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jdgo51 · 8 months

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How Do I Find My Way Out?

Today's inspiration comes from:

The Best of You

by Alison Cook

Observing Painful Patterns

"'If you are a woman who learned to hide or make yourself small, please know this is not the life God has for you. If you are a woman who has felt like you have to mute your personality, your take-charge attitude, or your leadership abilities, please know this is not the life God has for you.

God wants the best of you. And God wants the best for you. God wants for you to heal, for you to come out from hiding. God wants for you to learn how to grow big inside yourself, full of His Spirit and might. God wants for you to learn how to stand up for the convictions inside of you.1

But I have found through my work as a counselor that many women are slowly giving up on these truths. Don’t get me wrong: most women are not giving up on being helpful or kind to others. Most women are not giving up on God. But after working with women for over two decades, the truth is that many are slowly and subtly giving up on parts of themselves that need healing.

In fact, this is exactly where I found myself well into my thirties. I loved God and sought to care for other people. But I had almost given up on the idea that maybe, just maybe, God wanted me to bring out the best of me.

The Hidden You

It started with an “almost” breakup.

“I love you, but I don’t think we’re ready to get married,” the man I was dating said one night as we sipped drinks at a local restaurant. I was stunned. At the age of thirty-seven, I had never been married. We had dated for more than a year, and I was ready for him to put a ring on it.

Joe was a widower with two young children when we met. He had loved his first wife, the mother of his kids, and had cared for her and for them through her debilitating illness as she passed away. Based on what he’d been through in life and the way God made him, he wasn’t someone who shied away from hard conversations.

“I’m committed to you. I’m not leaving. Please hear me say that. But we have work to do,” Joe said. “I love your mind and your heart. But I can’t get to the root of who you are and what you want out of your life. Sometimes it feels like you’re hiding from me. If we can’t both put all our cards on the table — the good and what’s hard — it won’t be healthy for either of us.”

As he spoke these words, the life force sucked out of me. I felt as if I’d left my body and was floating above the table, where I watched myself nodding and listening attentively, somehow willing myself to move a water glass over to my mouth. Shame had washed over me, and while I was aware of a terrible feeling, I was simultaneously aware of myself staying calm and present with him.

I was witnessing my own fawn response in action.

As an adult, I had traded the invisibility cloak of my teen years for the expert position of full-time helper, otherwise known as a psychologist. I had honed my ability to focus on other people. No longer just a helpful daughter or an encouraging friend, I was now a bona fide doctor of healing. I made my living tending to other people’s problems, and I was good at it — so good that I could lose myself in it.

I worked for God now. I was His helper. I didn’t need other people.

I was proud of the way that I helped others. But part of me longed to be seen. I hadn’t yet learned to let God’s healing light shine onto the inside of me, let alone let someone else into my longings, fears, and vulnerabilities.

Hearing these words from this man I deeply admired touched on a wound that went all the way back to my childhood, back to that sixth-grade girl buried deep inside who longed to show up big in her own life.

I am not going to leave you. I love you. I’m committed to you.

God wants to heal and draw out the real you.

As I sat there listening, still detached from my body, those words somehow reached me.

Wait, he’s not leaving me. Then what is he saying?

I love you. But I can’t find you.

I could not make sense of this message.

On one hand, it sounded as if he was saying the exact words I feared — he could not see me. On the other hand, he was saying something new, words I had always longed to hear.

I won’t leave you. I want to find you.

The shame lingered, but I smiled and nodded through the rest of our dinner.

The next day, the battle within me began.

That jerk! What gives him the right to tell me to work on myself? Look at all his flaws. They are way worse than mine.

I’m being like Jesus by always focusing on other people. What does he have to say for himself?

Tempted to pick up the phone and download all the terrible things about him to my friends, some part of me wouldn’t let me. (Well, maybe I did a little bit.)

“He’s not wrong,” I wrote in my journal.

Something deep inside me knew that he was right. When you have lived decades of your life camouflaging who you are — even while you’re doing “good things for God” — you get that it might be hard for someone else to find you, to know who you really are.

Joe had my attention. God had my attention. But here was my dilemma: How in the world do you stop being camouflage when it’s all you’ve ever been? How do you let someone in when you’ve worked overtime to stay hidden?

I had learned to cope in relationships — and feel like a valuable person — by always focusing on others. Yet God had brought into my path a man who had exactly zero interest in all my efforts to focus on him. To experience the kind of love I actually wanted, I had to learn to make myself visible.

Understandably, part of me experienced Joe’s words as a rejection. But he wasn’t rejecting me. Instead, he was desperately trying to get a message to the hidden me buried deep within:

I want you. I want the real you that is hiding. This camouflage keeps me from the person I want to spend my life with.

I knew he was right. He wanted to know all of me — not just the pleasing, helpful perception of me I was so good at creating. And I was the only one who could open that door. Instead of focusing on others, I had to start focusing on the deep, life-changing work of bringing forth the person I really was.

In order to be known by other people, you have to show up as your true self. In order to show up as your true self, you have to face your wounds.

In my case, it was Joe who served as a catalyst for me to dig deeper into the work of facing unhealed wounds and confronting aspects of my conditioning that had encouraged me to hide. But the truth is that

God was the driving force behind the healing I would subsequently find.

In the same way, God wants to heal and draw out the real you, including the parts of you that have learned to stay hidden. To join God in this effort, you have to start paying attention. You have to become aware of the ways you’ve been wounded, the methods you’ve used to cope, and the countless subtle and not-so-subtle messages of your conditioning. This work is tender. It requires compassion, courage, and care. And it requires a strong foundation of trust, the cornerstone of which is developing trust with yourself.

After all, how can you trust someone else with the real you if you aren’t sure what they’ll find?

Ephesians 6:10."'

Excerpted with permission from The Best of You by Allison Cook, copyright Dr. Allison Cook.

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wihyuned · 2 years

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mun info .

name/alias: eun age: 21+ pronouns: she, her, hers timezone: kst discord: just ask me! little trivia fact about yourself: i function on min 6 cups of coffee every day

character info .

character name: hyun woorim age: thirty, 30 zodiac sign: capricorn group/band/position: founder & editor-in-chief of RiTZ info links or quick points about your character: stats / bio / headcanons

despised music until he went to college / before woorim was born, his father used to be a hotshot, famous songwriter, but later got exposed (framed? who knows) for plagiarism, which ended up fragmenting his family (father, a sad alcoholic, and mother, an overworked pediatrics nurse)

used to be a real mama’s boy until she passed away bc of breast cancer when he was in high school / relied on his older brother a lot, who married off into a rich family + works for a conglomerate company (subtle inferiority complex)

attended hongik university, but not much interest in studying / main focus was his girl and later, RiTZ magazine that eventually blew up

the girl he met in college aka the reason why he started to love music (and started RiTZ!)

breakup burned him but the magazine got famous so who’s the real loser here

tldr on personality ; cunning, selfish, ambitious, insensitive, methodical, charismatic ; he’s quick-witted and good with his words, a real sweet-talker, and can be extremely persuasive when he wants to

hates being looked down upon and disrespected, and fully (with emphasis, fully) enjoys the power the magazine allows him to hold in the hongdae scene / it’s always fun for him to see desperation scurry up to him in human form and ask for a little praise

but all in all, everything bad (and good) about him makes him a good boss / organized down to a t and fiercely protective of his own employees unless they cross him

and he’s honest (to some extent) when it comes to his reviews / if you’re good, then he’ll tell you, you’re good ; just don’t be bad

plots or any development you’d like to see for your character

definitely the past ex who’s a musician, the heroine of his “i now love music” story! he was 22 when he met her and in college / she can be younger than him, but only by (max) 3 years

and other exes like from high school or maybe that three-month relationship he probably had after his heroine (that crashed and burned terribly)

someone from RiTZ who helped out with the magazine since the very beginning and saw it take off

musicians/artists/fashion designers who consistently keep trying to catch his attention maybe they have something they can trade for a little praise in the magazine, like secrets or bought time?

a stalker-ish fan (or just plain stalker) would be fun ngl

antagonistic relationships / always a sucker for angst and with a personality like his, it’s easy to make enemies, esp during first impressions

an ongoing or future love line(s) / he def has commitment issues but is too easily reeled in when he gets hooked on someone (and wears his heart on his sleeve in front of the person he’s fond of)

that one person woorim actually takes care of (despite him emphasizing independence) / like, are you going to burn the house down, and do you need him to cook? are you stuck in a dangerous part of town, and do you need him to pick you up?

he’s a good fighter / maybe he saved your ass one time a few years back, and you’re one of the few people that’s seen him without all the power-hungry, insensitive facade

would also love a one-sided crush thing !! which woorim fully knows about, doesn’t reciprocate, but never really cuts off bc he loves the manipulation and the attention

this can also go the other way, with him having his tongue and heart in a twist and he absolutely hates it

+ more bc i’m always down to plot and brainstorm so pls hmu if you would like to :’) you can always ask me for my discord acc or reach out through im

#UG.TALK #so excited to be here

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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Will Brexit Bring the Troubles Back to Northern Ireland? https://nyti.ms/2rHSWA7

This is a fascinating look at the very real and immediate consequences of Brexit. While looking back at the violent sectarian history and what Brexit could awaken in the very near future. WELL WORTH THE TIME

"In Northern Ireland, Brexit is stirring up an especially volatile brew. Sectarian tensions have been roiling in one form or another since at least the 17th century, when King James I encouraged the migration of Protestant colonists from Scotland and England to the northern Irish province of Ulster, where they enjoyed special privileges. An act of the British Parliament in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, led to Ireland’s partition, creating a Protestant-majority Northern Ireland. Catholic grievances over discrimination fueled animosities that helped precipitate the Troubles. By the time of the Good Friday Agreement, some 3,600 people had been killed and tens of thousands injured. The peace deal created a power-sharing system of government, but it did not bring reconciliation."

Will Brexit Bring the Troubles Back to Northern Ireland?

As the United Kingdom confronts the prospect of dissolution, old factions are bracing for the possibility of new violence.

By James Angelo's | Published Dec. 30, 2019 | New York Times | Posted January 2, 2020 |

Belfast, like Berlin and Sarajevo, draws many visitors not despite its history of murderous conflict but because of it. Guides there take tourists to “peace walls,” the tall barricades of corrugated metal and concrete erected during the sectarian conflict, known as the Troubles, that began in 1968 and ravaged Northern Ireland for three decades. The walls were built to divide Protestant and Catholic enclaves and to prevent people from killing one another as the spiraling cycle of attacks took hold. Today tourists from around the world visit the walls and take selfies. This type of tourism is more peculiar in Belfast than in some other cities shaped by a legacy of atrocity. You can visit the intact parts of the Berlin Wall, for instance, with the knowledge that the wall no longer serves its original purpose. In Belfast, however, the walls are still there to divide, their continued presence deemed necessary to prevent a resurgence of violence.

Tours of the peace walls are often given by ex-paramilitary combatants who were active during the Troubles. The bald, stout, tattooed driver who took me on one such tour last June said he was “connected” to a paramilitary called the Ulster Defense Association, or the U.D.A., which was responsible for the killing of hundreds. He described himself as “no angel” during the Troubles and asked that I use only his first name, Robert, so as not to attract attention from the authorities — those involved can still face criminal prosecution — or from old foes. “We’re all paranoid as hell here,” he told me shortly after I got into his van. “The war is not over. Far from it.”

