Vanity facial abuse
Eye Scream.
2013.01.17 20:47 Eye Scream.
A place for GIFs and images depicting eyeball abuse.
2014.03.22 00:18 Silicon Valley
The subreddit for the HBO show Silicon Valley. We are making the world a better place.
2024.05.17 09:09 tyge46fruyg Even psychology doesn't care about ugly people
In the past, I've been diagnosed with BDD. Recently, I met with a mental health assessor who, after discussing my case with a team, acknowledged that it's not a good fit because my issues are rooted in reality. I have a recessed jaw and mentalis strain, and I have a very skinny body to the point that people mistake me for a teenager despite being 26 and 5'9''. Men of my race (Black) regularly state how they don't find women with my body aesthetically or sexually attractive, which is why I'm FA.
My question is then; why isn't there a diagnosis to help people who are objectively considered unattractive?
Okay, I don't have Body Dysmorphia—what other support is going to be put in place for me? Spoiler, there isn't any. Nothing that isn't gaslighting bullshit anyway.
I've been thinking for a while now that there should be an additional diagnosis to address this gap—which is, of course, wish fulfilment—labelled Body Dysphoria because Body Dysmorphia a) excludes people with objective flaws (quite literally ) b) says nothing about social rejection. This diagnosis I'm thinking of would focus on how to build and retain confidence and self-esteem whilst having to deal with social discrimination and its effects (harassment, staring, verbal or physical abuse, rejection, social trauma*, isolation etc.).
The criteria would be:
—to have a marked difference in appearance that can be objectively measured, quantitatively or qualitatively
(For example, you can visibly see that I have mentalis strain and that I look exactly like other people who have mentalis strain (qualitative assessment). According to orthognathic measures (mm) my lower jaw is considerably behind my upper jaw (quantitative assessment). This difference is evident in X-rays (quantitative and quantitative).
I am also underweight and look visibly thin (qualitative assessment). The assessor I spoke to, who is Black (though therapists from other backgrounds have agreed with this), noted that the beauty standard in the Black community emphasizes a curvy figure. Consequently, I face social difficulties due to not meeting this standard (qualitative, cultural assessment). I have received comments about my body throughout my life (qualitative assessment). Additionally, my weight can be measured, confirming that I am underweight (quantitative assessment))
—the marked difference causes the patient significant distress that affects day to day functioning
—the marked difference has been pointed out to the patient on multiple occasions and across *multiple contexts*
(A therapist would have to use their clinical judgment to gauge this and understand the difference between, for example, someone who's been called ugly repeatedly by an abusive family member and only called ugly when they're around them, versus someone with a facial deformity who has been called ugly at home, school, on the street, and at work. This comparison is not about the mental and emotional weight of either situation or meant to place one over the other, but rather an example of where nuance should be applied.)
—the patient has experienced social discrimination and/or social trauma as a result of having the marked difference
("Social trauma* is defined as an individual's experience of being socially humiliated or rejected in interpersonal situations, which can severely endanger one's social integrity (Neuner, 2022).
People who are exposed to negative social events sometimes perceive, experience, or appraise these events as threats, whereby core social motives can be violated (e.g., the need for social status and belonging), and they are often associated with intense affective reactions, including dread, despair, and defeat.").
And the rest of the criteria would follow that of Body Dysmorphia.
The Body Dysphoria diagnosis would not be about whether the client is attractive or unattractive (though the intention is primarily to help those considered unattractive). Instead, it would focus on how certain features or conditions are socially discriminated against, the resulting social trauma that comes with this, and the development of tools to enable the client to lead a full life despite these difficulties.
There's so many symptoms I have that fit many different conditions—some of which I'm already diagnosed with—that could be addressed with this one condition.
I'm having trouble because I've been looking into Avoidant Personality Disorder, but again, I'm met with the same problem I run into with BDD—there's repeated emphasis that what's happening exists solely within the sufferer's head: 'the flaw is exaggerated,' 'perceived defect,' 'unnoticeable to others.' And with AVPD, it's 'imagined fear of social rejection.' What if it's not imagined? What if it's real?
There quite simply is nothing to address the trauma that comes with constant social rejection—sometimes of a violent nature—as if it's normal and therefore just for people in my position to feel the way we feel.
One side to this is because of the fact that any qualms to do with physical appearance are ultimately seen as vapid, no matter the validity of the claim.
The other is that—as a Black woman, I know society is terrible at catering to the needs of anything it sees as a minority, and that the quality of being a minority is more about social status than statistics. Unattractiveness is undesirable and society does not want to help those it's sees as valueless. It's a combination of punishing people for being unattractive and not seeing them as worth the resources that would be required to help them. Society only wants to help those who serve its interests, which are ultimately superficial.
submitted by tyge46fruyg to ugly [link] [comments]
My question is then; why isn't there a diagnosis to help people who are objectively considered unattractive?
Okay, I don't have Body Dysmorphia—what other support is going to be put in place for me? Spoiler, there isn't any. Nothing that isn't gaslighting bullshit anyway.
I've been thinking for a while now that there should be an additional diagnosis to address this gap—which is, of course, wish fulfilment—labelled Body Dysphoria because Body Dysmorphia a) excludes people with objective flaws (quite literally ) b) says nothing about social rejection. This diagnosis I'm thinking of would focus on how to build and retain confidence and self-esteem whilst having to deal with social discrimination and its effects (harassment, staring, verbal or physical abuse, rejection, social trauma*, isolation etc.).
The criteria would be:
—to have a marked difference in appearance that can be objectively measured, quantitatively or qualitatively
(For example, you can visibly see that I have mentalis strain and that I look exactly like other people who have mentalis strain (qualitative assessment). According to orthognathic measures (mm) my lower jaw is considerably behind my upper jaw (quantitative assessment). This difference is evident in X-rays (quantitative and quantitative).
I am also underweight and look visibly thin (qualitative assessment). The assessor I spoke to, who is Black (though therapists from other backgrounds have agreed with this), noted that the beauty standard in the Black community emphasizes a curvy figure. Consequently, I face social difficulties due to not meeting this standard (qualitative, cultural assessment). I have received comments about my body throughout my life (qualitative assessment). Additionally, my weight can be measured, confirming that I am underweight (quantitative assessment))
—the marked difference causes the patient significant distress that affects day to day functioning
—the marked difference has been pointed out to the patient on multiple occasions and across *multiple contexts*
(A therapist would have to use their clinical judgment to gauge this and understand the difference between, for example, someone who's been called ugly repeatedly by an abusive family member and only called ugly when they're around them, versus someone with a facial deformity who has been called ugly at home, school, on the street, and at work. This comparison is not about the mental and emotional weight of either situation or meant to place one over the other, but rather an example of where nuance should be applied.)
—the patient has experienced social discrimination and/or social trauma as a result of having the marked difference
("Social trauma* is defined as an individual's experience of being socially humiliated or rejected in interpersonal situations, which can severely endanger one's social integrity (Neuner, 2022).
People who are exposed to negative social events sometimes perceive, experience, or appraise these events as threats, whereby core social motives can be violated (e.g., the need for social status and belonging), and they are often associated with intense affective reactions, including dread, despair, and defeat.").
And the rest of the criteria would follow that of Body Dysmorphia.
The Body Dysphoria diagnosis would not be about whether the client is attractive or unattractive (though the intention is primarily to help those considered unattractive). Instead, it would focus on how certain features or conditions are socially discriminated against, the resulting social trauma that comes with this, and the development of tools to enable the client to lead a full life despite these difficulties.
There's so many symptoms I have that fit many different conditions—some of which I'm already diagnosed with—that could be addressed with this one condition.
I'm having trouble because I've been looking into Avoidant Personality Disorder, but again, I'm met with the same problem I run into with BDD—there's repeated emphasis that what's happening exists solely within the sufferer's head: 'the flaw is exaggerated,' 'perceived defect,' 'unnoticeable to others.' And with AVPD, it's 'imagined fear of social rejection.' What if it's not imagined? What if it's real?
There quite simply is nothing to address the trauma that comes with constant social rejection—sometimes of a violent nature—as if it's normal and therefore just for people in my position to feel the way we feel.
One side to this is because of the fact that any qualms to do with physical appearance are ultimately seen as vapid, no matter the validity of the claim.
The other is that—as a Black woman, I know society is terrible at catering to the needs of anything it sees as a minority, and that the quality of being a minority is more about social status than statistics. Unattractiveness is undesirable and society does not want to help those it's sees as valueless. It's a combination of punishing people for being unattractive and not seeing them as worth the resources that would be required to help them. Society only wants to help those who serve its interests, which are ultimately superficial.
2024.05.17 06:51 yaboiblackcheeseboi Help reading fentanyl test strips
My dad 61M has a long history of substance abuse. He’s 6’0 165lbs and is taking methadone, but I’m not sure what else. Has hypertension and a recent facial fracture. Heavy cigarette smoker and is an alcoholic (although I don’t think he drinks now)
We tested his urine for fentanyl and both tests came back positive. I’ve read that fentanyl will generally stay in your body for 2-4 days, so I’m not surprised it’s positive. He is trying to argue that it’s probably positive because there’s still residual in his body but I just don’t trust him. He is also claiming it inaccurate because of impaired liver and kidney function, although I don’t know how impaired they are but I know he is not on any medication or treatment for it
He was gone for 2 weeks and tested positive for cocaine and crystal when he came back, but that’s negative now. Is it possible he is right or is he trying to cover his butt?
Edit: results https://www.reddit.comyaboiblackcheeseboi/s/YIRY45wdzP according to test 1 strip is positive, 2 is negative.
submitted by yaboiblackcheeseboi to AskDocs [link] [comments]
We tested his urine for fentanyl and both tests came back positive. I’ve read that fentanyl will generally stay in your body for 2-4 days, so I’m not surprised it’s positive. He is trying to argue that it’s probably positive because there’s still residual in his body but I just don’t trust him. He is also claiming it inaccurate because of impaired liver and kidney function, although I don’t know how impaired they are but I know he is not on any medication or treatment for it
He was gone for 2 weeks and tested positive for cocaine and crystal when he came back, but that’s negative now. Is it possible he is right or is he trying to cover his butt?
Edit: results https://www.reddit.comyaboiblackcheeseboi/s/YIRY45wdzP according to test 1 strip is positive, 2 is negative.
2024.05.17 03:46 mouthofxenu Primarch Names and Etymologies; Part 2 (III-IV)
This is part 2 of a list of feminine primarch names and my reasoning for these names.
Please see the below link for an explanation of this project, my methods, and my intent.
I will keep the first post updated with links to the later posts to make referencing them easier.
Link to first post: https://www.reddit.com/PrimarchGFs/comments/1ctd7ot/primarch_names_and_etymologies_part_1_iii/
III: Fulgrima [Full-Gree-Ma] (Fulgrim):
Some primarch names, like Fulgrim, are combinations of syllables meant to evoke certain feelings based on the similarity of the syllables to those found in actual words (usually English and Latin). Fulgrim appears to be a combination of the Latin “fulgur,” meaning “lightning,” and the English “grim,” meaning “sinister.” This captures Fulgrim’s lore of being one of the Emperor’s brightest lights while also holding a great capacity for darkness.
Fulgrim has always reminded me of Final Fantasy villains both in terms of his appearance and characterization. These villains are often depicted as beautiful men that are usually vain and almost always have a sadistic / nihilistic streak. Fulgrim even has a "final form" like many of them. Perhaps his noise marines could provide the obligatory Latin chorus...
I wanted to keep the “Ful-“ part, but I had to deviate from the original etymology of “grim” in feminizing the name. “Grima” is Old English for “mask” as well as “specter, ghost; apparition.” I felt this hit the “sinister” aspect of Fulgrim’s name while also hitting Fulgrim’s vanity hidden behind a mask of perfection.
I am not satisfied with this name though due to my association of “grima” with the sniveling character Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings.
IV: Perturare [Per-Tur-Ar-Ray] (Perturabo):
The original name is a play on the Latin “perdurabo,” which is the first-person singular future active indicative of “perduro” (“I endure”). “Perdurabo” therefore means “I shall endure,” which is very fitting for Perturabo’s iron will.
“Frater Perdurabo” was the motto of British occultist Aleister Crowley, which he interpreted to mean “Brother, I shall endure to the end.” While Crowley’s profession had little in common with Perturabo, Martin Booth’s biography of Crowley described him as “self-confident, brash, eccentric, egotistic, highly intelligent, arrogant, witty, wealthy, and, when it suited him, cruel.” Now that’s the Perturabo we know.
The change from perdurabo to Perturabo may be to evoke “perturbed,” which means “to be disturbed or flustered.” Where I’m from, “perturbed” has a stronger association with being angered than merely flustered.
Perturabo is one of the most abusive of the primarchs and I did not want that to carry over into a brighter setting. Therefore, I felt I could hint at a shift in the character with the new name.
“Perdurare” is the second-person singular present passive imperative/indicative of “perduro.” “Perdurare” is therefore akin to the command “Be enduring.” By shifting it from the singular "I shall endure" to the second-person, the new name suggests a focus on others rather than original name's selfish focus. This fits much better with the “Iron Warriors’ affirmation “Iron within. Iron without.” Instead of literally decimating his own chapter to motivate them to keep up with his own unreasonable expectations, my take on the character actually cares about building strength in others as its own end.
Finally, I changed the D to a T for consistency with the original. Perturare may be more supportive of others, but she’s still perturbed by default~
Thought of the day:
A fine mind is a blessing of the Empress - It should not be cluttered with trivialities.
Feel free to leave a comment on these submissions and this project generally. I look forward to sharing more with you next time~
submitted by mouthofxenu to PrimarchGFs [link] [comments]
Please see the below link for an explanation of this project, my methods, and my intent.
I will keep the first post updated with links to the later posts to make referencing them easier.
Link to first post: https://www.reddit.com/PrimarchGFs/comments/1ctd7ot/primarch_names_and_etymologies_part_1_iii/
III: Fulgrima [Full-Gree-Ma] (Fulgrim):
Some primarch names, like Fulgrim, are combinations of syllables meant to evoke certain feelings based on the similarity of the syllables to those found in actual words (usually English and Latin). Fulgrim appears to be a combination of the Latin “fulgur,” meaning “lightning,” and the English “grim,” meaning “sinister.” This captures Fulgrim’s lore of being one of the Emperor’s brightest lights while also holding a great capacity for darkness.
Fulgrim has always reminded me of Final Fantasy villains both in terms of his appearance and characterization. These villains are often depicted as beautiful men that are usually vain and almost always have a sadistic / nihilistic streak. Fulgrim even has a "final form" like many of them. Perhaps his noise marines could provide the obligatory Latin chorus...
I wanted to keep the “Ful-“ part, but I had to deviate from the original etymology of “grim” in feminizing the name. “Grima” is Old English for “mask” as well as “specter, ghost; apparition.” I felt this hit the “sinister” aspect of Fulgrim’s name while also hitting Fulgrim’s vanity hidden behind a mask of perfection.
I am not satisfied with this name though due to my association of “grima” with the sniveling character Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings.
IV: Perturare [Per-Tur-Ar-Ray] (Perturabo):
The original name is a play on the Latin “perdurabo,” which is the first-person singular future active indicative of “perduro” (“I endure”). “Perdurabo” therefore means “I shall endure,” which is very fitting for Perturabo’s iron will.
“Frater Perdurabo” was the motto of British occultist Aleister Crowley, which he interpreted to mean “Brother, I shall endure to the end.” While Crowley’s profession had little in common with Perturabo, Martin Booth’s biography of Crowley described him as “self-confident, brash, eccentric, egotistic, highly intelligent, arrogant, witty, wealthy, and, when it suited him, cruel.” Now that’s the Perturabo we know.
The change from perdurabo to Perturabo may be to evoke “perturbed,” which means “to be disturbed or flustered.” Where I’m from, “perturbed” has a stronger association with being angered than merely flustered.
Perturabo is one of the most abusive of the primarchs and I did not want that to carry over into a brighter setting. Therefore, I felt I could hint at a shift in the character with the new name.
“Perdurare” is the second-person singular present passive imperative/indicative of “perduro.” “Perdurare” is therefore akin to the command “Be enduring.” By shifting it from the singular "I shall endure" to the second-person, the new name suggests a focus on others rather than original name's selfish focus. This fits much better with the “Iron Warriors’ affirmation “Iron within. Iron without.” Instead of literally decimating his own chapter to motivate them to keep up with his own unreasonable expectations, my take on the character actually cares about building strength in others as its own end.
Finally, I changed the D to a T for consistency with the original. Perturare may be more supportive of others, but she’s still perturbed by default~
Thought of the day:
A fine mind is a blessing of the Empress - It should not be cluttered with trivialities.
