hey don't cry. the jeri/rys will never be able to share simple human intimacy. they'll never get to hold hands. why are you crying louder

midnight mass

Just finished watching Midnight Mass and... wow.

There’s really nothing I can say that isn’t full of spoilers so, here we go...

(the spoilers are abundant and go all the way through the ending and I spoil  major things)

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(I think there’s no ‘read more’ on mobile, right, so hopefully that’s enough space for people to skip)

I cried through pretty much the entire last episode, so thanks for that! But, no, wow, as someone who... while not ex-Catholic, is very much ex-Christian... that was an incredibly cathartic experience.

For anyone interested in it: almost all the characters DO die so, you know. Take that into account if you are reading this spoiler-filled review but haven’t watched it yet. If you decide to watch it, almost everyone dies.

It’s a vampire story. It’s a story about the church eating people up. It’s a story about repression and hunger and, oh, very very much about fear. It’s about regret. It’s about desperately wanting a second chance and about the fact that there are no second chances, not really. There’s only forward, and future generations. “We fade away. That’s how it’s supposed to be.” (quote probably not exact)

Drink my blood and have eternal life. It makes sense that John Pruitt, a religious man and a man filled with regret. Filled with fear. Lost and confused and alone. A man who spent his life in service of the church and denied himself the family he wanted desperately to claim for his own. When he was ‘reborn’ into a younger body, it makes sense that he WANTED it to be God giving him a second chance. He talks himself into it. We see him do it. He didn’t choose this ‘gift’ himself, but once he realizes what it could mean, he wants to share it with the people who mean the most to him. The love that was never his wife, and the daughter that he never acknowledged was his own. And the man that he saw an echo of himself in -- who had also been given a ‘second chance’ at life after his own life had been ruined because of his own choices.

And the people Pruitt most wanted to accept the ‘gift’ of eternal life all rejected it, because the price was too high. “Don’t interrogate a miracle” one of the believers says near the beginning of the series, but they MUST because they need to know why. Because if you don’t know why and if you don’t know how, then you don’t really know if there’s a price and if it’s worth paying.

(Leeza smiles at the end, when she realizes her miracle is gone)

It’s one of the best vampire stories I’ve ever seen. The ‘angel’ is... fascinating. It’s a predator, with a high hunger drive but an even higher reproductive urge. The way the heroes use that hunger against the vampires near the end is really well done -- using themselves as bait, sacrificing themselves to save the rest of the world from this monstrous predator that Pruitt brought into their midst. The predator that they couldn’t truly see until it was too late and far too much damage had been done to the community. Dressed in the robes of a priest, because of course. The walls of the church splattered with blood. Literally everything involving Bev, who is probably the person who actually set all this is motion (Pruitt NEVER should have been sent off alone at his age and in his condition!) and is the person least horrified by the horrors and the most willing to spill other people’s blood. She was a vampire long before she ever drank any of the angel’s blood.

There are a LOT of long philosophical dialogues and monologues, which I really enjoyed but I know those aren’t for everyone. But I’m pretty much Riley in my PoV re: death and what happens to us when we die, so I really enjoyed all the discussions he had with Erin and Pruitt. Sheriff Hassan also has some really good speeches; I think I may have already reblogged one of them before I watched the show, but there’s another great one later when he’s talking to Sarah. Some of the most intense scenes involve two people just sitting down and talking to each other. The actors were all fantastic, imo.

It’s been a while since I talked out my feelings about a show like this, so this is probably a little scattered and all over the place but, yeah. Just needed to get the words out.

Muslim Lives Matter TOO

An issue, no it is world crises that never gets mentioned, that does not even cross anyone's mind and it happens on a daily basis it has been happening for years, even before civilization. The violence that is unleashed upon Muslims every single day is unbearable, unacceptable and unprecedented but does anyone speak up against the monsters who tortures, murders and rapes innocent Muslim children and women, the answer is no. NO not a single person does a thing to stop this, why because the rest of the world thinks we deserve it but in reality nobody deserves this kind of treatment it has to come to an end.

  As the world defends Asian people for the hate crimes acted upon them which is good people need to defend those who can not do it themselves, but we have also seemed to forget that the same Asians we are protecting are also keeping millions of Muslim people in concentration camps. A sad truth is that the Muslim people of Palestine has been in war since 1948 and it is still ongoing lets face it this is a one way war but if we stand up we might just have the power to stop it. These people have no weapons to defend themselves so many innocent lives being lost and for just some political ploy that the people who are in power oversee, do you not see this is part of a much bigger plan the people in power are trying to everyone against each other. Just like black lives matter campaign and the all lives matter campaign, shouldn't Muslim lives fall under the category of “All lives matter” because we are just as much part of “ all lives” like the rest of the world is. But yet we choose to be silent about this , why? Look at China and how they are trying to ban Islam in their country, authorities are removing crescents from the mosques because according to them Islam is an extremist religion. The Imam and the boy responsible for the call to prayer from a local mosque without any reason at all got arrested. On one occasion the Chinese authorities beat an elderly Muslim lady for wearing hijab, for representing what she believes in she got beat mercilessly. People do not even respect the elderly Muslims. The authorities even went as far as confiscating prayer mats and many copies of the Quran. What is even more sad is that Muslims are not even allowed to wear the clothing that represents our religion, they are not allowed to have long beards and women are not allowed to wear veils or anything that is viewed as “extremist” attire according to the Chinese authorities. Even the children are not even allowed to be educated about Islam even in the comfort of their own homes. These people are having their human rights violated and nothing is done about it.

A variety of repressive tactics are used on an unprecedented scale.Muslims in China are being monitored on a daily basis and their have their privacy invaded without cause. Each and everyday they are questioned about anything that could be seen as “extremism” in the eyes of Chinese laws.Islam is basically outlawed in China.Having a Muslim family member is enough to get you interrogated in an inhumane way. Now for the bigger issue, about the Muslim people who are disappearing in China on a vast scale, where are they you might wonder, oh they are just being held in so called” political education camps” until they are deemed qualified to reside in the country, they have no freedom of movement they have to qualify in order ot moves around from town to town. And proving my point once again there has been little to no international outrage over what may be the world's most draconian and comprehensive control over Muslim life throughout history.

What do you imagine when you hear the word “terrorist” you would imagine a man in a long thobe with a beard right? Preferably a Muslim man but my question is why do we associate Islam with terrorism. First of all you should know the correct meaning of terrorism. According to the United States government Terrorism is: the unlawful forceful violence against persons or property to intermediate for political or social objections. Now listen to this in 2013 a Caucasian Christian male killed three Muslim students known as a hate crime. Did he use an unlawful forceful violence yes he did, was it targeted at against persons or property yes it was, did he want to intermediate for a political or social segments yes he wanted to because it was a hate crime. So i ask this question why was this not considered an act of terrorism it clearly fits the description, was it because he was white i think so. We need to stop associating terrorism with Islam because there is a major difference because anyone could be a terrorist not just Muslims. 9/11 was when the world hated Muslims even more than they did because 15 Arabs hijacked one plane why should the rest of the 1.8 billion Muslims suffer their consequences. Within every religion there exist a spectrum of attitudes and behavior and extremism is not unique to one particular belief system. There are people who view themselves as Muslims who have committed these horrible crimes in the name of Islam but they do not represent the rest of us, they are a minority within Islam and have the wrong interpretation of what Islam is. A vast majority of Muslims around the world reject their violence. Terrorism is not what Islam is check your facts.

 Why is it so easy to stand up for every other injustice in the world, but when it comes to Islam everyone goes silent. Its incredibly sad to see that the how war ridden Palestine is and what is the rest of the world?And its a one way war because all those innocent people have no physical weapons to retaliate, lives are being lost as we live our lives and nothing is done to stop it. Yes i agree all lives matter but when are we going to realise that Muslim lives should matter as well. The same Asians that we are protecting is holding our Muslim brother and sisters in concentration camps raping Muslim women, killing our babies , physically and mentally abusing them day in and day out. And yet we are silent standing up for Muslims should not only be on social media platforms for two days, it is something that should never fade and what is more sad is that our own Muslim brothers and sister are afraid to speak up against these wrong doings, because we fear offending the Christian friend we have or the Jewish friends we have and so on. But we forget that Allah has told us” to not take the enemy of Allah as a friend and do not take the friend of Allah as ur enemy”. We want to the live the modern lifestyle and i am not speaking of everyone , i myself have not done my part. So many Muslims are not allowed to walk in the streets because they will be exposed to attacks threats and discrimination and we are mocked for our religion. So i will ask again why, why all of the hate that turns into violence , so many innocent lives lost and for what , what could these people possibly gain. ALL this violence is just wrong we are all human we all have our own beliefs so you tell me what is wrong with Islam its a religion based on peace how can you not see that. Everyone who is not Muslim ask yourselves would you want this to happen to your religion, would you want to be killed like dogs in the streets , no you would not so why is is okay for it to happen to a Muslim, ponder about that. More Muslims will stand up and fight for what is right as they should, and this, this is only the beginning, not all of us can be strong that is why we are an Ummah

Written by: Imraan Hardien With help from Yusriyyah Latief 

Okay! As detailed in my last post on the subject, I had a few theories on what was going on in Bioshock Infinite after reaching the end of what was essentially the first level. In short... yeah, I pretty much nailed it. Spoilers for the game ahead.

Pretty early on, they’re dropping hints that Comstock is Booker, with things like him claiming to have been a war hero at The Battle of Wounded Knee, which is Booker’s backstory. It’s a little complicated... in short, Comstock is a version of Booker from a reality in which he found religion, formed a weird Christian sect, and befriended a physicist whose work with quantum mechanics eventually allowed her to visit different timelines. I think the idea is that her information from alternate realities allowed him to pretend to be a prophet, and money from his congregation funded her research.

As it turns out, all the quantum stuff has left Comstock sterile, and wanting a successor, he found an alternate version of himself (the Booker you play as) so down on his luck that he could be convinced to give away his infant daughter to have his debts cleared. Booker changes his mind at the last minute and tries to take her back, resulting in the portal between worlds closing on her outstretched hand, cutting off the end of one of her fingers. Her body existing in two different dimensions gives her weird quantum powers, explaining Elizabeth being kept in the tower and studied.

At the end of the game, you destroy the siphon, connecting Elizabeth to all alternate versions of herself and allowing her to see the entirety of all realities. Which in practice makes her into some kind of god of time and space. The game ends on a really confusing note: Elizabeth taking Booker back to before he became Comstock, and killing him.

I... really don’t understand the implication here. Throughout the game you hop between a handful of realities, but how it works is kinda strange... Booker and Elizabeth remain the same, but it feels like the realities kinda collapse into each other. You see people you killed in the last reality, now alive in this one, traumatized because they have the memory or dying. However, MOST of the people don’t seem to retain memories when you do this, and you’re definitely not combining with your alternate self; in one reality, Booker has a deal with Daisy to supply her with guns; in another, her version of Booker died a martyr for her cause, and she either doesn’t know or care about the gun deal.

So, what’s up with Elizabeth killing Booker? Like, this isn’t a Booker who became Comstock, this is her father. She DID take him back to just before he made the choice that results in him becoming religious in Comstock timelines... but you’re seeing all of this from the same Booker’s perspective the entire time. She’s killing her thirty-eight-year-old father, not the teenage version of him, and we know he hasn’t entered his younger body unless they randomly changed how things work at the last minute. So, what exactly is going on here?

Also, what’s the point? Is it entirely symbolic? Because if she killed her father before she was conceived, she wouldn’t exist, right? The game just... randomly throws in a paradox, at the last second?

The game also has a couple pieces of DLC, which are interesting. They’re set in Rapture, the setting of the first two games, and see an older Elizabeth and a different Booker trying to rescue Sally, a girl who Booker’s negligence allowed to become a Little Sister. As it turns out, this was never about Sally; Booker was so desperate to rescue her because of repressed memories of his own daughter. In this reality, instead of Comstock’s portal cutting baby Elizabeth’s finger off, it was... um. Her head. Yeah, so THAT’S pretty grim. When the siphon was destroyed, Elizabeth was connected with all of her alternate selves, so felt all those realities where she wa killed or otherwise wronged by various versions of Bookers. I guess she must’ve been on a crusade, going around killing them, because the first episode of the DLC ends with yet another Booker death.

The second episode has you playing as Elizabeth, and basically reimagines Bioshock as a stealth game. It’s pretty fun! The story’s a little confusing, as is par for the course with this game... apparently, Elizabeth died shortly after the end of the first episode, but for reasons I feel like the game didn’t adequately explain she was able to come back to save Sally, sans Incredible Cosmic Powers. You eventually discover that this isn’t just a weird alternate version of the world from the first game, it’s that same exact world, shortly before the events of the original Bioshock. Elizabeth chose to sacrifice herself because while she was in God Mode she saw Bioshock’s good ending, and went, “oh, well this definitely has to be set in motion”. She’s killed once again (and permanently this time, one would assume) to ensure that Jack is able to save all the Little Sisters.

Even though they made it meaningful, it feels kinda unsatisfying for the story to end this way. It didn’t feel great for Booker to be killed off, when I’d done my best to play him as a good person... I only ever killed in self-defense, and even though I knew the game wasn’t keeping track, I didn’t eat any of the food while passing through the area where people were starving, waiting until later to heal. You gotta stand by your principles, y’know? Elizabeth dying was just as bad. While you’re shown that Sally is one of the girls from Bioshock’s ending, meaning you accomplished your goal, it still doesn’t feel good when someone tries to do the right thing and ends up dying for it.

I WANT HAPPY ENDINGS DAMNIT.

best books with morally ambiguous narrators!

all y’all’s problematic faves and villains! :) also included are third person narrators but in books with morally ambiguous leads/themes 

Sci-fi

Scythe by Neal Shusterman: in a future free from pain, disease, and war, people can live forever. ‘scythes’ are given the power to decide who lives and who dies to preserve the balance. sad and kinda gives of hunger games vibes, if you like that.

Neuromancer by William Gibson: basically invented the cyberpunk genre. strange and removed protagonists. (a team of computer hackers have to face off against an evil AI). you kind of dislike everyone and suddenly you’re crying over them. one of those trippy sci-fi classics.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut: very beautiful and very very sad (same author as slaughterhouse five). the richest man in america has to face a martian invasion. more about free will and bad people doing good things than a plot that makes any kind of sense.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick: set in an alternate universe where the germans and japanese won world war two. not really like the tv show at all- it’s not an action story, and there’s not really the hope to somehow fix the world that drives a lot of dystopia stories. instead its about how people survive and connect to one another in a hopeless society.

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow: a supercomputer convinces the leaders of the world to keep the peace for hundreds of years by taking their children hostage and obliterating any city that disobeys. what happens to the hostage protagonists when war seems inevitable? lots of morally fraught decisions and characters slowly losing their identity. (plus a fun lesbian romance)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: a brilliant mathematician and a dedicated marine fight to keep the ultra secret in world war two. fifty years later,  a tech company discovers what remains of their story. one of the most memorable sequences in the book is a japanese soldier slowly becoming disillusioned with his nation and horrified by the war even as he continues to fight.

Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick: another one of those sci-fi classics that’s not at all like the movie. there is a bounty hunter for robots, though, as well as a weird religion that probably is referencing catholicism and a decaying society with a shortage of pets. kind of a trip.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power: girls trapped in a boarding school on an isolated island must face a creeping rot that affects the animals and plants on the island as well as their own bodies. the protagonists will do anything to survive and keep each other safe. very tense (and bonus lesbian romance whoo)

The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin: three women are gifted with the ability to control the earth’s energy in a world where those who can do so are forced into hiding or slavery. some veryyyy dark choices here but lots of strong female characters.

Historical Fiction

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters: two victorian lesbians fall in love as they plot to betray each other in horrific ways. lots of plot twists, plucky thieves, gothic settings, and a great romance.

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiwicz: a powerful roman soldier in the time of Nero plots to kidnap a young woman after he falls in love with her, only to learn more about the mysterious christian religion she follows. very melodramatic but some terrific prose. 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: a blind girl in France and a brilliant German boy recruited by the military struggle through the chaos of the second world war. ends with a bang (iykyk.) very sad, reads like poetry.