Robert had a quick, friendly smile and a fast wit that made it a little hard to imagine his past paramilitary connection. But those were almost unimaginably violent times. In the rote manner of tour guides everywhere, Robert told me his father was a U.D.A. member who in 1975 was shot dead by the Irish Republican Army, or I.R.A., the most lethal of the paramilitary groups, at the bus depot where he worked. Robert himself had dodged three I.R.A. assassination attempts, he said, and the organization also “blew up” his brother-in-law and murdered seven of his friends. We pulled up to a section of the peace wall in an industrial part of West Belfast that divides the neighborhood around Falls Road, heavily Catholic, from that around Shankill Road, which is heavily Protestant. Robert pointed out the metal gate that opens during the day to allow traffic to pass and closes again at night. In 2013, the government of Northern Ireland announced a goal of removing the walls within 10 years, but Robert was against this. The situation, he said, was still too turbulent. “We’re not ready for it,” he said. “I’m sure you’re probably fed up with hearing about Brexit,” he said. “But people are worried about a bad deal, the wrong deal or no deal.” If things went badly, he added, “I think we’re going to need these walls more than ever.”

The 1998 peace deal, known as the Good Friday Agreement, subdued the violence in Northern Ireland, but it did not resolve the underlying sectarian conflict that propelled it. Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom. “Unionists” or “loyalists” — who tend to identify as Protestant and as British — want it to remain that way. “Nationalists” or “republicans” — who tend to identify as Catholic and Irish — want a united Ireland. The peace between these factions was facilitated by a tangentially related circumstance: Both the United Kingdom and Ireland had by then joined the European Union. This arrangement ensured uninhibited trade across the border, helping to render it virtually invisible and placating many Irish nationalists with circumstances they deemed acceptable if not ideal.

At the time the peace agreement was signed, however, a different movement was growing across the Irish Sea in England: a skepticism of the European Union, bubbling up among voters on both ends of the political spectrum but embraced in particular by the conservative hard right. As populist, nationalist parties grew in strength across Europe and much of the globe, this skepticism culminated in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Few of the hard-line politicians who advocated Brexit seemed to consider the consequences their push to “take back control” would have on the delicate peace in Northern Ireland or, for that matter, on the cohesion of the United Kingdom itself. In the more than three years since the referendum, the matter of Northern Ireland has presented a unique and treacherous stumbling block to any agreement between the British government and the European Union on the terms of withdrawal. How would the United Kingdom “take back control” of its borders without hardening the Irish border, thereby endangering the Good Friday Agreement? However this question was answered, one side or the other in the sectarian divide was bound to be upset.

On Dec. 12, voters in the United Kingdom gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party a sweeping parliamentary majority based on his pledge to “get Brexit done.” His success, attributable in part to the electorate’s sheer exhaustion with the Brexit limbo, means the United Kingdom will almost certainly leave the European Union by Jan. 31. This occasion, however, will by no means bring closure to a United Kingdom that has become so deeply fractured — not only along party lines but also by geography — that many people predict the most salient and enduring consequence will be a kind of monumental self-immolation: the breakup of the United Kingdom itself.

As if to illustrate the volatility of the matter, Robert pulled up to a mural on the Protestant side of the wall. Murals are ubiquitous on both sides of the divide, sanctifying former combatants who are invariably considered coldblooded murderers on the opposite side. This one, repainted around the time of the Brexit referendum, depicted Stephen McKeag, a commander in the U.D.A. known as Top Gun, against a cloudy sky, as if floating in heaven. “If you believe the stories you hear, he was one of the ones who won most of the trophies, what they call a trophy for the amount of people he has supposed to have allegedly killed,” Robert told me. McKeag, indeed known as one of the U.D.A.’s most lethal assassins, died in 2000 of a drug overdose. “Remember With Pride,” the mural read. Several tourists snapped photos. Robert got out of the van and shook hands with another tour guide, a man who looked much like him, with a bald head and dark sunglasses. “Thirty years ago, we would have been trying to kill each other,” Robert said. The other guide, apparently a republican ex-combatant, nodded in agreement. They exchanged a few niceties. Robert got back in the van.

“We’re friendly, but we don’t fully trust each other,” Robert said, his tone quickly changing. He showed me a picture on his phone of the same man at a militant republican parade. He then showed me a video, taken the previous month, outside a wake for a former member of the Irish National Liberation Army, or I.N.L.A., a Marxist republican paramilitary group formed in 1974. The I.N.L.A. ostensibly decommissioned its weapons along with other paramilitary groups as part of the peace process. The video, however, showed six men in balaclavas. One of them carried an assault rifle. They lined up in formation, and the gunman fired several shots into the sky. The mourners applauded.

Robert pointed to the soaring twin steeples of a Catholic cathedral on the other side of the wall. The shots had been fired around there just a few weeks earlier, he said. “That’s why I say these guys have never gone away,” he added. “That’s why we don’t trust each other.” As long as people on this side of the wall felt threatened, he said, loyalist paramilitaries would remain. “You think we’re going to go away?”

While British euro-skepticism is far from new, its culmination in Brexit represents the most tangible manifestation yet of the re-emergence of the nationalist strains in Europe — and beyond — that the European Union was meant to temper. The British conservatives who advocated Brexit acted partly under pressure from the far-right U.K. Independence Party, which under its former leader Nigel Farage grew more popular in the years leading up to the referendum with a staunchly pro-Brexit, anti-immigration platform. Implicit in the “take back control” message employed by the “Brexiteers” were themes promoted by populist-right movements everywhere: a reassertion of national sovereignty coupled with the claim that only those who advocate this represent the true will of the people against a globalized elite. As far-right parties have risen across Europe, Brexit has provided them a concrete victory — and it’s possibly not the last, as such parties in countries like Italy, France and Hungary seek to corrode the European Union from within.

The more immediate consequence of Brexit, however, may be not the dissolution of the European Union but the dissolution of the United Kingdom. Brexit and Boris Johnson’s decisive election victory were propelled primarily by voters in England. The United Kingdom, however, is made up of three additional smaller countries — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — that contain nationalist movements of another sort. In Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular, left-wing nationalist parties perceive the source of unwanted foreign meddling to emanate from London rather than from Brussels. Majorities of people in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in fact, cast ballots in favor of remaining in the European Union, and many of these voters now see Brexit as a reason to split from the United Kingdom. This is particularly the case in Scotland, where the pro-independence Scottish National Party, or S.N.P., won a landslide victory in December. When Scotland held a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom in 2014, 55 percent of voters elected to remain. Now, in light of Brexit, the S.N.P. is calling for another referendum. Polls suggest the result would be much closer now. “Independence is coming,” Ian Blackford, the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party in the British Parliament, said during a debate there in October. “We will take our place as a proud European nation.”

In Northern Ireland, Brexit is stirring up an especially volatile brew. Sectarian tensions have been roiling in one form or another since at least the 17th century, when King James I encouraged the migration of Protestant colonists from Scotland and England to the northern Irish province of Ulster, where they enjoyed special privileges. An act of the British Parliament in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, led to Ireland’s partition, creating a Protestant-majority Northern Ireland. Catholic grievances over discrimination fueled animosities that helped precipitate the Troubles. By the time of the Good Friday Agreement, some 3,600 people had been killed and tens of thousands injured. The peace deal created a power-sharing system of government, but it did not bring reconciliation. Currently, the two largest parties elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly are Sinn Fein — once the I.R.A.’s political wing — and the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, or D.U.P., which advocates continued union with Britain. The partisan rift between them has been so great that the assembly has not fully convened for nearly three years. Many people in Northern Ireland, exhausted with the sectarian paradigm, have tried to move beyond it; this is evident from the recent growth of the cross-community Alliance Party.

Still, the sectarian rift remains palpable in much of daily life, influencing everything from which soccer team locals support to the everyday language they use. Many Irish nationalists, for example, refer to Northern Ireland as “the North of Ireland.” Schools in Northern Ireland remain mostly segregated along religious lines, and children often learn disparate versions of history. Attempts to administer justice for past atrocities seem only to deepen divisions. A former British paratrooper known to the public as Soldier F is now on trial on charges of murdering two people during the massacre known as Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British troops opened fire on unarmed Catholic demonstrators in Londonderry, killing 13 that day. For many Irish nationalists, the trial is painfully belated and woefully insufficient. Many loyalists, however, see it as a witch hunt, and it’s not uncommon to see flags celebrating Soldier F’s parachute regiment fluttering in loyalist strongholds.

Sectarian tensions are most evident in the so-called interface areas, urban working-class neighborhoods where Catholic and Protestant communities live in proximity but often barely interact. In addition to the physical walls of separation — of which there are some 100 in Belfast alone — territory in such neighborhoods is demarcated by paramilitary flags hung by front doors or sometimes by painted curbs, either in the colors of the Union Jack or the Irish tricolor. Residents in these areas often avoid patronizing shops located on what is deemed enemy turf, even if they have to walk farther to buy what they want. These communities live “cheek by jowl, but in separate worlds,” John Brewer, a sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast, told me. Publicly funded cross-community programs for youths in these areas aim to bridge the rift. But poverty and unemployment in interface areas tend to be high, leaving many young men hopeless and vulnerable to radicalization. Rioting and violent clashes in these areas are not uncommon.

Attitudes on Brexit, too, largely fall along sectarian lines. A majority of Protestants in Northern Ireland — 60 percent — voted to leave the European Union, according to one survey, and the D.U.P., long skeptical of the European Union, backed Brexit. A majority of Catholics — 85 percent — voted to stay, a position also backed by Sinn Fein, in great part because many people feared that Brexit would result in a hardening of the Irish border. The fate of that border presented the main obstacle in negotiations between successive British conservative governments and the European Union on a withdrawal agreement. The European Union, mindful that a hard border would undermine the Good Friday Agreement and quite possibly lead to violence, wanted a deal that avoided customs checks at the border. In October, Boris Johnson found a partial solution by agreeing to a new customs border in the Irish Sea, between Britain and Northern Ireland; this means checks on goods traveling within the United Kingdom instead of on the Irish border. But hard-line unionists have been outraged by the deal, with some calling it the “betrayal act.” English conservatives, they believe, have abandoned Northern Ireland and endangered its place in the United Kingdom. At the same time, many Irish nationalists, though relieved that the immediate prospect of a hard Irish border has faded, have nevertheless been so angered by the uncertainty of the last years that they see continued membership in the United Kingdom as less tenable than ever.

Passions around Brexit are heated across the United Kingdom, but nowhere are the stakes potentially higher than in Northern Ireland. A 2015 report on paramilitaries drafted in part by MI5, the United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence agency, said that all the main paramilitary groups that operated during the Troubles remain intact; moreover, not all their weapons were decommissioned. The report’s authors considered it very unlikely that these paramilitaries would return to political violence, but the fact that they continue to hold on to weapons just in case seemed to underscore the fragility of the peace. At the same time, some so-called dissident republican groups have continued, since the Good Friday Agreement, to launch violent attacks in the name of achieving a united Ireland. The police judge the terrorist threat from these groups, including one calling itself the New I.R.A., to be “severe.” Dissident republicans have tried to use anger over Brexit as a rallying cry to win new recruits. Amid the confusion and bitterness sparked by Brexit, one thing seems clear: Northern Ireland’s delicate, hard-won equilibrium has been upset, and the consequences are potentially grave.

The headquarters of Saoradh, a small, self-declared political party whose name means “liberation” in Irish, is on a narrow street in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second-largest city, close to the Irish border. A mural on the facade of the building pretty well encapsulates the group’s outlook: It shows a masked paramilitary soldier wielding a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher under the slogan “Unfinished Revolution.” Northern Irish police officers say Saoradh is inextricably linked to the New I.R.A.

