stolen. Determined to earn back what he had had saved up to to pay the university’s entrance fee, he took up work as a dock worker, staying in a squalid hostel in the Dymae Quarter and practicing hedge-magic on the side for extra coin. He also continued to further his transition, having taught himself flesh-sculpting from what he’d gleaned from the Temuzo sorcerer-physician.

A group of Dymae university students—Lesta, a physician in training, Kenoad, studying poetry, and Pallas, an apprentice architect—who were also regulars at the wineshop he frequented in the Dymae Quarter noticed that he always drank alone, and decided to befriend him. They offered him a room in the house they shared, and pitched in to help him pay his entrance fee.

Ariahd was accepted into the university, easily passing the entrance exam, and began studying under the formidable Dossiwarrim sorcerer Fatawa Bernu. When Fatawa saw Ariahd’s natural aptitude for magic, she brought him and a few other select students into the university’s under-school—a small circle of faculty and students dedicated to preserving the practice of disciplines banned by the empire, among them necromancy, shape-changing, and martial sorcery. Ariahd also studied, along with a select handful of other students, under Ilan-Afis, an Eshtari sorcerer, in the art of weather-working. The Dossiwarri had long enjoyed the knowledge and prosperity the sea trade brought to their city, but were not sailors themselves; weather-working had been developed primarily by Dymae, Temuz, and Eshtari seafarers over the centuries, and a sorcerer from one of those cultures had always been employed by the Chabawi University to teach the discipline to its students.

One of the other students to be inducted into the under-school was a young Dossiwarim man named Washadi; during their education he and Ariahd became first friends and then lovers. During this time Ariahd finished his physical transition to his satisfaction. As their studies dragged on, tensions were growing between the people of Dossiwarri and the imperial ruling class. When the long-festering resentment finally boiled over into a full-scale revolt one hot summer, Ariahd and Washadi, along with countless other sorcerers studying at Chabawi, were called to lend their aid to the rebels. During one of the skirmishes Ariahd was seriously wounded, and had to be put into a magically induced coma by the sorcerer who healed him. When he awoke, he was told that Washadi had disappeared in combat, and was almost certainly dead. Once he had recovered enough he searched day and night for Washadi, but in the chaotic aftermath of the revolt his efforts proved fruitless.

Heartbroken, he packed his scant belongings, found a ship in need of a sorcerer, and departed from Dossiwarri. He would not return for another ten years, whereupon he discovered that Washadi had been captured and imprisoned by the empire, but had escaped and made his way back to Dossiwarri. In the decade following his return he had married and started a family, but extended the invitation for Ariahd to stay in Dossiwarri, telling him he’d put in a good word for him at Chabawi University, where he now taught medical sorcery. Ariahd declined, choosing instead to continue working as a ship’s sorcerer.

After sailing the Mysskaean Sea (and beyond) for decades, Ariahd grew tired of life at sea. He made his way to the far north and settled in Nossk, the capital city of the island nation Gumir, where he works as a painter in the present day. While most of his business comes from mourners commissioning funerary portraits of their dead loved ones, he is also often paid by the city counsel to paint the murals that adorn Nossk’s government buildings, temples, and municipal spaces. He lives with his partner, a Vazkyrohk sailor named Skovej Tide-Runner, in a small house in Nossk’s artisan quarter. The two met five years ago when their ships wintered in the same port, and from then on became inseparable. Skovej crews on a whaling ship during the summer, but spends the off-season with Ariahd in Nossk. They own a longhaired black cat named Renjir, who Skovej found as a stray kitten wandering the city docks. After almost a century of wandering, Ariahd all the more appreciates the small comforts of domesticity, taking great pleasure in living a quiet life among his books and paints; his past as a dragon seems so far removed from his current life as to be a dream.

Testimony

Ever since I was a little girl, I had a deep desire to know God.  At first, I had to be convinced that there was a God and that He cared about me.  I wanted to know that when I talked to God, I wasn’t just talking to the air.  I needed to know that God really did hear me and love me.

My story begins from a point in time when I was carefree, curious, and wondering how God fit into my life.  It began for me when I was about five years old.  Each night as I would lie in bed and say my prayers, I asked God to come down and touch me so that I would be assured that He really was there and could actually hear me.  I also wanted to know that He cared enough to not only listen, but also answer me.   I would end my prayers each night with a similar request for God to touch me, indicating His presence.  I repeated this prayer night after night with the determined persistence of a young child.  I never felt defeated or ignoredto the point of quitting. Instead, I kept praying the same prayer night after night as I patiently waited for God to respond.  I never gave up asking God, as children seldom do when wanting something bad enough for a genuine answer to my prayer.  I seemed to have an endless supply of patience and trust that my prayer would be answered.  I’m not sure exactly how long I continued with my persistent prayer, but I am convinced that it was over a year.  

Suddenly, one night after repeating this prayer and while drifting off to sleep, I was awoken by a sweet, gentle, calming touch on my back.  The touch was applied with just enough pressure to awaken me, yet not alarm me.  I immediately thought of my prayer to God and knew it was Him.  To reinforce my belief that it was His touch, I looked at my sister, who shared the bedroom and saw that she was sound asleep.  I then went to my parent’s bedroom door and opened it quietly and saw that they were both asleep too.  As I climbed back into my bed, I was elated with the warmest feeling knowing that God had finally answered my prayer.  I now knew that He really was there and He really heard everything I said.  My faith had begun, and my love for God could now blossom.

My family consisted of my Dad, Mom, and older sister.  When going into second grade, we moved to Chicago, Illinois.  My Dad had just graduated from medical school and was selected to complete his residency in a large hospital situated right in the downtown area of Chicago.  We lived in a high-rise apartment right across the street from “my dad’s” hospital.  It seemed everything in our apartment was white, including the tile on the floor, the cupboards, and the walls.  It was not homey but had a rather sterile feeling to it.  I attended a little two-room schoolhouse.  Second grade was in one room, and third grade was in the other.  My sister, who was in the fourth grade, and I would ice skate every day after school.  We skated on a basketball court that was flooded during the winter and would freeze solid.  I remember us walking home from school with our ice skates slung over our shoulders.  These were good memories, but at this period, I distinctly realized that something in my family started to change.

My Dad was gone a lot of the time, because he was very busy with his residency.  It was during this year that my sister and I started noticing some very strange things.  My Mom would periodically “blackout” and faint for no apparent reason.  My Mom became very critical of my sister and me and would incessantly yell at us.  It reached a point where she seemed to be yelling at us all the time.  Sometimes my Mom would hit my sister and cause her to cry.  When my Dad would come home, I would “tattle” to him and tell how mean Mom was to us.  I especially emphasized her actions following the times that she struck my sister.  My Dad would get very upset over these reports and have what seemed like serious talks with our mother.  Sometimes, when I tried to tell my Dad what Momhad done, she would stand behind him, so he wouldn’t know she was there and shake her fist at me, indicating that I had better not tell.  On those occasions, I would tell Dad that we had a good day, thus being too afraid of what Mom would do to us if I spoke the truth.  It took my Dad a while, but he finally discovered that her excessive drinking of vodka caused my Mom’s bad temper and blackouts.  

When my Dad’s residency was over, we moved back to our original home. My mother continued her excessive drinking.  Her problems were inflamed by the fact that my Dad was now a fulltime doctor and working extremely long hours.  In fact, he was one of only a very few doctors that still did house calls.  He would come home from a 14-hour day only to be called out again, leaving us alone with our mother.   It seems that the long hours of separation within the family took its toll.   We would find indications of our mother’s loneliness in her empty Vodka bottles, which she had hidden throughout the house.  My sister and me were left unsupervised most of the time.