Feel free to leave a comment on these submissions and this project generally. I look forward to sharing more with you next time~
2024.05.17 03:07 businessnewstv How to accept credit card payments for your Choreography Business in 2024
Introduction to accepting credit card payments
In today's digital age, accepting credit card payments has become a necessity for businesses, including choreography businesses. The convenience and security offered by credit card payments make it an ideal option for customers and businesses alike. This article aims to provide a comprehensive guide on how to accept credit card payments for your choreography business using Square, a leading payment processing platform. Whether you are a small dance studio or a freelance choreographer, implementing credit card payments can streamline your business operations and enhance customer satisfaction. So, let's dive into the world of accepting credit card payments and explore the benefits it can bring to your choreography business.Benefits of accepting credit card payments
Accepting credit card payments for your Choreography Business with Square offers numerous benefits. Firstly, it provides convenience for your customers, as they can easily pay for your services using their credit cards. This eliminates the need for them to carry cash or write checks, making the payment process quick and hassle-free. Additionally, accepting credit card payments allows you to expand your customer base, as many individuals prefer to use their credit cards for purchases. This means that you can attract more customers and increase your revenue. Moreover, accepting credit card payments with Square offers a secure and reliable payment solution. Square ensures that all transactions are encrypted and protected, giving both you and your customers peace of mind. Lastly, accepting credit card payments allows you to streamline your business operations by automating the payment process. With Square, you can easily track and manage your transactions, saving you time and effort. Overall, accepting credit card payments with Square is a smart choice for your Choreography Business, offering convenience, expanding your customer base, providing security, and improving your business efficiency.Choosing Square as a payment solution
When it comes to choosing a payment solution for your Choreography Business, Square is an excellent option. Square offers a seamless and secure way to accept credit card payments, making it convenient for both you and your customers. With Square, you can easily create a logo design that represents your business and attracts potential clients. Square's user-friendly interface allows you to customize your logo with various design elements and colors, ensuring that it perfectly reflects your brand identity. By using Square as your payment solution, you can not only streamline your payment process but also enhance your brand image with a professional and eye-catching logo design.Setting up a Square account
Creating a Square account
Creating a Square account is an essential step in establishing a strong foundation for your choreography business. By setting up a Square account, you gain access to a secure and reliable platform that allows you to accept credit card payments seamlessly. This not only enhances the convenience for your customers but also enables you to streamline your financial transactions efficiently. In today's digital era, where sustainable business practices are crucial, Square provides a sustainable solution by promoting paperless transactions and reducing the environmental impact associated with traditional payment methods. By embracing Square, you are not only embracing innovation but also demonstrating your commitment to sustainable business practices.Verifying your identity
Verifying your identity is an essential step when it comes to accepting credit card payments for your Choreography Business with Square. As an entrepreneur, it is crucial to follow the necessary procedures to ensure the legitimacy of your business and protect your customers' financial information. Square provides a secure and reliable platform that requires you to verify your identity to maintain trust and credibility. By following their guidelines and providing the required documentation, you can ensure a smooth and hassle-free experience when accepting credit card payments. This article provides valuable advice for entrepreneurs on how to navigate the verification process and establish a trustworthy payment system for your Choreography Business.Linking your bank account
Linking your bank account is a crucial step in accepting credit card payments for your Choreography Business with Square. By linking your bank account, you can seamlessly transfer funds from your Square account to your bank account, ensuring a smooth and efficient payment process. To link your bank account, simply follow the easy steps provided by Square's user-friendly interface. Once your bank account is linked, you can confidently accept credit card payments and manage your finances with ease. Don't miss out on this important step in optimizing your Choreography Business's payment workflow.Integrating Square with your Choreography Business
Installing Square on your website
Installing Square on your website is a straightforward process that allows you to accept credit card payments for your Choreography Business. By integrating Square into your website, you can provide a seamless payment experience for your customers, increasing convenience and trust. To get started, you need to follow a few simple steps. First, sign up for a Square account and complete the necessary verification process. Once your account is set up, you can easily generate Square payment buttons or use Square's API to create a custom payment solution. Embed the payment buttons or API code into your website, ensuring they are placed in prominent locations where customers can easily find them. Finally, test the payment integration to ensure everything is functioning correctly. With Square installed on your website, you can confidently offer credit card payment options to your customers, making transactions smoother and more efficient.Setting up Square Point of Sale
Setting up Square Point of Sale is a crucial step in accepting credit card payments for your Choreography Business. Square Point of Sale is a powerful and user-friendly payment processing system that allows you to securely process credit card transactions. With Square Point of Sale, you can easily track sales, manage inventory, and generate detailed reports. The system is compatible with both iOS and Android devices, making it convenient for on-the-go business owners. Additionally, Square offers competitive transaction rates and provides excellent customer support, ensuring a smooth payment experience for your customers. By setting up Square Point of Sale, you can streamline your payment process and provide a seamless and secure payment solution for your Choreography Business.Customizing your payment options
When it comes to customizing your payment options for your Choreography Business, there are several factors to consider. One important aspect is ensuring that you have the ability to accept credit card payments. Square is a reliable and secure platform that allows you to seamlessly integrate credit card processing into your business. By using Square, you can provide your customers with a convenient and trusted payment method. Whether you have a start baby shop or a well-established business, Square offers a range of customizable options to meet your specific needs. With Square, you can easily set up your payment options and tailor them to your Choreography Business, ensuring a seamless and professional payment experience for your customers.Accepting credit card payments with Square
Processing credit card payments
Processing credit card payments is a crucial aspect of running a successful choreography business. With the advancement of technology, it has become easier than ever to accept credit card payments. Square, a leading payment processing platform, offers a seamless solution for choreographers looking to streamline their payment processes. Whether you are just starting a business in Texas or have been in the industry for years, Square provides a secure and efficient way to handle transactions. By accepting credit card payments, you can attract more customers, enhance convenience for your clients, and ultimately increase your revenue. With Square's user-friendly interface and robust features, you can easily manage transactions, track sales, and generate insightful reports. Start accepting credit card payments with Square today and take your choreography business to new heights.Accepting contactless payments
Accepting contactless payments is essential for any choreography business, especially in today's digital age. With the increasing popularity of contactless payment methods, it is crucial to stay up-to-date with the latest technology to provide a seamless and convenient payment experience for your customers. By accepting contactless payments, you can offer your clients a secure and efficient way to pay for your services. Whether you are starting a cleaning business or already established, incorporating contactless payment options, such as Square, can help streamline your payment process and attract more customers. With Square's user-friendly interface and robust security features, you can ensure that your customers' payment information is protected. Start accepting contactless payments today and take your choreography business to the next level.Handling refunds and chargebacks
Handling refunds and chargebacks is an important aspect of accepting credit card payments for your Choreography Business with Square. When a customer requests a refund or disputes a charge, it is crucial to have a clear and efficient process in place to handle these situations. By promptly addressing refund requests and chargebacks, you can maintain customer satisfaction and protect your business from potential financial losses. Square provides tools and resources to help you navigate the refund and chargeback process, ensuring a seamless and secure payment experience for both you and your customers.Ensuring security and compliance
Securing customer payment data
Securing customer payment data is of utmost importance for any business that accepts credit card payments. It is crucial to ensure that customer information is protected from any unauthorized access or data breaches. To achieve this, businesses should implement robust security measures such as encryption, tokenization, and adherence to PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) guidelines. By following these best practices, businesses can instill trust and confidence in their customers, knowing that their payment data is safe and secure.Complying with PCI DSS standards
Complying with PCI DSS standards is of utmost importance for any business that accepts credit card payments. PCI DSS, which stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, is a set of security standards designed to ensure the safe handling of cardholder data. Adhering to these standards not only protects your customers' sensitive information but also helps to build trust and credibility in your choreography business. One crucial aspect of PCI DSS compliance is conducting thorough keyword research to understand the specific requirements and best practices for securing cardholder data. By conducting keyword research, you can stay up-to-date with the latest industry standards and implement the necessary measures to safeguard your customers' financial information. Implementing robust security measures, such as encryption, firewalls, and secure payment gateways, is essential in maintaining PCI DSS compliance. By prioritizing keyword research and implementing the appropriate security measures, you can ensure that your choreography business meets the necessary standards and provides a secure environment for credit card payments.Protecting against fraud
Protecting against fraud is crucial for the success and sustainability of any business. In the choreography industry, where credit card payments play a significant role in revenue generation, it becomes even more important to implement robust measures to safeguard against fraudulent activities. By adopting a proactive approach and staying updated with the latest security protocols, choreography businesses can ensure a safer and more secure payment environment for their customers. This not only protects the business from financial losses but also instills trust and confidence in their clientele. To build a stronger future for your choreography business, it is essential to prioritize fraud prevention and invest in reliable payment systems, such as Square, that offer advanced security features and fraud detection tools. By doing so, you can protect your business, your customers, and pave the way for long-term success.Conclusion
Summary of benefits
Summary of benefits Accepting credit card payments for your Choreography Business with Square offers numerous advantages. Firstly, it provides a convenient and seamless payment experience for your customers, allowing them to easily pay for your services using their preferred credit card. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also increases the likelihood of repeat business. Additionally, Square offers secure and reliable payment processing, ensuring that your customers' sensitive payment information is protected. Moreover, accepting credit card payments with Square enables you to expand your customer base by reaching a wider audience who prefer to pay with credit cards. Lastly, Square provides detailed reporting and analytics, giving you valuable insights into your business performance and helping you make informed decisions to drive growth. Overall, accepting credit card payments with Square is a smart choice for your Choreography Business, offering convenience, security, and growth opportunities.Future trends in credit card payments
As the world of technology continues to evolve, so does the landscape of credit card payments. In the future, we can expect to see several trends that will shape the way businesses accept credit card payments. One such trend is the rise of mobile payments, where customers can conveniently make transactions using their smartphones or other mobile devices. Another trend is the increased adoption of contactless payments, where customers can simply tap their credit cards or mobile wallets to complete a transaction. Additionally, we can anticipate the integration of biometric authentication, such as fingerprint or facial recognition, for enhanced security and convenience. With these future trends, businesses in the choreography industry can stay ahead of the curve and provide their customers with seamless and secure credit card payment options.Final thoughts
In conclusion, when it comes to the success of your Choreography Business, accepting credit card payments is crucial. With Square, you can easily streamline your payment process and provide a convenient and secure payment option for your customers. By incorporating Square into your business, you can enhance your marketing and advertisement design strategies by offering a seamless payment experience. With the ability to accept credit card payments, you can attract more customers and increase sales. Don't miss out on the opportunity to optimize your business operations and improve customer satisfaction. Start accepting credit card payments with Square today!In conclusion, Square Instant Access is the perfect solution for small businesses in need of quick and easy access to funds. With Square Instant Access, you no longer have to struggle to get the financial support you need to grow your business. Whether you need funds for inventory, marketing, or any other business expenses, Square Instant Access has got you covered. Say goodbye to long waiting times and complicated loan applications. With Square Instant Access, you can get the funds you need instantly, allowing you to focus on what really matters - running and growing your business. Don't miss out on this opportunity! Visit our website today to learn more about Square Instant Access and how it can benefit your small business.
2024.05.16 16:27 PM_ME_YOUR_DARKNESS How do you feel about the effective end to public anonymity?
To give some background, over the last couple years US law enforcement has been granted access to very powerful facial recognition software. This is a writeup and interview with an author with an upcoming book on one such AI company, Clearview AI (there's a link to the author's piece in the NYT, but it's a couple years old at this point). The TL;DR is that Clearview scraped every photo they could find on the internet to feed their AI, amassing over 30 billion photos, and created an incredibly robust facial recognition program that can identify even obscured faces.
I don't personally love this technology being in the hands of police as I feel the potential for abuse is high, but with that said, this worry is probably moot as there are now decent, publicly available copycats on the market. What this means is that anyone can simply take a photo of anyone else and within a few seconds know who they are and any info linked to photos of them. One unexpected aspect people have reported is finding pornography.
Do you have thoughts about people having the ability to identify nearly anyone in real time?
submitted by PM_ME_YOUR_DARKNESS to AskConservatives [link] [comments]
I don't personally love this technology being in the hands of police as I feel the potential for abuse is high, but with that said, this worry is probably moot as there are now decent, publicly available copycats on the market. What this means is that anyone can simply take a photo of anyone else and within a few seconds know who they are and any info linked to photos of them. One unexpected aspect people have reported is finding pornography.
Do you have thoughts about people having the ability to identify nearly anyone in real time?
2024.05.16 05:06 MirkWorks Excerpt from The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch (Changing Modes of Making It: From Horatio Alger to the Happy Hooker)
III. Changing Modes of Making It: From Horatio Alger to the Happy Hooker
…
From “Self-Culture” to Self-Promotion through “Winning Images”
In the nineteenth century, the ideal of self-improvement degenerated into a cult of compulsive industry. P.T. Barnum, who made a fortune in a calling the very nature of which the Puritans would have condemned (“Every calling, whereby God will be Dishonored; every Calling whereby none but the Lusts of men are Nourished: …every such Calling is to be Rejected”), delivered many times a lecture frankly entitled “The Art of Money-Getting,” which epitomized the nineteenth-century conception of worldly success. Barnum quoted freely from Franklin but without Franklin’s concern for the attainment of wisdom or the promotion of useful knowledge. “Information” interested Barnum merely as a means of mastering the market. Thus he condemned the “false economy” of the farm wife who douses her candle at dusk rather than lighting another for reading, not realizing that the “information” gained through reading is worth far more than the price of the candles. “Always take a trustworthy newspaper,” Barnum advised young men on the make, “and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world. He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.”
Barnum valued the good opinion of others not as a sign of one’s usefulness but as a means of getting credit. “Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.” The nineteenth century attempted to express all values in monetary terms. Everything had its price. Charity was a moral duty because “the liberal man will command patronage, which the sordid, uncharitable miser will be avoided.” The sin of pride was not that it offended God but that it led to extravagant expenditures. “A spirit of pride and vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying cankerworm which gnaws the very vitals of a man’s worldly possessions.”
The eighteenth century made a virtue of temperance but did not condemn moderate indulgence in the service of sociability. “Rational conversation,” on the contrary, appeared to Franklin and his contemporaries to represent an important value in its own right. The nineteenth century condemned sociability itself, on the grounds that it might interfere with business. “How many good opportunities have passed, never to return, while a man was sipping a ‘social glass’ with his friends!” Preachments on self-help now breathed the spirit of compulsive enterprise. Henry Ward Beecher defined “the beau ideal of happiness” as a state of mind in which “a man [is] so busy that he does not know whether he is or is not happy.” Russell Sage remarked that “work has been the chied, and you might say, the only source of pleasure in my life.”
Even at the height of the Gilded Age, however, the Protestant ethic did not completely lose its original meaning. In the success manuals, the McGuffey readers, the Peter Parley Books, and the hortatory writings of the great capitalists themselves, the Protestant virtues - industry, thrift, temperance - still appeared not merely as stepping-stones to success but as their own reward.
The spirit of self-improvement lived on, in debased form, in the cult of “self-culture” - proper care and training of mind and body, nurture of the mind through “great books,” development of “character.” The social contribution of individual accumulation still survived as an undercurrent in the celebration of success, and the social conditions of early industrial capitalism, in which the pursuit of wealth undeniably increased the supply of useful objects, gave some substance to the claim that “accumulated capital means progress.” In condemning speculation and extravagance, in upholding the importance of patient industry, in urging young men to start at the bottom and submit to “the discipline of daily life,” even the most unabashed exponents of self-enrichment clung to the notion that wealth derives its value from its contribution to the general good and to the happiness of future generations.
The nineteenth-century cult of success placed surprisingly little emphasis on competition. It measured achievement not against the achievements of others but against an abstract ideal of discipline and self-denial. At the turn of the century, however, preachments on success began to stress the will to win. The bureaucratization of the corporate career changed the conditions of self-advancement; ambitious young men now had to compete with their peers for the attention and approval of their superiors. The struggle to surpass the previous generation and to provide for the next gave way to a form of sibling rivalry, in which men of approximately equal abilities jostled against each other in competition for a limited number of places. Advancement now depended on “will-power, self-confidence, energy, and initiative” - the qualities celebrated in such exemplary writings as George Lorimer’s Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son. ” By the end of the nineteenth century,” writes John Cawelti in his study of the success myth, “self-help books were dominated by the ethos of sales-manship and boosterism. Personal magnetism, a quality which supposedly enabled a man to influence and dominate others, became one of the major keys to success.” In 1907, both Lorimer’s Saturday Evening Post and Orison Swett Marden’s Success magazine inaugurated departments of instruction in the “art of conversation,” fashion, and “culture.” The management of interpersonal relations came to be seen as the essence of self-advancement. The captain of industry gave way to the confidence man, the master of impressions. Young men were told that they had to sell themselves in order to succeed.