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang: graphic novel reveals the story of a young boy fighting in the boxer rebellion in early twentieth century china. the sequel, saints, is also excellent. beautifully and sympathetically shows the protagonist’s descent into evil- the reader really understands each step along the way.

Fantasy

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake: three triplets separated at birth, each with their own magical powers, have to fight to the death to gain the throne. lots of fun honestly

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: everyone in these books is highly problematic but you love them all anyway. a ragtag game of criminals plan a heist on a magical fortress. some terrific tragic back stories, repressed feelings, and revenge schemes.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King: idk how to describe these frankly but if you can put up with King’s appalling writing of female characters they’re pretty interesting. fantasy epic about saving the world/universe, sort of. cowboys and prophecies and overlapping dimensions and drug addicts galore.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud: lots of fun! a twelve year old decides to summon a demon for his cute lil revenge scheme. sarcastic demon narrator. lighthearted until s*** gets real suddenly.

Elegy and Swansong by Vale Aida: fantasy epic with machiavellian lesbians and enemies to lovers to enemies to ??? to lovers. charming and exciting and lovely characters.

The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen: an orphan boy must compete with a few others for the chance to impersonate a dead prince. really dark but very tense and exciting and good twists.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu: fantasy epic. heroes overthrow an evil empire and then struggle as the revolution dissolves into warring factions. interesting world building and three dimensional characters, even if they only have a small part.

Circe by Madeline Miller: the story behind the witch who turns men into pigs in the odyssey. madeline miller really said, i just used my classics degree to write a beautiful gay love story and now im going to write a powerful feminist retelling because i can. queen. an amazing and satisfying book that kills me a lil bit because of the two lines referencing the song of achilles.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: the tragic backstory for the queen of hearts in alice in wonderland. a little predictable but very fun with a compelling protagonist

A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George RR Martin: ok I know we all hate GRRM and rightfully so but admittedly these books do have some great characters and great scenes. they deserve better than GRRM though. also he will probably never finish the books anyway....

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket: not really fantasy but not really anything else either. plucky, intelligent, and kind children fight off evil plots for thirteen books until suddenly you realize the world is not nearly as black and white as you thought. 

Classics

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: gothic romance!! a new wife is curious about the mysterious death of her predecessor in a creepy old house in the British countryside...good twists and lovely prose.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles: not really morally ambiguous but one awful decision suddenly has awful consequences and certain people are haunted by guilt forever.... really really really beautiful and really really really sad. boys in a boarding school grow up together under the shadow of world war two.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: while imperial russia slowly decays a beautiful young woman begins a destructive affair. a long book. very russian. the ending is incredibly tense and well written.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding: I think you know the plot to this one. the prose is better than you remember and the last scene is always exciting.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: one by one, the guests on an island are slowly picked off. one of Christie’s darkest mysteries- no happy ending here! very tense and great twists.

Contemporary

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: inspired the whole dark academia aesthetic. college students get a little too into ancient greece and it does not end very well. lovely prose but I found the characters unlikable.

Honorable Mentions

The Dublin Saga by Edward Rutherford: has literally a billion protagonists, but some of them are morally ambiguous ig? follows a few families stories’ from the 400s ad to irish independence in the 20s. beautifully captures the weight and movement of irish history.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: how morally ambiguous can you be if you’re, like, eleven? a lot if you’re a criminal genius who wants to kidnap a fairy for your evil-ish plan apparently!

Redemption by Leon Uris: literally my favorite novel ever. the sequel to Trinity but can stand alone. various irish families struggle through the horrors of world war one. the hero isn’t really morally ambiguous, but the main theme of the novel is extremely bad people suddenly questioning their choices and eventually redeeming themselves. sweeping themes of love, screwed up families, redemption, and patriotism.

The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett: heroes redeem themselves/try to get rich/try to save their country in early renaissance Europe. if I actually knew what happened in these books I'm sure it would be morally ambiguous but its too confusing for me. in each book you spend at least a third convinced the protagonist is evil, though. lots of exciting sword fights, tragic romances, plot twists, and kicking english butt.

Bonus: Protagonist is less morally ambiguous and more very screwed up and sad all the time

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: you know this one bc its quoted in all those quote compilations. basically the story of how one horrible event traumatizes a young man and how he develops a connection to a painting. really really really good.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: hard to describe but strange... not an action novel or a dystopia really but sort of along those lines. very hopeless.

Hiya! I just saw your post about microaggressions in media, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to explain a little bit more about how Dragon Age negatively represented indigenous peoples; personally, I saw how the parallel was drawn, but I'd like to understand the difference between metaphor/symbolism and negative derivement. If you don't wanna, that's ok! Thank you for your time : )

Sorry if you wanted this to be replied to privately. I’ve gotten a few other questions about it so I just decided to do a masterpost.

I do feel obligated to mention that I have a Dragon Age tag and that I’ve gone into detail about the issues with the games here and here.

Now, with that being said. . . I’m going to put this under a cut because this is an important topic to me and I’ve never gone into as much detail as I should have. I’ll also give a basic but long rundown for people who haven’t played Dragon Age and aren’t aware of the context. I’ll try to make it obvious where that part ends for people who just want to skip right past it.

Disclaimer that I never really played Origins so this will only focus on DA 2 and Inquisition.

This is gonna be really fucking long and I apologize for that.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Dragon Age franchise, here’s some basic information relevant to this topic. There are four fantasy “races” in the game; the humans, the elves, the dwarves, and the qunari. For the purposes of this conversation, we will not go into the dwarves and the qunari. 

Humans are the dominant race in the game, with control over every government in the continent that the franchise focuses on, Thedas. They follow a religion called Andrastianism, which is centered around the Maker (a vague and featureless single god who is almost always referred to as male) and Andraste, the Maker’s mortal wife and prophet who was executed and burned at the stake. In other words, it’s Fantasy Christianity™. The religion is separated into two branches, with one being led by men and only being common in one country in Thedas and the other being led by women and being common in the rest of Thedas. Just like Christianity, it is very heavily focused on converting people. As far as I’m aware, it is the state religion of every country featured in the franchise. For the purposes of this conversation, I will be referring to this religion as the Chantry, the in-game equivalent of the Church being used for Christianity.

Elves, on the other hand, are exactly what they sound like. They’re elves, but not traditional Tolkien elves. They have the same lifespan as humans and don’t seem to be particularly special. The important thing to note is that they are very much an oppressed group and most racism you encounter in the franchise is aimed at the. They were the original peoples of many parts of Thedas, indigenous to several parts of the continent before they were violently massacred in wars and outright genocide, all in the name of Andraste. Here’s some information about the main attacks on the elves, in the form of the second Exalted March, a form of religious crusade. Cultural sites, including burial grounds and religious temples, were pillaged and destroyed. Historical records were confiscated and edited, language and culture records purposely destroyed, and countless artifacts were stolen and sold to wealthy humans. This happened long before the events of the games, but are ongoing issues, which I’ll get into later.

Modern elves in the game are separated into two main groups: city elves and the Dalish. 

City elves are elves who are disconnected from their cultures and live in human settlements, where they’re often forced to live in slums (called alienages), pushed into dangerous and poorly paid work, and face violent abuse and mistreatment from humans in the cities. City elves are usually Andrastian, just like disconnected Natives are often Christian, though they cannot hold positions in the Chantry.

The Dalish, on the other hand, are elves immersed in their cultures, living in nomadic clans led by their Keepers. The majority of Dalish elves follow the Evanuris, the Elven pantheon which is made up of nine deities that each represent different aspects of Elven life. According to Dalish lore, these deities are not active in the world anymore because they were tricked by the ninth deity, Fen’Harel, a trickster god who sealed away the rest of the gods from the world. When Dalish elves reach maturity, they undergo a ritual that involves receiving their vallaslin (blood writing), which are intricate facial tattoos that represent different deities in the pantheon and, supposedly, reflect that person’s role in their community. I suppose the Native equivalent is finding out what clan you’re in. Dalish communities are centered are around halla, a type of deer that the Dalish see as sacred and use as a form of travel (they pull aravels, a kind of wagon), food (milk and meat), clothing, companionship, and guidance. The parallels to bison should not be lost.

Elves are also frequently enslaved, particularly in Tevinter where slavery is still completely legal.

Now. Humans, elves, and qunari all have a connection to the Fade, the origin of all magic, spirits, and demons. That means that they all have the potential to have mages, people born with magic and a deeper connection to the Fade; they’re the DA equivalent of sorcerers in D&D for all you nerds out there. Across the board, mages are heavily oppressed (with the exception of mages in Tevinter). 

Because they can be possessed by demons and potentially use blood magic, they’re seen as inherently dangerous and forced into Circles, isolated areas where they’re under constant surveillance as they learn to control their magic, and that surveillance is done by Templars, an order of warriors trained to be able to repress a person’s magic. Any mage that doesn’t have absolute control over their magic is made Tranquil, which cuts off their connection to the Fade and, along with removing their ability to use magic, also removes their ability to feel emotions, have desires, and experience dreams. It’s essentially a fantasy lobotomy. In some Circles, this is done on the whims of Templars to any mage that causes the slightest issue for them. Other forms of abuse are also incredibly common in Circles.

So! That’s the end of the context explanations! Let’s move onto the indigenous-coding in the game!

The coded group in question are the elves, particularly the Dalish. They’re also coded as Jewish and Romani, which makes the information that’s going to follow even worse. Despite popular belief, this coding is not actually up for debate and has been directly confirmed by David Gaider (scroll a bit, and be warned that he uses the g-slur). Since I’ve already explained what Dalish elves and city elves are, I doubt I have to get into how exactly they’re Native-coded and I don’t really feel like doing that anyway. So let’s just get right into the issues with this coding.

The first issue is the elves themselves. Elves are cool, I love elves. But it’s really fucking shitty to make the Christian-coded group human while the group coded as indigenous, Jewish, and Romani is inhuman. It’s a really common trope in fantasy and sci-fi and directly contributes to the dehumanization of our communities. It also gives fans the ability to brush off criticisms of their depictions because they’re “just elves”, something I see in the fandom a lot.

We also have to think of how elves in media are depicted in general. They’re usually magical beings with unnaturally close ties to nature, and as a Native person who has been asked if I can speak to eagles and if I live in a tipi in the woods, that is not a stereotype that needs to be further associated with indigenous groups.

Elves are degraded constantly by every character in the series, and the narrative depicts Dalish elves especially in a terrible light. There is only one companion in the entire series who actually genuinely cares about the Dalish, and that because Merrill is Dalish herself, having left her clan to live in the city; she’s also frequently mocked and depicted as naive and ignorant despite being a grown-ass woman and her rivalmance is dangerously unhealthy and toxic. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can have two elf companions, both of who explicitly hate the Dalish and disapprove of any pro-Dalish stances. One of those companions, Sera, also hates elves in general and frequently distances herself from them. Solas is a whole other can of worms.

If you play as a Dalish Inquisitor in DA:I, you are faced with constant mockery and scorn at every angle. Dorian, a Tevinter mage, explicitly tells you that slavery is better than being poor and that his family treats their slaves “very kindly”. You cannot call him out on this; he says his piece and then the conversation ends and can literally never be mentioned again, even if you romance him. Cassandra, who is very pro-Chantry, asks you why you can’t just “make room” for worshipping the Maker alongside the Elven deities. Any support of the Dalish earns you immediate disapproval from all of your companions. You cannot be openly Dalish without being directly punished by the game.

I mentioned earlier that Dalish elves and city elves both live in tightly-knit and isolated communities, Dalish elves in the form of nomadic clans and city elves in the form of alienages. There’s safety in numbers, but when you’re surrounded by enemies, that can also be incredibly dangerous. At multiple points in the series, entire alienages and clans are massacred. More often than not, this is completely unavoidable, and when it can be avoided, it’s extremely difficult to do so. 

In Inquisition, if you play as a Dalish Inquisitor, you will start to receive war table quests regarding your clan. If you make even one wrong choice (and there are several choices you have to make, most of which are misleading), then your entire clan is massacred along with the elves in the city they’re settled by. The incident leading to their possible deaths is actually caused by a human noble poisoning other humans in the city and blaming the elves, since the alienage had a different water source and there was a clan settled near the city.

In Dragon Age 2, you can directly massacre Merrill’s entire clan. Even if you choose not to do so, the clan suffers heavily, losing their First (the future Keeper) to the city and then losing their Keeper to demons. They end up stranded in that area due to their halla dying, which means that their aravel couldn’t be pulled.

At another point in Inquisition, you encounter a clan that suffers heavily as well when a huge swath of them are massacred by Red Templars. You can do absolutely nothing to prevent this.

In the same area that the last clan I mentioned is found in, there are several quests regarding it, several of which stick out to me. 

One requires you to literally desecrate a Dalish burial site to finish the quest (The Spoils of Desecration, it’s literally in the name).

 Another quest gives you the task of finding a sacred golden halla, a legendary spiritual and religious figure to the Dalish, and guiding it to the unnamed Dalish clan. In this quest, you can also choose to just straight up kill it (The Golden Halla).

There’s a main storyline quest that involves going through a historical site to discover the truth about a massacre that had always been blamed solely on elves. At the end of the quest, you can choose to give these new records to either the clan I talked about or to the Chantry, who, if I remember correctly, modify the records to be about the Dalish becoming violent after one of their clan members converted to Andrastianism (The Knights’ Tomb). If you choose to give the records to the Dalish, a follow-up quest involves the clan asking for your help gifting a halla to the human village that was part of the incident, which you need to either trick or force the village into accepting (Bestow Mourning Halla).

Moving on. . .

In the quest Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, you meet the human empress of Orlais, Celene, who you have to protect from assassins. You also meet her handmaid, spymaster, and former lover, an elf woman named Briala. And of course, Celene’s terrible cousin Gaspard, who is not really relevant for this discussion. Just know that he’s awful.

In this quest, you have to uncover information about these three people and use that information to manipulate the situation and get your desired ending. There are several possible endings you can choose, but we’re going to focus on one specific one for right now, namely the one where you can choose to help Celene and Briala reconcile and become lovers again, with Celene ruling Orlais and Briala being her partner and advisor. Sounds great, right? The lovely women get their happily ever after and everyone is happy.

Except that the game doesn’t give you the full story. Not in the slightest. Instead, it depends solely on you having read The Masked Empire, a book that is completely separate from the game and that many players don’t even know exist. It gives a very different context to this game, and especially to Celene and Briala’s relationship. I recommend reading this post from @dalishious because I cannot possibly explain the situation better than they have on their blog. If you’re into Dragon Age, I recommend giving them a follow in general because they offer some really great perspectives on DA as a Mi'kmaw person who knows a hell of a lot more about the franchise than I do.

(The quest also tries to convince you that Briala is on the same level as Celene and Gaspard. That is complete bullshit, as dalishious gets into here.)

So, to add to its very long list of crimes, Bioware purposely withholds information from the player in order to trick you into getting an elf back together with her violently racist and incredibly dangerous abuser.

And if I remember correctly, you can also discover a hidden room in Celene’s palace which is filled with broken Elven artifacts that Celene was experimenting with.

In Inquisition, you also encounter at least two Dalish elves who explicitly talk about being kicked out of their clans for being mages, left to make it on their own or die. Which is. . . absurd and doesn’t fit pre-existing lore at all, since clan Keepers and their apprentices are literally mages themselves AND it’s already been shown that if a clan cannot support or doesn’t need people with specific skills (not just mages but also crafters, traders, hunters, etc), then it will actually send those people to other clans to live with them. Merrill, the Dalish companion mentioned earlier, is one such case, with her original clan having an excess of mages and sending her to a different clan who needed a mage to train as a first. Changing that to say that clans now outright abandon mages, especially as children, was a ridiculous choice and makes me feel like it was done purely to show them as ~savage~.

(I personally headcanon that it was a lie spread purposely by clans to protect themselves, playing off of racist ideas of what they were like. No templar would go up against an entire clan just to drag two or three mages off to the Circle, but multiple mages? Five mages? A dozen? Now that would be worth the risk.)

And now it’s time to get into the worst part of the games, by far.

Trespasser.

In this DLC, you discover that one of your elf companions, Solas, is actually the god Fen’Harel, and that he’s essentially trying to destroy the entire world to “reset it”. 

You also discover that your gods are false.