One night, I remember hearing my Dad crying.  He had received a call that his father died from a gunshot wound to the head.    My Dad had previously lost his mother to a long, drawn-out battle with breast cancer.  His father had helplessly watched as she agonized through the pain and side effects from treatment therapies.  Recently, my Grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and chose to commit suicide as opposed to what he believed would be a long, drawn-out battle.  

The pressures on my Dad compounded with the loss of both of his parents, long hours from a rapidly growing medical practice, and the hardships of an alcoholic wife. This led to him having excruciating migraine headaches, which would not abate with simple aspirin.  He medically diagnosed himself and treated his migraines with prescription painkillers.  These medicines worked for a time, but the migraines continued.  He increased the strength of the painkillers until he was using the very addictive narcotics.   The narcotics made him very tired and started him on the use of amphetamines to keep him awake.  At night he used barbiturates to counter the effect of the amphetamines.  

My sister and I noticed that our Dad began to sleep late in the mornings, which was very unusual.  His medical answering service would call urgently requesting to speak with our Dad.   We would attempt to wake our Dad to answer these calls, but he would tell us to say that he was not home.  I hated lying to the people at the answering service and could tell by the tone of their voice that they suspected I was not telling the truth.

My sister and I had the nicknames of “Toothpick” and “Stringbean” because we were exceptionally skinny. I remember havin such bad hunger pains. There were a lot of nights that we spent eating frozen dinners in front of the television. We were very fortunate that our mother’s parents lived close enough to take my sister and me for the weekends. They helped in our care as much as they could. My grandparents were the ones who took us to amusement parks and fishing.  They are a big part of my good memories.

Each morning, my sister and I would get up by ourselves and leave for school.  Our hygiene was a problem without assistance from our mother.  In addition to being skinny, we had long blond hair with huge snarls from neglect.  Each weekend our grandmother would wash our hair and, demonstrating exceptional patience, spend hours combing out the tangles.   To this point, I was never instructed on the necessity of washing my face and brushing my teeth.  It was not until an extremely embarrassing Moment when, in fourth grade, a teacher pulled me aside and explained the reasons why I would want to wash and brush.  Once the alcohol took hold of our mother, our existence and necessities became irrelevant.  

Initially, the night was an escape from the realities of the day, although as time progressed, the nights grew worse.  Often our mother would roam the house in a drunken stupor.  Other times she would lie in bed moaning so loud that sleep was impossible.  I can remember getting so frustrated after being kept up for hours that I would initially plead and then scream at her to “shut up”, yet even my actions were no avail.  Numerous times our parents would call, waking my sister and I, for us to come and lead them to the bathroom.  My Dad was so numb with narcotics that he couldn’t even walk to the bathroom.  He would lean on my sister and I as we guided him down the hallway.  Also, my mother was routinely so drunk that she also had to be led to the toilet.   Sometimes we would even have to take them to the bathroom at the same time.  We would wait outside of the bathroom door while they used the toilet.  Sometimes they even passed out in the bathroom and we would have to rouse them from their daze and guide them back to their bed.  The stress of these escalating situations came out in me in the form of nervous ticks.  I was known for unconsciously twitching my eyes and making noises in my throat.  Also, I sucked my thumb long beyond what is considered normal for a child.  

The tribulations at home were making my life at school exceptionally difficult.  I experienced continual fatigue and reoccurring headaches.  Unfortunately, no one knew of our plight and we didn’t feel we could confide in anyone without risking our Dad’s reputation.  We didn’t want to destroy our Dad’s career as a doctor.