At first, self-testing through competition remained almost in-distinguishable from moral self-discipline and self-culture, but the difference became unmistakable when Dale Carnegie and then Norman Vincent Peale restated and transformed the tradition of Mather, Franklin, Barnum, and Lorimer. As a formula for success, winning friends and influencing people had little in common with industry and thrift. The prophets of positive thinking disparaged “the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires.” They praised the love of money, officially condemned even by the crudest of Gilded Age materialists, as a useful incentive. “You can never have riches in great quantities,” wrote Napoleon Hill in this Think and Grow Rich,” unless you can work yourself into a white heat of desire for money.” The pursuit of wealth lost the few shreds of moral meaning that still clung to it. Formerly the Protestant virtues appeared to have an independent value of their own. Even when they became purely instrumental, in the second half of the nineteenth century, success itself retained moral and social overtones, by virtue of its contribution to the sum of human comfort and progress. Now success appeared as an end in its own right, the victory over your competitors that alone retained the capacity to instill a sense of self-approval. The latest success manuals differ from earlier ones - even surpassing the cynicism of Dale Carnegie and Peale - in their frank acceptance of the need to exploit and intimidate others, in their lack of interest in the substance of success, and in the candor with which they insist that appearances - “winning images - count for more than performance, ascription for more than achievement. One author seems to imply that the self consists of little more than its “image” reflected in others’ eyes. “Although I’m not being original when I say it, I’m sure you’ll agree that the way you see yourself will reflect the image you portray to others.” Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
<The American Religion by Harold Bloom (California Orphism)>
The Apotheosis of Individualism
The fear that haunted the social critics and theorists of the fifties - that rugged individualism had succumbed to conformity and “love-pressure sociability” - appears in retrospect to have been premature. In 1960, David Riesman complained that young people no longer had much social “presence,” their education having provided them not with “a polished personality but [with] an affable, casual, adaptable one, suitable to the losing organizations of an affluent society.” It is true that “a present-oriented hedonism,” as Riseman went on the argue, has replaced the work ethic “among the very classes which in the earlier stages of industrialization were oriented toward the future, toward distant goals and delayed gratification.” But this hedonism is a fraud; the pursuit of pleasure disguises a struggle for power. Americans have not really become more sociable and cooperative, as the theorists of other-direction and conformity would like us to believe; they have merely become more adept at exploiting the conventions of interpersonal relations for their own benefit. Activities ostensibly undertaken purely for enjoyment often have the real object of doing others in. It is symptomatic of the underlying tenor of American life that vulgar terms for sexual intercourse also convey the sense of getting the better of someone, working him over, taking him in, imposing your will through guile, deception, or superior force. Verbs associated with sexual pleasure have acquired more than the usual overtones of violence and psychic exploitation. In the violent world of the ghetto, the language of which now pervades American society as a whole, the violence associated with sexual intercourse is directed with special intensity by men against women, specifically against their mothers. The language of ritualized aggression and abuse reminds those who use it that exploitation is the general rule and some form of dependence the common fate, that “the individual,” in Lee Rainwater’s words, “is not strong enough or adult enough to achieve his goal in a legitimate way, but is rather like a child, dependent on others who tolerate his childish maneuvers”; accordingly males, even adult males, often depend on women for support and nurture. Many of them have to pimp for a living, ingratiating themselves with a woman in order to pry money from her; sexual relations thus become manipulative and predatory. Satisfaction depends on taking what you want instead of waiting for what is rightfully yours to receive. All this enters everyday speech in language that connects sex with aggression and sexual aggression with highly ambivalent feelings about mothers.
In some ways middle-class society has become a pale copy of the black ghetto, as the appropriation of its language would lead us to believe. We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition, the most important feature of which is a widespread loss of confidence in the future. The poor have always had to live for the present, but now a desperate concern for personal survival, sometimes disguised as hedonism, engulfs the middle class as well. Today almost everyone lives in a dangerous world from which there is little escape. International terrorism and blackmail, bombings, and hijackings arbitrarily affect the rich and poor alike. Crime, violence, and gang wars make cities unsafe and threaten to spread to the suburbs. Racial violence on the streets and in the schools creates an atmosphere of chronic tension and threatens to erupt at any time into full-scale racial conflict. Unemployment spreads from the poor the white-collar class, while inflation eats away the savings of those who hoped to retire in comfort. Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security. The propaganda of death and destruction, emanating ceaselessly from the mass media, adds to the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity. Far-flung famines, earthquakes in remote regions, distant wars and uprisings attract the same attention as events closer to home. The impression of arbitrariness in the reporting of disaster reinforces the arbitrary quality of experience itself, and the absence of continuity in the coverage of events, as today’s crisis yields to a new and unrelated crisis tomorrow, adds to the sense of historical discontinuity - the sense of living in a world in which the past holds out no guidance to the present and the future has become completely unpredictable.
Older conceptions of success presupposed a world in rapid motion, in which fortunes were rapidly won and lost and new opportunities unfolded every day. Yet they also presupposed a certain stability, a future that bore some recognizable resemblance to the present and the past. The growth of bureaucracy, the cult of consumption with its immediate gratifications, but above all the severance of the sense of historical continuity have transformed the Protestant ethic while carrying the underlying principles of capitalist society to their logical conclusion. The pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most farsighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations - the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.
Sade imagined a sexual utopia in which everyone has the right to everyone else, where human beings, reduced to their sexual organs, become absolutely anonymous and interchangeable. His ideal society thus reaffirmed the capitalist principle that human beings are ultimately reducible to interchangeable objects. It also incorporated and carried to a surprising new conclusion Hobbes’s discovery that the destruction of paternalism and the subordination of all social relations to the market had stripped away the remaining restraints and the mitigating illusions from the war of all against all. In the resulting state of organized anarchy, as Sade was the first to realize, pleasure becomes life’s only business - pleasure, however, that is indistinguishable from rape, murder, unbridled aggression. In a society that has reduced reason to mere calculation, reason can impose no limits on the pursuit of pleasure - on the immediate gratification of every desire no matter how perverse, insane, criminal, or merely immoral. For the standards that would condemn crime or cruelty derive from religion, compassion, or the kind of reason that rejects purely instrumental applications; and none of these outmoded forms of thought or feeling has any logical place in a society based on commodity production. In his misogyny, Sade perceived that bourgeois enlightenment, carried to its logical conclusions, condemned even the sentimental cult of womanhood and the family, which the bourgeoisie itself had carried to unprecedented extremes.
At the same time, he saw that condemnation of “woman-worship” had to go hand in hand with a defense of woman’s sexual rights - their right to dispose of their own bodies, as feminists would put it today. If the exercise of that right in Sade’s utopia boils down to the duty to become an instrument of someone else’s pleasure, it was not so much because Sade hated women as because he hated humanity. He perceived, more clearly than the feminists, that all freedoms under capitalism come in the end to the same thing, the same universal obligation to enjoy and be enjoyed. In the same breath, and without violating his own logic, Sade demanded for women the right “fully to satisfy all their desires” and “all parts of their bodies” and categorically stated that “all women must submit to our pleasure.” Pure individualism thus issued in the most radical repudiation of individuality. “All men, all women resemble each other,” according to Sade; and to those of his countrymen who would become republicans he adds this ominous warning: “Do not think you can make good republicans so long as you isolated in their families the children who should belong to the republic alone.” The bourgeois defense of privacy culminates - not just in Sade’s thought but in the history to come, so accurately foreshadowed in the very excess, madness, infantilism of his ideas - in the most thoroughgoing attack on privacy; the glorification of the individual, in his annihilation.
<…>
Standing-Reserve.
Note a lack of the “Greek” in Lasch.
Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 by Georges Bataille, Edited by A. Stoekl, Translated by A. Stoekl, C.R. Lovitt, and D.M. Leslie Jr.
<…>
submitted by MirkWorks to u/MirkWorks [link] [comments]
…
From “Self-Culture” to Self-Promotion through “Winning Images”
In the nineteenth century, the ideal of self-improvement degenerated into a cult of compulsive industry. P.T. Barnum, who made a fortune in a calling the very nature of which the Puritans would have condemned (“Every calling, whereby God will be Dishonored; every Calling whereby none but the Lusts of men are Nourished: …every such Calling is to be Rejected”), delivered many times a lecture frankly entitled “The Art of Money-Getting,” which epitomized the nineteenth-century conception of worldly success. Barnum quoted freely from Franklin but without Franklin’s concern for the attainment of wisdom or the promotion of useful knowledge. “Information” interested Barnum merely as a means of mastering the market. Thus he condemned the “false economy” of the farm wife who douses her candle at dusk rather than lighting another for reading, not realizing that the “information” gained through reading is worth far more than the price of the candles. “Always take a trustworthy newspaper,” Barnum advised young men on the make, “and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world. He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.”
Barnum valued the good opinion of others not as a sign of one’s usefulness but as a means of getting credit. “Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.” The nineteenth century attempted to express all values in monetary terms. Everything had its price. Charity was a moral duty because “the liberal man will command patronage, which the sordid, uncharitable miser will be avoided.” The sin of pride was not that it offended God but that it led to extravagant expenditures. “A spirit of pride and vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying cankerworm which gnaws the very vitals of a man’s worldly possessions.”
The eighteenth century made a virtue of temperance but did not condemn moderate indulgence in the service of sociability. “Rational conversation,” on the contrary, appeared to Franklin and his contemporaries to represent an important value in its own right. The nineteenth century condemned sociability itself, on the grounds that it might interfere with business. “How many good opportunities have passed, never to return, while a man was sipping a ‘social glass’ with his friends!” Preachments on self-help now breathed the spirit of compulsive enterprise. Henry Ward Beecher defined “the beau ideal of happiness” as a state of mind in which “a man [is] so busy that he does not know whether he is or is not happy.” Russell Sage remarked that “work has been the chied, and you might say, the only source of pleasure in my life.”
Even at the height of the Gilded Age, however, the Protestant ethic did not completely lose its original meaning. In the success manuals, the McGuffey readers, the Peter Parley Books, and the hortatory writings of the great capitalists themselves, the Protestant virtues - industry, thrift, temperance - still appeared not merely as stepping-stones to success but as their own reward.
The spirit of self-improvement lived on, in debased form, in the cult of “self-culture” - proper care and training of mind and body, nurture of the mind through “great books,” development of “character.” The social contribution of individual accumulation still survived as an undercurrent in the celebration of success, and the social conditions of early industrial capitalism, in which the pursuit of wealth undeniably increased the supply of useful objects, gave some substance to the claim that “accumulated capital means progress.” In condemning speculation and extravagance, in upholding the importance of patient industry, in urging young men to start at the bottom and submit to “the discipline of daily life,” even the most unabashed exponents of self-enrichment clung to the notion that wealth derives its value from its contribution to the general good and to the happiness of future generations.
The nineteenth-century cult of success placed surprisingly little emphasis on competition. It measured achievement not against the achievements of others but against an abstract ideal of discipline and self-denial. At the turn of the century, however, preachments on success began to stress the will to win. The bureaucratization of the corporate career changed the conditions of self-advancement; ambitious young men now had to compete with their peers for the attention and approval of their superiors. The struggle to surpass the previous generation and to provide for the next gave way to a form of sibling rivalry, in which men of approximately equal abilities jostled against each other in competition for a limited number of places. Advancement now depended on “will-power, self-confidence, energy, and initiative” - the qualities celebrated in such exemplary writings as George Lorimer’s Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son. ” By the end of the nineteenth century,” writes John Cawelti in his study of the success myth, “self-help books were dominated by the ethos of sales-manship and boosterism. Personal magnetism, a quality which supposedly enabled a man to influence and dominate others, became one of the major keys to success.” In 1907, both Lorimer’s Saturday Evening Post and Orison Swett Marden’s Success magazine inaugurated departments of instruction in the “art of conversation,” fashion, and “culture.” The management of interpersonal relations came to be seen as the essence of self-advancement. The captain of industry gave way to the confidence man, the master of impressions. Young men were told that they had to sell themselves in order to succeed.
At first, self-testing through competition remained almost in-distinguishable from moral self-discipline and self-culture, but the difference became unmistakable when Dale Carnegie and then Norman Vincent Peale restated and transformed the tradition of Mather, Franklin, Barnum, and Lorimer. As a formula for success, winning friends and influencing people had little in common with industry and thrift. The prophets of positive thinking disparaged “the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires.” They praised the love of money, officially condemned even by the crudest of Gilded Age materialists, as a useful incentive. “You can never have riches in great quantities,” wrote Napoleon Hill in this Think and Grow Rich,” unless you can work yourself into a white heat of desire for money.” The pursuit of wealth lost the few shreds of moral meaning that still clung to it. Formerly the Protestant virtues appeared to have an independent value of their own. Even when they became purely instrumental, in the second half of the nineteenth century, success itself retained moral and social overtones, by virtue of its contribution to the sum of human comfort and progress. Now success appeared as an end in its own right, the victory over your competitors that alone retained the capacity to instill a sense of self-approval. The latest success manuals differ from earlier ones - even surpassing the cynicism of Dale Carnegie and Peale - in their frank acceptance of the need to exploit and intimidate others, in their lack of interest in the substance of success, and in the candor with which they insist that appearances - “winning images - count for more than performance, ascription for more than achievement. One author seems to imply that the self consists of little more than its “image” reflected in others’ eyes. “Although I’m not being original when I say it, I’m sure you’ll agree that the way you see yourself will reflect the image you portray to others.” Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
<The American Religion by Harold Bloom (California Orphism)>
The Apotheosis of Individualism
The fear that haunted the social critics and theorists of the fifties - that rugged individualism had succumbed to conformity and “love-pressure sociability” - appears in retrospect to have been premature. In 1960, David Riesman complained that young people no longer had much social “presence,” their education having provided them not with “a polished personality but [with] an affable, casual, adaptable one, suitable to the losing organizations of an affluent society.” It is true that “a present-oriented hedonism,” as Riseman went on the argue, has replaced the work ethic “among the very classes which in the earlier stages of industrialization were oriented toward the future, toward distant goals and delayed gratification.” But this hedonism is a fraud; the pursuit of pleasure disguises a struggle for power. Americans have not really become more sociable and cooperative, as the theorists of other-direction and conformity would like us to believe; they have merely become more adept at exploiting the conventions of interpersonal relations for their own benefit. Activities ostensibly undertaken purely for enjoyment often have the real object of doing others in. It is symptomatic of the underlying tenor of American life that vulgar terms for sexual intercourse also convey the sense of getting the better of someone, working him over, taking him in, imposing your will through guile, deception, or superior force. Verbs associated with sexual pleasure have acquired more than the usual overtones of violence and psychic exploitation. In the violent world of the ghetto, the language of which now pervades American society as a whole, the violence associated with sexual intercourse is directed with special intensity by men against women, specifically against their mothers. The language of ritualized aggression and abuse reminds those who use it that exploitation is the general rule and some form of dependence the common fate, that “the individual,” in Lee Rainwater’s words, “is not strong enough or adult enough to achieve his goal in a legitimate way, but is rather like a child, dependent on others who tolerate his childish maneuvers”; accordingly males, even adult males, often depend on women for support and nurture. Many of them have to pimp for a living, ingratiating themselves with a woman in order to pry money from her; sexual relations thus become manipulative and predatory. Satisfaction depends on taking what you want instead of waiting for what is rightfully yours to receive. All this enters everyday speech in language that connects sex with aggression and sexual aggression with highly ambivalent feelings about mothers.
In some ways middle-class society has become a pale copy of the black ghetto, as the appropriation of its language would lead us to believe. We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition, the most important feature of which is a widespread loss of confidence in the future. The poor have always had to live for the present, but now a desperate concern for personal survival, sometimes disguised as hedonism, engulfs the middle class as well. Today almost everyone lives in a dangerous world from which there is little escape. International terrorism and blackmail, bombings, and hijackings arbitrarily affect the rich and poor alike. Crime, violence, and gang wars make cities unsafe and threaten to spread to the suburbs. Racial violence on the streets and in the schools creates an atmosphere of chronic tension and threatens to erupt at any time into full-scale racial conflict. Unemployment spreads from the poor the white-collar class, while inflation eats away the savings of those who hoped to retire in comfort. Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security. The propaganda of death and destruction, emanating ceaselessly from the mass media, adds to the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity. Far-flung famines, earthquakes in remote regions, distant wars and uprisings attract the same attention as events closer to home. The impression of arbitrariness in the reporting of disaster reinforces the arbitrary quality of experience itself, and the absence of continuity in the coverage of events, as today’s crisis yields to a new and unrelated crisis tomorrow, adds to the sense of historical discontinuity - the sense of living in a world in which the past holds out no guidance to the present and the future has become completely unpredictable.
Older conceptions of success presupposed a world in rapid motion, in which fortunes were rapidly won and lost and new opportunities unfolded every day. Yet they also presupposed a certain stability, a future that bore some recognizable resemblance to the present and the past. The growth of bureaucracy, the cult of consumption with its immediate gratifications, but above all the severance of the sense of historical continuity have transformed the Protestant ethic while carrying the underlying principles of capitalist society to their logical conclusion
Sade imagined a sexual utopia in which everyone has the right to everyone else, where human beings, reduced to their sexual organs, become absolutely anonymous and interchangeable. His ideal society thus reaffirmed the capitalist principle that human beings are ultimately reducible to interchangeable objects. It also incorporated and carried to a surprising new conclusion Hobbes’s discovery that the destruction of paternalism and the subordination of all social relations to the market had stripped away the remaining restraints and the mitigating illusions from the war of all against all. In the resulting state of organized anarchy, as Sade was the first to realize, pleasure becomes life’s only business - pleasure, however, that is indistinguishable from rape, murder, unbridled aggression. In a society that has reduced reason to mere calculation, reason can impose no limits on the pursuit of pleasure - on the immediate gratification of every desire no matter how perverse, insane, criminal, or merely immoral. For the standards that would condemn crime or cruelty derive from religion, compassion, or the kind of reason that rejects purely instrumental applications; and none of these outmoded forms of thought or feeling has any logical place in a society based on commodity production. In his misogyny, Sade perceived that bourgeois enlightenment, carried to its logical conclusions, condemned even the sentimental cult of womanhood and the family, which the bourgeoisie itself had carried to unprecedented extremes.