That’s right. Bioware based this community and culture off of Jewish, Romani, and Native peoples. And then made the gods fake. Explicitly told players that the Dalish are wrong about everything they’ve ever known, that their religion is all fake, and that it’s their own fault because they dared try to recreate their culture with the scraps they had left.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there, no. The gods aren’t just fake, they were actually slave owners! They were rulers of an ancient civilization and the vallaslin, those beautiful markings that represent a Dalish elf’s pride in their culture and their place in their community, are actually slave markings to show who your owner is!

I need you all to take a moment to process this. To think about the implications of basing a fictional culture off of oppressed communities in the real world, as a foil to the Fantasy Christianity™ that you as the player are constantly shoved towards, and then making that culture’s religion into something so terrible and warped.

Have you thought about it? Because I have. I’ve thought about it a lot.

So yeah. There’s my extremely long rant about indigenous coding in Dragon Age. I hope it helps the very few people who manage to get to the end without getting sick of it lmao

My Coming Out Story

Disclaimer: Due to the personal nature of this story names have been changed as to not reveal peoples identity.  I’m not sure why I decided to post this story now. It’s something I’ve hadn’t written for awhile but never knew when or where to place it. I’m posting it now and I hope that if someone needs it now in their life they can read it and feel a little better about how things are going.  When I was little I really didn’t have a concept of what gay was. I grew up in a loving christian home with my mechanical engineer turned youth minister mom and my current electrical engineer dad who was also the music leader at church for a number of years. There were also my three siblings of which I was the second oldest. My life revolved around church. It was literally where I went to preschool and I spent at least five days a week there well into my teenage years. 

Growing up in this way wasn’t bad. I had a great community and family. However, that changed. I remember thinking during my elementary school days that I thought of guys and girls the same. The only thing was that I understood that when you get married girls marry guys and vice versa. That’s just how it was and I thought everyone felt the way I did. You just had to pair up like that. 

I had heard the word gay and understood the concept of it when I was in elementary school thanks to my church and one kid at my school. My mom told me he was gay and I didn’t believe it because he was so nice and from what I understood gay meant bad. (He came out when we were in middle school and was one of my inspirations later on.) 

Still the first time I had a personal connection with having that label was when some girls started a rumor that me and one of my best friends who was also female had kissed on the playground during recess. This was an outright lie and my violent tendencies at the time due to (at that time) unmedicated ADHD caused me to lash out and beat up the bully which got me sent to the principal's office. I didn’t tell anyone why I had beat up the girl just that she was being mean to my friend. As I was a frequent flyer in the office at that time they didn’t really question me all that hard anyway. Now that I’m older I can’t really tell you why I didn’t tell anyone what the girls said. Whether I was embarrassed, scared, or just too stubborn to give them an answer I don’t remember I just know I didn’t. 

Fast forward to middle school and I was a far more awkward, less violent teen. At this point I was still pretty unaware of the world around me in regards to the LGBT. I knew that there were some kids in my grade that had come out as LGBT that kid I mentioned before among them. Still to me it was something that was viewed as a bad thing they were sinners. It was all what church had taught me whether it be explicitly by some or implicitly by the majority it was still something I picked up on as a child. 

Then one day my mom told me that we had been invited by two of her friends from college to have lunch with them. It was at one of my favorite little cafes so I was really excited. She told me they were psychologists and that they were together. She also told me they were two men. I was shocked. I didn’t think gay people could have significant relationships like straight people. On top of that I couldn’t imagine my mom -- who by all accounts was the symbol of a perfect godly woman to my entire church community -- could be friends with them. 

Her response to my shock: “We’re christians, they are not, we hate the sin but we love the sinner. Despite being gay they are still good people but since they aren’t christians we can’t hold them to the same standard as us. They simply don’t believe in it.” (I paraphrased but this is the general idea of the conversation) 

It was the first time I had heard such a sentiment and I went into that lunch with a curious perspective. I was still a little shy so I didn’t ask about it but I watched them together, made note of their wedding bands (gay marriage wasn’t legal then but they were symbolic to them), and witnessed their love for each other. After that I started finding myself paying more attention to my peers who had come out. Many of which I ran in the same circles as. The more I watched and interacted and bonded with them the more my bigoted thoughts that gays were these lustful bad people faded and I realized they were normal people. 

That’s when I realized something. Not everyone loves both guys and girls and just picks a side. I learned that bisexuality existed. The next step I took in my journey was repression. I was a christian. Christians were not gay. I was not gay. I could not be gay. I was just imagining it and it’s not a big deal. Afterall I still like guys so we're fine. 

This lasted until my sophomore year of high school, choir class, and a girl with freckles, short multi colored hair, dazzling eyes, and the singing voice of an angel. The panic was real and my emotions would not shut up. I couldn't come to terms with it. With any of it. 

I denied my feelings for most of that year until one day I was with two of my friends. We were all writers and talking about different stories we were working on. Then one of them paused in the middle of what she was saying and turned to me saying “these characters are gay. We know you don’t believe in that stuff but that’s what it is” 

I looked back at her in shock and I responded with “that’s okay. I am a christian and while I might never practice that myself I’m okay with other people doing it. Hate the sin, love the sinner” my friend smiled at me and said that was the first time she’d heard such an accepting thing from a christian and continued telling us about her story as we headed to class. 

I was glad I put a smile on her face and made her feel accepted but honestly I felt like a complete piece of garbage. I’d simply parroted back to hear all the stuff that had been shoved down my throat for my entire life. Did I really believe it though? I couldn’t stop thinking about that conversation for the rest of the week. I also couldn’t stop thinking about that girl from choir class but that was honestly nothing new. 

About a week later our school had standardized testing going on. Which divided up kids into computer labs by grade and last name. Me and one of my guy friends we’ll call him Cane had luckily been seated near each other. During one of our breaks when we were allowed to talk. I went over and leaned on the desk next to him. He vented to me about how he had a crush on one of our mutual friends and was thinking about asking her out but was nervous. I gave him encouragement as best I could then he inquired whether I was interested in anyone. Before I really thought about it I answered yes. He asked who and after only a few moments of deliberation I admitted that it was the girl from my choir class. He acknowledged and agreed that she was cute before continuing on. I looked at him in surprise and pointed out to him that she was female. He said he knows and that it wasn’t that big of a deal if I liked girls. I thanked him and asked him not to tell anyone because I still wasn’t sure. He agreed to keep it under wraps but did tease me a little for my crush. 

After that conversation. I finally took the leap and began to look up the LGBT community online. I found forums and support centers and ted talks and messages and christians saying that LGBT was okay. I was ecstatic but still I was worried so I prayed and the more I prayed and researched and talked with other LGBT people the more I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my chest. Finally I could admit to myself that I was in fact bisexual and I was okay with that and so was my God. 

I still wasn’t comfortable coming out to anyone yet. So I spent more time on online forums for LGBT youth and writers. I learned about the community and I embraced my crush on the girl in choir. Even though it didn’t pan out and I fell for a boy we’ll call him Reese and started dating him my junior year. It felt like things were going okay. I was able to tell one of my friends call them Alex finally that year and they intern told me that they were asexual. We were able to support each other in our closets and were happy. 

During my Junior year even though my feelings for the choir girl faded I ended up meeting another girl in my Fire and Rescue class at the career education center that partnered with my high school. We’ll call her Polly. She was an incredible person, bright and beautiful and unabashedly herself all the time. We bonded over marvel movies and writing. Even though I was dating Reese at the time I was falling head over heels for this girl. It took me a while to figure it out as slowly me and Polly became better friends but I was developing feelings for her.

Finally, my senior I got the courage (with support of Alex) to come out to my main friend group. It was at a marching band competition and everyone was super supportive. My best friend you can call her April she said she wasn’t surprised and Reese who was still my boyfriend at the time said he loved me and would always support me and this didn’t change that. I even came back out to Cane again because I had genuinely forgotten that he already knew. He reminded me of what he said that day. That it didn’t matter and he wouldn’t tell a soul. They were all proud of me for owning who I was. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

However, it couldn’t last. When I was telling April one of the band mom’s overheard and gave me a shocked and disgusted look. She didn’t say anything but she didn’t have to. She was known for being the gossip of the group and she was a religious friend of my moms. If she had overheard then it was only a matter of time before she told my mother. 

I was terrified. When I got home from the competition I watched my mom to see if she was going to react at all to me. She didn’t and I realized she hadn’t been told yet. I was relieved but knew that I wanted to be the one to tell my mom. I didn’t want her to hear it from a secondary source, especially not the gossip. So I got on one of my forums and talked to some LGBT friends who encouraged me before I took a deep breath and headed into my parents room. 

My dad was away on business so it was just my mother. I told her I had something to tell her and she gave me her attention. I explained that I had come to accept myself as I am and that I knew God had also accepted me as the way I am. I told her I was bisexual and waited watching her. 

She stared at me for a long moment. Her face was a mixture of confusion and fear and the next words out of her mouth I will never forget she asked “does this mean you’re going to hell?” 

I felt like someone had just pulled the floor out from under me. She didn’t understand and spent the next couple minutes trying to convince me I was mistaken or that this was wrong. We stayed civil and eventually she just said she needed to process this and sent me back to my room. I cried myself to sleep that night. 

The next day at school I told my friends what happened and they comforted me. When I got back from school and band practice I hid in my room until that evening when my father got home from his business trip. He came to my door and told me we needed to talk. My younger sisters were banished to their room as me, my mom, and my dad - who had been told by my mom - sat in the living room to discuss the fact that I was gay. 

Shortly after starting the conversation/argument a boy (Derek) who was like my older brother came over. He wasn’t biologically related to us but he had a key to the house, would often come over, referred to us as his siblings/parents, and was referred to by us as our brother/son. Me and him were very close and despite my parents wanting to send him to the other room I insisted he stay as things had already begun to get heated between me and my father. 

Derek helped keep the tension down but there was still plenty of yelling. He acted as an impartial mediator for most of it. My dad yelled a lot, my mother cried, I both yelled and cried. It was a rough night. It ended with me storming back to my room. A while later Derek came to my room and talked with me. He explained that he didn’t understand or know if he agreed with it but he’d make the effort and be there for me. I thanked him.

My house after that was tense to say the least. My parents avoid the subject at all costs. My sisters knew thanks to the yelling that night but didn’t comment on it. The next time my mom brought it up was to tell me that I couldn’t tell my cousin about it because she would spread it to the rest of my dad’s side of the family. She also said I couldn’t tell her mother, my grandmother, because she had a heart condition and it could kill her. Sometimes I still wonder how my grandmother would have reacted had I told her before she died. She once told me she had a friend who was gay and that she cared about him deeply. I think she would have accepted me. 

The first time my siblings brought it up was when me and my two younger sisters were left in the car while my mom ran into the store. We were listening to music and chatting when my sister asked “so how long did you know you were bi” I was surprised because up until then I hadn’t realized my sisters knew I was bisexual. I explained it to them briefly and asked what they thought of it. They both said they agreed that people should be able to love who they want to love. Though my sister Greta thought it was kinda gross because she didn’t get how two of the same gender could have sex. Still it didn’t change anything for them and they apologized for how our parents had been handling it. I was so thankful for their support. 

By the end of my senior year I was out and proud to all of my peers. I came out to my friend Hannah and Derek's girlfriend Mary at the same time as a casual drop in a conversation. Neither reacted at the time but asked me about it later. Mary more directly wanting to understand as both her and Derek are very religious. While Hannah was more of making a comment about me eyeing a girl that I had a crush on and being obvious. I can’t remember when I came out to my older brother James who lives in a different city. However, he never really questioned it beyond being tense when I brought it up around our parents. I was becoming bold in my identity. I had even written a love poem about about girl (Polly) for an english class assignment to stick it too a homophobic teacher. 

I ended up breaking up with Reese pretty early on my senior year as I realized what I felt for Polly. To this day I still consider my feelings for her the first time I fell in love with someone. I cared about Reese deeply and still do but only ever as a friend. Since we were in middle school people had been pushing us together and while we fit together on paper and from the outside. My feelings inside didn’t match and I didn’t want to lead him on. Polly was the one I truly wanted to be with but the same couldn’t be said for her. She had met a boy in her senior year and they were starting to talk. She really liked him and I was her main confidant for her feelings. I took them and I encouraged her to pursue a relationship with the boy because I knew she felt for him more than she did for me. She loved me but only as a friend. As her and her boyfriend got closer I worked to let go of my feelings for her gradually. 

Meanwhile my parents were like a looming dark cloud and it felt like I was stuck in a cage of some sort anytime I left the shelter of my friends. This only got worse when I graduated that spring and summer rolled around. I tried to get out of the house as much as possible but I didn’t drive and this made things difficult. The relationship between me and my parents began to get more and more strained to the point I almost ran away one night after my mom punched me. 

I began to view leaving for college that fall to be the holy land. My montra became that if I could only survive the summer I could make it. Me and my friend Hannah were going to the same college and going to be roommates. I was going to get to study what I loved and be who I was. I went into survival mode. Then the biggest mental strain hit. 

Every year since I was nine years old I went to church camp for a week in the summer. I had been going longer than I was supposed to because my mom was a leader of the camp and my whole family got to go even Derek and Mary. Normally Hannah would come as well but she had something else come up that year and couldn’t. I knew the place very well and absolutely loved it. It was a time of year I looked forward to and couldn’t wait to go back too especially since I was now a worker at the camp instead of just a camper. 

This year was tougher than most. I was given a lecture about not telling anyone that I was bisexual before I left because if they found out I was gay I wouldn’t be allowed to come back to camp. I was horrified at the idea and tried my best not to think about it. Even when I got a crush on my fellow female camp worker. It was a stressful week and it all culminated one night. 

I can’t tell you whether I believed what I felt in that moment. It all felt like a blur like I was about to shatter under the weight of everything bearing down on me all the lying and fighting. I think part of me wanted to believe that me being gay could be prayed away that night and that I could just stop having to deal with all this pressure. So that’s what happened. I told one of my leaders and they asked me a bunch of questions like had I kissed a girl or had sex and then they prayed for me.  

Afterward I told my mom and she literally cried about it hugging me and thanking God that I was healed. I felt sick and I threw up before I went to sleep that night. 

I went to college that summer as a straight girl and I held on to that label for most of my first semester. I loved college. Me and my roommate/best friend Hannah met three great friends that first semester, Sylas, Kurt, and Randall. Sylas was busy a lot so we mostly hung out with Kurt and Randall. All of us played D&D together and had movie nights. Me and Hannah also found a christian group on campus and got settled there. 

I thought I was happy with my life however I still felt sick and disjointed anytime the concept of homosexuality got brought up. It was a hard time and I prayed about it alot. I talked to some of my church friends about how I had turned back to straight. Until one day a video ended up in my recommendations and it was a ted talk. I clicked on it not realizing what it was and found that it was a gay christan woman talking about how these two factors don’t have to be mutually exclusive in life. I was riveted, I watched the entire video twice and felt my heart be convicted. God never wanted me to be straight; he never wanted me to change who I was. I loved me how I was. It was the people who had the problem. 

The minute Hannah got back to the dorm I came back out to her. Her exact words were “ah so you finally figured that out”. I was so grateful to have her in my life and we talked for hours after that. Not long after I started coming out to people again and in turn Randall came out to us about how he was bisexual as well. I finally felt free again. Going back home that winter was tough, however, it was made better by the support of my friends with regular skype calls and group chat messages. Not to mention since my parents thought I was straight they weren’t pressuring me anymore. 

When I went back to school things were still going great and I ended up meeting a girl named Eve in my EMT class. We immediately hit it off and started talking. It wasn’t long before I formed a huge crush on her but she was getting over a break up and I didn’t want to push. Still we became extremely close. Eventually, she did start dating a guy me and Hannah knew from a gamers club on campus. I had missed my shot. Then I went home for spring break and had to stay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was hard being away from my friends and stuck in my parents house. Still we all had regular skype D&D sessions and texted a lot on the groupchat. 

During the months I was stuck at home I got a job working at the local Home Depot. I was excited to work as it was my first real job. My grandmother had owned a family business but I didn’t do much other than stock shelves there. Here I was a cashier and I enjoyed my job a lot even though it could get crazy. Then one day I was at my register and a fellow coworker I was aware worked in the paint department approached my register with a polar pop and asked where her wife was. I was confused and she noticed I was new and said not to worry about it and have a good day. I watched after her and saw her go up and greet my head cashier who was a female and give her the polar pop before heading back to the paint department. I was astounded. 