The problems at home were directly affecting my relationships at school.  I never felt like I fit in or was a part of the group.  I was continually thinking about what was happening at my home.  I wondered what my mother was doing at home, instead of paying attention in the classroom.  I never invited friends home after school or on weekends for fear of what I would find when we walked into the house.  Each day I shuttered to think what was going on beyond the front door when I returned home after school.  Some days my Mom would be more or lesssober and at other times it was like walking into a nightmare.   My own personal struggles compounded when I began to be drawn to the “cool” kids in order to fit in and have friends.   I was drawn to the “cool” kids who applied subtle pressure to mimic their actions.  I spiraled into a world of drinking, smoking and experimentation with drugs.   I did not even notice my own slide into a mental and emotional hell.  I continued to experiment with marijuana and hashish.  I remember several times when I stayed “stoned” for several days at a time.  Surprising as it may sound, I was only twelve years old when I was hopelessly harming my physical, mental and spiritual body with alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.  Around this time, when looking back, I must have been the kind of unlovable and hardened child that others wanted their own children to avoid.  One day, a very wonderful woman who lived next door, reached out and invited my sister and me to accompany her to a place called the “Gospel House”.   That night I heard some pretty awesome stuff.  They told me that I could know God as I had never known him before. They said that I could be a part of God’s very own family and when I died I could be sure I was going to heaven.  They showed me where in the Bible it states that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  No matter how hard we try to be good, it’s not enough.  We all have sin.  It says that the penalty for sin is death.  But it also says that God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but will have eternal life.  By repenting of our sins and asking Jesus into our hearts, we could know for sure that we are a part of God’s family and that we would go to heaven.  I went back for a number of weeks, because I had finally found the answer in my quest to know God more.  It wasn’t something that you just said or did.  It was the beginning of a life long commitment to love God.  I would become totally dependent on God and trust Him with all aspects of my life.  I could begin a relationship with God where I could grow closer and closer to Him the more I began to know Him.  I remember praying and asking Jesus to forgive me for my sins and to come into my heart and life.  I thought I should feel a little “saintly” or experience some great revelation, but in truth I didn’t feel any different.  I did feel confident, though because now I knew that God had a purpose for everything I was going through and that He was going through it with me.  My Dad tried to break the chains of addition by enrolling in several rehabilitation programs but his attempts to quit his addiction always failed.  There were numerous occasions when one of our parents would overdose and fall into a coma.  Mom had begun supplementing her drinking with amphetamines to wake her up and barbiturates to allow her to sleep like my Dad.   One time my Dad fell into a deep coma that lasted for over a day.  My mother and grandparents were very worried and argued over calling taking him to the hospital.  The argument revolved between saving his life and whether he would lose his medical license if drugs were discovered in his blood.  They couldn’t agree so they pulled my sister and I into the bedroom and told us to decide what to do.  Rarely is a child left with making so traumatic a decision for adults.  My sister and I were crying and didn’t know what to do.  After about another half-hour of not knowing what to advise, my Dad awoke from the coma and appeared all right.  Thus, we didn’t have to inform anyone about his condition and jeopardize his career, although our family’s personal hell would continue.My mother’s alcohol addiction and drug abuse caused numerous psychological and physiological neuroses to take hold and come out in unexpected forms.  She appeared to have episodes resembling full-blown paranoid schizophrenia.  She would tell us elaborate stories of how she was being watched by people who wanted to get her and destroy our Dad.  Also, she believed that our house was bugged with listening devices.  She drew arrows in blue chalk on the walls of the basement indicating where she had found wiretaps into our phone lines.  The blue arrows were all over the walls.  One night my Dad verified our mother’s claim that a car actually attempted to run them off of the road.  My sisterand I lived in constant fear of our mother and the supposed “people” who were after us.  At the time, we didn’t fully realize that our mother was no longer rational and was totally controlled by alcohol and drugs.  The terrible downward spiral of life continued when on one night in particular my mother became mad at my sister and started burning all of her clothes in the basement incinerator.  My Dad slapped my mother on the side of her head with such force, that it burst her eardrum.  On another occasion, my mother was so mad at my sister and me that she beat us on our bare bottoms with the bristled side of a hairbrush. Our baby-sitter neighbor told us that she heard us screaming but for some reason, no one came to our assistance or attempted to intervene.  As such young girls, my sister and I were helpless to change our situation.   Sometime later, when my sister was fourteen and I was twelve, we were thankful because our Dad told us that he had finally overcome his addictions. One evening, a short while later, our Dad said he was going out to the garage and my sister and me became suspicious from something in his voice and followed him.  We found out that he had hidden some drugs in the garage and he was planning on taking them.  My sister and I threatened that if he took any of the drugs that we were leaving for good and going to live at my grandparent’s house.  Dad went ahead and took the drugs, which caused my sister and me to pack our bags and walk to our grandparent’s home.We decided to stay at our grandparents for a few days to see how things progressed at home.  The next evening, my sister and I attended a service at the Gospel House.  Suddenly, our grandparents rushed into the service and asked us to leave.  They said that our Dad had a terrible accident and hit his head by slipping in the bathtub.  We rushed home only to find that our Dad wasn’t in the bathroom, but that he was laying face down halfway out the back door.  My Mom was standing over him screaming that he was dead and that we had done this to him.  Again came the argument between our grandparents and mother as to whether to call the ambulance.  I looked at my Dad and knew something was terribly wrong.  I went into the house and called an ambulance, while my grandparents and mother continued to argue.  The ambulance came and took not only took my Dad, but also my Grandfather.  It was all too much for my grandpa and he had started having chest pains.  He had had previous heart attacks.  Mom ran and locked herself in the bedroom and kept screaming that it was our fault dad was hurt.  My grandmother called a mental institution where my Mom had spent some time earlier in the year.  The institution people came and handcuffed my Mom and dragged her screaming out of the house and into a waiting car.  I didn’t like the way they were dragging my mother and I remember feeling bad for Mom, but due to her continual screaming at us, was also glad to have her taken away.  Sometime later that evening, my sister and me learned our Dad had died. We spent the rest of that night at our grandparent’s house.  Grandpa spent the night in the hospital and came home the next day.  My sister and me assisted our grandparents in arranging for the funeral.  Grandma called the mental institute and they allowed our mother to attend the funeral, but she had to return for additional observation and treatment.    I was too numb with shock and grief to even cry at my Dad’s funeral.  It took a long before I could openly cry from the grief.  My sister was very angry with God for taking her beloved Dad.  I personally told God how bad I hurt inside, but also thanked Him for being with me.  I was comforted by the fact that I believed that He had a purpose for everything.  I was 12 years old at the time and felt as if I had lived a lifetime of tribulations.  Mom finally came home from the institute and my sister and I moved back home.  Life went on, but slowly began to change for the better.  I wanted to quit smoking and lost the desire for drinking.  In addition, I  totally stopped smoking marijuana and hashish.   The need to fit in with the “cool” crowd evaporated and I decided to find real friends.  I began going to the Gospel House on a regular basis and even joined the choir.  I felt very loved and accepted by my Christian brothers and sisters.  Our choir traveled to other churches and I loved going on those excursions with them.  The time spent with the choir was a saving grace to me, as I loved to sing.  I spent two additional years trying to quit my pack a day habit of smoking cigarettes, but to no avail.  Finally, in desperation, I confessed to God that I just couldn’t quit on my own and that if He wanted me to, He would have to quit for me.  From the point of that prayer request, I have never picked up another cigarette.  The total desire and urge to smoke was gone.Time progressed and my sister left for college.  It was now just my mother and me at home.  I told my Mom about my relationship with Jesus and she surprised me by showing up at a gospel house meeting.  She was drunk at the time and I was very embarrassed of her, but she prayed at that meeting and no one seemed to care that she was intoxicated.  I prayed with her at home too and she prayed asking to accept Christ into her life.  I sincerely believe that she tried to quit drinking on her own, but the claws of alcoholism were set too deep.  Her drinking slowed down substantially, but there were still times of significant drinking binges.   Mom and I spent our summers in Canada on an island in Georgian Bay that my Grandfather had purchased in 1948.  It’s a remote place in the wilderness about a twenty-minute boat ride from the marina in town.  There was no electricity, running water or means of communication.  We had a two-seat outhouse some distance behind the main cabin, which was creepy to use at night.  You had to avoid all the huge hanging spiders.  We used kerosene and Coleman lanterns for light and our only transportation was our 19-foot aluminum starcraft powerboat.  .Mom continued to drink and would tell me stories of how she would see and talk to my Dad.    My Dad had been dead for over four years.   These stories caused me to lay awake at nights so afraid that I would see my Dad, a walking corpse, peeking in the windows.  Each night I would ensure that the curtains were tightly closed after dark.  During the school year life continued to be tough for me.  Mom would go on drinking binges and keep me up with her moaning and ramblings.  I had to get up for school on many mornings after little or no sleep.  I went through a daily ritual of continual headaches and fatigue.  Fortunately, I started dating my future husbandin the eleventh grade.  He was a saving grace for me and seemed to always be there when I needed him most.  He picked me up from home each morning and drove me to school so I didn’t have to trudge through the snow, rain and cold.   Time passed and I entered my senior year in high school.  I applied to attend college the following fall.   Mom’s drinking became less frequent through my senior year and she continued to invite my boyfriend over for dinner.  The two of them would spend the evening debating politics and discussing current events.  This was a very pleasurable time for me and I enjoyed that my mother got along so well with my boyfriend.  My mother hosted an exceptionally nice party following my graduation from high school.  Three weeks later she hosted another major event, which was my sister’s marriage.  At this point I believed that the future was bright and nothing could go wrong, unfortunately that wasn’t the case.  Mom and I planned to spend the summer together in Canada before I left for college.  My mother invited my boyfriend up to Canada and he arranged a week off of work to accompany us and help open the cottage.  Unfortunately, Mom had binged the weekend before we left in memory of her and my Dad’s June anniversary date.  This time though, she became very sick and we thought that she had the flu.  She stated that she felt good enough to make the 10-hour drive to Canada and said it would be good to recuperate out on the island.  After the long drive, and once out on the island, she took a downturn and became even sicker.  She threw up multiple times and would then drink huge amounts of water.  Just as we thought she was getting better she started acting peculiar.  It was 3:00 AM when I awakened to her screams that Dad was dead.  I went to her room and tried to tell her that Dad had died five years before.  Then she insisted that our dog had died.  I brought our dog to her and showed her that he was all right.  She settled back into bed and quieted down.  After I went back to my room I heard her rattling a pill bottle.  I didn’t think much of this because I was so used to her taking a lot of pills.  In the morning, Mom seemed much worse.  She was incoherent, physically weak and unable to walk.  I told her that we were taking her off of the island and into the hospital.    On the drive, my mother’s eyes kept rolling back in her head.  My heart was pounding as I continued to ask her if she was all right.  She answered but continued to go in and out of consciousness.  We arrived at the hospital and rushed her into the emergency room.  After speaking with the Doctors, they commenced an examination of my mother. The doctors started the examination by asking my mother questions.  When they asked her what the date was she said, “page number 238”.  When asked what time it was, she smiled at the doctor and told him that he was asking too hard of questions.  I told the doctor that I had heard my Mom taking medicine the night before, but that it was a normal occurrence.  I also mentioned that she was an alcoholic.     The emergency room doctors spoke with me and stated that my mother was either going through alcohol withdrawal or that she was going insane.  Either way, he said that she would need to stay hospitalized for a couple of days, but that she would be all right.  While I was talking to the doctor, my Mom came out of her dementia long enough to ask my boyfriend to take care of me.  The nurses told us that we should get a hotel room and get some sleep. My own personal struggles compounded when I began to be drawn to the “cool” kids in order to fit in and have friends.   I was drawn to the “cool” kids who applied subtle pressure to mimic their actions.  I spiraled into a world of drinking, smoking and experimentation with drugs.   I did not even notice my own slide into a mental and emotional hell.  I continued to experiment with marijuana and hashish.  I remember several times when I stayed “stoned” for several days at a time.  Surprising as it may sound, I was only twelve years old when I was hopelessly harming my physical, mental and spiritual body with alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.  Around this time, when looking back, I must have been the kind of unlovable and hardened child that others wanted their own children to avoid.  One day, a very wonderful woman who lived next door, reached out and invited my sister and me to accompany her to a place called the “Gospel House”.   That night I heard some pretty awesome stuff.  They told me that I could know God as I had never known him before. They said that I could be a part of God’s very own family and when I died I could be sure I was going to heaven.  They showed me where in the Bible it states that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  No matter how hard we try to be good, it’s not enough.  We all have sin.  It says that the penalty for sin is death.  But it also says that God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but will have eternal life.  By repenting of our sins and asking Jesus into our hearts, we could know for sure that we are a part of God’s family and that we would go to heaven.  I went back for a number of weeks, because I had finally found the answer in my quest to know God more.  It wasn’t something that you just said or did.  It was the beginning of a life long commitment to love God.  I would become totally dependent on God and trust Him with all aspects of my life.  I could begin a relationship with God where I could grow closer and closer to Him the more I began to know Him.  I remember praying and asking Jesus to forgive me for my sins and to come into my heart and life.  I thought I should feel a little “saintly” or experience some great revelation, but in truth I didn’t feel any different.  I did feel confident, though because now I knew that God had a purpose for everything I was going through and that He was going through it with me.  My Dad tried to break the chains of addition by enrolling in several rehabilitation programs but his attempts to quit his addiction always failed.  There were numerous occasions when one of our parents would overdose and fall into a coma.  Mom had begun supplementing her drinking with amphetamines to wake her up and barbiturates to allow her to sleep like my Dad.   One time my Dad fell into a deep coma that lasted for over a day.  My mother and grandparents were very worried and argued over calling taking him to the hospital.  The argument revolved between saving his life and whether he would lose his medical license if drugs were discovered in his blood.  They couldn’t agree so they pulled my sister and I into the bedroom and told us to decide what to do.  Rarely is a child left with making so traumatic a decision for adults.  My sister and I were crying and didn’t know what to do.  After about another half-hour of not knowing what to advise, my Dad awoke from the coma and appeared all right.  Thus, we didn’t have to inform anyone about his condition and jeopardize his career, although our family’s personal hell would continue.My mother’s alcohol addiction and drug abuse caused numerous psychological and physiological neuroses to take hold and come out in unexpected forms.  She appeared to have episodes resembling full-blown paranoid schizophrenia.  She would tell us elaborate stories of how she was being watched by people who wanted to get her and destroy our Dad.  Also, she believed that our house was bugged with listening devices.  She drew arrows in blue chalk on the walls of the basement indicating where she had found wiretaps into our phone lines.  The blue arrows were all over the walls.  One night my Dad verified our mother’s claim that a car actually attempted to run them off of the road.  My sisterand I lived in constant fear of our mother and the supposed “people” who were after us.  At the time, we didn’t fully realize that our mother was no longer rational and was totally controlled by alcohol and drugs.  The terrible downward spiral of life continued when on one night in particular my mother became mad at my sister and started burning all of her clothes in the basement incinerator.  My Dad slapped my mother on the side of her head with such force, that it burst her eardrum.  On another occasion, my mother was so mad at my sister and me that she beat us on our bare bottoms with the bristled side of a hairbrush. Our baby-sitter neighbor told us that she heard us screaming but for some reason, no one came to our assistance or attempted to intervene.  As such young girls, my sister and I were helpless to change our situation.   Sometime later, when my sister was fourteen and I was twelve, we were thankful because our Dad told us that he had finally overcome his addictions. One evening, a short while later, our Dad said he was going out to the garage and my sister and me became suspicious from something in his voice and followed him.  We found out that he had hidden some drugs in the garage and he was planning on taking them.  My sister and I threatened that if he took any of the drugs that we were leaving for good and going to live at my grandparent’s house.  Dad went ahead and took the drugs, which caused my sister and me to pack our bags and walk to our grandparent’s home.We decided to stay at our grandparents for a few days to see how things progressed at home.  The next evening, my sister and I attended a service at the Gospel House.  Suddenly, our grandparents rushed into the service and asked us to leave.  They said that our Dad had a terrible accident and hit his head by slipping in the bathtub.  We rushed home only to find that our Dad wasn’t in the bathroom, but that he was laying face down halfway out the back door.  My Mom was standing over him screaming that he was dead and that we had done this to him.  Again came the argument between our grandparents and mother as to whether to call the ambulance.  I looked at my Dad and knew something was terribly wrong.  I went into the house and called an ambulance, while my grandparents and mother continued to argue.  The ambulance came and took not only took my Dad, but also my Grandfather.  It was all too much for my grandpa and he had started having chest pains.  He had had previous heart attacks.  Mom ran and locked herself in the bedroom and kept screaming that it was our fault dad was hurt.  My grandmother called a mental institution where my Mom had spent some time earlier in the year.  The institution people came and handcuffed my Mom and dragged her screaming out of the house and into a waiting car.  I didn’t like the way they were dragging my mother and I remember feeling bad for Mom, but due to her continual screaming at us, was also glad to have her taken away.  Sometime later that evening, my sister and me learned our Dad had died. We spent the rest of that night at our grandparent’s house.  Grandpa spent the night in the hospital and came home the next day.  My sister and me assisted our grandparents in arranging for the funeral.  Grandma called the mental institute and they allowed our mother to attend the funeral, but she had to return for additional observation and treatment.    I was too numb with shock and grief to even cry at my Dad’s funeral.  It took a long before I could openly cry from the grief.  My sister was very angry with God for taking her beloved Dad.  I personally told God how bad I hurt inside, but also thanked Him for being with me.  I was comforted by the fact that I believed that He had a purpose for everything.  I was 12 years old at the time and felt as if I had lived a lifetime of tribulations.  Mom finally came home from the institute and my sister and I moved back home.  Life went on, but slowly began to change for the better.  I wanted to quit smoking and lost the desire for drinking.  In addition, I  totally stopped smoking marijuana and hashish.   The need to fit in with the “cool” crowd evaporated and I decided to find real friends.  I began going to the Gospel House on a regular basis and even joined the choir.  I felt very loved and accepted by my Christian brothers and sisters.  Our choir traveled to other churches and I loved going on those excursions with them.  The time spent with the choir was a saving grace to me, as I loved to sing.  I spent two additional years trying to quit my pack a day habit of smoking cigarettes, but to no avail.  Finally, in desperation, I confessed to God that I just couldn’t quit on my own and that if He wanted me to, He would have to quit for me.  From the point of that prayer request, I have never picked up another cigarette.  The total desire and urge to smoke was gone.Time progressed and my sister left for college.  It was now just my mother and me at home.  I told my Mom about my relationship with Jesus and she surprised me by showing up at a gospel house meeting.  She was drunk at the time and I was very embarrassed of her, but she prayed at that meeting and no one seemed to care that she was intoxicated.  I prayed with her at home too and she prayed asking to accept Christ into her life.  I sincerely believe that she tried to quit drinking on her own, but the claws of alcoholism were set too deep.  Her drinking slowed down substantially, but there were still times of significant drinking binges.   Mom and I spent our summers in Canada on an island in Georgian Bay that my Grandfather had purchased in 1948.  It’s a remote place in the wilderness about a twenty-minute boat ride from the marina in town.  There was no electricity, running water or means of communication.  We had a two-seat outhouse some distance behind the main cabin, which was creepy to use at night.  You had to avoid all the huge hanging spiders.  We used kerosene and Coleman lanterns for light and our only transportation was our 19-foot aluminum starcraft powerboat.  .Mom continued to drink and would tell me stories of how she would see and talk to my Dad.    My Dad had been dead for over four years.   These stories caused me to lay awake at nights so afraid that I would see my Dad, a walking corpse, peeking in the windows.  Each night I would ensure that the curtains were tightly closed after dark.  During the school year life continued to be tough for me.  Mom would go on drinking binges and keep me up with her moaning and ramblings.  I had to get up for school on many mornings after little or no sleep.  I went through a daily ritual of continual headaches and fatigue.  Fortunately, I started dating my future husbandin the eleventh grade.  He was a saving grace for me and seemed to always be there when I needed him most.  He picked me up from home each morning and drove me to school so I didn’t have to trudge through the snow, rain and cold.   Time passed and I entered my senior year in high school.  I applied to attend college the following fall.   Mom’s drinking became less frequent through my senior year and she continued to invite my boyfriend over for dinner.  The two of them would spend the evening debating politics and discussing current events.  This was a very pleasurable time for me and I enjoyed that my mother got along so well with my boyfriend.  My mother hosted an exceptionally nice party following my graduation from high school.  Three weeks later she hosted another major event, which was my sister’s marriage.  At this point I believed that the future was bright and nothing could go wrong, unfortunately that wasn’t the case.  Mom and I planned to spend the summer together in Canada before I left for college.  My mother invited my boyfriend up to Canada and he arranged a week off of work to accompany us and help open the cottage.  Unfortunately, Mom had binged the weekend before we left in memory of her and my Dad’s June anniversary date.  This time though, she became very sick and we thought that she had the flu.  She stated that she felt good enough to make the 10-hour drive to Canada and said it would be good to recuperate out on the island.  After the long drive, and once out on the island, she took a downturn and became even sicker.  She threw up multiple times and would then drink huge amounts of water.  Just as we thought she was getting better she started acting peculiar.  It was 3:00 AM when I awakened to her screams that Dad was dead.  I went to her room and tried to tell her that Dad had died five years before.  Then she insisted that our dog had died.  I brought our dog to her and showed her that he was all right.  She settled back into bed and quieted down.  After I went back to my room I heard her rattling a pill bottle.  I didn’t think much of this because I was so used to her taking a lot of pills.  In the morning, Mom seemed much worse.  She was incoherent, physically weak and unable to walk.  I told her that we were taking her off of the island and into the hospital.    On the drive, my mother’s eyes kept rolling back in her head.  My heart was pounding as I continued to ask her if she was all right.  She answered but continued to go in and out of consciousness.  We arrived at the hospital and rushed her into the emergency room.  After speaking with the Doctors, they commenced an examination of my mother. The doctors started the examination by asking my mother questions.  When they asked her what the date was she said, “page number 238”.  When asked what time it was, she smiled at the doctor and told him that he was asking too hard of questions.  I told the doctor that I had heard my Mom taking medicine the night before, but that it was a normal occurrence.  I also mentioned that she was an alcoholic.     The emergency room doctors spoke with me and stated that my mother was either going through alcohol withdrawal or that she was going insane.  Either way, he said that she would need to stay hospitalized for a couple of days, but that she would be all right.  While I was talking to the doctor, my Mom came out of her dementia long enough to ask my boyfriend to take care of me.  The nurses told us that we should get a hotel room and get some sleep.