At the same time, he saw that condemnation of “woman-worship” had to go hand in hand with a defense of woman’s sexual rights - their right to dispose of their own bodies, as feminists would put it today. If the exercise of that right in Sade’s utopia boils down to the duty to become an instrument of someone else’s pleasure, it was not so much because Sade hated women as because he hated humanity. He perceived, more clearly than the feminists, that all freedoms under capitalism come in the end to the same thing, the same universal obligation to enjoy and be enjoyed. In the same breath, and without violating his own logic, Sade demanded for women the right “fully to satisfy all their desires” and “all parts of their bodies” and categorically stated that “all women must submit to our pleasure.” Pure individualism thus issued in the most radical repudiation of individuality. “All men, all women resemble each other,” according to Sade; and to those of his countrymen who would become republicans he adds this ominous warning: “Do not think you can make good republicans so long as you isolated in their families the children who should belong to the republic alone.” The bourgeois defense of privacy culminates - not just in Sade’s thought but in the history to come, so accurately foreshadowed in the very excess, madness, infantilism of his ideas - in the most thoroughgoing attack on privacy; the glorification of the individual, in his annihilation.
<…>
Standing-Reserve.
Note a lack of the “Greek” in Lasch.
Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 by Georges Bataille, Edited by A. Stoekl, Translated by A. Stoekl, C.R. Lovitt, and D.M. Leslie Jr.
<…>
2024.05.16 04:09 JainaCloudmoore First Month Detransitioning Thoughts
Hi there! I'm kind of new to this and looking for support. I've only been off of testosterone and publicly detransitioning for a month now. I'll write some of the backstory out and then my questions/concerns about my former transition and what to do next. I might ramble, my apologies. I have a lot to say, and I am definitely feeling emotional about it all. It's a big deal.
I'm (27F) woman and I was transitioning as an FTM for over 5 years. I have a bit of a complicated transition history that stretches back into my earlier teen years, but I medically transitioned in my 20s for that 5 years. I only went on testosterone and never got any procedures done. However, I passed fairly well when binding and with my facial/body hair growth. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria but I'm not sure if that was correct or not. Honestly, I think I struggled more with body dysmorphia than anything gender-specific. I've had a very traumatic life (just saying that for context, I don't try to live my life in a victim mentality, my trauma has just influenced my decisions) and I went through puberty early so I was more aware of sticking out than someone in general would have. I genuinely did feel like I was transgender at parts of my life, but I don't think I would have identified that way if I had received better mental healthcare and guidance for how to accept and love and care for myself as the capable woman I am.
Overall, I think my transition was successful in a way because I accomplished a lot of life goals during the process and connected with myself. I finished undergrad, got into graduate school, worked hard in academia and in jobs, became a professional artist and writer and much more- all things that I never thought I was smart enough to do before transitioning. (I know, that sounds terrible :c ) Ultimately though, transitioning was leading me to an unhealthy place. I started to uncover a lot of traumas in therapy linked to bad male figures in my life and I started to piece together that perhaps I was trying to become the positive male figure that I never had before. Honestly, becoming that "man" did help, but the whole time it was just me. I'll never have a father, and I'll never get the peace and innocence I had before former abusive relationships, but I should have understood that my inner strength was inside of me as a woman the whole time. I didn't have to be a trans man to access that. I never experienced life as a single adult woman since I was always under negative male control, so this new phase of life is an entirely new world to me in a way. It's exciting, fresh, scary, and I am feeling so many things. I don't feel bitter about transitioning but I'm silently highly critical of my past situation and the way I regard other transitions I see IRL and online.
Towards the last two years of medically transitioning I started to experience really weird symptoms. There is a possibility that some of this is tied with long covid because I got seriously ill a couple of years ago, but I noticed symptoms become worse when dosage went higher and better when dosage was lower. Eventually, my doctor put me on what he called a "nonbinary level" which got my levels to somewhere around 99 when he said they should have been at 300. This was the point that I took medicine into MY own hands and told HIM that I wanted to be on that low dose because I felt better on it even though he wanted to increase it for some reason.
The symptoms I was having were heart palpitations, chest pains, muscle aches, loud joint cracking and pains, weakness and prone to injuries, vaginal dryness and pain, dizzy spells, and more probably that I can't think of. I have brought up these things to various doctors especially the last one and none of my "transgender healthcare professionals" seemed worried/interested enough to investigate what was going wrong other than give me blood tests or prescribe me a medicine that I wouldn't take. I felt like I had to handle my own treatment plan by becoming uncomfortably self-aware of my body situation and adjust my weight, supplements, and testosterone based on what would make me feel the least crappy. I felt abandoned by the medical field and I'm having to search for competent clinicians now who can see what's actually happening with my health. Thankfully most of the negative side effects have either subsided or lessened considerably but I don't know how much damage was actually done. I'm very grateful I still have my breasts and that my reproductive system is working a bit better, though I haven't gotten my period back yet.
Another frustration that helped me choose to detransition was understanding that the trans space is actually more dangerous than people want others to see it as. I hate saying that it's dangerous because I don't want to fearmonger ever, it's more of a logical observation. The amount of people that were predatory towards me when I was a trans man is shocking. I have trust issues already and I thought that presenting as male would protect me, but there were several who knew how to manipulate my insecurities and benefit from my vulnerability. A couple of months before I made the choice to detransition, I was a victim of a very violent SA from a "friend." I was hospitalized and injured for weeks if not months and it made me reconsider everything during the intensive therapy. My eyes opened to the reality of "chasers" who just wanted to feminize me, enact their kinks on me, and objectify/brutalize/humiliate me for my inherent womanhood. The people that claimed to love me as a trans man in theory, hated me as a woman in practice. It was horrific.
I'm so so so thankful that other detransitioners are being vocal about their experiences and reaching out even though it's a hard thing to do. I feel like I've been saved from a lifetime of extra pain and challenges that I was tricked into. My experience could have been much worse, and it was already not good.
While now I'm learning how to love myself more and navigate the world and processes of detransitioning, I'm also facing my mindset changing towards transitioning. At this point in time, I do personally believe that some transgender people do exist with gender dysphoria, but I think it is much rarer than the dominating narrative seems to suggest. I've started to hear more about AGPs and one of my friend groups almost all transitioned to become "trans women" but they don't seem to put in any effort to socialize or appear like women. They only tend to have sexual discussions and have started to seem very predatory and creepy towards me and others. One of them is convinced she has a period too. I have distanced myself from them because they have crossed my boundaries and I feel very threatened. But I feel like I can't confront them about the offensive gender issue because they'll think I'm transphobic when in reality, I feel like they're being misogynistic and hurtful.
Has anyone else experienced difficulties in healthcare/bad hormone side effects? Or what are your thoughts on dangers in the trans community? Do you have any tips on how to navigate the early stages of detransitioning? I just filed for my name change and am hoping to get laser removal soon! :)
Thank you so much for reading and any comments/advice. I appreciate it. I'm a little lost and nervous.
submitted by JainaCloudmoore to detrans [link] [comments]
I'm (27F) woman and I was transitioning as an FTM for over 5 years. I have a bit of a complicated transition history that stretches back into my earlier teen years, but I medically transitioned in my 20s for that 5 years. I only went on testosterone and never got any procedures done. However, I passed fairly well when binding and with my facial/body hair growth. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria but I'm not sure if that was correct or not. Honestly, I think I struggled more with body dysmorphia than anything gender-specific. I've had a very traumatic life (just saying that for context, I don't try to live my life in a victim mentality, my trauma has just influenced my decisions) and I went through puberty early so I was more aware of sticking out than someone in general would have. I genuinely did feel like I was transgender at parts of my life, but I don't think I would have identified that way if I had received better mental healthcare and guidance for how to accept and love and care for myself as the capable woman I am.
Overall, I think my transition was successful in a way because I accomplished a lot of life goals during the process and connected with myself. I finished undergrad, got into graduate school, worked hard in academia and in jobs, became a professional artist and writer and much more- all things that I never thought I was smart enough to do before transitioning. (I know, that sounds terrible :c ) Ultimately though, transitioning was leading me to an unhealthy place. I started to uncover a lot of traumas in therapy linked to bad male figures in my life and I started to piece together that perhaps I was trying to become the positive male figure that I never had before. Honestly, becoming that "man" did help, but the whole time it was just me. I'll never have a father, and I'll never get the peace and innocence I had before former abusive relationships, but I should have understood that my inner strength was inside of me as a woman the whole time. I didn't have to be a trans man to access that. I never experienced life as a single adult woman since I was always under negative male control, so this new phase of life is an entirely new world to me in a way. It's exciting, fresh, scary, and I am feeling so many things. I don't feel bitter about transitioning but I'm silently highly critical of my past situation and the way I regard other transitions I see IRL and online.
Towards the last two years of medically transitioning I started to experience really weird symptoms. There is a possibility that some of this is tied with long covid because I got seriously ill a couple of years ago, but I noticed symptoms become worse when dosage went higher and better when dosage was lower. Eventually, my doctor put me on what he called a "nonbinary level" which got my levels to somewhere around 99 when he said they should have been at 300. This was the point that I took medicine into MY own hands and told HIM that I wanted to be on that low dose because I felt better on it even though he wanted to increase it for some reason.
The symptoms I was having were heart palpitations, chest pains, muscle aches, loud joint cracking and pains, weakness and prone to injuries, vaginal dryness and pain, dizzy spells, and more probably that I can't think of. I have brought up these things to various doctors especially the last one and none of my "transgender healthcare professionals" seemed worried/interested enough to investigate what was going wrong other than give me blood tests or prescribe me a medicine that I wouldn't take. I felt like I had to handle my own treatment plan by becoming uncomfortably self-aware of my body situation and adjust my weight, supplements, and testosterone based on what would make me feel the least crappy. I felt abandoned by the medical field and I'm having to search for competent clinicians now who can see what's actually happening with my health. Thankfully most of the negative side effects have either subsided or lessened considerably but I don't know how much damage was actually done. I'm very grateful I still have my breasts and that my reproductive system is working a bit better, though I haven't gotten my period back yet.
Another frustration that helped me choose to detransition was understanding that the trans space is actually more dangerous than people want others to see it as. I hate saying that it's dangerous because I don't want to fearmonger ever, it's more of a logical observation. The amount of people that were predatory towards me when I was a trans man is shocking. I have trust issues already and I thought that presenting as male would protect me, but there were several who knew how to manipulate my insecurities and benefit from my vulnerability. A couple of months before I made the choice to detransition, I was a victim of a very violent SA from a "friend." I was hospitalized and injured for weeks if not months and it made me reconsider everything during the intensive therapy. My eyes opened to the reality of "chasers" who just wanted to feminize me, enact their kinks on me, and objectify/brutalize/humiliate me for my inherent womanhood. The people that claimed to love me as a trans man in theory, hated me as a woman in practice. It was horrific.
I'm so so so thankful that other detransitioners are being vocal about their experiences and reaching out even though it's a hard thing to do. I feel like I've been saved from a lifetime of extra pain and challenges that I was tricked into. My experience could have been much worse, and it was already not good.
While now I'm learning how to love myself more and navigate the world and processes of detransitioning, I'm also facing my mindset changing towards transitioning. At this point in time, I do personally believe that some transgender people do exist with gender dysphoria, but I think it is much rarer than the dominating narrative seems to suggest. I've started to hear more about AGPs and one of my friend groups almost all transitioned to become "trans women" but they don't seem to put in any effort to socialize or appear like women. They only tend to have sexual discussions and have started to seem very predatory and creepy towards me and others. One of them is convinced she has a period too. I have distanced myself from them because they have crossed my boundaries and I feel very threatened. But I feel like I can't confront them about the offensive gender issue because they'll think I'm transphobic when in reality, I feel like they're being misogynistic and hurtful.
Has anyone else experienced difficulties in healthcare/bad hormone side effects? Or what are your thoughts on dangers in the trans community? Do you have any tips on how to navigate the early stages of detransitioning? I just filed for my name change and am hoping to get laser removal soon! :)
Thank you so much for reading and any comments/advice. I appreciate it. I'm a little lost and nervous.
2024.05.16 00:26 xtremexavier15 TMA 7
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Brick, Jasmine, Justin, Millie
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, MK, Ripper, Scott, Sky
Episode 7: The Chefshank Redemption
"Last week, the dry desert heat baked our favorite pardners like roadkill on the black top! But, crispy bottoms or not, they still had to mount their ancient steed… from a hundred-foot platform!"
“But that wasn't all. A calf-roping contest had the teams lasso each other. When Trent threw challenges for Sky, she gave him a much deserved talking to, which led to some Total Drama from Justin. Well, poor old deputy Trent found himself hitching a ride on the 3:10 to Loserville.”
"With ten remaining, it's anyone's guess who will win this week!" The camera now showed the cast trailers, with nobody in sight. "Will the Gaffers manage to win again?" the host asked as the shot moved to the team of five, loitering together beneath a tree.
"Or will the Grips even things out?" Chris asked next as the shot cut to the team of five, all sitting outside at a picnic table.
"It can happen!" Anne Maria said.
"Right," Chris said in a close-up before smiling at the camera. "See for yourself, next, on Total! Drama! Action!"
(Theme Song)
The episode properly opened on a scene of the morning sun, a lilting tune playing as the camera panned down and over to the cast trailers. The sound of snoring could be heard as the shot zoomed further in on the boys' trailer, and cut inside to show the boys all in the beds they'd picked at the start of the season, though Justin was in the middle of a facial while a fan was blowing on his nails.
An air horn was sounded loudly as the shot zoomed in on Chase, who woke up with a snap. The focus switched to Scott, who opened his eyes and rubbed them before Ripper sat up and yawned.
"I call dibs on the bathroom!" Chase said after he got out of bed, rushing to the door of the trailer. The scene cut to a close-up of the handle as he grabbed it and pulled to no effect, leading him to frown and try pulling with both hands, still with no results.
Chase then saw Justin still in bed. "Can you help with this?"
“This is day 12 of my manicure!” Justin replied. “To risk any more cuticle damage would be madness!”
"I'll open the door if you can't," Ripper told Chase as he stood next to him. “I have more muscle than all of you wimps.”
“By all means, go ahead and give it a try,” Scott encouraged insincerely.
Ripper grabbed the handle and pulled to the best of his ability, but the door remained closed. "I can't open it. We're trapped."
Confessional: Ripper
“I'm pretty much the strongest of my brothers," Ripper told the confessional camera. "In my school, I'd usually have to rip open lockers so I could either stuff somebody into it or take money. I'd usually get weeks of detention for that though."
Confessional Ends
“Why did they even trap us in here?” Chase complained as the scene cut back to the guys' trailer.
“They probably want us to fight each other to see who'll come out on top,” Scott theorized.
“We should find a way out instead of doing that,” Justin argued. “My hands have just been manicured.”
The camera cut back outside as the scene panned over to the girls' trailer, and the camera cut inside to show Millie jiggling the girls' door handle.
"I don't know how I ended up inside this trailer when I slept in a tree, but we have to open the door," Jasmine panicked as the scene panned over to her. Anne Maria and Sky were sitting on the lower bunk next to her.
“I'm pretty sure they snuck you in here while you were sleeping,” Anne Maria said. “And why are you so worked up about this?”
“I have claustrophobia, and I hate being in tight spaces,” Jasmine said.
Millie gave up pulling the handle. “This thing is jammed. I'm not able to get it open.”
"So we should try a different exit," MK walked past the bunks and pointed up at the ceiling. The other girls looked up as well and the camera followed their gazes, stopping on an emergency hatch.
"One of us should be able to squeeze through it," Sky noted and tilted her head down at MK.
“Uh, why are you staring at me?” MK asked gruffly.
Confessional: Sky
"I'm not happy to see Trent leave this early," Sky confessed. "He did do some questionable things in the past few challenges, but I thought he could get better after our talk. Regardless," she looked at the camera with determination, "I have to not let this affect my game now that I'm competing without him for the first time, and we are still together, unlike me and Keith."
Confessional Ends
"You should be the one to do it," Sky told her petite teammate. "You are the smallest one here."
MK furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't like being singled out because of my height, but for the sake of escaping this trailer, I'll excuse it." The techno looked back up at the hatch. "I will need a boost though."
"I'll help you get up there," Jasmine offered as she walked over to the girl. "My height will definitely come in handy."
The scene flashed back over to the guys, showing them looking up at the hatch.
"So obviously, we need someone to fit through the hatch and open our trailer," Scott deduced.
"Count me out," Ripper huffed. "I'm too heavy to fit through."
“I'd do it, but I would need more people to climb up through,” Justin said. “This would be a lot easier if Brick was here.”
“Speaking of which, where is Brick anyway?” Chase asked aloud.