Inside the headquarters one afternoon in July, a thin and meticulously coiffed 27-year-old named Paddy Gallagher introduced himself to me as the party’s national press officer. While Saoradh calls itself a party, it does not engage in electoral politics, because this, as Gallagher put it, would mean becoming part of the “British infrastructure.” The party consists of “disaffected republicans,” he said, who “don’t believe the signing of the Good Friday Agreement was a good thing.” I asked him if the peace the agreement made possible wasn’t a good thing. He objected to the premise that such a peace exists. “The ongoing struggle for Irish unification and freedom hasn’t ended,” he said; people remain “willing and capable of carrying out acts of resistance.” He then provided an example: A few weeks earlier, a bomb was placed under a police officer’s car in Belfast. This was true. The officer spotted the bomb before getting in his car at a golf club, and it was safely defused; the New I.R.A. claimed responsibility. “I would assume that it was intended to kill that member of the British crown forces,” Gallagher told me.

On other occasions, the New I.R.A., which was formed in 2012, has killed intended targets. It claimed responsibility for attacks that killed two prison officers: a man named David Black, who was shot dead in 2012 in his car on the way to work, and Adrian Ismay, who died in 2016 after a bomb exploded under his van. The New I.R.A. killing that sparked the most attention and outrage came one night last April, during a republican riot in a Londonderry neighborhood called Creggan; when a masked rioter fired shots in the direction of an armored police vehicle, a bullet struck and killed Lyra McKee, a 29-year-old journalist who had arrived on the scene to report on the riot. A few days later, the New I.R.A. released a statement to a local newspaper saying that its volunteers were engaging “British crown forces” when McKee was “tragically killed,” depicting her death as collateral damage. Police officers later raided Saoradh’s headquarters as part of their investigation into the shooting, though no one has yet been charged with McKee’s murder. When I visited Creggan, I found signs posted on street lamps warning people not to cooperate with the police. “Informers will be shot,” read one of them, signed by the “I.R.A.”

Gallagher denied that Saoradh supports or has had links to the New I.R.A. — or any other armed groups — though he did not disavow their violent methods. “The Irish people can use any and all means necessary to achieve Irish freedom, whether it’s armed struggle or not,” he said. “The party believes that is up to the Irish people.” Gallagher spoke as if observing events his party played no active part in. The effect was menacing, particularly when he talked about the possibility that Brexit would result in a hard Irish border. “If there is a hard border in Ireland, and it is a manned or fixed installation, I can only assume it would be attacked,” he said, just as such installations were in the past.

Sinn Fein — the party that represents mainstream republicanism and whose leaders participated in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement — has offered a stark political response to the anger Brexit has fomented. Enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement is the “principle of consent,” which means that the people of Northern Ireland have a right to decide to which nation they want to belong. The demographics of Northern Ireland have been steadily shifting, and within the decade, a majority of its people will be Catholic, making the prospect of a united Ireland seem almost inevitable. This population shift is evident in election results that increasingly favor nationalists; in the United Kingdom parliamentary election in December, voters in Northern Ireland elected more nationalist representatives than unionist representatives for the first time in the country’s hundred-year history. Now Brexit has provided an opportunity for Sinn Fein to argue that the time to make that choice is near.

In July, I met Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Fein’s vice president, in her cavernous office in Northern Ireland’s palatial Parliament building. Brexit, she told me, had changed the paradigm in Northern Ireland, necessitating a referendum on Irish unity. Northern Ireland, she said, should not be dragged out of the European Union against its will. She seemed eager to assure not only her base but also the moderate unionists who voted to remain in the European Union and who might swing such a referendum. “I want to see a united Ireland,” O’Neill said. “But it has to be an inclusive Ireland. It has to be one where those who have an Irish identity and those who have a British identity feel part and parcel, feel that they have their place, and it’s valued and cherished.”

This seemed a shrewd political approach. But Northern Ireland’s history often reads like a case study in how the most extreme elements in the society can wreak undue havoc. Northern Irish police officers have warned that the threat from violent dissident republican groups remains severe even without the prospect of a hard Irish border. On the other side of the divide, many are outraged in the belief that the prospect of militant republican violence drove Boris Johnson and the European Union to keep the Irish border open at the expense of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

After Johnson’s deal was announced, a few hundred loyalists, including reputed paramilitary members, met in East Belfast to discuss how they should respond to their perceived betrayal. Following the meeting, Jamie Bryson, a self-described “loyalist activist,” told local reporters that the Brexit deal would be met with mass resistance. “One of the main reasons we were told there can be no border on the island of Ireland is because dissident republicans may attack it, but yet there’s been no consideration given to the loyalist community on how people may react to a border down the Irish Sea,” Bryson told a reporter from The Belfast Telegraph. “I don’t think anyone in loyalism wants to see violence. But obviously there’s a lot of anger at the minute.”

On a June evening in East Belfast, a group of men belonging to a Protestant fraternal organization called the Orange Order gathered at their meeting place in a red-brick Victorian hall for a special occasion: the unveiling of a new parade banner. The Orange Order is a staunchly unionist organization founded in 1795 and is named after William of Orange, the Protestant king who in the late 17th century took the throne after King James II, a Catholic, was deposed in the Glorious Revolution. Every year in Northern Ireland, Orangemen — who number around 30,000 — conduct thousands of parades, and they’ve been staging them for centuries. The biggest day of parading falls on July 12, a Protestant celebration that marks William’s decisive victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and on the eve of the holiday, unionists light large bonfires. These parades were historically seen as a display of Protestant supremacy, and they frequently led to sectarian clashes. Today they usually go off peacefully, though often under a heavy police presence. Orangemen say the parades are an innocent expression of their culture. Many nationalists still view them as intimidating.

This particular lodge, called the Young Men’s Christian Total Abstinence Loyal Orange Lodge 747, consisted, contrary to its name, largely of older gentlemen who wore suits and ties along with the orange sashes worn by Orangemen. The abstinence in this case was real — the men drank juice out of wineglasses — and the event began with the singing of a hymn. Then the parade banner, which had been covered with a white sheet, was unveiled, revealing a depiction of William of Orange atop a white horse at the Battle of the Boyne. The men applauded the banner, put on their bowler hats and filed out into the street, where a neatly uniformed marching band awaited. The drummers snapped and pounded, the flutists piped and the men marched their new banner past the brick rowhouses and storefronts of East Belfast, a working-class stronghold blighted in parts by poverty. The Orangemen strutted past homes decorated with flags of loyalist paramilitaries and murals showing armed paramilitary men in balaclavas. It made for a somewhat jarring juxtaposition, seeing men of such apparent decorum pass such harsh images. The Orangemen ended their march with a rendition of “God Save the Queen.”

Back inside the hall, as they dined on plates of roast beef and potatoes, a Presbyterian minister named Mervyn Gibson, the grand secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, approached the lectern. “Today some are trying to bribe us out of the United Kingdom by claiming to offer us a better lifestyle in the Republic of Ireland,” he said. Gibson seemed to be referring to arguments that the Northern Ireland economy would flourish within a united Ireland. “Our loyalty and identity are not about economics,” Gibson went on, “not something to be bartered or traded.” Those now threatening a referendum on Irish unity, he added, were the same people who “tried to bomb and murder us out of the United Kingdom. They failed then, and they’ll fail again,” he said, and then concluded: “We’re born British, we’ll remain British, we’ll die British.” The men of the lodge responded: “Hear! Hear!”

The key question, it seemed, was how far these men would go to remain British. On another occasion, Gibson told me he would accept a democratic vote for Irish unity it if it came to that. Others, however, are more strident. Many loyalists feel a sense of decline as Catholics have gained more rights and upward mobility; young loyalist men in interface areas who used to be guaranteed factory jobs by virtue of their identity now face high unemployment and a sense that their standing in society has eroded. Such grievances seem to only reinforce people’s sense of identity. Loyalist paramilitaries feed off this to gain recruits, though according to the police, these groups are more often involved in organized crime than in politics. Still, in East Belfast, I observed how one paramilitary — the U.V.F. — had the capacity to stir up sectarian passions.

Last summer, in advance of the July 12 celebrations, members of Belfast’s republican-led City Council voted to remove a pyre made of wooden pallets in East Belfast — set up for the coming bonfire night — saying it was illegally on city property, namely the parking lot of a recreation center. Local loyalists responded angrily and vowed not to allow the city to remove the pyre, resulting in a standoff that, for days, became the main news story in town. At a demonstration one evening that drew hundreds of people to the site of the pyre, I met a number of masked young men who told me they were protecting the pyre from being dismantled. Jamie Bryson, the loyalist activist, spoke to the crowd. “Standing exposed tonight is the actual agenda of Belfast City Council,” he said. “And it is the total demolition of every aspect of Protestant unionist and loyalist culture,” he went on. “We will not have it!” This inspired a fervent round of applause. “No surrender!” shouted a woman next to me who wore a shirt that said “Me Wrong?” on it. “This is British land, and it will stay British land,” she then told me.

Police officers said the standoff was whipped up by the U.V.F. In a letter to the City Council, the police warned that any attempt to remove the pyre would “cause a severe, violent confrontation, orchestrated by the U.V.F.” and that the “use of firearms during such disorder cannot be ruled out.” Ultimately, the police did not move in. This was, Bryson later wrote in an online newsletter, a “momentous and hugely symbolic victory within the context of the larger cultural war.”

On the bonfire night, I went to another pyre on a barren plot next to a peace wall in West Belfast, where my tour guide, Robert, had taken me. As the sky slowly darkened, a D.J. played pulsing techno. Drunken teenagers milled around. A small, impromptu marching band of revelers formed. They sang a U.V.F. tune at the top of their lungs: “On my gravestone, carve a simple message: ‘Here lies a soldier of the U.V.F.’ ” I spoke to one woman among them who told me that this was all in good fun, just an expression of loyalist culture. But you couldn’t help noticing that the pyre that was about to be lit had been bedecked with flags of the Republic of Ireland.

______

James Angelos is a contributing writer for the magazine based in Berlin. He last wrote about anti-Semitism in Germany. Ivor Prickett is an Irish photographer. He was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in breaking-news photography for his coverage of battles in Mosul and Raqqa.

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artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

leave a light on (for me) (Kamjie) - Mac

AN: Thank you to Alex and madisonmateomicheals for helping me out with this premise. You are both stars. Also a HUGE thank you to Multi and Jole for beta-ing and being lovely as always.

Summary: Kameron has all this new technology so that her whole house rigged up to follow her commands. The only problem is, Vanjie’s is the only voice it recognizes.

Dane loved his new house.

It was fresh and clean and modern. It had enough space that Dane could host parties and get-togethers and even let a few of his sisters crash at his place if they needed to. The kitchen was huge, and the floors were wood, and his cooling bills weren’t as astronomically high as in Nashville.

But his favorite thing by far about his new house was the technology. He had hooked up all his lights in all his rooms together. Linked his Alexas. He even had a smart fridge that told him which food was about to spoil. He had essentially turned his apartment into a smart house. The inner 10-year-old nerdy science fair winner couldn’t help but smile giddily at how the commands from his mouth turned the lights on and off, made his fireplace roar to life, and played his music so loudly he was sure his neighbors hated him.

He didn’t care. He had finally found his place. A place that he made and bought and paid for with the money he earned doing what he loved.

It was a dream.

Jose also liked it.

Which was… not as important as Dane liking it, but it was nice to have his boyfriend treat the space like his own.

It had been a little over a year since they started dating, and about six months into having his own sanctuary when Dane’s tech started malfunctioning. Namely, his lights.

He distinctly remembered waking up with a full bladder to a dark room, a small arm thrown over his waist, and a goofy smile on his face.

“Bedroom lights low,” Dane spoke, and Jose buried his face in Dane’s chest in preparation for the coming light.