The next morning, my boyfriend and me were going to go back to the island to get a nightgown, books and some things for my Mom to do but we decided to go and check on her first.  One of the nurses came running up to us and asked us where we had been. I was told that my mother’s heart had arrested 8 times during the night, yet the doctors had been able to revive her each time.  When we rushed into my Mom’s room we found her lying naked on the bed with wires and electrodes attached to her chest.  I covered her bare breasts with a sheet.  Her eyelids were taped shut and she was on a ventilator machine. The doctor had assured me that she would be all right the night before and now I had such a growing fear inside of me.  To loose my mother would be the worst possible thing that could happen to me, as I would be an orphan.  At that moment, I felt so alone and very scared.  Even though my mother was an alcoholic, I still loved her with a deep affection that only a child can know.  I wondered who would take care of me and where would I go?  Just three weeks prior, we were celebrating at my sister’s wedding.  I thought aloud, “No God, not my Mom!”  The yellow light on the oxygen machine shut off right in front of our eyes indicating that my mother had stopped breathing on her own.  I told the nurse that the yellow flashing light had gone out and she then explained the machine’s operation.    I exclaimed that the yellow light in fact was now off and that my Mom had stopped breathing!   The nurse turned, and with a shocked look, asked my boyfriend and me to immediately leave the room.  Doctors came rushing to my mother’s room and many hospital personnel entered and left the room in rapid succession.  After what seemed like an eternity, I was told that the doctor wanted to see me down in his office.  My heart sank, as I knew what this meant.  Indeed, I was told that my Mom had died.  My world was utterly toppled.  After breaking the news to my sister, she immediately got in the car with her husband and started the 12-hour drive to Canada.  