The scene cut over to the craft services tent before flashing inside to Brick standing in the kitchen wearing a pot as a hat while Chef stood next to him in his drill sergeant uniform. "Okay maggot," Chef said. "I'm gonna ride you 'til your confidence coats the back of a spoon and your self-respect forms stiff peaks!" He showed the cadet his reflection in a cleaver and said, "No more War Child Brick. Watch and learn." He used a knife to cut a banana, a can, a bitten apple, and a boot into pieces.
"What is that?" Brick wondered.
"Taste perfection, boy," Chef poured the sliced items into a pot and served a spoonful to Brick, who cringed in disgust. "What you're tasting is pride, son. The most important virtue in a man's life. Now stir that pot!" the cook ordered before storming out.
"If Chef wants pride, then I'm going to give it my best effort," Brick talked to himself as he stirred. "What he gave me was an order, and I always follow orders."
The scene flashed back to the guys' trailer, cutting inside as Ripper placed himself in a fighting position with his arm folded and sticking out in front of him.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Ripper?” Justin asked in concern.
"Of course," Ripper said. "All I have to do is show that door who's boss by bursting through it!" Moments later, he charged across the room, yelling at the top of his lungs.
The door opened outside just before Ripper reached it, and unable to stop himself, he flew outside, past a smirking Chris wearing a police uniform, and landed next to the girls who had already gathered outside their own trailer.
"Hope you all enjoyed your first taste of the gulag," Chris said as he walked over to them, the other boys coming out of their trailer and joining the group.
"Gulag?" Anne Maria asked as Ripper stood up and dusted himself off. "What even is that? Food?"
“Gulag means prison, not food,” Sky pointed out.
"Correctamondo," Chris told her. "Because today," the camera quick-panned to a prison set with high walls rimmed with barbed wire and several wooden dummies in prison uniforms set up in a courtyard, "is Prison Flick day!"
The castmates groaned.
"Ah, prison," Chris continued. "The confinement, the claustrophobia!" he said, getting excited as he began to pace back and forth in front of the unimpressed contestants, a tense tune building up in the background. "The vile, nasty food! And you're always lookin' over your shoulder, 'cause Mr. Killer Dude wants to cut ya for takin' the last tater tot! And no matter how hard you try, digging out spoonfuls of dirt, year after year, there's no escape!"
"Unless you get voted off, of course!" he added plainly.
Confessional: Chase
“As if this place wasn't prison-like enough,” Chase muttered. “Now we have to actually live like criminals. It won't surprise me if in a year or two, Chris gets locked up for teenage abuse.”
Confessional Ends
"Lockdown, people," Chris said with a grin as the footage cut back to him in the interior of a prison lit by a handful of stage lights. "Let's get this challenge started!" The shot pulled back, revealing the teams standing across from each other next to tables filled with a variety of cooking dishes. A covered cart sat near the hot, and in the background were a pair of cages.
"Teams, take a prisoner from the competition," he told them in a close-up as footsteps were heard in the background, "and Chef,” Chef arrived on screen in his earlier outfit, "I mean Warden," the host corrected with a wink. "Lock 'em up."
The shot cut over to the Grips. "Okay," Justin whispered as the five huddled, "we have to pick the weakest member of the other team."
“We do have to weigh our options,” Millie said. “Chase once told me that he swallowed ten bugs into his mouth in under a minute as a dare, and Scott and Sky have strong stomachs as evident in the eating challenge from last season.”
“Ripper doesn't seem the type to chuck out what he eats, so we're picking MK,” Jasmine decided.
The shot cut over to the Gaffers' huddle. "Obviously, we need to pick Millie for this," Scott suggested. "She's less likely to handle gross food."
"I would say Jasmine since she's less likely to go through being locked up because of her claustrophobia," MK said, "but using someone's fear against them would make me look bad."
"Looks like we have a choice," Chase finished.
"Choices?" Chris announced suddenly. "Gaffers?"
"We choose Millie," Sky announced, causing the writer to groan.
"Grips?" Chris followed up, taking a few steps to the other team. "Now remember, this is an important choice. Whoever gets the upper hand here could win the whole challenge!"
"Because of that," Brick announced, "we're picking MK." The techno girl gulped.
"Today's first game is," Chris announced as he walked back over to the covered cart, "the Prison Chow-llenge!" A few deep notes played as he grabbed the cover and whipped it away, revealing the stinking, rotting, half eaten food lying beneath. "Each team of prison chefs whips up the foulest, nastiest, most barf-inducing slop this side of Alcatraz," he explained as the camera moved in for a close-up of the 'food', then cut to a cringing Brick and a again to a somewhat surprised-looking Anne Maria.
"Millie and MK have to stomach as much as they can," the host explained. "Last one to power-hurl wins!"
"Technically, this isn't an actual prison," Millie said as Chef herded her into the cage closest to the Grips. "If I was, I'd be protesting how unfair my “arrest” is."
"That's what some of them say," Chris told her with a smile as the door slammed shut and the camera pulled back, showing that MK had been locked up as well.
Confessional: Millie
"I'm not exactly hyped for this," Millie confessed uncertainly. "With the exception of the Brunch of Disgustingness, I'm not the kind to eat gross food, and I don't plan on doing so in the future, but since I've already been nominated, I might as well just suck it up."
Confessional Ends
The camera panned across the Grips' table, showing only a handful of dishes filled with unidentifiable mush. "This just keeps getting worse and worse!" Millie said as she looked at it in horror.
"The reward better be worth it," MK said from her cage.
"Have I ever let you down?" Chris asked before quickly adding "Wait! Scratch that!" He smiled before continuing. "Anyway, the winning team gets this!" He held up a golden shovel, which gleamed in the light.
"A shovel?" Millie asked skeptically. “Seriously?”
Confessional: Jasmine
"Given what I know about confinement cells, I think I know what the next part of the challenge will be," Jasmine told the confessional camera. "If it's digging, then we have to believe that Millie will pull through for us."
Confessional Ends
"Prisoners ready?" Chris called from between the two cages. "Aaaand, culinate!"
The host continued his rapid commentary as the Gaffers were shown making their first moves around a large bowl of something brown. "Ripper goes right for the roaches. Chase tops it off with some moldy pineapple slices and oh! Here come the horse lips!" The burly boy dropped his ingredient into the bowl and walked away while the daredevil stuffed the pineapples into the bowl and grabbed some horse lips in order to add them in.
Sky approached the table from the other side. “Where did you even get these things?” the athlete asked.
"I found some leftover pineapples from the beach party," Chase told her before they left the table.
“Gross, but effective,” Sky said.
Scott arrived with his wife beater taken off and in his hands. “This oughta be good,” he snickered as he twisted his cloth and squeezed out all the sweat into the bowl. After doing so, he put his wife beater back on his bare chest.
The camera cut over to the Grips as Justin took some dead hair out of his pockets and put them into his team's bowl. "Looks like Justin is sacrificing some of his dead hair," Chris commented as Jasmine stepped forward with a cheese grater and a moldy onion, "and Jasmine adds a topping of ripe onion." The Australian woman quickly grated the onion and walked away as Anne Maria walked up to the bowl.
"Remember," Brick whispered to the Jersey girl, "we're trying to make the food gross, not tasty."
"I know that, which is why I'm throwing out these expired lip gloss," Anne Maria said as she took out two sticks of lip gloss and put them in the bowl, followed by her using her spray can on it.
"Time's up!" Chris announced suddenly and with a grin. "And jailbirds, hope your appetites are primed!"
"Hope you're not feeling queasy today," Jasmine said with a smirk as she delivered her team's bowl of white-and-moldy 'food' over to MK.
"Here is what me and my team put together," Chase said as he walked past to take a bowl of something mostly brown to Millie. “Sorry if it grosses you out, babe.”
"This looks," Millie said before gulping, "uh, incredibly...not so bad..."
"Are you maggots ready?" Chris asked excitedly. The shot cut to a close-up of maggots squirming beneath the white mush, the camera zooming out to show a horrified MK. "One minute to down that chow! Aaaaanndd...Dig in!"
The hacker took a spoonful of prison food and forced it into her mouth, cringing and shuddering immediately.
Confessional: MK
"I don't even know how the contestants could go through the Brunch of Disgustingness without dying last season," MK admitted in the make-up trailer. "I clearly don't have the iron stomach for this challenge, even after eating Chef's grossening excuse for food for two seasons."
Confessional Ends
The footage cut back to Millie as she hesitantly plunged the first spoonful into her mouth. She swallowed it whole and moaned. "What did you even put in this? Anchovy paste?"
"Not gonna answer," Ripper snorted cruelly.
Millie took another spoonful, and after a pause, she opened her mouth and pulled out a moldy pineapple slice. She shuddered again and flung it away from her.
A quick-pan over to MK showed the short girl forcing her way through her own meal. "Don't think about it," she said with a disgusted grimace after a swallow. "Do not think about it!" She took another bite, shuddered, and swallowed.
Seeing her struggle, Scott quickly conducted a plan. "Wow, who knew Millie had such a strong stomach?" he said to his team. "Especially after I squeezed all of my sweat into the bowl!"
“What?!” Millie's eyes went wide as she dropped her bowl of food to the ground with an off-screen splat. She vomited moments later, in a stream that hit a stunned MK in the head.
"MK keeps it down for the Screaming Gaffers," Chris announced over a piece of triumphant music, "and wins the reward!"
The Gaffers cheered, Sky holding the golden shovel in her hand.
"Hey Chris, can I throw up now?" MK asked as Chris let her out.
"As long as you don't get any puke on my hair and below, go right ahead," Chris told her.
"Cool," MK said, holding her stomach as she walked out of her cage. The moment the host left, she turned around and grabbed the side of her former cell, and puked right into it.
"Are you gonna be alright?" Sky asked as she and Scott walked over to her.
"Yeah," MK said after she turned around. "I was just waiting for Millie to puke her guts out."
"And because of me, she did it much faster," Scott gloated. “My sweat came through for us.
“You didn't need to say it out loud,” Sky told her teammate. “That was sort of cheating.”
"You say cheating, we say getting an advantage," MK said before getting queasy again. "Now can you excuse me for a sec?" Without waiting for a response, she turned back around and puked again.
The camera cut to Chef on another part of the set. "Sir, we may not have won," Brick said as he ran over to the cook, "but I can take pride in the fact that we created a meal that even you wouldn't eat."
"You've still got more to learn!" Chef shouted.
“Pardon?” Brick grew confused.
“Pride and two bucks will get you a cup of coffee!” Chef said. “What a man really needs is loyalty, and you clearly came through for your team. If it wasn't for the sweat thing, you would've won!”
“Thank you?” Brick said confusingly.
Chef placed a hand on his shoulder. “I was once like you. Young, weird, kinda ugly. But you've got a gift. Now own it. Don't let it go to waste. Like I did,” he sniffled and returned to his gruff state. “Meet me in the kitchen after the challenge. You're on permanent KP duty, soldier,” he said as he left.
Confessional: Brick
“I had no idea Chef could show empathy towards me, and though I don't like going against my morals by doing this secret alliance, that was the highlight,” Brick said with a smile.
Confessional Ends
(Commercial Break)
submitted by xtremexavier15 to u/xtremexavier15 [link] [comments]
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, MK, Ripper, Scott, Sky
Episode 7: The Chefshank Redemption
"Last week, the dry desert heat baked our favorite pardners like roadkill on the black top! But, crispy bottoms or not, they still had to mount their ancient steed… from a hundred-foot platform!"
“But that wasn't all. A calf-roping contest had the teams lasso each other. When Trent threw challenges for Sky, she gave him a much deserved talking to, which led to some Total Drama from Justin. Well, poor old deputy Trent found himself hitching a ride on the 3:10 to Loserville.”
"With ten remaining, it's anyone's guess who will win this week!" The camera now showed the cast trailers, with nobody in sight. "Will the Gaffers manage to win again?" the host asked as the shot moved to the team of five, loitering together beneath a tree.
"Or will the Grips even things out?" Chris asked next as the shot cut to the team of five, all sitting outside at a picnic table.
"It can happen!" Anne Maria said.
"Right," Chris said in a close-up before smiling at the camera. "See for yourself, next, on Total! Drama! Action!"
(Theme Song)
The episode properly opened on a scene of the morning sun, a lilting tune playing as the camera panned down and over to the cast trailers. The sound of snoring could be heard as the shot zoomed further in on the boys' trailer, and cut inside to show the boys all in the beds they'd picked at the start of the season, though Justin was in the middle of a facial while a fan was blowing on his nails.
An air horn was sounded loudly as the shot zoomed in on Chase, who woke up with a snap. The focus switched to Scott, who opened his eyes and rubbed them before Ripper sat up and yawned.
"I call dibs on the bathroom!" Chase said after he got out of bed, rushing to the door of the trailer. The scene cut to a close-up of the handle as he grabbed it and pulled to no effect, leading him to frown and try pulling with both hands, still with no results.
Chase then saw Justin still in bed. "Can you help with this?"
“This is day 12 of my manicure!” Justin replied. “To risk any more cuticle damage would be madness!”
"I'll open the door if you can't," Ripper told Chase as he stood next to him. “I have more muscle than all of you wimps.”
“By all means, go ahead and give it a try,” Scott encouraged insincerely.
Ripper grabbed the handle and pulled to the best of his ability, but the door remained closed. "I can't open it. We're trapped."
Confessional: Ripper
“I'm pretty much the strongest of my brothers," Ripper told the confessional camera. "In my school, I'd usually have to rip open lockers so I could either stuff somebody into it or take money. I'd usually get weeks of detention for that though."
Confessional Ends
“Why did they even trap us in here?” Chase complained as the scene cut back to the guys' trailer.
“They probably want us to fight each other to see who'll come out on top,” Scott theorized.
“We should find a way out instead of doing that,” Justin argued. “My hands have just been manicured.”
The camera cut back outside as the scene panned over to the girls' trailer, and the camera cut inside to show Millie jiggling the girls' door handle.
"I don't know how I ended up inside this trailer when I slept in a tree, but we have to open the door," Jasmine panicked as the scene panned over to her. Anne Maria and Sky were sitting on the lower bunk next to her.
“I'm pretty sure they snuck you in here while you were sleeping,” Anne Maria said. “And why are you so worked up about this?”
“I have claustrophobia, and I hate being in tight spaces,” Jasmine said.
Millie gave up pulling the handle. “This thing is jammed. I'm not able to get it open.”
"So we should try a different exit," MK walked past the bunks and pointed up at the ceiling. The other girls looked up as well and the camera followed their gazes, stopping on an emergency hatch.
"One of us should be able to squeeze through it," Sky noted and tilted her head down at MK.
“Uh, why are you staring at me?” MK asked gruffly.
Confessional: Sky
"I'm not happy to see Trent leave this early," Sky confessed. "He did do some questionable things in the past few challenges, but I thought he could get better after our talk. Regardless," she looked at the camera with determination, "I have to not let this affect my game now that I'm competing without him for the first time, and we are still together, unlike me and Keith."
Confessional Ends
"You should be the one to do it," Sky told her petite teammate. "You are the smallest one here."
MK furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't like being singled out because of my height, but for the sake of escaping this trailer, I'll excuse it." The techno looked back up at the hatch. "I will need a boost though."
"I'll help you get up there," Jasmine offered as she walked over to the girl. "My height will definitely come in handy."
The scene flashed back over to the guys, showing them looking up at the hatch.
"So obviously, we need someone to fit through the hatch and open our trailer," Scott deduced.
"Count me out," Ripper huffed. "I'm too heavy to fit through."
“I'd do it, but I would need more people to climb up through,” Justin said. “This would be a lot easier if Brick was here.”
“Speaking of which, where is Brick anyway?” Chase asked aloud.
The scene cut over to the craft services tent before flashing inside to Brick standing in the kitchen wearing a pot as a hat while Chef stood next to him in his drill sergeant uniform. "Okay maggot," Chef said. "I'm gonna ride you 'til your confidence coats the back of a spoon and your self-respect forms stiff peaks!" He showed the cadet his reflection in a cleaver and said, "No more War Child Brick. Watch and learn." He used a knife to cut a banana, a can, a bitten apple, and a boot into pieces.
"What is that?" Brick wondered.
"Taste perfection, boy," Chef poured the sliced items into a pot and served a spoonful to Brick, who cringed in disgust. "What you're tasting is pride, son. The most important virtue in a man's life. Now stir that pot!" the cook ordered before storming out.
"If Chef wants pride, then I'm going to give it my best effort," Brick talked to himself as he stirred. "What he gave me was an order, and I always follow orders."
The scene flashed back to the guys' trailer, cutting inside as Ripper placed himself in a fighting position with his arm folded and sticking out in front of him.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Ripper?” Justin asked in concern.
"Of course," Ripper said. "All I have to do is show that door who's boss by bursting through it!" Moments later, he charged across the room, yelling at the top of his lungs.
The door opened outside just before Ripper reached it, and unable to stop himself, he flew outside, past a smirking Chris wearing a police uniform, and landed next to the girls who had already gathered outside their own trailer.