A few seconds ticked by.

Then a few more seconds ticked by.

The lights didn’t turn on.

Dane sighed. “Bedroom lights low,” he said more forcefully this time.

Still, nothing happened.

Dane cursed under his breath and made a move to get up, but Jose held him fast. “Nooooo, stay here.”

“I gotta get the lights on, baby.”

“Lemme try.”

Dane smiled a bit, “Have at it, but your voice is nothing like mine, I don’t think it will-”

“Turn the lights on, Alegra!”

Suddenly, the bedroom filled with light.

After wincing at the blinding white for a few seconds, Dane looked over at his boyfriend, then his lights, then his boyfriend again, confusion evident on his face.

“How-”

“You jus gotta be forceful wit it.” Dane still was looking at him like he was crazy. “Watch,” Jose said and sat up more in bed. “Alandra!”

“That’s not-”

“Turn on some music!”

The soothing sound of a gaming soundtrack filled the bedroom a moment later.

“The fuck is this? This ain’t music.”

Dane opened his mouth to argue that the Dark Souls theme song was most assuredly real music, but Jose cut him off again.

“Alexandra!”

“Still not her name-”

“Play Rihanna!”

And just as it had a moment ago, the music changed to a recognizable melody with a thrumming bass.

Jose smiled, proud of himself laid back down, and curled up to Dane’s side.

“How the fuck does that work for you?” Dane wondered aloud.

Jose just shrugged, and after his boyfriend remained sitting up, Jose sighed and pulled his boyfriend back down to the bed. He crawled up to lay on top of Dane and kissed him until he stopped thinking so much.

That was the first time it happened.

Over the next few months, whenever Dane would give a command for his home system to complete, nothing would happen, or after a short period of time, everything would happen all at once and scare the absolute shit out of him.

But no matter what Jose did or said, or called the system, it did just as he demanded. Dane had accepted it as a part of life, and while he found it inconvenient, he was rarely home as it were, so it wasn’t too irksome.

After Werq finished for the year, the couple didn’t leave Dane’s bed for over a week. They roused themselves up enough to order Postmates, trade exhausted kisses over their bed - turned dining table, and that was about it.

When they finally started feeling like humans and not adrenaline-driven sleep-deprived robots, they migrated to the living room.

Dane flipped on some Lifetime movie and let Jose meld himself to his side. The older man ran his fingers lazily through Jose’s hair, and he swore Jose started purring.

Jose tilted his head up every now and then for a kiss.

It went on that way peacefully for a few hours, until Jose got bored, as he often did, and took the commercial break as an opportunity to properly kiss his boyfriend. Dane smiled against his lips as Jose deepened the kiss. Somehow Jose ended up in his lap, and Dane’s large hands found themselves pressed to Jose’s thighs with his chest flush against the younger man.

When the two pulled back to catch their breaths, Jose tilted his head a bit then raised his voice to a shout.

“Alana! Set the mood!”

“Setting the mood.” Came an automated voice.

Suddenly the lights dimmed in the living room, the TV flipped off, and some slow melody with a thrusting bass rang out in the previously silent room. Jose leaned back down to capture Dane’s lips, but the older man stopped him with a hand to his chest.

“When did you have time to do all that?” Dane chuckled.

“Think of it as a welcome home present,” Jose winked.

Dane laughed again, and Jose kissed the smile he had left there. “I still don’t understand why it works for you! Your voice is so much lower than mine!”

Jose sighed agitatedly, eager to get back to their previous activities, “Don’t worry ‘bout it, big man, just kiss me.”

Dane didn’t have to be told twice.

…

“The fuck you mean, I don’t care ‘bout you? Why the fuck you think I’m always over here? I ain’t been home in months. I came to see yo ass first thing I do, and you sayin’ I don’t care ‘bout you?”

Dane snapped.

He was tired and lonely, and he didn’t mean it.

“You never answer your phone! You’re always too tired or too busy to pick up the damn phone. How the hell can we have a relationship if you aren’t fucking here?”

“What’re you sayin’?”

The room was suddenly eerily silent. All the fire and fury in Jose’s eyes a moment ago was replaced with worry. Tears pricked the edges of the younger man’s eyes as if he knew Dane’s next words.

“I’m saying I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

He didn’t mean it. But at the same time he did.

Long-distance relationships were hard as it was, the added pressure of fame, and followers only made it more so. Jose had never been good at answering texts on time. Dane had known that from the start. But he had brought it up so many times, and so many times Jose had promised he’d do better.

Nothing had changed.

Other than touring getting longer and schedules getting busier and hardly any time to breathe, let alone call.

Dane knew it was unfair to expect to be Jose’s number one priority, and he didn’t. He just wanted to be a priority. And it felt like he wasn’t anymore. Not the way he used to be.

So he snapped.

As soon as he said it, Dane knew he hadn’t meant it.

But the damage had already been done. So why not double down?

“You should go.”

Jose looked at him for a long moment, emotions playing like a slideshow behind his eyes. Then, he looked at the ground and left without another word.

…

Having to climb the four flights of stairs to his apartment after a grueling leg workout left Dane with barely enough energy to fish his keys out of his pocket. He managed to gather enough strength to put the key in the lock and turn it. It was quite a victory in Dane’s opinion.

“Alexa, all lights on,” Dane called out.

Nothing happened.

Dane stopped in the doorway. He looked around at his still dark apartment.

“All lights on,” he said, louder this time.

Still, nothing happened.

Dane sighed and rummaged around in the dark for a few moments before finding the couch from memory. He plopped down on the cool suede, his newly sore muscles already relaxing into the plush comfort. He sat for a moment in the darkness, brow still furrowed at why his lights wouldn’t turn on.

It took the third try before Dane got an idea.

He made his voice gruff and pitched it several octaves lower. “Lights turn on.”

In a second, the apartment was illuminated.

Dane’s heart sank.

Of course.

Of course, his fucking house still only seemed to recognize Jose’s voice. Or at least, his very terrible impression of Jose’s voice.

Dane felt a wave of emotions pass over him.

Mostly sadness.

He got up from the couch and made his way to the shower. He tried to not notice how the shower nozzle was tilted so that it angled downward more than Dane usually liked. He didn’t move it, even if the water didn’t fully enclose him in its manufactured warmth.

The tile felt especially cold on his feet, but he paid it no mind. He paid no mind to the extra toothbrush by his sink or the dirty towels that littered the floor, either. He’d pick them up tomorrow.

He didn’t pick them up the next day.

Or the day after.

He never moved the showerhead, never threw away the toothbrush, never figured out how to fix his lights.

Sometimes he would come home and not be able to bring himself to mimic his ex-lover’s voice. Some days it was just too much. He would sit in the dark and pretend that he liked it better that way.

One night everything changed.

Kameron had a local gig. Some bar around the corner that she had agreed to ages ago. It was a small affair, something to get her back on her feet. It felt good, Dane had to admit, Kameron always felt good, like an old friend.

She performed her heart out, channeled her pain in the form of an extra toothbrush into a performance that ranked in her top ten.

Dane was buzzing after the show, his fellow sisters complimented him, the ones that knew about the breakup gave him sad but knowing smiles.

“The first one back is always the hardest.” Asia had told him.

And it had been hard, it had been hard in all the same ways it had been incredible.

Dane checked his phone. He had three missed calls from Asia and one voicemail that he couldn’t make out over the pounding music from the club speakers. He shrugged and motioned for another shot from the bartender. He’d ask her about it tomorrow.

Only when he turned around to face the rest of the club did his eyes meet familiar brown ones.

Jose was watching him over the crowd, which was impressive given his height.

Dane broke eye contact as soon as his brain made the connection.

What was he doing here? There was literally no reason for him to be here. Dane agreed to this gig precisely because it was so small. This wasn’t a coincidence.

Dane downed his shot and another without thinking.

When he turned around, Jose had moved from his spot on the wall and was getting closer.

Dane turned back to the bar and gripped the wood with his whole hand, knuckles white, mind spinning due to the proximity to his ex and the added liquor. He braced himself for the tap on his shoulder or the familiar voice, but it didn’t come. He turned around slowly. Jose was nowhere to be seen.

Dane exhaled and made his way to the exit, stumbling occasionally. He couldn’t be here anymore. Couldn’t bear to see those deep brown eyes again.

He grabbed his stuff, throwing wigs and clothes into his duffle with little regard for their worth. He would fix them up in the morning. He reasoned with himself.

He pulled out his phone and made his way out of the club through the back door. He was so absorbed in ordering an uber that he hardly noticed the other body making its way back into the club.

The added alcohol made his fall that much more surprising.

In a flash, Dane was on the ground with what he knew was going to be a nasty bump on his head in the morning.

Without thinking, Dane took the hand that was offered to him and tried to right himself. He only succeeded in almost falling over again.

“You okay there, big man?”

Only then did he realize who had helped him up.

Dane yanked his arm back like it burned, and maybe it did.

Jose looked hurt, maybe he was.

The two looked at each other for a moment, all pain and rage, and sadness evident in their eyes.

“Let me help.” Jose finally whispered. “Please.” He added before Dane could snap at him.

Dane didn’t know why he nodded. He wasn’t that drunk.

He knew it.

Jose knew it.

But he found himself nodding anyways, and before he could think, Dane was being led by the hand into a car and hearing his own address out loud. The drive felt like seconds, and Jose’s fingers interlocked with his felt like home.

The stairs were a challenge, but the two, after much finagling and encouragement, managed to get to the door.

Jose let himself into Dane’s apartment without so much as a heartbreak.

He helped Dane out of his shoes and steered the taller man toward the couch to sit down for a moment.

“You gonna get the lights?” Jose spoke softly.

“They don’t work for me anymore. Not since you…” Dane trailed off, not because he didn’t want to offend Jose, but because he didn’t know if he could say it himself. Since you left.

Jose nodded, expression blank. “Then don’t worry ‘bout that now, we gotta get you to bed.”

Dane hummed noncommittally.

Jose pulled Dane up from the couch, and the two came face to face for the first time that night. They were inches apart. Dane knew his breath reeked of booze and longing, but Jose didn’t seem to mind as he instinctively moved closer to the taller man.

“JJ, I-”

Jose winced at the nickname. “No, no, babe, don’t.”

Dane didn’t let it go.

“What happened to us? We were so good once.”

“We not doin’ this now.”

Jose tried to move away, but Dane held fast.

“What were you doing there? Tonight?”

“I was in the area.”

“No, you weren’t.”

Jose sighed. “No, I wasn’t.”

The silence that stretched between them was so quiet it almost screamed.

Dane wanted to shake himself, wanted to say all the things he had rehearsed for this exact moment.

His mouth wouldn’t work.

And as the time stretched on, he started losing hope that it ever would.

Jose shook his head, finally breaking eye contact. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Okay.”

Jose lead Dane to the bedroom with their fingers interlocked. He helped Dane out of his shirt and restricting pants and sat on the edge of the bed as Dane finally laid down.

“You gonna be alright, big man?”

Dane nodded even though he wasn’t sure if he was ever going to be alright.

“Good.”

Jose made to stand up, but Dane’s hand shot out to grab his arm. “Don’t go.”

“Babe-”

“JJ, please.”

Jose looked from his ex to the bedroom door then back to his ex.

The pleading in Dane’s eyes should have made him embarrassed, but he couldn’t care about that right then. He just needed Jose to stay.

Jose nodded after a minute and sat back down. “But you gotta promise to go to sleep now, yeah?”

Dane nodded happily and intertwined their fingers again.

“Activia, turn the lights off.”

Dane was out in minutes.