My sister reached the hospital in Canada eight hours after our mother had died.  We both looked at each other in a state of shock.  We returned to the Island, closed the cottage and began the long drive home.    My sister, who was only 19 at the time, and I struggled through the funeral preparations like zombies.  They had me view my mother’s body before anyone else and I was outraged to see that they had bright red lipstick on her with bright red nail polish.  We buried her in the same dress she had worn only three weeks previously to my sister’s wedding.  For three long days we endured the funeral process.  So many people expressed their condolences, but nothing helped the ache I felt inside.  I knew that I would never see either of my parents again.  They would not be here to see me start college, get married or know my children.  I felt so devastated and cheated.  My boyfriend was by my side throughout the entire time.  I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for him.  I cried my heart out to God and couldn’t understand why He had allowed this to happen.  It was a strange feeling, but I truly felt His presence with me and I could feel His tears alongside of mine.  I knew there was some purpose in all this, but I was too numb to ponder it very much.  I had never felt such sorrow in my whole life.

Two days later, my boyfriend’s Dad died from cirrhosis of the liver.  I assisted his family with all of the funeral preparations. My boyfriend’s family was overcome with grief, as was I.  Life seemed unbearable as my boyfriend and I trudged on side by side.  God had given us each other for support, comfort and friendship.  My boyfriend was only 18 and I was only 17 at that time.  My Dad was 39, my Mom was 44 and my boyfriend’s Dad had been 43 when they all died.  Everyone was so young and experienced such needless and avoidable suffering.

I never got to sleep in my own bed again.  I never got to live in my own house again.  I stayed with my boyfriend’s family for about two weeks and then my grandparents took me in for the rest of the summer.  We put our house up on the market and began the long task of going through everything in it.  My grandpa was in the flea market business and loved selling things.  It seems everything I cherished was sold, including most of our furniture and belongings.  Even my own bed and childhood toys were sold.

I started college in the fall and cried throughout the whole first few months. I had an 8x10 photograph of my Mom, sister and I sitting on our couch just before my sister’s wedding.  We were all dressed up and looked so happy.  I shed many tears while looking at that picture and thinking that I would never get to see my Mom again; until heaven that is.  The Bible was my lifeline.  I had a little King James Version of the Bible that I had received when I attended the gospel house. The pages became well worn as I continually sought refuge in the pages of God’s word.  God was always there with me, and as I poured my heart out to Him, I knew He cared and hurt right along side of me.  I also knew that He would help me to persevere and keep on going.  

My boyfriend and me were married after our second year in college.  We graduated two years later.  I was a nurse and my husband joined the army as a Second Lieutenant.  We were stationed in Germany for the next three years.  We lived among the German people and I took classes to learn how to speak with them.

I was at the Army post one day when I noticed a sign in English for a coffeehouse across the street.    I had heard that coffeehouses were sometimes Christian places so I decided to continue with my adventurous spirit and check it out.  I am sure that God planned that day, as I met my best friend.  She took me under her wing and really taught and explained the Bible to me.  Together, we spent hours in prayer and memorizing scripture.  