"Hope you all enjoyed your first taste of the gulag," Chris said as he walked over to them, the other boys coming out of their trailer and joining the group.
"Gulag?" Anne Maria asked as Ripper stood up and dusted himself off. "What even is that? Food?"
“Gulag means prison, not food,” Sky pointed out.
"Correctamondo," Chris told her. "Because today," the camera quick-panned to a prison set with high walls rimmed with barbed wire and several wooden dummies in prison uniforms set up in a courtyard, "is Prison Flick day!"
The castmates groaned.
"Ah, prison," Chris continued. "The confinement, the claustrophobia!" he said, getting excited as he began to pace back and forth in front of the unimpressed contestants, a tense tune building up in the background. "The vile, nasty food! And you're always lookin' over your shoulder, 'cause Mr. Killer Dude wants to cut ya for takin' the last tater tot! And no matter how hard you try, digging out spoonfuls of dirt, year after year, there's no escape!"
"Unless you get voted off, of course!" he added plainly.
Confessional: Chase
“As if this place wasn't prison-like enough,” Chase muttered. “Now we have to actually live like criminals. It won't surprise me if in a year or two, Chris gets locked up for teenage abuse.”
Confessional Ends
"Lockdown, people," Chris said with a grin as the footage cut back to him in the interior of a prison lit by a handful of stage lights. "Let's get this challenge started!" The shot pulled back, revealing the teams standing across from each other next to tables filled with a variety of cooking dishes. A covered cart sat near the hot, and in the background were a pair of cages.
"Teams, take a prisoner from the competition," he told them in a close-up as footsteps were heard in the background, "and Chef,” Chef arrived on screen in his earlier outfit, "I mean Warden," the host corrected with a wink. "Lock 'em up."
The shot cut over to the Grips. "Okay," Justin whispered as the five huddled, "we have to pick the weakest member of the other team."
“We do have to weigh our options,” Millie said. “Chase once told me that he swallowed ten bugs into his mouth in under a minute as a dare, and Scott and Sky have strong stomachs as evident in the eating challenge from last season.”
“Ripper doesn't seem the type to chuck out what he eats, so we're picking MK,” Jasmine decided.
The shot cut over to the Gaffers' huddle. "Obviously, we need to pick Millie for this," Scott suggested. "She's less likely to handle gross food."
"I would say Jasmine since she's less likely to go through being locked up because of her claustrophobia," MK said, "but using someone's fear against them would make me look bad."
"Looks like we have a choice," Chase finished.
"Choices?" Chris announced suddenly. "Gaffers?"
"We choose Millie," Sky announced, causing the writer to groan.
"Grips?" Chris followed up, taking a few steps to the other team. "Now remember, this is an important choice. Whoever gets the upper hand here could win the whole challenge!"
"Because of that," Brick announced, "we're picking MK." The techno girl gulped.
"Today's first game is," Chris announced as he walked back over to the covered cart, "the Prison Chow-llenge!" A few deep notes played as he grabbed the cover and whipped it away, revealing the stinking, rotting, half eaten food lying beneath. "Each team of prison chefs whips up the foulest, nastiest, most barf-inducing slop this side of Alcatraz," he explained as the camera moved in for a close-up of the 'food', then cut to a cringing Brick and a again to a somewhat surprised-looking Anne Maria.
"Millie and MK have to stomach as much as they can," the host explained. "Last one to power-hurl wins!"
"Technically, this isn't an actual prison," Millie said as Chef herded her into the cage closest to the Grips. "If I was, I'd be protesting how unfair my “arrest” is."
"That's what some of them say," Chris told her with a smile as the door slammed shut and the camera pulled back, showing that MK had been locked up as well.
Confessional: Millie
"I'm not exactly hyped for this," Millie confessed uncertainly. "With the exception of the Brunch of Disgustingness, I'm not the kind to eat gross food, and I don't plan on doing so in the future, but since I've already been nominated, I might as well just suck it up."
Confessional Ends
The camera panned across the Grips' table, showing only a handful of dishes filled with unidentifiable mush. "This just keeps getting worse and worse!" Millie said as she looked at it in horror.
"The reward better be worth it," MK said from her cage.
"Have I ever let you down?" Chris asked before quickly adding "Wait! Scratch that!" He smiled before continuing. "Anyway, the winning team gets this!" He held up a golden shovel, which gleamed in the light.
"A shovel?" Millie asked skeptically. “Seriously?”
Confessional: Jasmine
"Given what I know about confinement cells, I think I know what the next part of the challenge will be," Jasmine told the confessional camera. "If it's digging, then we have to believe that Millie will pull through for us."
Confessional Ends
"Prisoners ready?" Chris called from between the two cages. "Aaaand, culinate!"
The host continued his rapid commentary as the Gaffers were shown making their first moves around a large bowl of something brown. "Ripper goes right for the roaches. Chase tops it off with some moldy pineapple slices and oh! Here come the horse lips!" The burly boy dropped his ingredient into the bowl and walked away while the daredevil stuffed the pineapples into the bowl and grabbed some horse lips in order to add them in.
Sky approached the table from the other side. “Where did you even get these things?” the athlete asked.
"I found some leftover pineapples from the beach party," Chase told her before they left the table.
“Gross, but effective,” Sky said.
Scott arrived with his wife beater taken off and in his hands. “This oughta be good,” he snickered as he twisted his cloth and squeezed out all the sweat into the bowl. After doing so, he put his wife beater back on his bare chest.
The camera cut over to the Grips as Justin took some dead hair out of his pockets and put them into his team's bowl. "Looks like Justin is sacrificing some of his dead hair," Chris commented as Jasmine stepped forward with a cheese grater and a moldy onion, "and Jasmine adds a topping of ripe onion." The Australian woman quickly grated the onion and walked away as Anne Maria walked up to the bowl.
"Remember," Brick whispered to the Jersey girl, "we're trying to make the food gross, not tasty."
"I know that, which is why I'm throwing out these expired lip gloss," Anne Maria said as she took out two sticks of lip gloss and put them in the bowl, followed by her using her spray can on it.
"Time's up!" Chris announced suddenly and with a grin. "And jailbirds, hope your appetites are primed!"
"Hope you're not feeling queasy today," Jasmine said with a smirk as she delivered her team's bowl of white-and-moldy 'food' over to MK.
"Here is what me and my team put together," Chase said as he walked past to take a bowl of something mostly brown to Millie. “Sorry if it grosses you out, babe.”
"This looks," Millie said before gulping, "uh, incredibly...not so bad..."
"Are you maggots ready?" Chris asked excitedly. The shot cut to a close-up of maggots squirming beneath the white mush, the camera zooming out to show a horrified MK. "One minute to down that chow! Aaaaanndd...Dig in!"
The hacker took a spoonful of prison food and forced it into her mouth, cringing and shuddering immediately.
Confessional: MK
"I don't even know how the contestants could go through the Brunch of Disgustingness without dying last season," MK admitted in the make-up trailer. "I clearly don't have the iron stomach for this challenge, even after eating Chef's grossening excuse for food for two seasons."
Confessional Ends
The footage cut back to Millie as she hesitantly plunged the first spoonful into her mouth. She swallowed it whole and moaned. "What did you even put in this? Anchovy paste?"
"Not gonna answer," Ripper snorted cruelly.
Millie took another spoonful, and after a pause, she opened her mouth and pulled out a moldy pineapple slice. She shuddered again and flung it away from her.
A quick-pan over to MK showed the short girl forcing her way through her own meal. "Don't think about it," she said with a disgusted grimace after a swallow. "Do not think about it!" She took another bite, shuddered, and swallowed.
Seeing her struggle, Scott quickly conducted a plan. "Wow, who knew Millie had such a strong stomach?" he said to his team. "Especially after I squeezed all of my sweat into the bowl!"
“What?!” Millie's eyes went wide as she dropped her bowl of food to the ground with an off-screen splat. She vomited moments later, in a stream that hit a stunned MK in the head.
"MK keeps it down for the Screaming Gaffers," Chris announced over a piece of triumphant music, "and wins the reward!"
The Gaffers cheered, Sky holding the golden shovel in her hand.
"Hey Chris, can I throw up now?" MK asked as Chris let her out.
"As long as you don't get any puke on my hair and below, go right ahead," Chris told her.
"Cool," MK said, holding her stomach as she walked out of her cage. The moment the host left, she turned around and grabbed the side of her former cell, and puked right into it.
"Are you gonna be alright?" Sky asked as she and Scott walked over to her.
"Yeah," MK said after she turned around. "I was just waiting for Millie to puke her guts out."
"And because of me, she did it much faster," Scott gloated. “My sweat came through for us.
“You didn't need to say it out loud,” Sky told her teammate. “That was sort of cheating.”
"You say cheating, we say getting an advantage," MK said before getting queasy again. "Now can you excuse me for a sec?" Without waiting for a response, she turned back around and puked again.
The camera cut to Chef on another part of the set. "Sir, we may not have won," Brick said as he ran over to the cook, "but I can take pride in the fact that we created a meal that even you wouldn't eat."
"You've still got more to learn!" Chef shouted.
“Pardon?” Brick grew confused.
“Pride and two bucks will get you a cup of coffee!” Chef said. “What a man really needs is loyalty, and you clearly came through for your team. If it wasn't for the sweat thing, you would've won!”
“Thank you?” Brick said confusingly.
Chef placed a hand on his shoulder. “I was once like you. Young, weird, kinda ugly. But you've got a gift. Now own it. Don't let it go to waste. Like I did,” he sniffled and returned to his gruff state. “Meet me in the kitchen after the challenge. You're on permanent KP duty, soldier,” he said as he left.
Confessional: Brick
“I had no idea Chef could show empathy towards me, and though I don't like going against my morals by doing this secret alliance, that was the highlight,” Brick said with a smile.
Confessional Ends
(Commercial Break)
2024.05.15 21:26 theconstellinguist Envy Studies Includes Jealousy Studies: Pathological Jealousy from a Forensic Psychiatric Perspective
Pathological Jealousy from a Forensic Psychiatric Perspective
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/aspects-of-morbid-jealousy/06CBB7BF78CC43C785AE6F7C0F0046C9
The fear of loss and hyperfocus on the fear of loss seems to be behind a lot of the behavior to do with jealousy.
"The threat of losing a partner is expressed cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally. At the beginning the dominant component is emotional, related to a threat of a personal loss (of a partner, relationship, plans, life, stability), negative attitude towards a rival, as well as a partner, the feeling of injustice and loneliness."
Anger at the fear of loss begins to emerge.
"According to Zywucka-Kozlowska and Wlodarcyzk, jealousy is an anger, occurring on certain circumstances, based on two elements; emotions and situations. Emotions arise from the construction of human psyche, while situation arises from conditionings of the external world. Jealousy understood as an emotion is based on the insecurity towards own self-worthiness as a person as well as own attractiveness (including sexual attractiveness) for the partner."
The anger motivates the aggression to mitigate the risk of fear of loss
"Change in a way of perceiving a threat of losing a valued partnership (hypothesis, suspicion, interpretation) in favor of a real or imaginary rival who would enter an emotional relationship with a partner. It is accompanied by a mixture of various interpretations of the partner's behaviors as well as those of the rival, which generate anxiety and incline a jealous person to search for evidence of infidelity or to actions aiming at prevention of potential infidelity. The jealous person accumulates sorrow, anger, hatred, bitterness, which can epitomize in accusations towards an erotic partner."
Feelings of inefficiency and inability to satisfy cause a sense of fundamental insufficiency that begins the anger that evokes jealousy
"Factors often listed as contributing to evoking jealousy in men are as follows: erectile dysfunction, a feeling of inability to satisfy a partner's sexual desires, decrease of women's sexual drive, differences in attractiveness of partners, experience of an actual infidelity in the past, feeling of inefficiency to fulfill social roles, or psychopathological disorders expressed by alcohol abuse, personality disorders and delusional syndrome."
Putting the cart before the horse of accusations freaking out the accuser is seen, causing more anxiety as there is no good way to respond to an irrational delusion.
"Simultaneously, suspicion and distrust towards the partner and other people grow, then imaginary accusations and convictions appear. Consequently, these convictions intensify the fear, fury and further anxiety which additionally increases the amount of false judgements."
They also show inability to control jealous thoughts
"Infidelity, however, are not able to suppress the key psychic aspect of their jealousy, namely intrusive thoughts about infidelity, which they cannot control. Jealousy in its overvalued idea takes on a form of a dominant thought, however, a jealous person does not have assumptions of the intensity of delusions."
This shows jealous behavior is linked to obsessive compulsive disorder, which is linked to fear of loss. Only its aggressive instantiation is linked to jealous behavior though.
Anger at the fear of loss increases stress which makes the brain's delusions more aggressive as happens whenever the brain is infused with excess cortisol.
"It is necessary for a person to display anxiety, fear of losing a partner or his or her position in the partnership, which should evoke stress and interfere with function of the jealous person, both people, or partnership."
Invasion of private areas of an individual's processing is a key signs of jealousy, as is the aggressive imposition of humiliating the partner to "get back" for their delusions where they were humiliated which never occurred
"Typical behaviors accompanying delusional jealousy include: multiple accusations about infidelity without sufficient evidence, demands for assertions or imposing of pledging faithfulness, humiliating and controlling partner's behaviors as well as demanding information concerning thoughts, views, and fantasies."
Overvaluation of the delusional idea also includes overreading of the facial expression for "signs" of confirmation. Hyperfixation on sentiment analysis may belie a deeper delusion behind the person hyperfixated.
"The so-called delusional activity comes down to realizing powerfully expressed need of control in form of various ways of manipulating, deceiving, searching for personal belongings, listening in telephone calls, and controlling correspondences. Emotions present at that time such as anger, sorrow, pain humiliation, fear and contradicting desired lead to increasing search for eventual evidence of infidelity, which could not be found, which in turn make neutral behavior acquire characteristics of these evidences."
Insatiability is seen on the jealous, showing extremes of violation to satisfy a delusional possessiveness, all the more disturbing when there is no actual partnership. The insatiability belies the psychotic instantiation
"A greater integrity of partnership, however, this lasts only a certain time. Usually, there comes a moment when a partner is not able to fulfill the expectations of a jealous person because it is infeasible. Attempts at leaving the above described constellation by one of the partners turn into an embers of anxiety, fear and evoke suspicion of disloyalty, to the pathological extent."
Schizophrenia, depression, substance use and OCD are all seen on those with pathological jealousy.
"On the other hand, Singh et al. indicated that the most common diagnoses related to morbid jealousy were schizophrenia (34%), depression (30%) and substance abuse (20%) jealousy with morbid intensity occurred also in bipolar affective disorder (6%) and other mental disorders. 10%-obsessive-compulsive disorder."
Expectation of reward and aggressive dopamine shunting as an irregularity were seen in these brains, linking jealousy to envy circuitry.
In confirmation of this, jealousy showed signs of behaving just like an addiction, trying to get a higher hit. Addiction is not logic, it creates rationalization.
"In respect to women, intensity of jealousy negatively correlated with the length of a relationship, and positively with the intensifying symptoms of an addiction."
False reception of various actions are treated as real, and memories are reinterpreted (and thus reconstructed) as pathological, leading to a strong emotional charge. Basically, reading neutral information wrong as often seen on the jealous leads to the anger that leads to fear of loss, and the stress that creates delusion.
"In delusional disorders focusing on a partner's infidelity, jealous people treat their false reception of various actions as real and intensify it by pathological interpretation of memories which are in turn strengthened by strong emotional charge. By doing this, quasi-logical systems of jealousy are created. They constantly accuse a partner of infidelity and stubbornly attempt to validate their suspicions by delusional activity. Sometimes, "interrogations" can take a form of tortures, and inspections are not limited to checking possessions, but also involve partner himself (including genitalia)."
Delusions of humiliation seem to be psychotic expressions of fear of loss, the fear of having lost while acting like one has not.
"It seems that in the case of people with increased levels of jealousy, situations when they feel moral pain associated with a false conviction that the environment knows about a partner's infidelity, can be especially painful. Situations n which they feel threatened, associate with a possibility of infidelity, disloyalty, embarrassment or humiliation (imaginary or real) weaken their self-control. Most often, there is a chronic situation of mental burden and increasingly growing tension."
Highly suspicious hostility leads to anxiety and negative attitudes towards other people.
"They are highly suspicious, which is expressed by hostility towards the environment, caution towards people, which leads to experiencing anxiety and negative attitudes towards other people."
Emotional-delusional explains a lot of the general type of rationalization, denial, and cart before the horse thinking seen on the jealous person.
"Przybylek at al.[30] drew similar conclusions and stated that in the group of emotional-delusional murderers there are perpetrators who, apart from delusional aspect, are motivated by revenge, feeling of injustice or feelings of insecurity and fear, which additionally weakens their ability to control their actions while committing a crime."
People with delusional jealousy often struggle to see their own jealousy or envy, showing again the denial element of the psychotic behavior witnessed. Lowered level of sense of illness (not admitting they have a problem) is a well known sign of an extremely high risk person for committing violence.