Jose waited a bit longer than strictly necessary to pry his hand out of the older man’s grip, and even then, he waited still. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know why.

Jose looked up at the ceiling and wondered aloud.

“Alexa, why the fuck is this so hard?’

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

#rpdr fanfiction #kameron michaels #vanessa vanjie mateo #kamjie #angst #fluff #breakups #leave a light on (for me)#lalofm #mac

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hollow-sortilege-blog · 4 years

Photo

☆ﾟ*・ﾟWoah is that NATHAN MEYER ? I’ve heard they’re a witch ( Dark ) originally from North Carolina. They came here because of the death of their father and they’ve been here for one year. As a 24 year-old, I’m sure they’re skilled. Someone told me they’re disinterested and scrutinizing but I think they’re calm and adaptive. I can’t help but think of wispy cigarette smoke, photos faded at the edges and half burnt letters never sent when I look at them.

[Intro] [Wanted Connections] [Blackwater Coven]

[History]

Childhood was chaos for Nathan. The first years of it were spent tucked away within the confines of his mother’s coven; a strange mix of hedge witches and those who practiced far bloodier dark arts in the shadowy cover of the deep Appalachian mountains. There eeriness of the place, of the people, was something that ingrained itself into Nathan himself, his eccentric nature is grounded in the oddity of the world he was born into. And within it his mother and father were always at war with each other, he really has no idea how they managed to accomplish having three children before his mother disappeared entirely from his life and took his younger sister with her. Truthfully he was raised more by his grandmother, a strange old woman with an uneasy amount of secrets and conviction that Nathan was certainly more like his mother than the rest of the Meyers’ brood.

Shortly after his mother left the family his father also decided he wanted nothing more to do with the coven as he had always been an outsider to it for marrying into the family. A witch whose power was cultivated in turning luck in his favor he settled himself and the boys on the west coast. It was a good fit for him and Nathan’s older brother, the family certainly found fortune there through gambling. Life became excess, wanting for nothing, and while they thrived, somehow, Nathan didn’t. His disinterest remained, gradually become a sort of venom between himself and his father until he was constantly earning the vicious reprimand and anger of the man. Nothing felt right to him, or real, not the world he’d left behind nor the one he had come to live in where magic was hidden away and life revolved around status he found incredibly bland.

The life of a rich socialite had some benefits, true, but nothing that ever lasted out long in stirring Nathan’s interest. With his father’s temper growing shorter as the years passed harsh words became the norm and he distanced himself more and more. With his older brother already absent much of the time in chasing his own vices there was no more buffer from the battlefield that was home. Nathan kept himself entertained with his camera, the only real grounding point in his life, with distraction and ghosted in around expectations until the day his father fell ill. As life became an endless blur of medical terms and treatments that always fell short of working Nathan skirted the edges while the best doctors and nurses could buy failed. It was a perplexing thing to witness, the man who had been the childhood monster in his own life wasting away. Something about it felt almost like vindication. His efforts to care for the man were an endless round of accusations, it seemed the bad blood was meant to carry until the very end and finally Nathan simply left, unable to stomach being there anymore.

His early twenties found Nathan wandering, gravitating back towards the hills and the secrets held there. His grandmother welcomed him back warmly and even if he didn’t feel as though he belonged in that place anymore it was a needed escape. Her lessons were perplexing, at times seemingly nonsensical, but there was a truth to them that dug under his skin. Magic, she insisted, was a great deal of intention and power came from places that were not always sound. Some of the secrets she told him were straight out of a nightmare, unfair and chilly.

Nathan still isn’t sure if his own hatred of his father was partly to blame for the illness that slowly killed the man, surely it couldn’t have been. But that was something of a turning point for him with the news that he had finally died, the funeral, the wall that had come between himself and his brother over his absence in the final months of their father’s illness, so much had dissolved around him.

When he left that time it was with no intention of coming back, the nagging knowledge shared by his grandmother tormenting him and lost in the idea that maybe he would find what he needed.

Headcanons

[Personal]

Nathan is a creature of vices, he practically has an ever-changing list of them. Some of the constants tend to be his terrible habit of chain smoking, his interest in bad horror movies and watching them all night rather than sleeping, spending more time with his camera than he does actual people, and collecting the sort of oddities that most people consider macabre or bizarre. He is entirely unaffected by how other people view his habits, unless they purposely push his buttons. In those cases it’s entirely fair game to purposely make them uncomfortable in his presence.

He has absolutely no desire to live on campus but since he has no choice in the matter, and he certainly did try to bribe the staff to let him live alone, he has attempted to make the best of sharing his space with other people. Which of course means he tends to keep to his own room, he’s not exactly unfriendly, just solitary by nature and it’s still a habit.

Don’t touch his camera, he gets a little moody when it comes to that. It’s an old, fickle beast and deserves a certain amount of respect, obviously. Along the same lines his roommates, assuming they ever venture past his bedroom door, will get something thrown at them if they try to mess with any of the literal dozens of photos that amass on his walls. Again, that’s a very personal matter.

While it really didn’t endear him to his father with the news, Nathan came out as gay in his latter teens. Needless to say he spent most of his formative years sexually testing the waters under the glow of the city lights well outside the scrutiny of people who knew him otherwise. His scattering of relationships reads fairly typical, breakups and shattered attempts mostly due to his own lack of desire to

He really isn’t the looming (seriously, he’s 6′4″), unsettling presence that seems to be most peoples’ first impression. Usually because he spends a great deal of time studying people around him more than directly interacting with them; it doesn’t mean he lacks any desire to be around people though. Actually, quite the opposite in that Nathan wants connections with others to help him stay grounded, but he’s never really had much in the way of healthy interactions with people aside from his brother and grandmother most of his life.

Generally he’s fairly even natured about most things, nearly to the point of being disconnected. His morality isn’t cut and dry, he views good and evil as purely circumstantial rather than anything set just the same as he thinks the idea that any one person is truly one or the other as ridiculous.

[Magic]

Nathan didn’t attend college to decipher what his magic is and where that power lies, he’s well aware of it and knows its’ rooted in decay and ruin. He enrolled to gain a better grasp of magic outside his own, hunting for the means to both control his unpredictable power and undo some of the bindings to old spells that were placed in his childhood. Said magic works on both organic and inorganic materials but he doesn’t test it much if avoidable; decay is a vicious and unforgiving element by design and as much as he knows how powerful it could make him the idea of the effects of those spells is a bit unnerving.

The coven he was born into, Blackwater, was one with very old traditions and rites, some of which would be very questionable by the standards of most witches. Obviously not information he shares with others because of this fact. Nathan was educated, to a degree, by his grandmother who was somewhat of an elder leader within the coven. When he returned there later in his twenties he discovered the reason why she stepped in to teach him.

There are two specific rites within the coven that Nathan was part of early in his life without being aware of until he discovered later one;

Binding Power Rite

Within the Blackwater coven power is something that is widely believed to be connected to intent and the life of a witch themselves. So any very promising children, or specifically ones who also were subject to Blood Binding rites, are linked to their own magic on a deeper level than many witches. It grants them an early and stronger connection to the well of power but at a trade of sorts. The same magic requires a sacrifice, one of the witch themselves. Their lives are shorter than expected, their own magic taking more than the usual burden in use and the expectation is that eventually the magic will drive the witch to either pass the rite one to their next generation or suffer it driving them to the point of destroying themselves.

Nathan’s magic, very much like his mother’s power, will likely cause his sanity to decay with time. He is aware of this, it is a nagging fear in the back of his thoughts after seeing the wild changes and strange actions of his mother growing up and knowing the woman likely was nearly lost of madness by the time his younger sister was born. He’s hopeful that learning more about magic as a whole will give him the key to avoid that fate himself.

Blood Binding Rite

One of the darker rites of the coven involves the burden of an old trade for magic being passed onward. It is a rite that involves the children of a witch, specifically one who they choose to carry that connection to the coven’s initial pace for magic from darker arcane forces. Nathan’s mother was already suffering some of the madness of her own magic by the time she gave birth to him and picked him for the rite. It was a point of argument between his parents, and ultimately part of the reason his father always kept him at a distance, but a necessity of sorts. The only known way to keep a witch from an elder line within the coven from being slowly devoured by their own magic, the burden is passed onward to the child then to carry. In turn the expectation is that the child will grow to be one of the more valued members of the coven, held in high regard, and one day continue the rite with children of their own blood.

Being fully aware of the rite and having no intention of doing the same, Nathan knows it only furthers his chances of losing his sanity but he cannot see himself having children. It was a bitter discovery to make, something that outside of his control, but one he can do little about.

#elysium:intro #nathan [intro]#abuse tw #mental illness tw #death tw #neglect tw #smoking tw

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healthpeak02-blog · 5 years

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Deborah Eisenberg’s Short Stories Are Sharp Enough to Cut Deep

It isn’t long before an elegiac note sounds in Deborah Eisenberg’s latest book of short fiction, Your Duck Is My Duck. In the first story, the narrator begins:

Way back—oh, not all that long ago, actually, just a couple of years, but back before I’d gotten a glimpse of the gears and levers and pulleys that dredge the future up from the earth’s core to its surface—I was going to a lot of parties.

That retrospection, tinged with rueful wisdom and more than a little melancholy, is central to the collection, Eisenberg’s first in twelve years and her fifth since Transactions in a Foreign Currency heralded her arrival in 1986.

Eisenberg’s early stories often focused on a certain kind of lost girl—bright but slightly overwhelmed, a little too pliable to the people around her—trying to find a place for herself in a rudely inhospitable world. When Eisenberg was working her comic mode, the travails of these women rose to the level of modern-day screwball comedy: thinking of 1987’s “A Cautionary Tale,” a classic account of Manhattan bootstrapping, I still laugh at how the heroine indignantly admits to herself, at the low point of an impossible waitressing gig, that “This was not how she had imagined her adulthood.”

Thirty-some years later, Eisenberg’s protagonists are likely to be women of a certain age, members, however tenuously, of the creative class, and still city dwellers acutely attuned to the mores of a world that’s passing them by. (“No one met people in person any longer—you couldn’t hear what they were saying” is the most concise summary of New York restaurant culture I may ever need to read.) Most saliently, these modern selves find themselves unexpectedly alone (breakups are a recurring motif) and only too aware of the shadows lengthening all around them.

In one new story, “Cross Off and Move On,” a narrator reckoning with the death of her last surviving relative thinks, “Yes, off they go, my old allies, sailing right through the radiant shield at the edge of the universe, blending into darkness.” In “Recalculating,” a former dancer mourning a long-ago lover feels “brittleness fretting her bones, youth streaming from her in galaxies of sparkly molecules.”

These women have even more to contend with than aging and loss. Because they’re Deborah Eisenberg characters, they are also coping with what it feels like to be alive, as educated, alert citizens of a Western society, in the early years of the twenty-first century, when old-fashioned everyday anxieties have given way to something like dread. As in her previous collection, Twilight of the Superheroes (2006), Eisenberg is able to dramatize how the diabolical crawl that appeared on the bottom of TV news screens in the days after 9/11 found a counterpart inside people’s heads—and just what a toll our new normal of permanent crisis is taking on them. In the title story, a painter says to the doctor who’s prescribing her sleeping pills:

“It’s beginning to look like a photo finish—me first, or the world. It’s not so hard to figure out why I’m not sleeping. What I can’t figure out is why everybody else is sleeping.”

(This is from a story, by the way, that was originally published in 2013.)