My best friend assisted me in overcoming a serious burden that I carried.  This burden was my fear that God would throw me out of His family because I still had sin in my life, regardless of how hard I tried.  I struggled with a lot of anger as my husband was gone so much of the time and I was left home alone in a foreign country.  I tried not to be angry with my husband over this, but sometimes I didn’t succeed.  I had a constant battle going on inside of me.  I battled with what I knew I should be like and what I was really like.  It seemed my anger always won over faith and caused me significant depression and guilt.  My friend was able to show me through scripture that God would never ”kick” me out of his family and that he had provision for sins.  All I had to do was confess my sins to God and ask for His forgiveness.  In turn, I could know for certain that I was forgiven.  Once I asked forgiveness, I could then invite the Holy Spirit to control me and help me be the person He wanted me to be.

My friend showed me where in the Bible it said that I could know for sure that I was going to heaven and that I had eternal life starting way back on the very day I had asked Jesus into my heart.  She showed me scriptures where it said that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me and is there to help, love and guide me.  This helped tremendously as I was able to rid myself of the guilt that plagued me.  Also, the fellowship with my friend was instrumental in my growing closer to God.  I no longer had to fear His disapproval of me.  I was free to learn, grow and even started sharing my testimony and teaching bible classes.  

This testimony and life experiences is why I share my story with you.  I want you to know God as you have never known Him before.  You can know without a doubt that you have eternal life.  You can know that you are a part of God’s family and that He will never leave you or forsake you.  You can be assured that God has a plan for your life.  No matter how terrible the situation, you can know that God has a good purpose for placing you in the situation.  I know that I will see my parents in heaven again some day.  I prayed with my Mom and know that she believed in Jesus.  Also, my neighbor informed me that she prayed with my Dad six months prior to his death and that he asked Christ into his life.  Their lives were shortened, because of sin, yet your life doesn’t have to experience the same tribulation.  The answer is so simple, yet so life-changing; all you have to do is pray and ask Jesus into your heart and life,

“Jesus, I’m sorry for all of my sins.  I believe that you died to pay the penalty for my sins.  I ask you to forgive me for all of my sins, past, present, and future.  I ask you to come into my life and my heart.  Please give me your Holy Spirit to comfort, guide, and teach me.  Please help me to know you in a way that I have never thought possible until now.  I thank you that I now know for sure that I have eternal life and that I will live with you in heaven forever.  Show me these truths in your word and open my eyes so that I can see them for myself.  I love You,God.  I commit my life to you and give you all that I am.   I pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.”

Thoughts on the finale

Okay... I have some thoughts about this Grey’s finale, and I want to let them out and see what everyone thinks. 

Trigger warning: suicide talk

I have seen a lot of people complaining about the finale and how “uneventful” it was.. ok fair, your feelings are valid. But I think this whole season has been about developing characters and dealing with their past traumas. Therefore, it's reasonable. I can see why this finale was very wholesome, it was setting things for next season and respecting most characters' past. I have been watching Grey's since 2013, and it's true that previous finales have seen more shocking and entertaining. So, I find this one as a semi-break from the drama. Let's start with my more detailed thoughts. 

1. Jackson/ Maggie: As I have said before, I am not particularly attached to them and, therefore, I don't care very much about what happens. I am honestly ready for Jackson to die or leave the show because I feel that Jesse William has peaced out since they fired Sarah and Jessica. Like, he doesn't promote the show as much on social media, and he has been focussing more on his activism, which is very valid. I don't want him to leave, but I would understand why he would decide to do it.

2. Nico/ Glasses: I love this couple, they are so cute together, and I love how much Glasses has grown and gained confidence in this relationship. I love that he came out to his mom. I wanna see how that storyline develops. I am so happy for them and how much they have grown.

3. The Love Pentagon: First, I want to start with Teddy and Owen. I am so happy about their daughter, and it was cute how they picked the same name at the same time. However, I feel that the writers have forgotten about their past romantic relationships. This forgetfulness bothers me a little. I dislike that for them to be meant to be crucial storylines are dismissed, seems very forced. While I understand that this relationship has a VERY ancient history, I feel that this ancient history should be considered when talking about Teddy and Owen. On the one hand, last episode, Teddy says no one has ever made her feel like Owen does. Ummm... did you guys forgot about Henry? Hello? On the other hand, Owen romantically loving Teddy just invalidates his two major relationships... Amelia? Cristina? These relationships were relevant for his journey. He loved these women too, and, therefore, his love confession was not what I expected at all. It didn't convince me. 

This brings me to Omelia. I find it very annoying that they made Omelia a thing at the beginning of the season just to tare it apart. I understand that it allowed them to get their shit together, but one would think that it was going to take a step forward in their relationship. Also, can we talk about how self-less Amelia is? She still loves Owen a little, but she steps out of it for his sake. That is so brave and selfless, classic Amelia. I like that she asked Link for a break. She honestly deserves it and its good that she recognizes she needs it. We know how reckless she can be, this decision shows how much she has grown, I am so proud of her. I hope she finds herself and that the writers bring a bit of Private Practice Amelia.

Tom breaks my heart, but he doesn’t deserve to be with a woman that does not love him back.

4. Jolex: My heart was so happy with how this went down. I like Jo's storyline because it shows how we can talk about suicide and depression in a sensitive and respectful manner (not like 13 Reasons Why, yikes). I love how Mer told Alex that they needed a professional to help her. Jo deciding to go to therapy is so healthy, and I am here for a storyline that destigmatizes mental illnesses and visualizes suicide in a very respectful way. We stan!

5. Merluca: OH MY GOD! Did anyone cry when she said I love you back? AHHHH. They are my favorite. I LOL at the fact that they have to turn themselves to save the other's ass and career. I love that Mer is owning up and holding herself accountable, so brave. I love that she called him stupid and told him that he needs to learn how to deal with her whack actions. This line killed me because it shows that she does see a future with him. How cute is this? And, then, she says she is terrified, but still says she loves him WOW. She has grown so much, I am going to cry. They had so much chemistry, they said a lot with their looks and facial expressions, whoever says they don't have chemistry should rewatch this scene. Although they were separated by a glass window, there was so much being said. We stan this. I am so excited to see how they develop in the next two seasons, and I hope that the writers have more scenes with them. Like they have been dating for three months, and we have not seen a lot of their relationship. I want some domestic Merluca scenes with the kids and also so on-call room action because we all need that too.

Let me know how you guys feel about the finale!

Also, are there any Spanish-speaking Merluca fans? I listened to this song that reminds me of them, and I want to share. Pls, message me if you wanna hear it.

Me again with more Carrie and Saul. can you elaborate on how it’s different between them? You say it’s evolved but I don’t see how. Things have happened to Carrie especially, but I don’t really see how their relationship has changed at its core. Maybe Saul treats her more like an adult but even that’s debatable imo. I don’t mean to be argumentative for argument’s sake but... (continued...)

Cont… can you give concrete examples of how the development has played out on screen so I can understand it & hopefully S8 better. Specific scenes and what how they weren’t just individual scenes but changed the relationship going forward. Much appreciated! Oh and one more thing re: Saul and Carrie, sorry I forgot. Can you also venture a guess what it means in practice? What do you think will happen between them that will feel like closure or catharsis or something that’s expected of a show’s final season and perhaps finale as well?

Note #1: this became a lot longer than I expected (sorry, you asked!). Beyond what I’ve written, I challenge you to go back and watch these individual scenes. I’ve chosen ones from each season to illustrate the full arc of their relationship. Observe the differences in Claire and Mandy’s body language, in their facial expressions, in their discomfort, in the shared trauma of what’s come before. It’s deliberate writing and deliberate acting. Shorter version of this post is here, from April 2018.

Note #2: I chose almost exclusively scenes of conflict to represent the evolution of their relationship because I believe that conflict drives change. 