Not long after I had it confirmed that her and the female head cashier were married. Another cashier came out to me as non-binary and another cashier told me her brother was gay and she’d be the loudest ally ever if anyone tried to mess with me. I felt accepted like nothing else. It was incredible to feel so validated and free to be myself in my workplace. 

Going back to school that fall was difficult due to COVID-19. Me and my friends (Polly as well as she began attending college with us that year) could no longer host D&D at my and Hannah’s dorm like we did before because of the regulations. Thankfully Eve came up with a solution. She was the only one of us who lived off campus in a house she rented. We were welcome there anytime. I still had a massive crush on her and when I found out she had broken up with her boyfriend over the summer I almost asked her out. However, another guy had beaten me to it. We ended up going over to Eve’s house multiple times a week and I would go even when the rest of the group wasn’t before long I was sleeping over at her house regularly. Often when it wasn’t even planned. I was even dubbed the most responsible friend by her grandmother who absolutely loved me. 

Then her boyfriend at the time dumped her. The entire group rallied to comfort and support her. She took it really hard and I stayed over for a weekend to make sure she was alright. My feelings really started to grow as we got more physically intimate with cuddling and laying in bed together still it was all considered platonic. I really wanted to ask her out but didn’t know when it was too soon. Hannah and Polly both encouraged me to ask her out. 

Then another boy showed up in her life. I was greatly concerned and disheartened as their relationship was progressing in her typical pattern. I thought I had missed my chance. However, the boy made a fatal mistake as Eve is demisexual. She doesn’t like moving into physical contact beyond cuddling too quickly if at all and he started to push her to kiss him. She immediately stopped the relationship after he made overt moves that disregarded her clearly made boundaries and he was derogatory toward her. 

About one or two weeks later I was over at her house one evening and we were talking about him and dating and life. I finally took a deep breath and told her there was something I needed to tell her and I was afraid it would ruin our friendship. I confessed to her that I liked her and wanted to date her. I didn’t ask her out specifically though because she has told me in the past she has trouble saying no so I left out the question and simply told her how I felt to do with what she felt was right. 

She was shocked and immediately started smiling saying she liked me too. I was elated. We talked more about how we had been feeling and how we had both been worried about what the other would say and how she had been blind to my pining which apparently her last serious boyfriend had picked up on and was why he dumped her. (He later told her that he saw how we were together and began to see that me and her fit better than him and her and he wanted us to be together.) We started dating that night and I immediately called Hannah and Polly to tell them the news joking that since I couldn’t tell my parents that I wanted to tell them and they jokingly responded by giving Eve a talking to about not hurting me. 

The next couple months were ups and downs but me and Eve had each other to support and our relationship was very steady. One night when I was having a depressive episode because of my school situation (I was failing my virtual classes). I called my brother James to vent to him. While he was comforting me I told him that I had a girlfriend and he was immediately accepting, asking all about her and acting like it was normal until I brought it up specifically her being female. He assured me it didn’t matter and that he still wanted to meet her but wouldn’t tell my parents. 

That winter I had to go home again for break which would be a couple months. Eve gave me her spare PS4 and a headset so we could play games together long distance and we spent our last couple days together as much as we could. Prior to me leaving she surprised me with necklaces for us that were each half of the star wars rebels symbol. Her’s had the phrase “I love you” engraved on it and mine had the phrase “I Know”. 

That winter I missed her even after going back to work and finding that another character that is a part time drag queen got added to the staff. They also pretty much adopted me and my head cashier came out to me as gender-fluid. All of them were proud to hear I had a girlfriend and I was finally able to tell someone not my family all about her. I missed her a ton. So me and Eve came up with a plan. 

After some figuring with my parents she was able to come visit for a couple days between Christmas and New Years as my “good friend”. It was a great time. My three siblings that were there all knew she was my girlfriend, my little sisters having figured it out when the three of us were talking. One of my sister Georgie admitted that she was considering herself to maybe be asexual and my sister Greta (who at one point said being gay was gross) came out to me as also being bisexual. We all are able to support each other. 

Eve’s visit went really well and my parents adored her and she adored my parents. Though it was stressful especially right after she left and my grandmother who was visiting asked -- at the dining room table where me, my grandparents, my parents, and all my siblings were sat-- “did your girlfriend leave?” There was a split second where me and my siblings shared a telepathic moment of panic before remembering that in my grandmother’s vernacular she simply meant my friend that was a girl and I simply answered yes. 

As winter break moved along I began to discuss other options with my parents about my schooling. With my ADHD and my manner of learning, virtual classes were not working for me. I had failed most of my online classes meanwhile being near the top of my classes in my in person classes. It was an obvious disparity the only exception being my math class which was a hybrid class and I will admit was a failure mostly due to my lack of ability to understand math. 

I’d already been considering the idea since my depressive episode calling James who’d been the one to suggest it during the fall semester. But now the conversation was whether or not I would sit out the spring semester. After some discussion and the fact that I didn’t have a job in my college town but did at home and Hannah wouldn’t be coming back to school after graduating early. Meaning I wouldn’t have a roommate. (Polly and me had a fight and are not on speaking terms). The decision was finally made I would not be returning to college in the spring. 

It was a hard decision and I had to tell Eve. I took sometime to figure out what I would say since I knew it was going to be hard. Finally I worked out the words and told her that was going to be gone for longer than planned. I knew long distance would be hard and suggest we try to make plans to stay in closer contact with each other that way it wouldn’t be as bad. I’d told her when we first started dating that communication was the most important thing to me in a relationship. 

A week passed and we didn’t really discuss it as we were both busy with our individual jobs. Then I got a text from her saying she wanted to talk. The next text I received was her breaking up with me. She said she didn’t want to be the only one making the effort to see each other since she had a car and license and I didn’t. She further said she didn’t want me to feel like I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the relationship since she was into physical intimacy. She’d decided we should break up and that was that. But she still wanted to be friends because she liked my family. 

I was very placated in my response. It was a complete shock. Both because it was over text and also it had seemingly come from nowhere. She’d never communicated such feelings to me. 

I reassured her that I never felt like I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the relationship. I also told her we could still be friends but that it would take us time to figure out our balance with each other. 

I called texted James when it happened and he asked if I was okay. I responded with I don’t know and he immediately called me. We talked for a while and he comforted me about the situation. The next person I told was Alex. They comforted me as well and we figured out a day where we could hang out, watch movies and eat ice cream as the normal break up fix it. I was grateful for both their support. 

I was hurt by Eve’s actions. I took a risk bringing her to my home with my parents. If they had found anything out about us. I don’t know what would have happened and to call it quits without even trying to work through it or communicate how she was feeling. It felt like I wasn’t worth the effort of her feelings or time and investment. 

I’d made the first draft of this before the break up and the ending had read “I hope one day I will be be to get support from my parents as well but even if I can’t, I hope that I will st least be able to be my true self around them and introduce Eve as my girlfriend” 

That’s changed now. I don’t just hope that I can introduce someone as my girlfriend I hope that whoever I bring home will be accepted by my family for who they are and me for who I am. I’m not straight. I never have been. I might marry a man someday I might marry a woman but whoever I bring home. I will still be bisexual and I will never stop trying to be a voice for those who can’t speak up. Once I’m not under my parents roof. I hope I can live my true life and help those who have been muzzled and closeted for far to long as I have.

Finally Answering Questions for y’all

Q1: How tall or short do you wish you were?

I used to wish I was taller because I already am tall for an (AGAB)female (5′8 1/2) but then I learned about platforms so. 

4: What was your favorite video game growing up?

Monkey Ball or Sonic Adventure Escape the City...I only had a Gamecube.

6: If you had a warning label, what would yours say?

Warning: Uses humor as a defense mechanism but will quickly become extremely invested in you  and give you immense amounts of unending love if they vibe w you

8: What is your Greek personality type? [Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric, or Melancholic]

Melancholic

9: Are you ticklish?

extremely, on my back and sides (use this information wisely. I take no responsibility for involuntarily punching anyone who tickles me)

10: Are you allergic to anything?

absolutely nothing, allergies are to weed out the weak. (jkjk no eugenics here sis you slay that epipen)

11: What’s your sexuality?

~ pansexual  ~ (prefer agab [not cis, those are two different things] females)

12: Do you prefer tea, coffee, or cocoa?

tea, then coffee with cocoa. I don’t enjoy cocoa or coffee as much separately.

37: What is your eye color?

hazel/green 

38: Introvert or extrovert?

I’m ambiverted but lean toward introversion. 

44: Do you like tattoos and piercings?

oh yeah absolutely, I personally just prefer that the tattoos aren’t on your face.  Or with piercings that they don’t take up so much of your face that I can’t see what you really look like.

54: What color would you like your hair to be right now?

pink, red, or platinum 56: Something that calms you down?

reading, playing instruments, taking a bath, cooking or baking

57: Have any mental disorders?

yessir. ADD, anxiety. and I used to have really bad depression. Now my depression is simply manageable lol. 

73: What is your MBTI type?

INFP (enneagram 4)

86: Can you run a mile within ten minutes?

surprisingly yes, will I come close to passing out? Maybe. But I can.

87: Do your socks always match?

never, I hate matching my socks unless the socks are funky and need to match to give them the biggest bang for their buck. 

92: A store you hate?

Dick’s sporting goods. I have been dragged around that place for hours and absolutely nothing there interests me. (edit: I found a beanie that I liked but my previous opinion still stands)

93: How many cups of coffee can you drink in one day?

start counting and never stop. If you mean in terms of actual measurements like cups/ounces, I can drink 20. What can I say I’m from New England.

94: Would you rather be able to fly or read minds?

Definitely fly because that might help lessen my fear of heights

95: Do you like to wear camo?

literally shoot me if you ever see me wearing camo. please, I beg you. that will be me at my lowest point 

96: Winter or summer?

Autumn. Next question.

97: How long can you hold your breath for?

3-4 minutes. It’s all that breath control from musical theatre.

99: Someone you look up to:

Jughead Jones. Yes I said that, fight me. He is completely himself and he allows the different facets of his personality to shine through to people that he loves and cares about. He is loyal and caring but also unique and resilient. Plus his fave food is burgers which is an instant win for me.

100: A store you love?

Hot Topic, Barnes and Nobles, Savers or any thriftstore 

102: Where do you live?

New England bb (; gettin that dark academia aesthetic straight from the source

104: What is your favorite mineral or gem?

Amber

105: Do you drink milk?

You mean out of the glass? Like a psychopath? Like a serial killer? Absolutely not

106: Do you like bugs?

I do! Except for spiders and mosquitoes (although I’m warming up to spiders)

109: Can you draw:

Eh yeah ig, well enough. I draw realistically but I’m not great at animated style. 

111: A question you hate being asked?

“Are you a boy or a girl?” (like why? does it personally affect you? are you planning on boning me? if not then buzz off)

113: Do you like the sound of waves at the beach?

Yes, but only at night when the beach is quiet. I’m not a huge fan of the beach during the day

114: Do you prefer cloudy or sunny days?

Rainy or sunny. Don’t go givin me the clouds with none of the drizzle.

119: Favorite thing about a person: 

Personality first and foremost. Humor and kindness. But physically; their smile and mannerisms. 

120: Fruits or vegetables?

Veggies (or berries i like berries)

121: Something you want to do right now:

Run away... ahah. But in all honesty I would love to go mushroom foraging rn, or possibly go on an adventure. Maybe go put on clothing meant for an entirely different time period and run around Target idk.

123: Sweet or sour foods?

Definitely not sour I hate sour. Spoonfeed me wasabi, that I can handle. But if you make me eat a Warheads I will cry. 

129: What would you want written on your tombstone?

I personally have a lot of problems with the funeral industry, so I would rather not take up space and rot preservation chemicals into the earth. But if I had an interim tombstone with no body underneath, it would read “Live Laugh Love” bc ~irony~

131: What is something you love but also hate about yourself?

that I’m very individualistic and stubborn

132: Do you smile with your teeth showing for pictures?

Yes absolutely, that’s what they’re there for.

134: Do you like roller coasters?

Do I like feeling like I’m about to full send through the crust of the earth and die? No. No I do not. (I am a simple person, I go to carnivals for the food and to feed off terror.) 139: What nicknames do you have/have had?

Cookie

141: Have you ever seen a therapist/shrink?

OH YEAH absolutely, I am a repressed gen z homosexual raised in a homophobic religious atmosphere, I am practically born with a therapist assigned to me.

142: Would you say you are a good or bad influence to others?

Definitely good -_- unfortunately. Catch me bein the mom friend.

143: Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts/help?

I prefer giving, but I am learning how to recieve. 

144: What makes you angry

People who live their lives in willful ignorance despite the endless resources available to them and let that ignorance hurt others.

146: Do you prefer boys, girls, and/or non-binaries?

All of em. Gimme em all. I don’t like boys as much currently but I would still probably lay my life on the line for some. 

147: Are you androgynous?

Yes. It’s more fluid than it is being in consistent limbo between masc and femme. Usually I’m androgynous but I often swing wildly between both ends of that socially perceived spectrum. 148: Favorite thing about yourself physically?

My hands or smile(product of bracesTM). But I have been told I have nice hands. 

149: Favorite thing about your personality:

I am a very strong blend of wise and class clown. I can do em both, I can do em well, and I can do em whenever. I also care a lot about others but I don’t change myself to be accepted by them. 

150: Name three people you would like to talk to right now in person.

MLK Jr. --> I want to gain perspective on some of the current global issues. Jesus --> I’ve got a lot of questions for that dude. JRR Tolkien bc he’s incredible or Joan of Arc for the same reason

151: If you could go back into time and live in one era, which would you choose?

Ooh well, as a woman not many eras are desirable. But um probably either the 70s or Ancient Greece

154: Do you like to kiss others’ foreheads or hands for platonic reasons?

YES. GIMME UR FINGERS > i meant that to sound much less threatening than it did but my statement still stands. 155: Do you like to play with others’ hair?

Yes it’s literally one of my favorite things to do. I hab empty lap. *pat pat* U may lay your head on it and watch Rilakkuma and Kaoru with me while I play with your hair. pls. 157: Something that makes you nervous/anxious:

Women..... That’s it. That’s the tweet.

158: Biggest lie you have ever told:

That I am not a member of the alphabet mafia. (It’s not currently safe for me to come out) Now tell me *shines light in your face* who are your contacts?

164: Do you have long or short hair?

I have medium hair. It’s around the length of a bisexual bob or a good mullet. 

165: Shortest/Longest your hair has ever been:

Shortest was a pixie cut, almost buzzed, amazing. Longest was to my butt and was literally the worst experience in existence. I shall to this day actively rebel against having hair like that again. 

166: Why do you like, dislike, or have neutral feelings about religion?

Organized religion can suck it. You can’t organize your relationship with God, nor can you stick it into a little manmade box and pretend that you have the ability to create a perfect faith which others have to either follow or perish. It’s arrogant and damaging and hurtful and not at all what Christianity is supposed to mean. 

167: Do you really care how the universe and world was created?

I do. I think it’s important and something we need to think about. I do believe there is something after death, and I like to believe that my life has meaning. I think that questions of creation are important questions to ask and we can’t just ignore them.

168: Do you like to wear makeup?

Yes! It’s fun! Pretty colors!

170: Did you answer the questions you were asked truthfully?

Absolutely. And the ones I didn’t feel like answering I simply omitted.

Sorry this is incredibly long. Just a rant I need to get out:

Sometimes I think about my seemingly perfect Christian parents. Together for 30+ years, dad a ceo, mom a biochemist who just “decided” to become a stay at home mom and homeschool her bright children. Big fish in the little pond of their small town community. Hosting events for other CEOs, being part of their church, nonprofit board of directors, volunteering on the weekend, etc. And I am just enraged.

A whole county, knows me by my dad’s name. Lmfao. And for 20 years (the last time my dad brought it up was a year ago) it’s been my duty to make him look good. To be seen and not heard AND he specifically told me to lie about the things he did to me and my siblings and mom.