The painter in “Your Duck Is My Duck” later meets an avant-garde puppeteer whose magnum opus, The Hand That Feeds You, is such a blunt allegory of life under terminal capitalism that it leaves the audience at its premiere, a select handful of one-percenters, momentarily speechless. The scene is bleakly funny in a way that feels just right for our present moment. But the story’s coda fulfills the puppet show’s preemptive title and then some, acknowledging how the two artists’ reliance on those one-percenters for patronage implicates them in the same system—a subtle reshuffling of our assumptions that’s characteristic of Eisenberg’s method throughout these stories.

In real life, the charge “first-world problems” became a reductive cliché almost overnight, so it’s especially gratifying in this book to see the idea explored humanely and from so many angles. Beings of conscience, Eisenberg’s characters are haunted by a suspicion that their relatively well-off lives might somehow be linked to all the hypocrisies, inequities, and worse that are the stuff of daily headlines—the stuff of our malaise, in other words. (As a character in her story “Twilight of the Superheroes” asked himself back in 2004, “Then again, how far away does something have to be before you have the right to not really know about it?”)

The theme gets its most expansive treatment in the novella “Merge,” which traces the shifting fortunes of Keith, a slippery scion of privilege headed for rock bottom after his domineering father, CEO of a rapacious multinational, kicks him out of their home. Eisenberg has long specialized in a comedy of aggrievement, and at first Keith’s indignation, his perplexity at having to fathom how ordinary people go about their lives, yield some of the funniest scenes in this book. When Celeste, an NGO worker who is also a potential romantic interest, tells him she’s about to embark on fieldwork in Slovakia, he thinks: “Slovakia? That was what she meant by Europe?”

Celeste’s trip to Europe—and points beyond, in several senses—is the hinge on which the story turns; it leads to a widening of scope that puts Keith’s struggles in a stark new light. The fascination with multiple perspectives that distinguishes Eisenberg’s later stories comes into full effect in “Merge,” whose changing points of view ask us to consider, among other things, dramatically different definitions of what it might mean to be homeless, and why some people become victims while others, heedless or even undeserving, get to flourish.

That said, even after repeat readings I’m not sure how all of the story’s thematic elements, which grow to include mental illness and theories of language, cohere into a persuasive whole. At the same time, it’s evident that a late Eisenberg story isn’t interested in surrendering its meanings too easily. A case in point here is “The Third Tower,” the outlier in the collection: set in a world both like and unlike our own, it features a young woman receiving treatment for a psychological condition that scans a lot like unfettered creativity. Something other than naturalism, the story testifies to Eisenberg’s formal restlessness, the way she regularly tests the four walls and ceiling of short-story form.

No account of Your Duck Is My Duck is complete without a mention of how gracefully this writer, tagged earlier in her career as a quintessential urban sophisticate, renders the natural world. “Recalculating” includes a beautiful description of a hurricane descending on a Midwestern prairie, and “Your Duck Is My Duck” has this snapshot of a wildfire witnessed from a great height:

Accident had selected me to observe, in whatever way I could, the demonic, vengeful, helpless, ardent fires as they consumed the trees that had replaced the crops—to observe the moment when, at the heart of the conflagration, the trees that sustained it became phantoms, the fire’s memory.

It’s typical that these lyrical outbursts are prompted by natural disasters—appropriately for a collection that regularly glances over its shoulder at environmental collapse along with every other kind of decline.

How much needs to be said about a writer who has very little left to prove? Across four decades Deborah Eisenberg has steadily enlarged her vision while refining her art. Her writing adds to our collective store of wit, empathy, and intelligence. If you haven’t read her yet, by all means start with Your Duck Is My Duck, and then waste no time in getting your hands on her Collected Stories, the chunky 2010 trade paperback that gathers the rest of her singular body of work.

FICTION Your Duck Is My Duck By Deborah Eisenberg Ecco Published September 25, 2018

Deborah Eisenberg is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the award-winning author of four previous collections of stories: Transactions in a Foreign Currency (1986), Under the 82nd Airborne (1992), All Around Atlantis (1997), and Twilight of the Superheroes (2006). Her first two story collections were republished in one volume as The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg (1997). All four volumes were reprinted in 2010 in The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (2010). She is a professor of writing at Columbia University.

Source: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2018/10/25/your-duck-is-my-duck-deborah-eisenbergs-review/

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ship-to-hell · 6 years

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some emm/older!hono thoughts

honoroit wearing emm's shirts and coats when they're apart because they're big and warm and smell good.

i know i say this a lot but: emm just real gently smooching hono’s scar

napping together! they’d started out reading but then They Sleep. emm makes a very good pillow

emm trying Very Hard to count all of hono’s freckles, getting distracted, and starting over

they go on vacation to la noscea. emm teaches him to swim.

nights in the beach house, when it’s just them, lying close together in the dark and talking about nothing important, trading kisses

hono has at least a few boyfriends before him (dark hair, blue eyes, there’s a Type) and emm judges them sternly but well if hono is happy...

hono cries on his shoulder after a breakup and emm vows revenge. “my lord, ‘because he dumped me’ is no reason to fire the assistant stableboy” “he made you cry, he’s lucky he still has a head never mind a job”

one ex says something crass and/or disparaging about hono in emm’s hearing and emm just decks him

emm buying hono all the books/food/clothes he wants!

honoroit wearing fortemps-sigil jewelry

...and nothing else

emm trying to pull off Fancy PLD Moves while training to impress him

and then falling flat on his face.

the general concept of emm admiring and adoring hono so much that as soon as you make the mistake of asking about him....well. hope u packed a lunch. you’re gonna be there a while

meanwhile, he thinks hono tolerates him. maybe. surely they aren’t friends.

surely honoroit cannot love him

honoroit somehow manages to snark at him while confessing his feelings

emm teaching hono to dance so he can Move Up In The World

emm teaching hono to waltz

honoroit growing up into something of a flirt (emm was a bad influence) and using his newfound powers for evil--namely, trying very hard to either seduce emm or drive him mad with jealousy, either works

the first time hono blurts out emm’s actual name. it’s not sex or a special occasion or a confession it’s just “emmanellain you forgot your coat” and he dies. they both die. emm wants to hear him call him by name forever. hono can’t believe he was that bold. they’re both blushing for days.

emm surprising him with flowers and chocolate for all major holidays and occasions. sometimes the occasion is “it’s tuesday and i love you.”

the PINING. A WHOLE GODDAMN PINE FOREST. honoroit starts out with a crush. an ill-conceived crush, really--his lord is kind and gentle but ridiculous, a silly irresponsible flirt he ought not to be thinking of kissing. emmanellain certainly only sees him as a younger brother, if not just a friend and trusted servant. he has no chance. this crush will fade soon, he thinks.

it does not. and worse, emm is getting competent, more knightly and respectable and valiant. his actual skill in battle will probably never match his brothers but he is a tank In His Heart, and he will Protecc even if he gets hurt or killed. it makes honoroit’s heart do all of the things.

plus, all that training has Paid Off. he stronk. hono takes a secret guilty pleasure in helping him with his armor, even though not sneaking any touches is torture

emm can’t know about this. he’d be uncomfortable. and well, it’s not as though he’d feel the same.

emmanellain, meanwhile, does not...notice at first. oh, he loves hono deeply and platonically and his chest does something weird when he clings for a hug (must be indigestion) but he doesn’t think honoroit even likes him very much, never mind any deeper feelings.

and then he turns around one day and realizes that, entirely while he was not paying attention, hono has become a fine young man. those growing pains he fussed over? they ended up in long limbs and broad shoulders, all lean and solid and...

well. it’s very distracting.

the guilt almost flattens him, tbh. hono is years younger than him and his servant, he feels like The Worst kind of perv for ever noticing him and is determined that hono will never find out. it can’t be good for him. he can’t be good for him. honoroit deserves better.

the mutual pining goes on for Y E A R S and drives all of dragonhead nuts with how increasingly transparent it is. there is a betting pool. hono’s friends tease him about it.

worse, laniaitte notices the complete cessation of bad poetry/etc coming from dragonhead and demands to know what’s wrong with emm. seeing him and hono together tells her all she needs to know.

“emmanellain, you are an idiot.” “?????”

eventually honoroit confesses* and emm deadass does not believe him but then honoroit asks for a kiss and. well. sounds like he meant it.

* at least one version of that confession involves “my lord I must leave your service because i seem to have fallen in love with you” and emm’s heart breaks into a million pieces before he catches up to the second half of that sentence.

this leads directly into hono discovering POLITICS. he loves it. emm is So Proud of him taking a seat in the house of commons. he meets him after his speeches with flowers.

hono’s rapier wit and judgemental stare strike fear into the hearts of men three times his age. he brings emm copies of bills he’s gotten past in exactly the way a knight would bring war trophies to his lover.

artoirel and edmont...handle this one of two ways when they find out.

Way The First (possibly precluded by artie literally walking in on them): it is a shock and a shame and a scandal and artoirel is incensed, how can you Do This emmanellain, he recognizes hono is an adult now and can make his own choices but if emm toys with his feelings or hurts/coerces him in any way artie will commit fratricide right then and there.

emm’s not even (that) insulted. “brother dear, if i hurt him i would witchdrop myself without a second thought but he assures me he is quite alright.”

hono is not only “quite alright,” he is willing to defend emm with every tool at his disposal, up to and including pointedly informing artie that he has interrupted something important so if he does not mind...?

artie is Still Concerned, but willing to give emm the benefit of the doubt. emmhono may recommence and he won’t tell father but he does not want to hear about it, thank you.

Way The Second: the mutual adoration is so obvious that even artie, who generally would not notice romance unless it fell in his lap (and by this time he’s married with children), feels the need to take his brother aside and ask when emm is going to make an honest man of honoroit already.

emm wants to!! but he doesn’t know if hono would say yes, they haven’t really discussed...

artie has to bury his face in his hands. “HAVE YOU TRIED ASKING.”

that’s as close to a blessing as artie gets, really.

#emmanellain #emmanellain de fortemps #honoroit #emmhono

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Frasier: 5 Relationships Fans Were Behind (& 5 They Rejected)

Amidst the comedy of errors and farce that made up the bulk of Frasier's narrative, the search for love and the attempt to understand its complexities was central. As a character, Frasier always considered himself unlucky in matters of the heart. Despite being a psychiatrist and often giving listeners of his radio show advice about their romantic woes, he never seemed to be able to follow it himself.

RELATED: Frasier: 10 Hidden Details About The Main Characters Everyone Missed

As the series chronicled his dating endeavors following his second divorce (from Lilith on Cheers), it also included the relationship mechanics of his unhappily married brother Niles, who pined for Daphne but had to develop the courage to pursue her. It examined his father's exploits after the death of his wife, who was afraid to cheat on the memory of the mother of his children. Frasier revealed the best and worst about us through the distinct tribulations of its relationships. Not all of them had a happy ending, of course.Here are some of the best and worst, from the fans' point of view.

10 WERE BEHIND: NILES AND DAPHNE

From the moment that Niles laid eyes on Daphne, she was no longer a caregiver to his ailing father, but a tender goddess that blessed mere mortals with her ethereal presence. Though he was unhappily married to Maris at the time, Niles held a candle for Daphne for years.

Daphne was oblivious to his puppy love (unlike everyone else) until Season 7, when he could no longer conceal his feelings for her. So, the slow-burning romance that had simmered beneath the surface of the series blossomed into the happiest relationship either of them had ever been in.

9 REJECTED: FRASIER AND JULIA

Frasier always had an attraction to strong women who exuded confidence and authority. His second wife Lilith had been like that, and, at one point, it's what drew him to put his job in jeopardy and pursue his boss Kate Costas, the station manager of KACL.

The steely woman he dated the longest was Julia Wilcox, KACL's financial adviser. Though they couldn't stand each other initially, their burning hatred transformed into burning passion. She retained her mean streak, though, and once she insulted his family she got the boot.