PROLOGUE:

To understand the Carrie and Saul relationship, we’ve got to understand what their relationship was before we met them. From what we know, Saul recruited Carrie, straight out of college. He saw in her something special and unique, something that didn’t come around every other day. She was gifted but she was also alone. She had no partner. She was socially isolated from her family and from the world (he didn’t yet know of her mental illness). This was an advantage of sorts. It meant she could give herself more and more to the work, same as he did. Remember this is his Achilles’ heel: whenever they call, he picks up. He doesn’t know how not to. It destroyed his marriage. But he molds her in his image. He teaches her, he raises her, the way a father would his daughter. He brings her up. Their relationship melds the boundaries of teacher/student, boss/employee, mentor/mentee, and father/daughter. It’s personal, and it’s deeply intimate. 

This is what we are given before the pilot and it’s what we’ve grappled with for nearly eight years: his attempts to harness her gifts–often to her detriment–and her simultaneous resentment of him for it and unwavering yearning for his approval. 

Key Scenes in the Carrie and Saul Canon:

#1: “What happened to the Saul Berenson that trekked the Karakoram?”: Much of the season one conflict between Carrie and Saul comes from her three thousand miles an hour suspicion of Brody and him being like “whoa slow down pls.” He is the first person she tells of these suspicions and he essentially shoots her down, causing her to go rogue. It’s here where the lines become blurred between boss/protege and father/daughter, because the way in which he chastises and punishes her feels awfully familial. 

So when Carrie finally reaches a breaking point in “Blind Spot” (the original Carrie Mathison Appreciation Episode), we feel that as though a family is breaking up. It doesn’t matter that she comes crawling back to him, just an episode later, remorseful. 

Carrie underlines just how much Saul has changed: in her words, from the man who “did three months in a Malaysian prison” (HELLO???? repeat: he raised her in his image) to a pussy. We understand that Carrie and Saul are both outsiders in the CIA. We understand that Saul is still grappling with his former employee David Estes bring promoted over him. While Carrie truly seems to not give a fuck, Saul keeps in line. He says “yes, sir.” He advises caution. None of these are inherently bad qualities but in this scene we come to understand that what drew Carrie to Saul was not his caution, his yin to her yang, but his daring and bravery and “FUCK THE CIA” mentality (there’s a reason why that line is in this episode too). 

#2: “You don’t know a goddamned thing”: This scene is now famous for lines like “you’re the smartest and dumbest fucking person I’ve ever known” (he’s not wrong) but this scene is actually one of the more important ones ever on this show, and I still maintain that t“The Choice” is the mos important ever Homeland episode. As to why this scene itself is significant in their relationship, I’ll allow Jacob Clifton to explain:

Saul is one thing only, and his love for Carrie comes out of the idea that they are the same. And he’s right. But because she’s giving up herself to something he can’t, it looks like they are not the same. It looks ugly to him. He fights it like an addict fights recovery, striking blindly at her softest places because can’t stand the change in vector: Her madness is only acceptable as long as it’s useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.

I bolded that last sentence because it’s almost shockingly predictive of future seasons. We can hem and haw all we want about Saul’s relative rightness about Carrie leaving the CIA for Brody being a terrible decision, but the truth is that he would have done it regardless of who Brody was. He would have done it if she’d left with Quinn, with Jonas, with Otto, with Estes, with anyone, or all by herself. I don’t actually believe that Saul wants Carrie to be miserable. I just think he doesn’t care. I think he sees her gifts, her “saving the world” (to be totally Mandy Patinkin about it) as a more profound and upright calling than, for example: having a family, being a mother, having an integrated and whole personal life… the list goes on. 

But the moment when Carrie tells him she doesn’t want to end up alone her whole life, like him, is probably the first great fissure in what was until then a generally even relationship. It establishes her desire for… something beyond everything he’d ever shown her (she literally turns down the greatest career opportunity ever for THE DUDE IN THE SUICIDE VEST… and like, did we ever consider that wasn’t really about Carrie loving Brody so much but more about how much she really didn’t fucking want to be Saul????). She threatens his control and he strikes her at the knees. 

#3: Literally all of season three: It’s difficult to choose a single scene in season three to encapsulate just how much Carrie and Saul’s relationship this season was changed but let’s just discuss the overall arc:

Saul and Carrie come up with a plan to lure out Javadi (i.e., Iran) since they know he’s partially responsible for the Langley bombing. In their shared plan, Carrie will pretend to be crazy in front of the Senate and the press so that she seems vulnerable to the influence of a foreign power. Coolness. 

Except Saul changes the plan in the middle and: 

Publicly blames the Langley bombing on Carrie

Outs Carrie’s sexual relationship with Brody on national television 

Has Carrie committed to a mental institution for four weeks with little to no contact with the outside world

Sics Dar fucking Adal on her when she gets out of the mental institution in order to maintain the cover

The scene at the end of “Game On” where Carrie comes to Saul’s house and tells him the plan has worked is devastating to watch. I don’t think it was entirely clear at the time just how much Saul’s plan had strayed from their shared vision until Carrie tells him, through tears, “you should have gotten me out of there, Saul. You shouldn’t have left me in there.” He doesn’t say anything in response. When she tells him it’s too hard, she can’t keep going, he offers her some tea. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking sad. 

Again: 

Her madness is only acceptable as long as it’s useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.

Season three was all about that: about the lengths Saul would go with Carrie’s own illness, and how far along she’d left herself go too. Javadi literally makes a speech about it.

Now, Carrie wasn’t forced to do any of this (well, except the mental institution, that was extremely forced). We see at times how desperately she craves his attention and approval: in “Tower of David,” when she pleads with her therapist to give a good report back to Saul; in “The Yoga Play,” where he berates her for getting involved in Brody Family Drama and tells her she’s ruined everything and ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT THAT NOW CARRIE (god, the father/daughter vibes in that one are nauseating); in “Still Positive” when she calls him, triumphant, after having arranged the meeting with Javadi and he’s like “oh yeah by the way we lost you for a few hours there.” 

(This doesn’t fit into the above theme but the scene at the end of “One Last Thing” when Carrie tells him in order for any of this shit to work they have to trust each other is one of the most interesting and important scenes of the whole season, simply because it implies one easy truth: they don’t trust each other. And what a change that is from earlier seasons.) 

And yet, he needed her for it all to work. Saul may have been the mastermind of the entire clusterfuck of season three (better on rewatch than you would think!), but without Carrie literally every step of the way, it would have gone up in flames. She lured Javadi to America with her 95%-based-in-reality mania. She convinced Brody to go to Iran knowing it would almost certainly end in his death. And then she went straight along to Tehran knowing she’d probably have to witness it all. 

The end of season three is super interesting in their relationship because I believe in my gut and in my soul that Carrie still resents Saul for convincing her to convince Brody to go kill himself. I really believe this. Again, she wasn’t forced. She did this of her own volition. But he planted the seed in her head, and I think some part of Carrie–likely equal parts rational and irrational–blames him for it, even as she mostly blames herself. 

I won’t even mention Saul’s complete un-acknowledgement of Carrie being nine months pregnant in the last half of “The Star” but Saul basically ignoring Carrie’s child for four years is more significant than we give it credit for.

#4: “Escape or die. I promise.” The season four relationship between Carrie and Saul is interesting because it upends their previous dynamic. Carrie and Saul were always outsiders in the agency, but now he’s actually on the outside and she’s ascended, more an insider than ever. Also, I know part of it was grief, and again this is not an absolution, but where else do we think Carrie learned her casual disregard for human life? I’m just saying, season four came after season three. 

So anyway, when Carrie promises to Saul that he’ll kill him before letting him be re-captured by the Taliban, we almost sort of believe her. She nearly killed him once before (wanna know the quickest way to get me from 0 to 1500 words on this show? mention the end of “From A to B and Back Again.” but actually don’t please).