I am so fucking tempted to just fucking tell the community. It’s a small town, I could leak this information to their local newspaper and it would be the story of the decade for that stupid ass town.

Bro you TURNED ME INTO A NONFUNCTIONING SEX/DRUG/ALCOHOL ADDICT. Lmfao FUCK YOU!!!!! You ruined my life before it even started.

And the WORST PART is that you actually are different now. You don’t yell at my sisters so they think I’m a liar when I tell them what you did to me. You call me and you’re nice to me now. If I bring up the shit you’ve done you cry and apologize and FUCK I just want you to get angry and hurt me so badly I can have a final reason to distance myself from you and ruin your life. But I can’t. You’re just a fucking five year old you happens to be fifty. Your mom (my grandma) was a piece of shit who took out her trauma and narcissism on you cause you were a mistake and you never got the chance to be a well rounded person. Fuck and I pity you. I genuinely feel bad for you. And still you fucking ruined my chances of being a functioning human. I came to the realization yesterday that I might never be fulling self sufficient. My boyfriend had to undress and shower me the other day cause I just stopped working. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!! THATS NOT FAIR!!!!!!

You turned my mom from the victim to another abusive force in my life.

You turned my brother from a sweet sweet kid, who would stay up with me at night and cry if his little sisters got hurt into a fucking raging narcissist who only calls me to fight with me. He thinks I’m faking abuse for attention!!!! HE’s REPRESSED HIS MEMORIES SO MUCH HE DOESNT REMEMBER YOU ABUSING HIM. And instead he fucking hates me for mAkiNG iT aLL uP.

You lied to my thirteen year old sister to make me look bad. You told her I was so bad with money that I spent $10,000 in a month. I’ve never even SEEN $10,000 let alone spent it in month. I’ve told her countless times that’s not true but she just calls me a “known liar”. Not to mention our brother has tornmented her so much she now thinks she’s a bad person because she can’t hear God talking to her. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!

Thankfully my sixteen year old sister has come out of this mostly unscathed. I don’t know how. She disassociates a lot, and spends a lot of time online but she appears genuinely ok and happy and she’s told me so herself. Thank god THANK GOD she’s managed to stay safe.

FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU BOTH. You did the bare minimum as parents. We always had food, and beds. You helped pay for my college (thank you for that guilt money). But come on. You guys sucked ass at parenting and you still have two kids under the age of eighteen. Do I not warn you that you could accidentally turn those two into substance abusers and constantly turning from abusive relationship to abusive relationship? ESPECIALLY IF THEY DONT KNOW ANY BETTER. They’ve seen daddy scream at mommy. They’ve seen their parents storm out and leave for hours at a time. They’ve seen mom cry because she didn’t think dinner would be hot enough for dad when he got home and he might yell at her. They’ll think that’s normal and that’s who theyll end up with. Fuck you.

And worse yet you look DOWN on me. You told me you didn’t “believe in labels” when I told you I had BPD. But as soon as I showed up at home manic you freaked out and threatened to hold me captive until you could “figure out what to do with” me. Fuck off. FUCK OFF!!!! You’re not concerned when I tell you about my demon psychosis, you think “ew” or you tell me to my face “EVERYONE GETS CONFUSED SOMETIMES ITS NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL” fuck you!!!! I have legitimate problems deciphering reality because you gaslit me for 21 years. Fuck you.

Why did you give this to me? I don’t want it!!!!! Take it back. Please.

How do you shake off the religious upbringing where every bad thought against God could send you to hell? I grew up being taught that blasphemy is the unforgivable sin lmao. And I’m trying to shake it off, but you know the anxiety often creeps back. Anyways I love your blog!! Thank you for your takes!

Aw you’re welcome! 😊

I actually did went through that whole process in like the worst and least healthy way possible. In my defense, I grew up in and subsequently left a literal doomsday cult, so keep that in mind while you’re reading this

So basically by the time I was fifteen I had decided that Jehovah’s Witnesses’s teachings and the organization itself was morally wrong. But I still completely believed in God and everything I was taught, I just didn’t agree with it or think it was right. So then I spent the next two years violently repressing things as much as I could and trying to essentially reprogram myself to believe. I thought if I read the Bible and studied the teachings enough and just didn’t think about my questions, then I could force myself to stay in

It didn’t work. ***trigger warning*** Over time, I realized that if I stayed in the religion, I would end up killing myself. It wasn’t just that I could never be happy there, it was that I was so miserable that I would not be able to hold off suicide even knowing it was an unforgivable sin

Unfortunately, I still loved my family, and didn’t wanna break their hearts and stomp on them. So I was absolutely filled with religious guilt I could not shake off, and I kept trying to think of ways to kill myself and make it look like an accident, and I frequently prayed to God asking him to kill me as a mercy (for both me and my family), and again, violent repression— which was mostly some pretty bad self harm.

Then one day I saw a post by an ex jw online and so I looked up some other stuff, felt so incredibly guilty about it that I didn’t pray over my meal that night for like the first time ever, and then a while later I made my own blog for it, where I would just post stuff I was wondering about, at first. Interacting with other people going through the same thing helped immensely. It normalized talking about. Getting it out there made it seem real and acceptable, in a way that just journaling didn’t. I don’t know if you know anything about JWs, but I definitely wasn’t in a safe position to talk to anyone irl

Anyway that blog lead to this blog, which is not about serious ex-cult stuff 99% of the time. I just wanted to make a few shitposts that were like widely offensive to mainstream Christians and not have it connected to my super serious religious critique™ stuff, but then it sort of became therapeutic in itself, and I legitimately took to the ideas of luciferian satanism. Apostasy— questioning God’s righteousness— is the sin Satan committed, and it’s also the sin that got me shunned. Jehovah’s Witnesses put apostates on the same level as literal demons, and I had obviously internalized that, but it was just immensely freeing to say all that on my own terms. I am demonic, in God’s eyes, in my family’s eyes, in my old congregations eyes. And so what? I chose this and I’ll embrace it

I think a bit part of overcoming religious guilt is accepting whatever sins they say you committed and asking if that was truly wrong. I think it’s beneficial to say radical things out loud or publicly, even if you don’t fully believe them yet but still know they’re true. If your head doesn’t believe God exists but your heart hasn’t caught up yet, talking to other people about it can help crystallize your views, or at least get you through until you’re comfortable with them

Arguing Abortion from a University Philosophy student and budding rhetorician:

Top rule from Philosophy: follow the argument whereever it goes if you want to find the truth.

Top rule from Rhetoric: consession will get you very far.

Top rule from both: understand the question you’re asking, but more importantly!! Understand the answers they’re giving you.

Alright. I was pro life growing up. I was also very conservative, homophobic, and transphobic but we won’t go into that because most of that was repressed shit. My family is pro life. I hear the arguments all the time. And guess what— they make sense! What they’re saying makes sense to them, and the way that we argue against it doesn’t target their concerns at all!! So we get no where!!

Some other rules to note as we get started: rhetoricians will tell you to control the argument and control the topic- and that’s great if you’re trying to convince people who don’t know yet. But if you’re trying to convince people who are pretty sure in what they say, you have to remember that ALMOST EVERYONE IS REASONABLE— or at least, almost everyone thinks that they’re reasonable, and their definition of the argument is reasonable. So, you can’t change the direction of the argument on them, or else they will catch you in a fallacy.

Great thing about the pro life argument, as given to me from a Christian perspective, is that it IS full of fallacies for many different reasons. You have to acknowledge what they will not budge on, and follow it to the conclusion they make, and question the inconsistency. They will come to the conclusion themselves if you just point it out vaguely. DONT BE COCKY!! One of the sins of Christianity is pride, ironically enough, but they will use yours to belittle your argument!! Being humble is crucial. And as much as it hurts me, PLAY ON THE CONSERVATIVE DEFINITION OF GENDER ROLES. It sucks, I know, but they have to be acknowledged if you want to do anything.

You remember in geometry when you had to line up your givens? We have to do that here, and ADHERE to what they say. These are the very most basic ones, and not everyone does adhere to them, but they will agree.

1. Killing is wrong.

2. Killing the innocent is especially wrong.

3. Premarital sex is wrong.

4. The future is uncertain.

5. Souls exist.

6. The soul of a baby is implanted in the embryo at conception— you can probably argue this one! But if you choose to depends on the opponent’s stance. If they don’t believe you after one explanation, then use CONCESSION!! And move on!!

If more questions arise, and you can’t answer them, TAKE YOUR TIME. Don’t jump in on something you can’t backpedal from. Even better— ask them what they think your answer is, and EXPAND or DISAGREE.

Also!! Do not make this personal— it will turn you into “one good pro-choicer” not that all pro-choicers aren’t so bad. Do not make it personal. And DO NOT BRING UP THAT YOU JUST WANT AN ABORTION!! IT MAY BE TRUE BUT IT WILL NOT MAKE THEM BELIEVE YOUR SIDE OR LIKE YOU!!

1. Killing is wrong. And 2. Killing the innocent is wrong.

I agree that killing is wrong and killing the innocent is wrong. It’s something we should avoid at all costs. We don’t want people to die. Sometimes, though, there are situations where if we allow a pregnancy to continue it could harm the life of the mother. If that’s the case, a lot of times the pregnancy kills two people instead of just one. By allowing a pregnancy like that to continue, it’s like killing the mother and the baby, when you could get away with the mother still alive. I feel like that is especially important when the mother has other children to take care of? And it’s even more important if the mother became pregnant in an abusive household— then the baby will too be abused and maybe killed before it reaches its first year by its own father— or if not, then it’s mental instability will probably drive it to unthinkable things before it’s 18. Do you think it’s okay for people to have abortions in those sorts of situations, where it’ll hurt the mother and the baby if the pregnancy carries on?

[if yes, great, one point won. If no, ask “what point does it accomplish to let them both die?” The answer WILL MOST LIKELY BE: “we don’t know FOR SURE that they would both die/that the baby would be abused.” (Point 4) So you say:]

That’s a really great point. There’s a lot of things that we don’t know for certain. But these doctors don’t want to kill anyone— it’s not good for them personally, and it’s not good for them from a business standpoint. They don’t want any of their patients, born or unborn, to die. So they have to be very certain that the pregnancy would end really badly before they decide to endorse that a woman in this situation gets an abortion. They have to be as certain as you and I are that god exists before they do this, and whereas we should never test God, these doctors HAVE to do a lot of tests before these things. We have to trust these people to heal, and sometimes that means that hurt must be involved. And in terms of the mother and baby being abused— abuse is about the exploitation of power isn’t it? Who has more power over an infant than a father? Do you think it’s God’s will that the baby is abused so much that it may have suicidal thoughts by the time it’s 13. Or the mother is killed by the father before the baby is born— and they both die? What if the mother can’t get herself and a baby out of that situation, but may be able to win just herself freedom in time? It’s God’s will that the humbled be exalted, and the baby will be in heaven no matter what— it’s the mother who has been humbled beyond repair, and any chance she may have to be healed should be taken, right? Abuse is wrong. It’s God’s will that we end abuse.

[if they don’t agree, it is probably because “if that happens, it must have been God’s will— I want God’s will controlling the situation, not a doctor.” If that’s the case, move on to point 5 and 6. Also move here if during argument 1, they bring up that the baby is innocent but the mother is not.]

That’s a good point. God’s will definitely has to be respected in all of this. But God’s will is for us, as Christians, to bring more people to heaven than we leave out of it. The baby is innocent, it hasn’t done anything wrong yet. But what if the baby kills the mother? Not intentionally, of course, but the pregnancy is still to blame for a mother dying. Is the baby innocent if it kills the mother before it’s born? What they both die because of the pregnancy, and neither of them go to heaven? The baby is innocent, and it’s soul can go straight back to heaven if it has to die for the mother to be safe — it’s really a selfless act on the part of the baby. Especially if the mother isn’t yet Christian— then she still has time to give her life to Christ, rather than have it taken from her... and speaking of the baby’s soul making a quick return trip to heaven— wouldn’t that cause less pain for everyone? If the baby has to make a return voyage to heaven, isn’t it important that it’s early on so fewer people are hurt by its absence. But then, what if it’s discovered too late that they both will die? Isn’t it again, better to preserve the maximum number of lives. The baby’s soul will live on in heaven forever, but the mother may not get to meet it if she hasn’t given her life to Christ. It is God’s will to bring as many people to heaven as possible. The baby’s already there, whether it’s aborted or there’s a miscarriage: and it’s most likely God’s will that the baby was taken back so quickly, as he controls all. It’s just the mother that is a wild card in terms of her salvation and we have to respect that journey she must make ON HER OWN.

[NOW!! Go back to 2 and tack on 3.]

The sad part about this and why it needs to be a choice that the mother makes is because the baby is already going to heaven. But what if the mother wasn’t married and needs to ask for forgiveness? What if she was raped and needs to forgive God for what happened to her?

What about that little girl in Ohio who was raped? She didn’t know any better— she’s 11. She’s innocent, but was forcibly made pregnant by a criminal. The type of emotional turmoil that poor girl must go through is incredible— and many people in her situation would probably commit suicide, living with that reminder of how she was hurt. I can’t imagine dealing with that kind of hurt- can you? And she’s so young, she is almost CERTAIN to die if this pregnancy carries on. The unborn baby is safe, soul wise, but doesn’t the born baby deserve a chance to get back on her feet and find justice for herself? It feels like a difficult question, I know, but she’s just a baby herself— can you remember when you were 11? What would you have done if you were given this choice— to send a soul straight back to heaven or to die trying to bring it to this cruel earth.

-THESE ARE TIPS AND ARGUMENTS TO BE GIVEN TO THE STRICTEST CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS. ALSO BRING UP THE POINT THAT JUDAISIM BELIEVES THAT THE SOUL ENTERS THE BODY AT THE FIRST BREATH. SO EVEN IF THAT IS NOT THEIR PERSONAL BELIEF, IT SHOULD BE THE MAIN ONE OF CHRISTIANS.

but yeah, Christians aren’t unreasonable if you understand their reasoning. Like anyone else, they don’t want to feel unreasonable for their beliefs, so don’t make them feel like they’re crazy or unjust. They care about the baby more than the mom because the baby is innocent and has a lot of potential, but sometimes that innocence belongs in heaven, and that potential can be fulfilled there as an angel.

Just respect folks’ beliefs if you’re gonna argue with them. Especially if you want them to be on your side when the ballot comes around.

Disclaimer: I believe some of these things I said, but definitely not all of it. These are just arguments that I would pose to MY family.

I would like to preface this by saying that I love my brother. 

He is not a good person. Not in the evil way, not in the I hurt people, or I bully people kind of way, but in the - I have never critically thought about my privilege and general existence kind of way. I’ll slow down and start from the beginning.

I am Canadian but my parents are Asian, South Asian to be precise. My dad was born and raised in India while my mother is Pakistani. From there my parents made their way to the US where they met and got married. My dad studied mechanical engineering at University of Oklahoma. He was accepted into Princeton but the tuition was too high, University of Oklahoma was the only university that afforded him with a full ride scholarship. So he made do and studied. What you have to understand here is that my dad was poor like extremely poor. He used to tell us how he would steal packets of ketchup to eat because they had a high sugar content and he couldn’t afford actual food. He didn’t have a choice when it came to studying, he had to get his degree so he could find a job. If he didn’t he was a short, Indian, Muslim brown man with no family, no support system and no credentials.

My mom actually got her degree in nursing in Pakistan but because the credits did not transfer she was not a nurse in Virginia, she worked as a lab tech. Eventually my parents met and got married then had my oldest brother.

Here’s the thing, my mom’s immigration story is murky. While her “nanny visa” isn’t exactly illegal, the fact that the only “children” she was taking care of were her cousins. The rest of her family trickled in using farming visas. I’ll be frank it was definitely fraud in some way but done just carefully enough that the government was willing to overlook it. My mom’s a Canadian citizen now so I don’t have to be worried that she could be deported. 

But anyway my parents met, got married and procreated twice. I have two older brothers who were born in New Jersey and have American citizenships. At this point we were poor. My dad was barely making anything with his engineering degree and my mom had two kids under the age of five, she was basically supporting the family with her job as a lab tech. Then my mom found out she was pregnant with me. My dad being a financially responsible man asked my mom to terminate the pregnancy (she was on birth control, I was very much a whoops baby) but she declined. I am not going to turn this into an anti-abortian argument, I am very much pro-choice, I was just giving context to the situation my parents were in. A few days after I was detected(?) my dad got a job offer in Alberta and accepted it. It turned out to change our lives entirely. My dad started making more and more until he was making six figures a year. This is the type of life I grew up living, moreover this is the life my brother grew up living.