"Usually crimes motivated by jealousy are associated with a chronic psychotic process which is concentrated on a partner, a suspected rival, or other people who 'assist' infidelity. People with delusional jealousy have also a very low level of criticism towards own convictions. A lowered level of illness insight is a well-known factor of aggression risk, which should cause expert witnesses to balanced assessment in terms of the necessity of using security measures."
submitted by theconstellinguist to envystudies [link] [comments]
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/aspects-of-morbid-jealousy/06CBB7BF78CC43C785AE6F7C0F0046C9
The fear of loss and hyperfocus on the fear of loss seems to be behind a lot of the behavior to do with jealousy.
"The threat of losing a partner is expressed cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally. At the beginning the dominant component is emotional, related to a threat of a personal loss (of a partner, relationship, plans, life, stability), negative attitude towards a rival, as well as a partner, the feeling of injustice and loneliness."
Anger at the fear of loss begins to emerge.
"According to Zywucka-Kozlowska and Wlodarcyzk, jealousy is an anger, occurring on certain circumstances, based on two elements; emotions and situations. Emotions arise from the construction of human psyche, while situation arises from conditionings of the external world. Jealousy understood as an emotion is based on the insecurity towards own self-worthiness as a person as well as own attractiveness (including sexual attractiveness) for the partner."
The anger motivates the aggression to mitigate the risk of fear of loss
"Change in a way of perceiving a threat of losing a valued partnership (hypothesis, suspicion, interpretation) in favor of a real or imaginary rival who would enter an emotional relationship with a partner. It is accompanied by a mixture of various interpretations of the partner's behaviors as well as those of the rival, which generate anxiety and incline a jealous person to search for evidence of infidelity or to actions aiming at prevention of potential infidelity. The jealous person accumulates sorrow, anger, hatred, bitterness, which can epitomize in accusations towards an erotic partner."
Feelings of inefficiency and inability to satisfy cause a sense of fundamental insufficiency that begins the anger that evokes jealousy
"Factors often listed as contributing to evoking jealousy in men are as follows: erectile dysfunction, a feeling of inability to satisfy a partner's sexual desires, decrease of women's sexual drive, differences in attractiveness of partners, experience of an actual infidelity in the past, feeling of inefficiency to fulfill social roles, or psychopathological disorders expressed by alcohol abuse, personality disorders and delusional syndrome."
Putting the cart before the horse of accusations freaking out the accuser is seen, causing more anxiety as there is no good way to respond to an irrational delusion.
"Simultaneously, suspicion and distrust towards the partner and other people grow, then imaginary accusations and convictions appear. Consequently, these convictions intensify the fear, fury and further anxiety which additionally increases the amount of false judgements."
They also show inability to control jealous thoughts
"Infidelity, however, are not able to suppress the key psychic aspect of their jealousy, namely intrusive thoughts about infidelity, which they cannot control. Jealousy in its overvalued idea takes on a form of a dominant thought, however, a jealous person does not have assumptions of the intensity of delusions."
This shows jealous behavior is linked to obsessive compulsive disorder, which is linked to fear of loss. Only its aggressive instantiation is linked to jealous behavior though.
Anger at the fear of loss increases stress which makes the brain's delusions more aggressive as happens whenever the brain is infused with excess cortisol.
"It is necessary for a person to display anxiety, fear of losing a partner or his or her position in the partnership, which should evoke stress and interfere with function of the jealous person, both people, or partnership."
Invasion of private areas of an individual's processing is a key signs of jealousy, as is the aggressive imposition of humiliating the partner to "get back" for their delusions where they were humiliated which never occurred
"Typical behaviors accompanying delusional jealousy include: multiple accusations about infidelity without sufficient evidence, demands for assertions or imposing of pledging faithfulness, humiliating and controlling partner's behaviors as well as demanding information concerning thoughts, views, and fantasies."
Overvaluation of the delusional idea also includes overreading of the facial expression for "signs" of confirmation. Hyperfixation on sentiment analysis may belie a deeper delusion behind the person hyperfixated.
"The so-called delusional activity comes down to realizing powerfully expressed need of control in form of various ways of manipulating, deceiving, searching for personal belongings, listening in telephone calls, and controlling correspondences. Emotions present at that time such as anger, sorrow, pain humiliation, fear and contradicting desired lead to increasing search for eventual evidence of infidelity, which could not be found, which in turn make neutral behavior acquire characteristics of these evidences."
Insatiability is seen on the jealous, showing extremes of violation to satisfy a delusional possessiveness, all the more disturbing when there is no actual partnership. The insatiability belies the psychotic instantiation
"A greater integrity of partnership, however, this lasts only a certain time. Usually, there comes a moment when a partner is not able to fulfill the expectations of a jealous person because it is infeasible. Attempts at leaving the above described constellation by one of the partners turn into an embers of anxiety, fear and evoke suspicion of disloyalty, to the pathological extent."
Schizophrenia, depression, substance use and OCD are all seen on those with pathological jealousy.
"On the other hand, Singh et al. indicated that the most common diagnoses related to morbid jealousy were schizophrenia (34%), depression (30%) and substance abuse (20%) jealousy with morbid intensity occurred also in bipolar affective disorder (6%) and other mental disorders. 10%-obsessive-compulsive disorder."
Expectation of reward and aggressive dopamine shunting as an irregularity were seen in these brains, linking jealousy to envy circuitry.
In confirmation of this, jealousy showed signs of behaving just like an addiction, trying to get a higher hit. Addiction is not logic, it creates rationalization.
"In respect to women, intensity of jealousy negatively correlated with the length of a relationship, and positively with the intensifying symptoms of an addiction."
False reception of various actions are treated as real, and memories are reinterpreted (and thus reconstructed) as pathological, leading to a strong emotional charge. Basically, reading neutral information wrong as often seen on the jealous leads to the anger that leads to fear of loss, and the stress that creates delusion.
"In delusional disorders focusing on a partner's infidelity, jealous people treat their false reception of various actions as real and intensify it by pathological interpretation of memories which are in turn strengthened by strong emotional charge. By doing this, quasi-logical systems of jealousy are created. They constantly accuse a partner of infidelity and stubbornly attempt to validate their suspicions by delusional activity. Sometimes, "interrogations" can take a form of tortures, and inspections are not limited to checking possessions, but also involve partner himself (including genitalia)."
Delusions of humiliation seem to be psychotic expressions of fear of loss, the fear of having lost while acting like one has not.
"It seems that in the case of people with increased levels of jealousy, situations when they feel moral pain associated with a false conviction that the environment knows about a partner's infidelity, can be especially painful. Situations n which they feel threatened, associate with a possibility of infidelity, disloyalty, embarrassment or humiliation (imaginary or real) weaken their self-control. Most often, there is a chronic situation of mental burden and increasingly growing tension."
Highly suspicious hostility leads to anxiety and negative attitudes towards other people.
"They are highly suspicious, which is expressed by hostility towards the environment, caution towards people, which leads to experiencing anxiety and negative attitudes towards other people."
Emotional-delusional explains a lot of the general type of rationalization, denial, and cart before the horse thinking seen on the jealous person.
"Przybylek at al.[30] drew similar conclusions and stated that in the group of emotional-delusional murderers there are perpetrators who, apart from delusional aspect, are motivated by revenge, feeling of injustice or feelings of insecurity and fear, which additionally weakens their ability to control their actions while committing a crime."
People with delusional jealousy often struggle to see their own jealousy or envy, showing again the denial element of the psychotic behavior witnessed. Lowered level of sense of illness (not admitting they have a problem) is a well known sign of an extremely high risk person for committing violence.
"Usually crimes motivated by jealousy are associated with a chronic psychotic process which is concentrated on a partner, a suspected rival, or other people who 'assist' infidelity. People with delusional jealousy have also a very low level of criticism towards own convictions. A lowered level of illness insight is a well-known factor of aggression risk, which should cause expert witnesses to balanced assessment in terms of the necessity of using security measures."
2024.05.15 21:08 serenade452 English Law & "Based On A True Story" disclaimer - Will it hold up? (Article)
Here is a brief article on English law and "true story" legal disclaimers (such as the one at the end of every Baby Reindeer episode).
Based on a true story. Deny it all you want, but when those five words pop up on the big screen, you can’t help but lean forward in your seat. Is there any weight behind the phrase, or is it just a marketing ploy used by producers?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the legal aspect of the whole ‘true story’ idea is a bit of a grey area. In one of the most high-profile legal fallouts of recent months, streaming giant Netflix is facing a defamation lawsuit over its portrayal of former Vanity Fair staffer Rachel DeLoache Williams in its nine-part drama series Inventing Anna. The series portrays Williams in a less than flattering light, prompting (the real) Williams to face a wave of online abuse following the series’ release. In fact, the lawsuit filed on August 29, alleges that the streaming service falsely depicted her as ‘greedy’, ‘snobbish’, ‘cowardly’, and ‘dishonest’, among other choice words.
Each episode in the series kicks off with the same line: “This whole story is completely true. Except for the parts that are completely made up.”
Regardless of the disclaimer, Williams’ attorney has argued that there are serious questions raised by a system where creatives are free to use real people’s names for unpleasant or controversial characters in film and TV. Especially when the depictions are inaccurate. So, what’s the point of having a disclaimer?
Of course, the use of disclaimers isn’t watertight, and they don’t always hold up in court.
On the flip side, Christopher Gabbitas of Keystone Law speaks on the misconception that an individual can hold the rights to their life story: “There is still this idea we have some form of ownership and so are the people who can grant rights. But there is no legal basis for that in English law; no trademark, copyright or intellectual property protection. And in most territories nothing prevents the producer of a drama doing what they want.” He further highlights two clashing clauses within the Human Rights Act of 1998, which Britain is currently tied to: Article 8 protects an individual's right to a private life and correspondence; Article 10 underlines the right to freedom of expression.
This is where English and American law come to a head. While creative freedom is backed by common law and precedent in the UK, any mention of a character by name can be claimed as an invasion of privacy in the US. Authors of books and memoirs are often advised to change characters’ names and not reveal any identifying features, so why is Netflix able to cast spitting images of real people and name them?
This is not the first time Netflix has found itself in hot water over claims of defamation. Its hit miniseries The Queen’s Gambit was under fire from former Soviet chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili who alleged the streaming giant’s portrayal implied her character was not familiar with competing against male counterparts. Former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein also had qualms over her portrayal in Netflix’s When They See Us, a crime drama series based on the ‘Central Park Five’.
submitted by serenade452 to BabyReindeerTVSeries [link] [comments]
One point I found interesting that may be relevant to the Fiona situation is that in English law, nobody holds any sort of rights to their own life stories, and generally nothing prevents a tv show from doing what they want with it. Now, this article is mainly talking about the use of people's real names. Changing names likely grants a bit more protection as well.
Another thing to note before you read - The lawsuit against Netflix mentioned in this article has since been settled with an agreement reached by both parties - The show in question used everyone's real names.Perhaps unsurprisingly, the legal aspect of the whole ‘true story’ idea is a bit of a grey area. In one of the most high-profile legal fallouts of recent months, streaming giant Netflix is facing a defamation lawsuit over its portrayal of former Vanity Fair staffer Rachel DeLoache Williams in its nine-part drama series Inventing Anna. The series portrays Williams in a less than flattering light, prompting (the real) Williams to face a wave of online abuse following the series’ release. In fact, the lawsuit filed on August 29, alleges that the streaming service falsely depicted her as ‘greedy’, ‘snobbish’, ‘cowardly’, and ‘dishonest’, among other choice words.
Each episode in the series kicks off with the same line: “This whole story is completely true. Except for the parts that are completely made up.”
Regardless of the disclaimer, Williams’ attorney has argued that there are serious questions raised by a system where creatives are free to use real people’s names for unpleasant or controversial characters in film and TV. Especially when the depictions are inaccurate. So, what’s the point of having a disclaimer?
Of course, the use of disclaimers isn’t watertight, and they don’t always hold up in court.
On the flip side, Christopher Gabbitas of Keystone Law speaks on the misconception that an individual can hold the rights to their life story: “There is still this idea we have some form of ownership and so are the people who can grant rights. But there is no legal basis for that in English law; no trademark, copyright or intellectual property protection. And in most territories nothing prevents the producer of a drama doing what they want.” He further highlights two clashing clauses within the Human Rights Act of 1998, which Britain is currently tied to: Article 8 protects an individual's right to a private life and correspondence; Article 10 underlines the right to freedom of expression.
This is where English and American law come to a head. While creative freedom is backed by common law and precedent in the UK, any mention of a character by name can be claimed as an invasion of privacy in the US. Authors of books and memoirs are often advised to change characters’ names and not reveal any identifying features, so why is Netflix able to cast spitting images of real people and name them?
This is not the first time Netflix has found itself in hot water over claims of defamation. Its hit miniseries The Queen’s Gambit was under fire from former Soviet chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili who alleged the streaming giant’s portrayal implied her character was not familiar with competing against male counterparts. Former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein also had qualms over her portrayal in Netflix’s When They See Us, a crime drama series based on the ‘Central Park Five’.
2024.05.15 20:32 Flagg1991 Children of the Night (Part 4)
Club Vlad sat near the confluence of Central Avenue and Washington Avenue, Albany’s two main thoroughfares. Two stories with blackout windows and a box office from when it used to be a movie theater, it was swarmed with people when Dom first spotted it ahead. He was somewhat familiar with it: He passed it every day on his way to work, and it was always busy around his time of evening, even on weeknights. Part of him always wanted to go inside and be a part of the scene, but he never did.
The man in sunglasses - his name was Joe - led Dom toward the club, and even before Joe spoke, Dom somehow knew that it was their destination. “There,” Joe said. “We’ll go around back.”
Dom and Joe had been walking for what seemed like an hour but couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. Dom stuck as close to Joe as possible as if for protection, and had become accustomed to his pungent smell. It was noticeable only at extremely close range, part sickly sweet and part…something else, something Dom could not place but still somehow recognized. They were two blocks from the club, maybe three, and Dom could hear the pulsing techo/house/whatever music as clearly as if he were standing in the middle of the dancefloor. He could hear the chatter of the people inside, or at least he imagined he could. He could smell them too: Beneath the odors of perfume, desperation, and spiritual rot was something richer, something blissful. Dom realized for the first time that he was parched - so parched - and drool filled his mouth.
A crowd of people waited outside Club Vlad, talking and laughing; some vaped, some stared down at their cellphones like Gollum with his precious ring. Dom’s first reaction was to avoid them. Perhaps sensing this…or perhaps feeling it himself…Joe ducked into an alleyway two doors down from the club. “We’ll go in the back,” Joe explained.
The back entrance to Club Vlad was a single door underneath a bare bulb. The music was so loud that Dom’s head began to throb. Inside, a dark hallway terminated in an archway filled with throbbing white light. Dread filled Dom as they approached it - he didn’t want to be around people - but thankfully they went into a room off the hall instead. An office. A cramped desk, a filing cabinet. A set of stairs disappeared into shadows.
“Sit,” Joe said.
Dom obeyed, sitting in the swivel chair.
Joe went up the stairs and Dom was alone. The deep coldness that had long settled into his bones made itself known again, and Dom leaned forward, wrapping his arms around his chest for warmth. The muffled music vibrated in his skull, setting his teeth on edge, and the various smells wafting in from the main room assaulted his senses. He was alternately repulsed and aroused by the crashing din of scents: The good, the bad, and the mouth watering. A sharp pain cut through his stomach like the killing edge of a knife, and Dom hugged himself tighter. Had his throat always been this dry? His throat felt like sandpaper; his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and getting it unstuck hurt so badly that tears sprang to his eyes.
Dom rubbed his arms with his hands and tried to still his chattering teeth. He looked around for a blanket, a discarded jacket, something to cover himself with, but there was nothing. Only drifts of glitter on the floor and walls. He supposed it came from a party or something. He’d never been to a night club but it seemed fitting.
A sound drew his attention to the door leading back into the hall. A woman - no older than a girl - stood there, looking confused and unsteady. She was dressed in black, wore glow sticks around her wrists and neck, and held a red solo cup. “I have to pee,” she said drunkenly and laughed. “I thought this was the bathroom.”
A cold wind washed over Dom, and Joe was standing next to him. “The bathroom’s up here,” he said.
“Oh, good,” the girl laughed, “I thought it was here but I didn’t know. This is my first time here.” She held her cup aloft. “Take me to it.”
Joe glanced at Dom. “Come on.”
They formed a party as they climbed the stairs, Dom in the tear and Joe at the head. The girl stumbled and held onto the railing, talking incessantly. Her voice hurt Dom’s head, but the hot smell wafting from her was intoxicating. Drool coursed down his chin and his breathing came in short, hot bursts. Another sharp pain rent his stomach, and he winced.
At the top of the stairs, where the lights were cold and white, a woman in black stood by a doorway, her back ramrod straight and her eyes vacant. Her face was gaunt, her white flesh pulled tight across her skull. She wore a black dress and her black hair long and straight. Dom only caught a glance at her before looking away again.
She looked like a ghost.
“Show her the bathroom,” Joe said.
The woman’s eyes slowly, ponderles, went from Joe to the drunk girl. Her expression, like Joe’s, was dead. She had no expression. “This way.”