The middle episodes of season four–Carrie nearly killing Saul, reneging on her promise to kill him, and then tearfully saving him from himself–are extremely moving. And they cement the arc of that entire season, of Carrie ascending where Saul had fallen. “The student becomes the master” (or the Drone Queen, rather) and all that jazz. Her journey to save her soul coincided with her journey to save him. Is that coincidental? Saul stopped being Carrie’s moral compass around the time he lied to her and had her committed. But just as Carrie is finding her way amid the chaos and fog of war, Saul is making backdoor deals with Dar fucking Adal to turn a blind eye to Haqqani’s reign of terror so that he could go and be the CIA director again. 

Saul preached idealism and goodness and morality in an increasingly terrorized, dangerous, chaotic world. He raised her in that image. She strayed, but was finding her way back to it. In those final moments of season four, that betrayal is complete. She detaches from him. And their relationship is forever altered. 

#5: “There’s a line between us that you drew. Forget that. There’s a fucking wall.” Oh, season five. This is getting really long so I’ll try to be succinct: Carrie and Saul’s relationship in season five is about her being in mortal danger and him being like “lol good luck….. NOT.” Ok, it’s only like that for an episode. 

How do they come back from the damage done at the end of season four? I think the answer is that they didn’t. They’re not healed from it. Parts of Carrie don’t trust Saul, and parts of Saul don’t trust Carrie. There are the surface elements of course: Carrie went and found a cool life in Berlin, riding bikes and wearing balloon hats and such, working for a man whose ideals often stood in direct counter to the CIA’s. In effect, she basically went and did the opposite of everything Saul had ever done. That this all comes in a time of real upheaval in Saul’s personal life (Mira divorced him, he’s literally fucking a Russian mole) only makes his ego more volatile. 

And then we have The Landstuhl Conundrum. I’m calling it this because it doesn’t yet have a name but I’m referring to the moment when the doctors say that they can’t wake Quinn from a coma, because if they do he will probably die or have irreversible brain damage. But Carrie and Saul believe he has valuable information about a terror cell that he’d eagerly share after coming out of said coma. Honestly!!! This show is extremely ridiculous sometimes. 

Anyway Saul is like “what would you want me to do if it were you lying there,” implying DUH she’d have him wake her. She says she can’t speak for Quinn. Well apparently she can, because she wakes him. Cue the irreversible brain damage, the almost-death. 

Later Saul comes to see her and Quinn at the hospital and asks how he is. “Not great,” she replies tersely. He tells her he didn’t come here to fight with her. 

Resentment City: Population of 1. I’ve actually beat this drum for a few years, but I still think that Carrie harbors resentment toward Saul for coercing her into waking Quinn. First Brody, then Quinn. This isn’t meant to absolve Carrie of blame. She convinced Brody to go to Tehran because she believed in that mission. She woke Quinn because she believed in that mission. But I do think that Saul gave her a nudge and I’m not 100% convinced that without his influence she’d have made the same choices. When we talk about Saul teaching Carrie, about him mentoring her… and then we talk about Carrie having no regard for human life, of choosing mission over man, time after time… how much of that is her nature and how much is him nurturing her toward that outcome? 

#6: “Maybe I don’t like the idea of you worrying about me.” Season six is spectacularly dull on many fronts, and the Carrie/Saul relationship is not the centerpiece. The evolution of their relationship after Berlin has taken the shape of something like season three. Saul needs Carrie’s help, she’s in no position to give it, he coaxes her with some terrifying outcome If She Won’t, then she agrees, and things still Turn Out Shitty For Her. 

Ultimately I think this season highlights that whatever difficulties they now have working with each other, whatever trust issues they both still harbor, at the end of the day it is ALWAYS Carrie and Saul Versus the World. That’s always what this story has been (though this is extremely different from their relationship being the same as it’s always been), and it’s what the show comes back to after Quinn’s death. 

He still cares about her. She tells him not to, he’s not her fucking father. This is one of the great complexities of their relationship: Saul often does coddle her the way a father would a daughter, but he’s a firm believer in tough love and all the forms that can take. 

Again, I don’t think that Saul wants Carrie to be miserable. I also don’t think he wants her to happy. Her personal fulfillment and well-being is just entirely secondary to her role in his own mission of Whatever The Fuck. I mean I guess his mission is for the world to be more peaceful and better but like… y’know how Thanos thinks that killing half the universe’s population will help with the suffering caused by overpopulation? I’m not saying Saul is Thanos. But they’re both deranged males! (Also, if y’all don’t think Saul would Gamora Carrie right up outta this dimension if it meant fulfilling his life’s mission then please let me sell you this Homeland lamp!) (But honestly, I’m not saying Saul is as bad as Thanos.) (Do not send in asks about this.)

#7: “You’ve given me a hard time these last few years.” Season seven takes the post-Berlin foundation that season six built and adds some new interesting layers that are like a weird inversion/combo of seasons four and five. Carrie’s more on the outside than she’s ever been and now Saul’s the one who’s gone to work for the enemy. 

Still, no matter whatever shit has gone down between them, it’s still Carrie and Saul Versus the World. The show highlights some key ideas in the last three episodes. First, it fully acknowledges that whenever Saul comes calling, Carrie will always answer. Remember how he said this was his Achilles’ heel? Remember how in that same episode Carrie said she was going to be alone her whole life? Remember how Saul raised Carrie in his image? These callbacks are not evidence of stagnation of their relationship; they’re references to its elemental core. 

Second, the show finally has Carrie acknowledge the… um… storm of shit Saul has put her through while also fully copping to the extreme codependence of their entire relationship:

I’ve not come all this way in that fucking plane and in my life to fail in that mission when I know I can succeed. You’ve given me a hard time the past few years. I’m in, I’m out, I’m all over the place. I am not all over the place now. I’m here and I’m all in, and I need you to say yes. 

She pledges her devotion to the mission (above all else). She acknowledges Saul’s hot-and-cold nature with her. And then she says SHE STILL NEEDS HIS APPROVAL because–say it with me–they are in an extremely! toxic! relationship!

In a nutshell, the evolution of the discord in Carrie and Saul’s relationship started with him putting her life at risk in service of the mission. And now we’re at a point where she fully fucking volunteers for the task! In my heart of hearts I think a non-zero part of Carrie is doing it so he will love her more. Did I mention they are in a codependent relationship? 

So where do we go from here?

If you are still reading, congratulations! That’ll teach you to ask me a question about Carrie and Saul! Actually, about five questions were asked. The last–what will happen in season eight that will feel at all like a catharsis–is not one that I’ve actually thought that much about. 

I think I’ve made a case for Carrie and Saul’s relationship being the soul of this show–its mangled, twisted soul. The truth is their relationship is toxic. They are both their best and worst selves with each other. Like family, they know what buttons to push, and where to strike to make it hurt the most. 

What catharsis looks like in this relationship depends a lot on how you see this relationship. For example, it would be cathartic for me for Saul to die, but that will almost certainly not happen. It would be cathartic for Carrie to strike out on her own–finally–and attempt some type of fulfillment. Also very unlikely. 

If I had to guess about what the end of this story will look like for them, it’s probably with Carrie dead. Probably on a mission Saul convinced her to believe in. 

Saul’s been alone his entire life. He will never be less alone because Carrie is alive. I guess that’s the prison he has to live in. And then maybe she’ll finally be free of hers. 

EPILOGUE:

The above is a reading of their relationship that is quite sympathetic to Carrie, obviously, and quite unsympathetic to Saul, also obviously. You will probably disagree. Gail has written very interesting stuff on how the dynamic of the Carrie/Saul relationship is most like handler/asset. I think that is a very astute perspective and there are definitely aspects of it but I think the relationship more resembles the trope of found family: she is the daughter he never had and he is the stable father she never had, and they will both ruin each other. Fin!