Since I have two brothers, I’ll name them, the ok one will be O and the not-okay one will be U.

U has never known, or remembered financial stress. He is two years older then me so can’t remember his life in New Jersey but he can remember his life in Canada. I won’t insult him by saying his life in Canada is easy, he is lives in an Asian household and my parents are typical Asian parents. They are strict and overbearing, they meddle too much in our lives and they do not get along with each other. Growing up was stressful, my dad definitely has an untreated mental disorder that results in a violent temper and tension in the house for days on end. None of us have healthy coping mechanisms. O is going to get married in the next year, he is terrified that his wife will rely on him to be the sole breadwinner and through that he will become abusive towards her. U, well I’ll get to that. I ignore everything and avoid conflict like a sport. My eventual plan is to get my degree and fuck off and never come back. So, not the healthiest environment to say the least. But I do have to say that it affected U the most. 

He became fanatical. He became obsessed with judging people. He would continuously ask me why I was, “everyone’s lawyer” for having the audacity for saying that unless we understand someone’s circumstances we cannot judge them for it. The best example of his confusingly conservative personality is the fact that he agrees with the Vietnam War.

Today we decided to watch the Chicago 7. He didn’t want to. His first complaint was that it got bad reviews, we showed him the reviews which were overwhelmingly positive (he considers himself a film expert, you can tell by the way that he uses the words “film” instead of movie and “cinematography” and “we shouldn’t focus on diversity in Hollywood, we should just pick the best actor for the job”) the truth came out he did not like the fact that it was about people fighting against the government. He agreed with the conscription and said that he would gladly give his portion of the inheritance to the Canadian military since it was his civic duty to support them, never mind that we pay taxes to support them so they really don’t need more. More and more pieces fit together. His easy spending of money, his virulent defence of conservative policies, his anti-immigration stance. He’s a piece of shit and it took me nineteen years to figure that out. He’s just genuinely a piece of shit.

And  I don’t know where it came from. No one in my family has such extreme views, we are a family of immigrants. I mean the only vaguely conservative thing we do is be rich. And before anyone comes for me I am aware of my incredible privilege. I am also aware that we embody the American Dream to the T and I am aware that the American Dream is a lie fed to us by the rich and no one becomes rich because you worked hard. You become rich because you had connections or in our case we were extremely lucky.  But U is not aware of his privilege as a wealthy person. He doesn’t seem to grasp that he didn’t make good choices, he had good choices (peep the reference), choices that allowed him to get a tutor so he could write the MCAT, choices that allowed to spend months studying and not be worried about money, choices that give him connections to med students and doctors, choices that he only got because he was rich. In fact he is so unaware of it, that it’s like he believes he deserves it. It’s like he believes that it is his God-given right to not have to pay his own tuition, his cell phone plan, his fucking life is paid for and this bitch thinks he deserves it. He spends money like it’s water, he believes transgender people are just mentally ill, he’s anti-immigration (which is hypocrisy of the highest degree, where do he think he came from? He’s darker then I am!), he’s a white posh British man in a twenty-two year old brown body. 

And then I realized, he wants to be that British man, he craves it. It’s why he wants to send his future child to an English boarding school so he (the child will be a boy and named Alistair, apparently. I can’t make this shit up. I wish I was making this shit up) can become a cricket star. He is creating a fantasy, one where he isn’t in this stressful tension-filled house, one where he is the hero, the saviour, the one who is right and rational. He can’t stand the fact that he was born in the family, a family where my mother still speaks with an accent and wears traditional clothing. A family that eschews normal society conventions of being white and Christian and conservative. He hates that he can’t be one of them. And because of that he ignores the immense amount of privilege he has been given. He doesn’t believe in white privilege, believes that affirmative action is reverse racism, believes that immigrants are obligated to give up their heritage to become functioning members of society. What’s that Futurama quote, “don’t insult billionaires, you’re insulting my feelings towards being able to be a billionaire someday” (I don’t know I’ve never watched Futurama, I’ve only seen that quote in a gif). My point is, is that my brother is ashamed. He is so deeply ashamed that he repressed all of his empathy and humanity to beg at the alter of capitalism and classism. He cannot reach the inherent privilege that being white affords you so he makes up for it by being the poster child of white supremacy in other ways. And all of that makes me sad.

Because after all, I love my brother.   

Hi there! I have another question if you're still up for answering them! I wanted to know who's your favorite character to write/develop in your series.

Always up for answering questions, thank you so much for asking. This sort of got away from me by like 1.8k words...I’d blame the voice to text feature I’m trying out cause it really encourages my ramblings, but this would’ve happened regardless. I also ended up talking about what I would write/develop about every character. My current answer to who my favorite is would be everyone (leaning towards Shirley at this very second, but basically everyone). All of the characters are fascinating so below is the short version of the parts I’d be most interested in developing.

Abed takes incredible precision to get his character right because his personality only changes in subtle ways. Chang has had multiple personalities and roles so now I don’t even know how to write him. Those two are awesome cause I love a challenge. Annie was a drug addict and has serious mommy issues. Addiction doesn’t just disappear. She has to have struggled/relapsed with that. Shirley had serious drinking issues and was a bully growing up. What was her rock bottom that turned her into someone who tries to always be nice and when did Christianity start playing a role in her life?? Frankie came to Greendale to take care of one of her “insane” relatives...nothing more was ever said on that! Britta is a mess but doesn’t deserve to be the butt of every joke. And also, why is she so afraid of herself? Troy’s lack of career ambition is valid so that would not be where I give him personality. Pierce is an asshole but his fear of being abandoned by everyone is not on the list of reasons why. 

What lies ahead is a lot of ramblings into every major character outside of Jeff and the Dean. Proceed at your own risk...

 So obviously since I write primarily deanjeff fanfic so those are the two I focus on the most. And I couldn’t possibly choose one over the other. I know Jeff has been getting more attention but I think the Dean’s journey is just as, if not more, fascinating. The people I think would be hardest to write about, would have to be Abed or Chang. with Chang it's difficult to really pinpoint his character after season 3. I think I need to re-watch it a lot more because personally I want to keep his crazy antics, that did not involve murder. He was such a narcissistic, sarcastic asshole in the first season and I kinda miss that. But he's really calmed down when he’s Kevin. Then they try to mix the two personalities together?  I don't understand the balance just yet. With Abed it feels a lot more like walking a tightrope. You need needlepoint accuracy to get Abed’s character right cuz it's very easy to slip into either incorrect exaggerations or misinterpretations of his personality. So if I'm ever up for a challenge one of those would be the two I'd have trouble pinning down. 

As far as who I would like to explore more, that's a really hard decision to make too. It would really be like the entire cast. Annie has so much stuff with her perfectionism and drug addiction that's never really touched upon and her issues with her mom. There's also the whole thing with her sexuality cause obviously I read her as a lesbian, though extremely repressed. Like how does her relationship with her mom influence her as she tries to define what kind of person she wants to be? And that is stressful to navigate by itself but then you have her addition issues. So it like can't really even begin to deal with one of them because they all feed into each other and they all feed into her bigger  anxiety about being the best and it's just a whirlpool of emotional trauma.

Shirley is, of course, another character that we just do not know much about. I’d love to dive into her character development. She kind of stays the Christian mom friend who has a troubled marriage for the majority of the series. They never even touched on the fact that she was a black business woman and any of the hardships that must come with that, even being at Greendale. Some of the questions I have is if her early life of excessive drinking is what drove her to Christianity so hard or if that was something she had from childhood? we also see that she was a bully in her childhood because she was bullied. So did that lead her to the drinking or was it strict expectations under a Christian household that made her drink. What was her rock bottom where she suddenly decided to change her entire life and like get sober and be nice all the time? What was her motivation for suppressing all her negative emotions? 

With Frankie, it wasn't until my third or fourth re-watch of the first season 6 episode that I realize she says she's at Greendale because she has to take care of one of her insane relatives like what is the story there? How much pressure is she under to take care of her family? How much of that has influenced her personality of being productive and in control all the time? Does she ever get a moment to just be weird or careless or insane herself? Did she have to be the parent when she was a small child? Did she ever get to be free? Does she know how to be? Is she a super private person by choice or because she’s learned to hide her family cause mental health issues are so taboo? What about her sexuality? Was she something she always knew about herself but, like with many other aspects of herself, never really felt bothered or able to celebrate or embrace outwardly? Did she view it was a fact of herself? ‘I have brown hair, light skin, and am pan/bi/lesbian.” Her attitude towards life makes it hard to imagine her having any sort of big reaction to her sexuality. Like, “Oh, I actually find women attractive. Okay then, I’ll have to research lesbian later.” in the most monotone, unaffected voice possible. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Like she’s had to deal with a lot of crazy things throughout her life so she’s adopted to focusing on fixing/adapting to the situation rather than reacting to it.  

At this point I've done almost every single character so I might as well add in Britta. I will admit I'm having a bit of trouble getting a grip on her character. I would definitely focus on having Britta be dysfunctional but not in such a negative way like the show makes it. Cause everyone on that show sucks in some way or another and yet Britta is the one who's supposed to suck more than all of them? The first time I watched the series I was really confused when they started picking on Britta. She wasn't worse than any of the other characters so why are you signaling her out and coining the term Britta’d it?? She doesn't even need a redemption, she just needs to not be made the butt of the joke unnecessarily. And then there's so much to explore with her white feminism and misguided attempts at activism and the fact that she does things that make her seem to care because she is trying so hard to not be the selfish person she thinks she is. And that's both incredibly sad and incredibly brave. Because obviously she isn't as bad as she thinks since she's making the attempt to be better. I really wonder what happened in her life that made her fear so much being apathetic and if that’s her issue with her parents. 

There's also Troy who I've never gotten to write about or in the perspective of since I'm focused on season 6 right now. First time I watched the repilot episode and Jeff said his entire identity was defined by his relationship with a man, I thought that was an exaggeration. But rewatching the series a couple times, it's really true and they point it out a lot throughout the series. Troy's basically just going along with whatever Abed wanted and other than the AC repairman plotline, which he obviously did not enjoy, he never really got his own thing. Which I think is completely valid. So I would love to show that Troy can be one of those people that has no ambition in life and be perfectly okay with that. His biggest goal in life is to be happy. Which in a capitalist society is really hard to admit and/or embrace. So after he comes back from his trip around the world, sure he'll have crazy stories and millions of dollars but I would like him to keep that innocent, carefree behavior. I don't want him to become Pierce in the sense that he's just spending money and doing nothing. But I don't want him to suddenly be anything other than what we've seen him to be. I also love all the posts on Tumblr about how Abed was the one that kind of taught him to be himself. So yeah he kind of adopts Abed’s fascination with TV shows and role-playing but at the same time I think he just loves being goofy and sweet. And maybe that's through a different medium. Maybe he finds love for music and he just makes amazing at it cough Childish Gambino cough. And it’s a natural talent like plumbing/AC repair. And everyone is telling him to go out there and become a great musician or rapper and he's just like this is just what I do for fun, don’t ruin it. 

Screw it, let's do Pierce now. I've already written an entire essay so I might as well finish off the one character I've been avoiding. So obviously there's a line of what is Pierce's character and what is the writer's exaggeration for the sake of comedy. Now, in this day in age, there is very little tolerance of old people getting a pass for being racist, homophobic, or sexist. And there's a lot of things that just would not slide where Pierce is concerned. Like if I met the guy it would just be a hard no immediately. You're not even worth getting to know, you're not even worth the effort. Pierce would definitely need a redemption arc (a real redemption arc where he honestly tries to do better not whatever that scene with Jeff tolerating his racism/homophobia in the barber shop was). I also think it's really important to note that ageism plays a role in how Pierce is perceived by the fandom. Because yes, he is an absolute racist piece of s*** (voice to text is censoring me, boo!). But the moments where he is acting out because he does not want to be left out oh, those are the moments where I think he is over judged by both the writers and the fandom. Because those fears are legitimate. They could have been developed and fleshed out. Progress could have been made. It's just a constant of his personality where he keeps being an a****** pushing people away so that they leave and he’ll be justified in his fear. Other characters do pretty bad things and yet are more easily forgiven than Pierce. I am speaking for myself here, of course. And there was this tumblr post that said something along the lines of  annoying perks are tolerated depending on how good looking and young the actors/characters are. And I think that happens with Pierce's character that is then amplified by the fact that he is racist and sexist. If I were to write Pierce, I don't know if I would even be able  to stomach the racism, but his self-destructive behavior would be something I would find interesting to address. Also, what made him leave all his money to Troy? I thought Annie was his favorite...In what world does he have enough emotional depth to not leave his favorite all the money??

Holy crap that took an hour and twenty minutes...if anyone bothered to read all of that, I would love to hear thoughts or headcanons. And bless you for being just as obsessed with this show as I am.

Should Travel Bloggers and Influencers Voice Their Political Opinions?

I feel like I’ve begun 2020 in two parallel universes. Physically, I’m writing this from a remote, stunning village in Lesotho (a country in Southern Africa), immersing myself in the Basotho culture and trying to pick up words from the Sesotho language. Mentally, I’ve been following the mind-boggling (and frankly quite scary) political developments in India, the US, Iran and elsewhere in the world, wondering what the future holds.

Before I took a much-needed end-of-the-year detox from social media, I posted about the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act introduced by the Indian government.

However, instead of debating and discussing the issues at hand, many people commented and DM-ed me, advising me to stick to travel blogging (I decided to delete and block some who were particularly hateful). Even my mom asked me to refrain from posting political opinions publicly.

On the other hand, several “influencers” (for lack of a better word) recently received flack from the New York Times and leading international publications for travelling to Saudi Arabia, promoting the overlooked beauty of the country and completely ignoring its politics.

That made me ponder a pertinent question:

Should travel bloggers and social media ‘influencers’ discuss politics?

Travel and politics may seem like worlds apart – and in some ways they are.

But while considering whether to travel to Myanmar, I asked myself a hundred times if my trip was going to support the government during the Rohingya crisis. Would my travels to Iran support its conservative regime? Will visiting the United States support a leadership that refuses to take urgent action on climate change?

Is boycotting a country for its politics the answer? Or is it fair to travel to a country and ignore its politics?

Travel and politics don’t seem that disconnected now, right?

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I thought long and hard before I decided to travel to Myanmar. Did I really want to explore a country with an on-going humanitarian crisis? The ethnic conflict in the northern part of Myanmar’s Rakhine state is heartbreaking… . . I read both sides of the argument and debated whether to boycott tourism in Myanmar with friends. Then decided that I was going to travel there anyway. Boycotting tourism because of the Rohingya crisis felt like boycotting tourism in India because of Kashmir, boycotting the US because of the Middle East and boycotting tourism in China because of Tibet. . . Ultimately I wanted to know Myanmar and its people myself, instead of believing entirely the narrative of the media. And that’s what I did – explored popular places like Bagan and Yangon with social enterprises and went off the beaten path in Chin State. Had plenty of conversations on the subject with locals. Realised that most of them don’t echo racist sentiments. Many of them are subsistence workers who make ends meet only because of tourism (responsible tourism of course, which contributes directly to the local economy). And across the country – from Yangon to small villages – monasteries, churches, mosques, even temples – stand next to each other, and are frequented by locals irrespective of their religious beliefs. . . Boycotting a country isn’t the solution if you ask me. Travelling in a way that supports the local economy directly (as opposed to its government), engaging in meaningful conversations and making conscious decisions is. And travelling in Myanmar reinstated that for me. . . And you, is there a country you wouldn’t travel to? Why or why not? . . #theshootingstar #myanmartravel #passionpassport #responsibletravel #shotoniphone

A post shared by Shivya Nath (@shivya) on Jan 28, 2019 at 8:43pm PST

The privilege of travel

See, here’s the thing. When you’ve grown up in a Hindu family, indulged in the heartwarming hospitality of Muslim friends in Iran, broken bread with Buddhist nuns in Ladakh, spent cold winter nights with a Seventh Day Adventist Christian family in Switzerland and indulged in a Sabbath meal in a Jewish household in New York City, your perspectives change. You realise that the differences of religion (and caste and creed) are superficial. They are exploited by leaders who thrive on divisive politics. It has happened throughout history. 