8 WERE BEHIND: MARTIN AND SHERRY

While the Crane Boys might not have liked Sherry, she was the best thing to happen to their father. She was loud, crass, and dressed in nothing resembling cashmere, but her down-to-earth nature and home-spun wisdom was exactly what Martin was comfortable with.

RELATED: 10 Quotes From Frasier That Are Still Hilarious Today

She was the first woman he had real feelings for since the love of his life passed away. He felt awkward telling Sherry how he truly felt about her because he thought it would be like cheating on the mother of his children, but in the end it was worth the risk.

7 REJECTED: DAPHNE AND DONNY

Donny Douglas began his time on Frasier as Niles' divorce lawyer when he was separating from his wife, Maris. A real battler in the courtroom, Donny gave Niles his freedom and his chance to be with the woman he really loved - Daphne.

Sadly, that wouldn't be possible, because Donny would steal Daphne's affections before Niles could make his move. Donny and Daphne's relationship would last for several seasons, and while it was pleasant enough, it lacked any sort of spark.

6 WERE BEHIND: FRASIER AND CHARLOTTE

One of the hallmarks of Frasier was the fact that its leading protagonist was so unlucky in love. He could dispense some of the most nuanced advice to his listeners about their relationship woes, but have no way of avoiding them himself.

This led him to seek the expertise of a matchmaker in the final season of the series. Unfortunately, it took almost the entire season for Frasier to realize his true love was in front of him the whole time trying to find him an alternative. The always-effervescent Laura Linney and Kelsey Grammer had some undeniable chemistry.

5 REJECTED: FRASIER AND LANA

One of the most insufferable women that Frasier ever dated, Lana came into his life during a particularly bad romantic drought. As per the parameters of such a period, Frasier was feeling undesirable, his self esteem had plummeted, and having the opportunity to date the Prom Queen was too tempting for him to pass up.

Lana and Frasier never had very much in common, and their attraction to one another seemed purely physical. Lana was an extremely negative and judgmental person who brought out the worst qualities in Frasier. She was only really with him to get over someone else.

4 WERE BEHIND: FRASIER AND LILITH

Though they couldn't possibly have remained together (Lilith was too busy ruling the Underworld), there was an undeniable chemistry between the two eminent psychiatrists that heightened their relationship on both Cheers (as pictured here) and Frasier.

RELATED: 10 Things Frasier Did Better Than Cheers

They were far too similar and far too conceited to actually be able to have a healthy relationship, but the dynamic nature of their fiery trading of barbs created some of the best episodes of the series. Lilith was always someone Frasier couldn't live with, yet couldn't live without.

3 REJECTED: NILES AND MEL

Other than Donny, the only major roadblock preventing Niles and Daphne from being together was Mel, Niles' second wife. The term can be applied loosely, since he abandoned her to reveal his long-held feelings for Daphne, and the only way she'd concede to a speedy divorce would be if he pretended to be the doting husband for a time.

RELATED: Frasier: 10 Best Niles Crane Quotes

She proceeded to make his life miserable, wielding the power she had to control his future happiness like an evil queen's scepter. She lived to humiliate him, and it was only after he had almost utterly destroyed himself socially that she released him from his obligations.

2 WERE BEHIND: MARTIN AND RONEE

Following Martin's breakup with Sherry for good, an old flame decided to re-enter his life. Ronee used to babysit Frasier and Niles when they were children, and as it turns out, Ronee always had a bit of a crush on their old man. She had since become a lounge singer and sang a lot of the old classics Marty loved.

While at first it might have seemed like an odd pairing, Ronee's fast comebacks meshed much better with Frasier and Niles' acerbic wit, and before long, she and Martin were planning their wedding. Martin's past allowed him to acquire a whole new lease on his future.

1 REJECTED: FRASIER AND DIANE

While there can be no Frasier without Diane (his former fiancee who introduced him to Cheers and all of his life-long friends), the way she left him at the altar never sat well with fans. When she reappeared on Frasier looking for help, it seemed hollow, and her apology insincere.

Viewers either loved or hated Diane Chambers on Cheers, and seeing her on Frasier causing him to briefly contemplate inviting her back into his life was almost unfathomable, after what she'd put him through.

NEXT: 5 Reasons Why Frasier Is Better (& 5 Why Cheers Is Superior)

source https://screenrant.com/frasier-relationships-best-worst-couples/

#screenrant

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solatgif · 5 years

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THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY: WEEKEND ROUNDUP FOR AUGUST 16, 2019

This week we continued our college month with articles from collegian Aly Lee (This is Not Us? Thoughts from Charlottesville) and college pastor Francis Chow (Back-to-School Exhortations).

Just in time for wedding season, Pastor Ben Shin published Pick Your Battles - his final installment in the AA Guide to Premarital Counseling. After finishing her series on fashion, the fall season finds Judy Lee starting a new two-part series on sports by interviewing Pastor Justin Kim.

Our monthly newsletter will be sent out today and it is a great way to stay connected with SOLA. If you missed this month’s edition, subscribe today so you get our next installment in September. And if you have any links or recommendations to share, please tweet me @musicgoon or email me at [email protected].

LINK ROUNDUP

1. Moses Lee: How the Korean Pentecost Can Guide Revival Today

Moses Lee tweets: “My latest piece for TGC distinguishes common notions of revival with what actually occurs in history.

The Pyongyang Revival, in particular, began at the end of a 2 week Bible study. No emotionalism. Justice was also central, emphasizing reparations and the common good.”

2. Donny Cho: Why Church Interns Are More Valuable Than You Think

Writing for The Gospel Coalition, Donny Cho details why church interns are beneficial, specifically for the church planter, the intern, and the church member.

3. George Brahm: Skillet’s John Cooper on Apostasy Among Young Christian Leaders

“My conclusion for the church (all of us Christians): We must STOP making worship leaders and thought leaders or influencers or cool people or “relevant” people the most influential people in Christendom. (And yes that includes people like me!) I’ve been saying for 20 years(and seemed probably quite judgmental to some of my peers) that we are in a dangerous place when the church is looking to 20 year old worship singers as our source of truth. We now have a church culture that learns who God is from singing modern praise songs rather than from the teachings of the Word.”

4. Caroline Anderson: The Posture of Prayer: A Look at How Buddhists Pray

“Defining prayer in Buddhism is challenging because the prayer rituals are varied in practice just as the fundamental doctrines and tenets are varied across the different Buddhist sects. Buddhism in Thailand looks different from Buddhism in Nepal. And, Buddhism in Nepal looks different from Buddhism in the East.

Here’s a quick overview of the various Buddhists sects and how they practice prayer differently.”

5. Chase Replogle: Bonhoeffer Convinced Me to Abandon My Dream

“I'm not sure Bonhoeffer could have written anything about leadership more fundamentally opposed to what I had learned and imagined practicing in ministry. Bonhoeffer’s words collapsed the scaffolding on which I had erected my ideal vision of a church and my role as its pastor. His words exposed something shameful. I had traded a real congregation for a dream one, blind to the work God was doing right in front of me.”

WEEKEND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Themelios: Volume 44, Issue 2, August 2019

Read Fulfill Your Ministry by Brian J. Tabb, Strange Times: Never Say ‘the Phones Are Quiet’ by Daniel Strange, The Doctrine of Scripture and Biblical Contextualization: Inspiration, Authority, Inerrancy, and the Canon by Jackson Wu, and more.

2. Shane & Shane: Power of the Cross

One of my favorite Christian artists covering one of my favorite hymns.

3. Jared C. Wilson — Faithfulness in Writing

Host Chase Repogle interviews Jared C. Wilson - Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry at Spurgeon College, Author in Residence at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and General Editor of For The Church - on the latest episode of the Pastor Writer podcast.

FROM SOLA

1. Francis Chow: Back-to-School Exhortations

“Some of you will experience test scores that fall on the wrong side of the curve, rejection letters, unexpected changes in your career path, a regretful stewardship of your time, relational fallout, breakups, unmet expectations, and disappointment. More significantly, many of you will come face to face with your own sin.

There are a number of ways you can respond to this. Some people see the sinfulness of their own hearts and they don’t care. Others see it and despair, or they believe that they just need to get their act together. Don’t neglect your failures and even your sin because it is a reminder to you of your desperate need for grace.”

2. Judy Lee: God Over Sports, Jesus Over Hockey - An Interview with Pastor Justin Kim

Justin Kim: “I think a lot of people can relate who are passionate about their favorite teams. It’s okay to be passionate. But our love for Jesus must always be preeminent and supersede any other love for anything else, including sports.

I remember seeing guys get so angry on the basketball court. But winning can be an unhealthy obsession because winning isn't the most important thing. You can win a game but lose your witness for Christ. Playing with passion and playing with the right attitude helps us to play sports in a God-honoring way. One can play sports for God's glory. One can be thankful to the Lord for the ability to exercise and to celebrate their physical health. Sports are a gift from the Lord but not when it replaces Jesus as the center of one's life.”

3. Ben Shin: Pick Your Battles: The AA Guide to Premarital Counseling (Part 4)

“The big question then to ask is “which issues or hills should a couple ‘die on’?” So first, do not die on every hill. It simply is not worth it. When a couple cannot agree with older parents who may represent either a different cultural or even generational custom, they will find tremendous hardship and stress. The better attitude would be to have the following simple slogan: give and take.”

4. Aly Lee: This is Not Us? Thoughts from Charlottesville

“This reflection on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was written two years ago, before my second year at the University of Virginia. I am now entering my last year in college.”

“The events of August 11-12, 2017 radically shaped my perception of my school and America. They left a lot of fear in my heart and a lot of questions for the Lord as I packed my bag semester after semester to return to this place with a deep history of hate. That being said, the Lord has been incredibly gracious to this community. He has opened places for healing and communication and has spoken so much truth to my fears.”

5. Thank God It’s Friday: Weekend Roundup

In case you missed it, here are some headlines from last week: White Nationalist Terrorism and the Gospel, 15 Pieces of Writing Advice from C. S. Lewis, Consuming Culture: Food and the Shaping of Asian American Identity, and How Should Missionaries Help Create Indigenous Worship Music?

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nova-writes · 7 years

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10 Albums That Made A Lasting Impression During Your Teenage Years

I lived my Teen years (13-19) right in the middle of the Aughts, 2002 through 2008. That was an interesting time for music. Emo revival was just starting and Hardcore bands of the 90′s were starting to figure out what came next for them. I’m sure pop music was doing interesting things, but I was adamantly opposed to pop music as teenage, so there won’t be much of that.

The only Rule™ for this list (because lists need rules), is to use only one Album per Artist/Band. I will also try to go chronologically, but if you’re playing along at home, you make your list however you want. The “Chronogality” (that’s a world, don’t look it up) might get a bit skewed because, as I previously mentioned, I tended to shy away from popular music, so some of the albums didn’t come out during this time frame, it’s just when I discovered them.

On with the list!

2002

Gorillaz - S/T (2001)

Okay, so right out the gate I’m cheating. The brainchild of musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett came out just before I was a teen in 2001. But the virtual band consisting of 2-D, Murdoc, Russel, and Noodle illustrated by Hewlett was one of the first bands I discovered for myself. And I didn’t discover it until it had been out for a while.

Largely to do with their interactive flash animated website and bizarre music videos, their music and artistic style largely influenced my own art and led me to discover Tank Girl, Hewletts comic book series.