So as someone who is lucky and privileged enough to have the opportunity to travel, I think it’s not only my RIGHT but also my RESPONSIBILITY to voice political opinions.

By travelling to a place subjected to highly biased media reporting (like Iran), I can bust many myths by shedding light on its local, everyday life. I can ensure that the tourism money I spend directly supports responsible tourism enterprises and urge my readers to do the same. But I can’t do that without talking about how its political regime impacts its people.

The same goes for India. I can’t implore you to experience the incredible diversity of India without first condemning an act that openly discriminates against many of its citizens.

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Wearing the compulsory hijab (head scarf) over the month I spent in Iran evoked many emotions: nonchalance, annoyance, anger, amusement, empathy, solidarity. In that order. . . At first, it was hard not to judge the people of Iran (both women and men) for letting this happen. For letting someone dictate that women must cover their heads in public places so men don’t get aroused. Just like the outside world, I thought of the compulsory hijab – and the lack of choice about it – as a sign of repression. . . But the more Iranian women I met, the more I changed my mind. Instead of repressed, submissive women, I met badass, inspiring, independent, free-spirited, liberal women throughout the country. I met women who are artists, chefs, entrepreneurs, poets, writers, environmentalists, musicians, activists. I met someone who had hitch-hiked through the remote Baluchistan province, and planned to travel to Afghanistan soon. Someone who drove to neighboring countries to sell goods and camped along the way. Someone who was single-handedly keeping an old artform alive. . . Pretty much every woman I met had a daring story to tell. How they were arrested for not wearing the hijab and let go with a warning. How they had run and hid until late in the night to escape the police. How they’d seen the inside of a jail and continued rebelling. . . The author Randy Pausch once wrote that we cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. And that I found absolutely true for Iran. So no, please don’t refuse to travel to Iran because you have to wear the hijab. And please don’t judge Iranian women based on what the media tells you. Travel there, make some friends, learn about their lives and form your own opinions. I mean, what else is the point of travelling? . .

Exploring Iran with @uppersia .

Shot on #iphonexsmax . . Photos –> Just a few of the friends I made along the way in Iran

. . #theshootingstar #iran #iranianwomen #meaningfultravel #iran #whywetravel

A post shared by Shivya Nath (@shivya) on Mar 21, 2019 at 9:35pm PDT

Is it even politics?

Many of the world’s repressive governments would prefer that no one speaks up for anyone else. That people stick to what they do and live in fear of voicing their opinions.

But speaking about politics doesn’t have to mean picking sides. It’s not about choosing one government over another. It’s about standing up for what we believe is right. For defending the ideals of secularism, democracy and humanity itself. In India currently, that means defending basic rights – like the right to peaceful protests, internet access (Internet has been inaccessible in Kashmir for over 100 days now) and a democracy that is of the people and for the people, not one that tries to silence the people.

In the current world of social media, dominated by trolls, hatred and fear, it’s not always easy to speak up. So here’s a big shout out to travel bloggers and Instagrammers who create nuanced yet fearless content that sheds light on a country’s politics as much as its beauty, food and everyday life.

What do you think, should travel bloggers speak out about pertinent political issues as they travel?

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Should Travel Bloggers and Influencers Voice Their Political Opinions? published first on https://airriflelab.tumblr.com

Out of evil, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and by accepting reality - taking things as they are, and not as I wanted them to be - by doing all this, unusual knowledge has come to me, and unusual powers as well, such as I could never have imagined before.I always thought that when we accepted things they overpowered us in some way or other. This turns out not to be true at all, and it is only by accepting them that one can assume and attitude towards them. So now I intend to play the game of life, being receptive to whatever comes to me, good and bad, sun and shadow forever alternating, and, in this way, also accepting my own nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me. What a fool I was! How I tried to force everything to go according to way I thought it ought to. - An ex patient of C. G. Jung (Alchemical Studies, page 47)

I feel that this; "Taking things as they are, not as I wanted them to be... accepting my own nature” This articulates the great exhale of my life. Accepting reality. Not wishing for magic [god]. Accepting mortality. Not wishing for eternal life [heaven]) These two enlightenments have been the great relief of my life. Living is no longer a desperate clinging to what I think I "need” to be true in order to survive. Living is pure joy. I have a genuine, ardent fascination with what is known and unknown. I feel love, without rhyme or reason. --- As a child you don't know about social queues, you care less about what people think and you're more impulsive. You're most likely to act instinctively. When I was young one of the many classes my parents enrolled me in was Ballet, a prerequisite of which was to dress in a pink leotard with a pink tutu etc. pink, pink, pink because, we're girls right? My 4-6 year old self refused, and I proudly wore a blue tutu for the entirely of my ballet career, which may have only been a year. 

Somewhere along the road to adulthood I learned about society, I was told what the rules were, I learned how to be self-conscious, try to fit in, to hide my body and it’s potential particularities. I learned about caring what other people think of me, in short - I became well versed in social anxiety and low self esteem and lost my individual spirit and carefree nature. 

I have spent the past two years discovering all the ways in which this has manifested in my life, and working consciously to free myself from them one by one. That blue tutu is a proclamation of the rebel inside of me (inside each of us - we are all weird and different) and a reminder to my adult self to be more like that un-coordinated little girl in blue, twirling amidst a sea of pink. But who taught me how to manage my thoughts? Who taught me to differentiate between healthy, helpful thinking styles & unhealthy, unhelpful ones? Who taught my parents this? Why was this vital contributor to human flourishing left out of out societal construct? Education and modern society didn't fail, because they never even made the attempt. Out of fear I found religion and in religion I found fear, and this was a cycle I got myself stuck in for about 15 years. I had always considered myself to be a very ordinary girl. Aside from divorced parents and a mild emetophobia (for everyone who doesn’t know, that means fear of vomiting), I felt like I had been hit by the lucky stick in life - I was too young to remember my parents divorce, I was without a doubt spoilt by them both as a child - and spoilt and well liked by every other significant adult in my life.My parents always got along, in front of me anyway, and I ended up with four incredible parents as I see it.I’ve been positively showered with love from my immediate family, with the added bonus of, to this day, having five sets of living grandparents.

I never complained, I was your a-typical “good child”, I never talked back, I never took drugs, I never played up in school. This was partly because I never felt I had anything to complain about, but also because throughout my life I developed a strong desire to never be a burden to other people.

This desire was distinctly solidified when I was 16 going on 17, and my baby brother (six years old at the time) was diagnosed with a terminal illness called Muscular Dystrophy. I had never heard of such a thing. That was when the panic attacks started. In true “good child” fashion, my immediate reaction was to internalise, I did not want to cause any additional pain to my parents, so I tried to suppress my mental and physical reactions to this. I didn’t want to demand any more of their time or ever risk causing any additional worry to them. I remember the bouts of nausea accompanied by a pounding heart that I thought you must be able to see through my school blazer. I can remember concerned faces, but I don’t think they knew any better than me that it could be rooted in anxiety.

Christianity had been a vague, happy, social factor in my life for about 6 years at this point. I was intrigued by the magical ideas it represented and the friendly people it seemed to attract, whom I felt safe and loved around.My friends all went to church, I went socially - it fit my meek demeanour.

With the discovery of what Muscular Dystrophy was though, and the reality of it in my life, three major thoughts formed in my mind; GUILT / FEAR / WEAKNESS: (and/or helplessness) Why did this not happen to me instead of him? I remember feeling terribly constrained by my limiting human-ness, if I were a super-hero and could choose a super power, I could pull it out of you and put it into me (if the wretched thing MUST go somewhere). Why aren’t I smarter!? Why had I studied ART, of all the stupid, useless things, why hadn’t I been interested in science, why wasn’t I a better person - stronger/smarter.  I wish I was brainy so that I could go out there and find a cure and fix the problem that had devastated my family.I created a very external mindset for myself at this crucial time of my life. I felt weak, in-capable and out of control.Bad things had happened to me and my family and I had absolutely no answers, no power to solve it and knew no ways to deal with these emotions.

Helplessness, victim mentality, and totally void of a bigger perspective, I turned to Christianity. Jesus offered everything that I yearned for; Peace, Joy, Freedom, but above all - HEALING. I threw myself into belief head first, clinging for dear life to the idea that “God can heal”, and, like a race-horse, put on blinders to anything that would threaten the truth of this idea. Vague questions would come to me throughout this time, “The Bible says that Homosexuality is wrong… but I don’t agree with that?”, “No.” I would tell myself, “Don’t even go there, you can’t risk acknowledging that the bible is wrong about that because if it’s wrong about that then, what else might it be wrong about? It could be wrong about healing.” So don’t think about it. I NEEDED this to be true, I NEEDED healing to be possible/true/attainable in order to go on with my life. It was my coping mechanism, and I suppose one day I might be grateful for it getting me through what it got me through at the time, however all I can see from my current perspective is how detrimental Christianity was to my self-esteem, to my strength as a person and to my mental health. Apart from this, religion offered consolation and comfort. togetherness, community, and after the existential crisis I undertook when Muscular Dystrophy entered my life, Christianity satisfied my yearning to understand why we exist, and why bad things happen. Throughout my 10-15 years as a Christian, I developed a dependancy on something other than myself.Christianity taught me that I was nothing and Jesus was everything, under the masquerade of “humility”, it undermined my self-sufficiency until it was virtually non-existent.Religious thinking made me a fearful, weak, distrustful, scared, external, unworthy version of myself. I actually found that in enabled me to be unforgiving, to hold grudges, to be unmotivated and to feel powerless.Waiting for Jesus to act is a great excuse to do nothing and still feel like you’re always right. I tithed, I prayed, I fasted and wished for healing of my brother, for personal protection from any sickness and pain and from death.In short, I spent years BROODING on fears of sickness, pain and death, which I deemed unbearable.Mortality was downright terrifying and I NEEDED God to save me from it. This fostered my fear and victim mentality, propelling my emetophobia to dangerous heights. This is a common phenomena when someone deals poorly with trauma, they feel out of control and so they desperately try to gain control over something. Sometimes this outworks itself as fear of heights or obessive compulsive disorder, for me, I guess I chose Emetophobia. They, and by they I mean the scientist and psychologists, describe Emetophiobia as an acute state of anxiety because you desire and strive to attain absolute control, but as intellectual beings who are subject to disease, we do know, deep down, that vomiting is not a thing that you can ever be totally in control of, and we therefore spiral ourselves into tighter and tighter knots. I wasn’t just controlling what I said, I was controlling what I thought “take captive everything thought and make it obedient to god” - I didn’t even let myself swear in my mind for a while there. It wasn’t until the day came that I actually became physically sick, and my phobia was pushed over the edge and I simply couldn’t get better by any medical or spiritual means, that started learning about mental health, that I realised just how much damage I had done to myself. I began to very practically work on ways to develop my self-esteem, to decrease my social anxiety and to nurture my internal sense of capability - and I tangibly saw and felt the positive impact of these -godless- things in my life. This was the beginning of a very difficult and painful battle in my brain. As I worked on my own personal resilience, and fostered my capabilities, the NEED that I had for a miraculous healing diminished. The need that I had, to feel protected from any form of sickness or pain, to be rescued from my mortality, started to evaporate.Once I stopped fetishising the idea of healing, suddenly every red flag that I had ever squashed like a whack-a-gator arcade game became something that I actually gave brain time to; God coming before human relationships, homosexuality being a sin, the innumerable biblical contradictions, the whole dinosaur thing (paleontology having been my first career dream, quashed by the unreconcilable differences between it and intelligent design, also by the deeply flawed education system, but that’s another can of worms altogether), the general ignorance of it all and the lack of intellect it fostered.The reason I had always pushed my curiosity under the rug is to do with fear, fear of facing my own awareness, laziness, feeling ill equipped, think someone is better for the job than you, not being smart enough, etc etc. either way it's a poor excuse. I’d finally acknowledged all the doubt and it was my duty to address it. It was a long year and a half process of addressing the red flags, trying to reconcile them with my world view, being afraid of how they challenged my worldview and how they would change life as I knew it, things like; I feel that faith should be an educated decision, not a blind one, but how can it be? How does one know that they have the right answer? How do you know that another theism (or atheism) doesn't have it right? The Son or the God? Some say they are definitely separate (Jesus is Son, offspring), some say they are one and the same (Col 2:9, the trinity) The Bible is a VERY subjective book. Every faith, every church in that faith, every person in that church can create their own interpretation. Who was Jesus? I have a problem with dogmatism, how can a human like me claim to have the absolute truth? What about the people who believe the opposite to you and also claim to have the absolute truth, are you claiming they’re less intelligent than you? What about people like Appeloneus of Tiana (a Greek philosopher who's claimed he had the powers to heal, raise dead and other miracles. Was persecuted by the Romans and was crucified like Jesus. Died on the cross, ascended to heaven and came back, appearing to his followers. He is said to have lived at the exact same time as Jesus. But with far less popularity.) Which is better, Medical treatment or prayer? If you think that prayer is only about praising god, then we can’t compare the two, but we can compare medical treatment with claimed of intercessory prayer (this type of prayer works at about the rate of chance - 50/50) if it only works at the rate of chance, then that’s not really a method... There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of telling my own brain to “shhh”,  a lot of internal turmoil and a whole new array of fears and doubts. My world view was changing, my belief was evaporating and I couldn’t ignore it anymore - more over, I didn’t WANT to ignore it anymore. It took me a long time to work up the courage to tell my significant other what was going on inside my head, because I knew what Christianity says about Christians dating non-Christians, it’s a no-no. The old phrase “unequally yolked” popped up many times, it had been drilled into us, “God comes first, God comes before human relationships."As I had feared, I was told that if I wasn’t going to believe in god, then we couldn’t be together.To tell someone you love, who says they love you “Here I am, this is me” and be rejected because of that is no small thing - after all, I was still the same person, with the same personality, the same humour, taste in movies, love for coffee, books, baking, the same love for them.Yet I suddenly I had a fatal flaw, disbelief. This reaction definitely added to my assertion that the Christian laws of love are questionable to say the least. If you can choose to cause yourself pain by separating yourself from the person you love, then there is something deeply wrong and deeply/plainly religious about that. Either that or, his love for me simply wasn’t strong enough, and this was an easy way out, which I honestly lean towards.Now I just suppose that I became someone who he didn’t like, and there’s no blame in that. We just became incompatible. I’ve very glad, honestly, relieved to have become the person that I have, and I can’t wait to continue growing and changing and improving. So, there I was, rejected, my world view turned up on it’s head, not sure what I thought or who I was, and two days away from trip to America with three friends. All of whom were no-doubt felt slightly dejected by the idea of nursing a heartbroken girl in the middle of an existential crisis while on holiday in California. It was a blue and tearful first few days, and I boarded the plane alone at the crack of dawn, seated next to the very large mother of a very large family who couldn’t contain her very large arm inside her own seat/personal space. It took all my will power not to loop both my arms around her sizeable left bicep and nestle my head into her shoulder, but I didn’t. I took a sleeping pill and watched film after film after film and didn’t sleep a single wink. I can’t remember most of those 14 long hours, but I landed in LA feeling rough but exceptionally glad to be far away from home. As I stood waiting in the LAX pick-up zone, my face split into the first smile for days as Tess, Sharee and Amanda came careering into view, their mouths open wide in excitement and all their arms flailing out the windows of the white Land Rover in greeting.Beneath all the “You’re here!!! We’re all together!!! On Holiday!! In LA!!” Laughter and hugs, I knew there was an extra tightness in all their embraces, an extra decibel in all their excitement that said “We’re going to take care of you”, and I only loved them all the more for it. We drove straight to a hotel that we had been eyeing off from across the pacific, and ordered all manor of eggs, avocado, bacon, toast, hash browns and that bad black American coffee - the experience was complete.

I was surprised, as were they, to discover that, I was fine.I was more than fine, I was the life of the party. I couldn’t contain my laughter, I felt free and peaceful and joyful.The worst had happened, and now I could think what I wanted, learn what I wanted, be who I wanted, without fearing the loss of love, because I’d already lost it. There was no moment of “de-conversion”. It was a long process of de-constructing lots of small beliefs that I once held as sacred, and releasing the clutching grip of my need for them to be true. "Scared by compelled to follow my conscience and my reason where it would take me” Initially I felt like, even if god existed, god would understand my desire to search and go where my conscience led me. I didn’t want to be the type of christian who was scared of the monster int he corner, I wanted to confront it, I wanted to, as Paul says “Give a reason for the hope within”. As I reflected on my time as a Christian, I realised I had been selfish and narcissistic. I'd been 100% obsessed with protecting number one,  protecting myself from the things that I feared; illness, loss, pain, judgement, humiliation - to name few. In promising freedom from these things, oddly, Christianity perpetuated their sustainment. It colluded with me, or rather, it allowed me to collude with myself in this festering cycle of self blame, hate and then justification. It told me, it's okay to have these problems, you're just a weak human and it's out of your control - wait for God. I couldn't argue out of that because I didn't WANT to be in control, I didn't WANT to take responsibility. I was lazy and afraid and didn't want to think about other problems in the world because if I let myself feel those things, then I would feel a ravaging desire to do something about it - and I didn't think I was capable. I didn't want to let myself feel because I was too afraid that to act, to feel judged, incapable, but most of all challenged in my fears. Over time, my humanity grew like grass. Newly fearless - or headed down that road - I left my dehydrated humanity out on the plain of society, open wide to the worries of the world, and it caught fire quicker than lighter fluid. Loosing your faith, and deciding to leave religion isn’t an easy path to take. As David Hayward (The Naked Pastor) puts it, “We find ourselves with all this physical evidence that a lot of the stuff we have been taught isn’t true. This is when a Christian realises that they might be an Atheist, and that is scary as hell. Pun intended.” The threat of loosing your community, friendships, world view and significant other all in one foul swoop is incredibly intimidating. Not thinking for myself though, was no longer an option, so I left.

I’ve been asked if I left because I was offended, or because I didn’t get healed of my illness, or freed from my fears, and I can’t express enough that this just isn’t how it played out.I left because I found answers elsewhere, that the church had never given me in 15 years of searching.I left because it didn’t encourage freedom of thought, and because of all the things it did discourage; equality, individuality, curiosity, self-esteem, self-reliance. When I first set out, I wanted to have the strongest faith that one could have.I reasoned that the only faith worth having, is one that can stand up against all other knowledge I could possibly attain. I didn’t want to be an ignorant Christian, I wanted to be one who had taken the time to investigate everything and decided that this god was the one true god. I thought also that if god is out there, surely this is the only kind of faith he would want, not blind faith. I started to question what Christianity said it was, if the bible is a reliable source of wisdom, I didn't know if there was a god. And what I found was that the Christian god didn’t hold up to my scrutiny, and I discovered that atheists are among the happiest, most loving, least prejudiced, most inclusive, most productive, inspiring, interesting, interested and enamoured people. I stumbled upon the term ‘Religious Moderate” and was appalled to realise that I had been the definition. “The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivalled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God.” - Sam Harris I am seriously interested and will spend the rest of my life reading, listening and learning about the universe. But my identity is no longer affected by the answer. I feel so comfortable in my own skin for the first time. I feel so certain of what I believe. So at ease, there is no mental battle over fighting belief or unbelief. Most of all I don’t feel ashamed of what I believe. As a Christian it was always quoted at me “Don’t be ashamed of the gospel you live for” but I was always ashamed. I never wanted to share it. Now I can see that that was simply my cognitive dissonance saying “You’re being told you should feel this way, but you don’t because, deep down you don’t believe that it’s true.”But now, I feel certain, and proud, and I want to share it with anyone who wants to hear it.Peace of mind - the deafening silence that comes when the battle between what you’ve been told you “should” or “need to” think and what you actually think is true, ceases. If the great exhale of my life was accepting things for the way they are, not the way I “want” or “need” them to be, then my first breath of life was I finally feeling sure of what I believe. And this is the third step, being public about it, not fearing the that presuppositions others held of me. The knots of my preverbial stomach loosening with each breath. I am finally free to be myself. To think what I want when I want and to change my mind at any point, my prerogative. So here it is; I am an Atheist. I simply don't believe that god exists. I don’t believe in Atheism, I accept that there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that intelligent design was not the culprit for the world around us. I make the assumption that the supernatural realm is not real, based upon the recognition that the existence of god has not been demonstrated, so I’m not going to rely upon god as a conclusion. I think the bible was written by stone-age fisherman who were trying to figure out the world, I think it was their first attempt at philosophy, psychology, education, government and controlling the masses. I see the Bible is a unique historic attempt at that, which is commendable, but that is all. I would now describe myself as a Secular Humanist, the goal of which is is human flourishing. “Finding out what is in humanity's best interests based of the facts of reality, and what methods are most likely to lead us to the best understanding of what is in our best interests.“We recognise that there are things that we have learned thought the entirety of human civilisation about what works and what doesn’t, about advancing ideas of individual autonomy, fairness, equality, opportunity, tolerance, liberty, peace and co-operation. All goals discovered over the course of human experience and they seem, by all measures, to increase human flourishing.” Or, to use Matt Dillahunty’s simplified definition; “Let’s strive to find better ways to do better. We seem to be stuck here on this rock in space interacting with each other, in a world where we need to make decisions, and while there are plenty of people that say their god is giving them the answer, we don’t have any good reason to think that’s the case. So let’s set those gods aside until they’re demonstrated, and try to work things out for ourselves.”

Congratulations for making it to the end.

dead dadiversary 2: electric boogaloo

On this day (plus 1 day) two years ago, I heard my father take his last breath. Though two years have passed, the grief still sits in the back of my mind every day- rearing its head at the worst possible times. For months now, I’ve been able to push it aside, I’ve had a lot going on to distract me- finals, graduation, moving to New York, being broke, trying to find a job, etc.  But now, for the last week, as I’m trying to go to sleep I’ve found myself lying in bed and quietly crying. I’ve been unable to keep my dead dad feelings repressed like I normally do. There’s been a lot of re-living scenarios, conjuring up guilt that I shouldn’t really have but still do anyways. There’s been a lot of “It’s not fair that my dad is dead!!!” anger. There’s just been... a lot. As I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting lately, I remembered an essay that I wrote 10 months after my dad died as a term paper for my Women’s Autobiographical Writing class. I never posted it online anywhere- so as a celebration of my 2nd annual Dead Dadiversary, here it is

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My dad was an alcoholic. I hate telling people that, not because I’m ashamed of my father, but because of the reaction I always get. It’s always the same sort of unease from anyone I tell. No one knows how to react, because everyone assumes that because my dad was an alcoholic, he was inherently abusive. Or that he was inherently a neglectful father. Or that he was inherently just generally not a good parent. That’s the farthest from the truth though. My dad was the best. My dad was always the best. When my dad died, I wrote something to read at his funeral, and I feel like this directly reflects the impact he had on my life.

A few days after my 20th birthday, my dad came into my room and said- “It has been an honor and a privilege to spend these last twenty years with you,” I feel like this is an appropriate sentiment to start this speech, because I reciprocate that wholeheartedly. There is no one I would have rather had by my side for the last 20 years. I couldn’t have asked for a better parent. Despite my acting like an awful teen at times, he always was on my side. I think that’s what I’ll miss the most. I’ll miss having someone who had my back 100%. I’ll miss having someone who was always making sure I was happy. No matter what I wanted, my dad would always see that I got it.

When I decided that I wanted to go to art school in Chicago, he didn’t say “that’s not realistic,” he started to help me get everything in order to go. When those plans fell through, he helped me apply to UT. When I got accepted, he helped me move to Austin. During my first semester, when I doubted my major, while other parents were forcing their kids to be lawyers or doctors, he told me to do what I love. At the end of the semester, when I had a breakdown and hated college, he told me that I didn’t have to go if it wasn’t making me happy. My dad always encouraged me to do what made me happy, and he always did what he could to ensure I could live the life I wanted. I’ll miss that kind of guidance the most.

I’ll also miss the little things as well, the way he called me ‘old sport,’ or the way he listened to me ramble on and on about whatever it was that I was obsessed with. (He could probably tell you 100 different useless facts about My Chemical Romance) The way he always helped me with my school projects (not just the 5th grade science fair, but even my college research papers). The way he always stocked the fridge with food I loved when I came home from college etc.

My dad was my best friend, which I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way about. Never in my life have I met someone so compassionate and caring. I have never met someone who cared so deeply for everyone they loved. In my life, I hope people remember me as fondly as everyone remembers my father.

When I was growing up, my mother was a nurse; she worked at an inconvenient time every day. While she was working, I went to school from 7:45am to 4:45pm, which meant that our paths crossed very little. For the first 13 years of my life, I never really saw my mom. My dad was an alcoholic, but he still woke me up for school every day. He made me breakfast, and brushed my hair. He walked me to school and gave me a kiss goodbye every day. At 3:45, every afternoon, he was there waiting to pick me up. He walked me home, made me dinner, and helped me do my homework. Every night he tucked me into bed and made sure I went to sleep at a normal hour.

When I was growing up, my dad always went to all my soccer games. He cheered me on relentlessly even though I was the most embarrassing player on the team. He came to all my choir performances, even though I only sang one line most of the time. He volunteered at every single event my school put on. He organized talent shows and chaperoned field trips and donated money. My dad was an alcoholic, but he was always my biggest supporter.

In elementary school, of course, I didn’t know that my dad was an alcoholic. At night I would hear my parents arguing over money, but I never really grasped what exactly was happening. At night I would hear my dad complaining about how he was unhappy, about how he could never sleep well, about how tired he was. During the day he wasn’t like that, he was my best friend. My best, coherent, alert friend. My dad was an alcoholic, but he never let me see it when I was a child.  

In middle school, my dad was my closest friend. In 6th grade, my family had just moved from Austin to Abilene and I was having a hard time adjusting to the new city. I didn’t make friends very easily, because I was very different from everyone else. Everyone at my new school was very clean-cut, very Christian, and very affluent. I however, was a little weird, very non-religious, and very poor. It was hard for me to relate. In this time of transition, I would come home and complain about my day to my dad, every single day. He would let me vent, he would give me advice, and he would ask if there was anything he could do to make it better. If there was anything he could do, he would do it without skipping a beat. My dad was always there to make sure that I was happy. My dad was an alcoholic, but my happiness was always his number one priority.

In high school I finally started to understand what was going on. Partially because the situation had escalated, and partially because I was old enough to start to realize the character flaws in my father. My dad had a routine, every morning; he would go to the grocery store and get groceries. He would run errands, and then come home and clean for a few hours. He would pay the bills, and then he would start drinking. I’d come home from class and he would be on the couch. We would watch Jeopardy together and then I would go to my room to do homework. He would make dinner. Then he would drink some more. And some more. He’d drink until he was able to eventually fall asleep. And then he would fitfully sleep through the night. He would wake up the next day and do the same thing over again. My dad was an alcoholic, but he still managed to keep the house together.

In this time, I started to get an opinion on his drinking. I hated it. It made me so unhappy to see him like that. When he was drunk, he just wasn’t himself. It’s not that he was mean, or abusive, or negligent. He just wasn’t who I knew and loved. I missed my dad so much. My dad was an alcoholic, and it was starting to take a toll on me.

When I went off to college, it was great because I got the best of my dad at all times. I didn’t have to see him when he was drunk, but we would constantly talk on the phone. I’d call him during the breaks between my classes, and I’d call him whenever I needed help on an assignment. I’d Skype him once a week and make fun of his long hair and tell him how much I miss him. He’d get drunk every day. He was still always my biggest supporter, my best friend, and my confidant. I’d come home for spring break or for Christmas and spend time with him, he would be drunk for most of it, but the few sober moments I got were the greatest. My dad was an alcoholic, but he still loved me despite all the poor choices I made during college.

February of my sophomore year, I got a call from my mother. Dad was in the emergency room. The trip to the emergency room turned into a bunch of meetings with doctors, which turned into a cancer diagnosis, which turned into him only having three months left to live. I guess I was in denial of the whole situation, because I just played it off like it wasn’t really a big deal. I continued to go to school, would call home occasionally and majorly just ignored what was happening. My dad’s health continued to decline, but three months later, he was still alive. At this point he was living on borrowed time. My dad was an alcoholic, and he was dying.

In May, I moved back home to spend time with my dad in his last few months. His friends and I would joke about how he was past his expiration date, but it was incredible to me that he was still alive. In this time, we got hospice services involved. My home turned into a makeshift hospital. Where laughter and conversation used to fill the room, the sound of my dad’s oxygen machine hummed. Where we used to make dinner together every night turned into a graveyard for empty take-out containers. Some days were better than others though, and those good days were incredible. The bad days were devastating. My father became a ghost of who he used to be. He was unable to stand on his own, unable to speak clearly, unable to live his life.

When I was younger, I was a child actor. Part of that hobby included being able to cry on cue. Only one thing could make me cry on cue, thinking about my dad being sick or dead. Nothing triggered tears quicker than the thought of losing my dad. Any time I needed to conjure up some tears, whether it be for a scene, or to get my way in an argument, I would just think of that. Though I was experienced in making myself cry, nothing could have prepared me for when it actually happened. During the summer before my dad died, I played over how it would probably go in my head over and over- just to prepare myself. I figured that in the early morning, I would hear my mother crying, and that would be it. I was basically right.

In my parents’ house, my room is directly next to my parents’ room, which means that I can hear whenever they’re watching tv, or talking through the walls. I could also hear my dad struggling to breathe in his sleep. I could hear how each breath was a huge undertaking. I was heartbroken. I was scared. I knew it was coming. The next day, when the hospice nurse came, she told us that they were going to start “comfort care” for my dad. Morphine every 15 minutes, no food or water unless he asks for it. That night, I heard the same struggle for breath. I finally fell asleep. I woke up at about 6am, and could still hear the breath getting caught in my dad’s throat. At 7:20 I stopped hearing it. At 7:30 I heard my mother wailing. At 7:30 I walked into my parents room to see my mother holding my dad’s hand in bed, my dad lifeless. At 7:32 my mother turned to me and said, “I just lost my best friend,” I choked out a weak “me too,” and sat down next to her quietly. I was in shock. My dad was an alcoholic, and he had just died.

The days following that are a blur. I had never known such a deep and profound sadness. When my dad’s ashes got delivered, I didn’t know what to do with them. We didn’t get an urn. We put the ashes in a flowerpot we had bought from goodwill a few months beforehand. I think he would have appreciated that. So many of my friends reached out to me, some people I hadn’t talked to in months sent condolence texts. My best friend immediately went out and bought me a ton of snacks and mailed them to me the next day. My home was filled with flowers, and condolence cakes, and “sorry for your loss” cards- but it still felt overwhelmingly empty without my dad there. My dad was an alcoholic and I missed him every single hour of every single day.

In the months following his death, I went through all the stages of grief. September was a month of constant tears. Not only was I under the stress of taking 15 hours of class, but also I was still just trying to cope with the loss of my father. Every little thing would remind me of him. Every time something happened, I wanted to call him and tell him about it. I found myself missing the littlest things about him. That’s the hardest part, the little things. The way he would email me stupid jokes he found. The way he would call me “old sport,” every time we talked on the phone. The way he would call me just to tell me about a cool new song he heard. In October I was angry, angry that my dad was gone. I was angry with myself for not being as present as I could have been during his last months. I was angry at the universe for taking away my best friend. In November, I finally settled down and got my emotions in check.

It’s been 10 months since my dad died, and I don’t miss him any less. I think of him every single day and I wish more than anything he was here. I’m upset that he’ll never be around to see me graduate, or see me get married, or witness the day that I finally get a job and stop borrowing money from my parents. I’m upset that I’ve lost my best friend. Despite that though, I’ve finally started to come to peace with it. Every day I try to live my life in a way that I know he’d be proud of. I try to remember his constant support. I try to remember his words of assurance when I feel like things are going terribly. I try to remember the way that he treated everyone with kindness and compassion. Every day, I try to do the same. I put everyone in my life before me; I’m always a shoulder to lean on. I want everyone I know to feel the same way my dad made me feel- loved and happy. My dad was an alcoholic, and he was the best person I ever knew.