You might be thinking “Didn’t they say they didn’t listen to pop music? Their first pick is a pop group, what’s going on here?” To which I remind you I said there wouldn’t be much of that, not none at all. This was also “Phase 1″ of the Gorillaz master plan, entitled Celebrity Take Down, so that resonated with me. Also, the Gorillaz may enjoy some commercial success, but at this point they were still largely an indie group, collaborating with Hip Hop artists, producers, and indie rappers (Kid Koala, Dan the Automator, and Del the Funky Homosapien respectively). Also, revisiting this album later on led me to discover Del’s other project Deltron 3030.

2003

AFI - Sing the Sorrow (2003)

2003 was the year I discovered the color black, and I’ve never worn another color since (exaggeration, but not by much). This is also when I started to struggle with depression and other feelings and the goth-punk songs written by singer Davey Havok, bassist Hunter Burgan, guitarist Jade Puget, and drummer Adam Carson spoke to my early teen angst.

My introduction to AFI came from seeing the video for Girls Not Grey on the music channel Fuse (formally Much Music). I then probably pirated the music, because it was the 00′s, but I did also eventually buy a copy of the Album. This was also the first commercially successful for harcore-group-turned-goth band AFireInside.

AFI was the group that bonded my first real best friend and I together. We were both obsessed with the album, and we were determined to start a band (which we did and it was terrible). Together we worked our way through their back catalog and eventually discovered punk and hardcore music.

Minor Threat - Out of Step (1983)

After listening to Shut Your Mouth And Open Your Eyes by AFI and learning of the existence of Hardcore music, it wasn’t long before I discovered the “Big Three” of 80′s hardcore punk music: Black Flag, Bad Brains, and Minor Threat.

The icon art of Raymond Pettibon for Black Flag is still something that influences my art and Bad Brains influences many of my favorite bands and I appreciate them much more today, but Minor Threat’s anger is something that really resonated with me at the time. They definitely shaped the sound of the next band I was in, which was only a little better of an attempt than my first band.

Strangely enough, the Straight Edge mentality that is extremely prevalent throughout Minor Threats music never really took hold on me, but their other messages were clear to me, we’re outsiders and we’re taking a stand for what we believe in.

2004

My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004)

After my band broke up, I got pretty sick of the monotony of 80’s hardcore music (get over it, it’s boring). I was still pretty goth, even if I was a hardcore kid, so the second album by MCR was the perfect pop-punk answer to my jaded hardcore sensibilities, with Gerard Way’s long black hair and makeup, guitarist Frank Iero & bassist Mikey Way’s emo-hair, and lead guitarist Ray Toro & drummer Matt Pelissier’s heavy riffs and fast tempo playing.

Three Cheers remains one of my favorite guilty pleasure albums. I got made fun of a lot by my hardcore friends and ex-bandmates for liking them, but my lifelong friend Nyk and I would drive around (with my newly acquired license) and sing along to “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” at the top of our lungs. Sorry about outing you, Nyk.

The Blood Brothers - Crimes (2004)

After cleansing my hardcore pallet with emo music, I discovered The Blood Brothers seminal album Crimes. It was a perfect mix of the hardcore music I had started my teens with and the more theatrical emo music. Jordan Blilie’s soulful crooning and shrill scream and Johnny Whitney, whose voice has been described as “a child being tortured”, battle over lead vocal duties with Cody Votolato, Mark Gajadhar, and Morgan Henderson rounding out the instrumentalists (they all play multiple instruments), The Blood Brothers are a force to be reckoned with.

I didn’t know hardcore music could sound like this. I learned people called it “post-hardcore” usually lower case like that. The Blood Brothers and the label they were on, Three One G, led me to many other bands that I loved.

I’m pretty proud to say that between 2004 and 2007 when they broke up, I never missed a show when they came to town. Their live performances were extremely energetic. You could feel the electricity in the air.

2005

Modern Life Is War - My Love, My Way (2003)

In 2005 MLIW released the album Witness, which is a fantastic album and I contemplated putting it on here instead, but in anticipation of the new album coming out I listened My Love fairly constantly. My hardcore friends were already fans of Modern Life, but it wasn’t until 2005 that I discovered them.

It’s hard to say how important My Love, My Way is to me without sounding cliche, but this album honestly saved my life. I had been struggling with my depression and Jeff Eaton told me it’s okay, I am too, but we’ll get through this. I’ll let the lyrics speak for themselves.

“We’ve been to the edge and we know what it’s like to want to die, and that’s something we won’t glorify. We’ll leave those miserable times behind. How far can I go? I’m rising from the depths of my own hell. I don’t need another tragic tale, I need the strength to walk the other way. I found conviction in my ever changing mind. I grew up tied down and bleeding on the inside, but I know I was a victim of my own device, and I want to live to see a brand new life.”

Modern Life Is War is another band that I went to every show I could. Even driving to Marshalltown, Iowa to see their Farewell Show. Their breakup didn’t last long as they got back together in 2013 to release another album and play more shows. They are still going strong now.

2006

Tegan and Sara - So Jealous (2006)

Sisters Sara and Tegan Quinn playing heartfelt indie songs about break-ups is exactly what I needed in 2006 when my first serious partner dumped me. Even listening to it now as I write this, it’s bringing up memories of feeling heartbroken and that every song is specifically about you.

Where do you go with your broken heart in tow? How do you know when to let go? Where does the good go??

Everyone who has experienced love and a hard break-up should listen to this album. Do that and tell me it’s not perfect.

Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica (2000)

2006-2007 was my senior year of high school, and I was lucky enough to have a pretty incredible art program at my school. I had teachers who were actually working artists and forced us as students to create better and better art. They treated us like artists and it was the first time I felt like an adult was giving me any respect.

My studio art teacher was a huge fan of Modest Mouse and would play their music during class. This was the golden age of the iPod, so I soon had Good News For People Who Love Bad News and The Moon & Antarctica and listened to it even while not in class. It was also one of the first Vinyl albums I ever bought.

Twangy guitars playing over Isaac Brock’s strange voice singing about the concept of being an asshole and that everyone has the capability of fucking you over. What’s not to love? And the deeply critical song “A Different City” about the escapism of moving away and the terrifying reality of failing. A great song to listen to when you’re making your plans to move out on your own for the first time.

2007

Against Me! - Searching For A Former Clarity (2005)

After graduating high school with limited interest in attending college, my parents bought me a laptop as incentive to apply. I did and went for about one semester before dropping out, but now I had my own computer, so that was a pretty good trade off.

I ended up putting three AM! Albums and one Mischief Brew album on my computer and I listened to them constantly. I didn’t have internet access at my house during 2007 so that was the only music I had. Against Me! became my favorite band. Laura Jane Grace’s take on punk-rock and anarchy shaped my worldview.

I didn’t realize then why Laura’s music was so important to me beyond the anarchist politics until years later in 2012 when she came out as a transgender woman. In 2007 I was starting to understand where so much of my depression was coming from. So listening to Against Me! songs about dealing with the same issues and feeling was a great feeling of commiseration.

Looking back now, the songs only make more sense. Even if I didn’t know it at the time Against Me! was speaking to me about deeply personal issues, even if subconsciously.

2008

the Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride (2008)

The album that introduced me to the Mountain Goats! I’m really not that cool, so I don’t really know about awesome people like John Darnielle and how he’s been writing music since I was 5. But I heared the song Heretic Pride on the indie radio station and instantly fell in love with them.

Heretic Pride is not my favorite Mountain Goats album (that would be Tallahassee) but it’s the first one I heard at 19 years old and their literary songs have made me strive to make my own writing better.

It’s also the album that I tried to show to my future partner (we started dating in 2009) to try and impress her. She, of course, was a fan already because she’s much cooler than I am. She then proceeded to show me the extensive discography of the Mountain Goats (15 albums) and the rest of the Modest Mouse catalog just for good measure.

Well, there’s my 10 Albums. There are a few more I would like to add if I could pick more than ten. Like Dumby by Portishead, De-Loused in the Comatorium by The Mars Volta, and Pass The Flask by The Bled all squished in there somewhere. But I won’t cheat and have a list of 13 albums. That would be wrong...

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jimmiekiser · 6 years

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Trade Secret Litigation

A trade secret is information that derives actual or potential value from not being known to the public and that is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy. A trade secret can consist of formulas, patterns, compilations, programs, devices, methods, techniques, or processes. In fact, protection of trade secrets can cover everything from microchip design to religious practices. Some of the most famous examples of trade secrets include the formula for Coca-Cola and the algorithms behind Google’s search engine. However, information does not need to be famous for it to warrant trade secret protection. In fact, many valuable trade secrets are valuable precisely because the public does not know about them.

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Prenuptial And Postnuptial Agreement Lawyer

Why Get A Prenup?

The idea of a prenuptial agreement rubs quite a few people the wrong way. “Why get married if you anticipate a potential failure?” they may ask. They may fear that a prenup will become a self-fulfilling prophecy of marital breakdown. Judgments such as these tend to overlook several realities that engaged people should face head-on as they prepare to marry:

About half the marriages in our society end in divorce. Entertaining the notion of a possible divorce someday can be realistic and even prudent.

Many people preparing to marry have financial and family complications to take into consideration: inherited assets, business interests, wide income differentials between spouses or children from previous marriages.

Divorce litigation dealing with division of assets can be very costly.

A prenuptial agreement can serve as a sort of “insurance policy” against potentially nasty legal maneuvers in the event of a marital breakup.

Who Needs A Prenup?

At our law firm, we often see clients who are considering prenuptial agreements falling into one of two categories:

Young people who have special financial circumstances such as gifting by older generations

Older people who have worked their whole lives and have substantial assets

Rest assured that if we help you craft a prenuptial agreement, we will do so fully hoping and expecting that you will never have to use it. On the other hand, we can predict from experience that you and your fiancé or fiancée will find peace of mind in putting down in writing the expectations that you both bring into the marriage with regard to each other’s assets.

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Postnuptial agreements, on the other hand, have several common applications; namely:

As tools of reconciliation

As a way to keep business interests of spouses separate

As a way of spelling out how inheritances will be treated

Parental Rights For Unmarried Couples

In today’s society, it is not uncommon for unmarried people to have children together. When these couples split, there is usually not any sort of court order guiding how important decisions regarding the children will be handled.

Resolving Parenting Issues

Our attorneys have extensive experience establishing parental rights for unmarried couples. We work with our clients to obtain a clear understanding of their objectives, and then take the steps necessary to meet those goals. We help our clients obtain court orders that will cover critical parenting issues, including:

Child custody

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In Utah, before custody or any other parental rights are given to a child’s father, paternity must be established. Paternity determines who is the legal father of a child. Many fathers are unaware that having their name on a child’s birth certificate is not enough to establish paternity.

Paternity is important because it not only gives the child’s father legal rights and responsibilities, but it also offers protections for the child. Once paternity is established, a child may be put on his or her father’s health insurance plan and is entitled to receive benefits, such as Social Security or veterans benefits. The child also has inheritance rights in the event that the father passes away.

Paternity is also important for the unmarried mother because it entitles her to receive child support from the child’s father.

Establishing Paternity

Paternity can be established in one of the three ways:

Voluntary Declaration of Paternity (VDP) — This is a legal acknowledgement of paternity that is often signed by the parents along with the birth certificate when the child is born.

Administrative Paternity Order — Paternity can also be established administratively through the Office of Recovery Services if a parent applies for child support and paternity is proven.

Judicial paternity — This is the most powerful way of establishing paternity because it is the form of paternity that enables the ORS to set up or enforce custody or parenting time arrangements with the child. To obtain a judicial order of paternity, either parent or both parents have the right to petition to court, establishing paternity.

As soon as paternity has been established, the unmarried parents will stand in the same position as divorcing couples.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

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