She and the drunk girl disappeared down the hall, and Joe led Dom into a room. Though it was pitch black, Dom could still see; not very well…but he could see. Suddenly, a blinding white light flicked on in front of him, causing him to stop and fall back a step. Ahead, through an archway, sat a vaulted chamber, at the center of which sat a man. To Dom’s light dazzled eyes, he seemed a proud king perched upon a throne, the skulls of his many enemies piled around him. Dom blinked and turned his head slightly to the side. His eyes began to adjust, and the world came into focus.
The man was not, as it had first seemed, sitting on a throne. Instead, he was esconded in a motorized wheelchair. The piles of skulls were actually various pieces of machinery, the kind you’d find in a hospital room. A clear tube extended from one of them to the side of the man’s neck: Yellow liquid flowed from the machine and into the man. Another tube, this one in the other side of his neck, filtered out a mixture of what looked like yellow pus and black sludge. An infected malodor filled the air, and the machines whirred softly as they worked.
As for the man himself, his appearance was normal at first glance, Dressed in a flowing red velvet robe, a blue and green blanket with a plaid pattern draped over his shoulders, he was portly, about fifty, and had shoulder length grayish hair with a bald spot in the middle. If the local theater put on a production of Hamilton, they could cast a worse Ben Franklin than him.
On closer inspection, he was not normal at all. His complexion was yellow and waxy, like a statue, and his body was lumpy, misshapen, resembling an overfilled trash bag stuffed with cotton. His eyes were sick and yellow, and something about his posture seemed…off. It didn’t make sense, but the only thing Dom could think was: He looks impossible.
Joe stopped at the edge of the shadows, where the line between light and darkness lay. He seemed to stand up a little straighter, a general greeting his king. “Here he is,” Joe said.
The man squinted slightly against the glare of the light and motioned with one gnarled hand. “Step into the light,” he said. His voice was soft and kind, that of a senile though loving grandmother. Dom imagined he felt a pull toward the man, and did as he was bidden, wincing as the light stung his eyes.
For a moment, the man stared at him, his waxen features frozen fast as stone. Then, a subtle look of compassion flickered across his face. Dom did not believe in God, but he suddenly felt like a man standing before God, his every thought, feeling, and transgression laid bare. He had never felt so naked in his life, so exposed. He had the sense that the man before him could see everything, knew everything.
“You’ve been through a lot,” the man said. It was not a question, but a statement.
Everything Dom had been through over the past couple of days came back to him in a rush, and hot tears filled his eyes. He nodded.
The man nodded slightly, more to himself than to Dom. “Kneel down,” he said, “I want to look at you.”
Dom knelt without question.
The man lifted one hand and touched Dom’s face, tilting Dom’s head from one side to the other like a farmer appraising a horse. His fingers were long and bony, his nails ragged and unkempt; his touch was like ice. He brushed his knuckles over the purple bruise on Dom’s cheek, and there was such gentleness in that one act that Dom broke down sobbing. He leaned into the man’s touch like a cat and gave voice to his misery.
“Shhh,” the man said, “it’s all over now.”
“W-What’s happening to me?” Dom asked.
In his heart of hearts, however, he already knew.
“You died,” the man said patiently. “And you came back.”
Hearing it stated so plainly, Dom cried even harder.
“Only a handful of people throughout history can claim to have defeated death,” the man said, stroking Dom’s hair, “and you’re one of them. You should be proud.”
“How?” Dom asked between sobs. “What am I?”
The man stroked Dom’s cheek. “You’re the same thing I am.”
At that, Dom looked up at the man. “What are you?” he asked.
A little, knowing smile touched the man’s lips, and when he spoke, his canine teeth were longer and sharper than before. “I’m a vampire.”
“No,” Dom moaned and shook his head, “no, no, no.” He grabbed the man’s hand and held tight, his tears coming faster. He trembled like a frightened animal and squeezed his eyes closed, as if by doing so he could escape the hell his life had become.
But there was no escape.
“You have a lot of questions,” the man said, monologuing now rather than speaking directly to Dom, “I had the same questions when I was your age. I have spent the last forty-two years of my life trying to answer them, but every answer I find leads me to still more questions. There’s one thing I’m certain of, though.”
Dom blinked the tears from his eyes. The last of them had been squeezed from his dead tear ducts and he had no more to give. He simply stared into space, trying to come to grips with his situation.
“There is freedom in death,” the man said. “Death is easy. It’s simple. Once it’s over, you feel no pain, no sadness, no grief. It’s living that’s hard.”
As he spoke, he brushed his long nails across Dom’s scalp. It was a soothing feeling, and served to calm him. “People have so many troubles.” A note of revulsion crept into his voice. “So many needs, so many desires. People are complex but we’re not. We’re easy to please. A vampire wants only two things: A little blood and one more night.”
The combination of his touch and his voice had pacified Dom to the point of almost tranquility. “I’m scared,” Dom heard himself mumble.
Nodding almost reluctantly, the man said, “Fear is one of the only emotions a vampire can’t escape. Everything feels fear. Do you want to know a secret?”
Dom nodded.
“I’m afraid too,” the man confessed. “I’m afraid of death. Well…death as it were. I’m terrified that my body will rot away and leave me a pile of bones somewhere, unable to move but still aware”
A shudder went through Dom.
“As I’m sure you’ve seen yourself, the movies lied. We rot just like any other dead thing. Our flesh decays, our organs turn to sludge, and we go from rational men to monsters whose only thought is feeding.”
Now it was his turn to shiver.
“But…you’re not like that,: Dom said.’
The man smiled. “I’m lucky, I guess” A thin yellow fluid began to drip from his nostrils. He did not seem to notice. “What is your name?”
“Dominick,” Dom said.
“I’m Merrick,” the man said, “and this is my family.”
Dom realized that they were now surrounded by others, ten in all. They stood ramrod straight, their eyes vacant and their faces devoid of humanity. They were mainly men, though one was a woman. Some were pale, others were blue or black, and one was little more than a skeleton clad in withered brown skin, a white button up and jeans hanging from its frame.
A thought occurred to Dom. “You said my brain was going to rot…”
“Not necessarily,” Merrick cautioned, “though it’s possible.”
“Am I going to be…?”
“Like them?” Merrick asked. “Braindead and staring?”
Sheepishly, Dom nodded.
“Maybe,” Merrick allowed. “But these people are free of everything that troubles humanity. You were human just a short time ago. I’m sure you remember all too well what it was like. The constant politics, the moral quandaries, the philosophical pontificating. Human beings - and make no mistake, we are humans - were not meant for all of that. We’re animals. We were made to hunt, fuck, and sleep. Somewhere along the way, we got pretentious and started complicating things.” He looked at Dom, sizing him up, seeming to read him. “Things that animals take for granted, people work their entire lives to achieve. If an animal wants to fornicate, it fornicates. If a man wants to fornicate, he needs to be tall, handsome, rich, funny, progressive when it suits women but traditional when it doesn’t. If a man wants a home, he has to work thirty years for it. An animal has only to dig a hole in the ground.”
Every word struck a chord with Dom.
Because every word was true.
“Unfortunately, the living won’t allow us to live that freely, so we have to hide. These people here - my children - need a guiding hand, a protector, someone who can lead them. And I, an old man, need help.” Here he smiled playfully and patted his bulging stomach. “My body is mostly sawdust and cotton balls at this point, so I can’t do much. I share my wisdom and my knowledge with them, and they take care of me.”
“Why haven’t you…rotted?” Dom asked.
“Embalming fluid,” Merrick said. “Blood doesn’t sustain you. Embalming fluid does.” He smiled at Dom. “It can sustain you as well. If you’ll stay with us. We’re not the most attractive bunch, but we’re a family, and we really wish you’d join us.”
A family.
Dom’s parents had broken up and he lived with his mother. He had never had a family before, and had always wanted one, a real one, like in the movies. Even as a grown man, he sought the love, acceptance, and belonging that a family brings. He sought it in the wrong ways, but that - and not sex, not romantic love - is what he had really wanted all along.
This is what he had wanted all along.
“I want to,” Dom said.
Working quickly, Merrick slashed his wrist open with his thumbnail. An ugly mixture of stale blood, siphoned from someone else, and embalming fluid leaked out. “If you choose to drink, my blood will be in you. You will be my son and I will be your father. You will obey me as your father. You will do whatever is asked of you for this family, as this family will do for you. You will not reveal the secrets of this family to anyone outside of it. You will protect this family from all threats, both inside and out. Do you accept?”
He held his bleeding wrist out to Dom.
Dom did not question, nor did he hesitate. He grabbed the hand of his father, brought it to his mouth, and drank from the seeping wound. The fluid was cold, thick, and vile.
It tasted like belonging.
“Have you fed yet?”
“No,” Dom said.
“Before you do, I have a question for you. Who did this to you? Who made you?”
Dom thought. Everything was hazy. “Was it someone in this room?” Merrick asked.
Dom shook his head. “Her name is…” he wracked his brain. “Heather.”
Merrick nodded. “So there’s another out there.” He looked at Joe. “Did you turn her?”
“Yes,” Joe said.
Merrick looked annoyed. “I’ve told you not to go out and feed on your own. You have no self-control. You drink too much and create others, which creates headaches for the family. Tomorrow night, I want you and Dom to find her and bring her here.” “Okay,” Joe said.
Merrick looked over Dom’s shoulder. “Jess? Can you come here?”
The black haired woman from earlier came out of the shadows, the drunk girl with her, arms tied behind her back. The girl looked dazed. “Max,” Merrick said to the skeletal corpse-thing, “help her.”
Max, Jessie, and another vampire named Matt tied chains around the girl’s ankles and hoisted her aloft via a pulley system. Upside down, she swung back and forth. Merrick instructed the others to leave the room. “Max,” he said.
On his way out, the corpse-thing produced a knife and dragged it across the girl’s throat, slicing her skin; blood spurted out. Max leaned in to taste it, but Merrick shooed him away. When he and Dom were alone, Merrick told Dom, “Go to her.”
But Dom was already on his feet, his eyes transfixed by the crimson life flowing from her pumping throat. The hot, rich smell filled his nostrils and tantalized his senses. Saliva filled his mouth and his stomach panged with hunger. Some small, human part of his decaying brain screamed at him to stop, but he did not listen to it. He had been human for almost thirty years, and he had been miserable. Now, in this chamber of the undead, he gave himself over to his dark thirst. Like a man in a dream, he shuffled to her, inhaled the sweet scent of her blood, and shivered. He was so lost in lust that he hardly noticed the strange, cumbersome feeling of his descended fangs.
“Drink,” Merrick said.
Opening his mouth wide, Dom sank his teeth into the girl’s neck. Her blood filled his mouth and splashed down his throat. Warmth thawed the ice in his marrow and spread through him. His dead heart began to flutter, then to pound. His knees shook, his body trembled, and his mind rolled away on a tide of ecstasy.
As it was his first meal, he couldn’t drink much. Before long, his stomach was hard and distended and his body burned with fire. He collapsed to a heap on the floor and twitched as random nerve endings, stimulated by the blood, began to misfire. He felt full, warm, and drunk. He closed his eyes and let himself drift.
Dominick Mason had died.
And this…
This was heaven.
***
With all that was happening in the city of Albany, the last thing Bruce Kenner needed on Thursday morning was a visit from Bertha the bitch, but that’s exactly what he got. She flew into his office like she owned the place and instantly started in on him. Young man this and have you talked to Joe Rossi that. You’d think she was his boss. And if she were his boss, he’d quit and find another line of work. He heard McDonald’s was hiring.
Bruce almost snapped at her. He’d been up most of last night riding around Albany and looking for Dominick Mason. He and Vanessa expected him to drop dead somewhere close to the medical examiner’s office, but if he had, he’d done so in a super secret location.
“I’ve been busy,” Bruce said, “but I’m going to go by his place of work today.”
Tired and still confused over that bullshit from last night, he had no energy to argue with the old crone. He could spare a few minutes to talk to Joe Rossi, he figured. He assumed that Jessie was safe but he owed it to her to check. If he found the girl, he’d take her back to her grandmother (sorry, kid, really) and try to avoid arresting the guy. Unless he came off as a creep, then he’d bust his ass. See, people assumed that an older guy with a younger girlfriend was some master manipulator hell bent on evil deeds. Sometimes they were, but hell, his grandparents married when his grandpa was twenty-one and his grandma sixteen. They were married for fifty-five years and loved each other to the end. Maybe it was innocent, maybe not. It wasn’t his job to judge either way. Just gimme the girl so I can get her grandma off my back and no one gets hurt.
“It’s about time you started doing your job,” Bertha said, “I heard on the police scanner last night that you people lost a body. What kind of town is this? Your coroner is a drunk who makes up stories about bodies walking away. He probably sold it to black people.”
Bruce couldn’t help it; he snorted laughter.
“Now what would black people want with a dead body?”
“Probably to use it as a prop in one of their rap videos.”
Bruce didn’t know much about music videos, but he was pretty sure that the people who made them didn’t like the smell of corpse any more than the rest of us. “I’ll be sure to round up all the local rappers for questioning. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Luckily for him, there was not, and Bertha left shortly thereafter. Alone and able to hear himself think, Bruce sat back in his chair and went over his mental checklist for the day. First order of business, go to Club Vlad. Second, find Dominick Mason. There were others, but that was the most important. He wanted the body found so someone could get to work explaining this whole weird thing. There had to be an explanation. The thought that there wasn’t, that a dead guy literally rose from the grave and disappeared into the night, deeply disturbed Bruce, and the more this whole thing remained ongoing, the more disturbed he would become.
Needing some fresh air, he decided to hit up Club Vlad.
Outside, the day was hot and sunny. Waves of heat shimmered from the pavement and not a single breath of air stirred in the whole world. Bruce slipped on a pair of sunglasses and drove over to Club Vlad. It occurred to him that the place might be closed during the day; it was the only place Joe Rossi was associated with. His address in the computer system was Glens Falls, far to the north. The messages he sent Jessie indicated that he lived onsite at Club Vlad.
The build, wedged between a corner store and a check cashing place, was as grimy and dumpy looking as it had always been. The front windows were blacked out and covered with posters and fliers for punk concerts, house bands, and far left political organizations: The Albany Social Justice Center, something called Bash the Fash 2025, and Bruce’s favorite. ACAB. He caught some kid spraying that on the side of the police station once, and under extreme police torture (ie, a good tongue lashing), the kid told him it meant All Cops Are Barnacleheads.
Bruce shot the kid on the spot and planted a gun on him.
How's that for barnaclehead?
Calm down, he didn’t really do that. He made him clean the graffiti off with a toothbrush. LOL he was out there for hours.
The sidewalk in front of the former theater was empty save for some little. The box office was abandoned. There was no open sigh, but then again, there was no closed sign either. He parked his cruiser at the curb, killed the engine, and got out, sweat instantly springing to his brow.
To his surprise, the door opened. Inside, a couple steps led down to a dance floor. A bar lined the wall to his right, and a couple more sets led up to a railed platform filled with tables. Above, a huge balcony looked down on him. A giant disco ball hung from the ceiling like a pair of glittery nuts and there were cages here and there. Presumably where girls danced go-go style. Oh yeah, nothing hotter than a woman behind bars. Why do you think Bruce became a cop in the first place?
Speaking of glittery nuts, there was glitter everywhere. On the floor, on the tables, on the bar. It twinkled like flecks of diamond and swirled around your feet when you walked. Bruce imagined big buckets of the stuff raining down on the dance floor at midnight and he shuddered. Imagine having glitter stuck in your hair. That shit would never come out.
Music played from the sound system, not as loud as it would be during operating hours. It sounded like ‘80s metal, not exactly what he expected from a place like this.
Some say life she's a lady
Kinda soft, kinda shady
I can tell you life is rich
She's no lady, she's a bitch
Being morning, the place was deserted except for a man behind the bar, busy at cleaning the countertop in anticipation for the night’s events. He was tall, Hispanic or Italian, and feminine, with a single earring and a tank top.
Bruce moseyed over to the bar and the barkeep looked up, missing a beat when he realized the fuzz was here. He sat down his rag and walked over. “Can I help you?” he asked in a whispy voice.
“Yeah,” Bruce said, “I’m looking for Joe Rossi. Is he here?”
“I don’t know,” the bartender said. He looked nervous. “I can check.”
Before Bruce could answer, he scurried off, leaving him alone.
They suck my body out
But friend there is no doubt
I'm gonna pay the devil his dues
Cause I'm sick of being abused
Bruce looked around, his fingers absently drumming on the countertop. Club Vlad was a clashing mix of grunge and glam that made his head hurt. He imagined what the place must be like at midnight, packed and noisy, and nodded to himself. Yeah, this was the spot, he guessed, the place all the cool kids went, if they went anywhere anymore. Hell, if he was thirty years younger, he might come here.
He had been waiting for almost twenty minutes when a voice spoke behind him. He turned with a start, and beheld the strangest man he had ever seen in his life. Short and plump - lumpy, even - he sat in a wheelchair, a red blanket draped over his shoulders and his hands resting on his knees. He was about fifty with sparse gray hair falling to his shoulders and a plastic-looking face. He looked like a wax statue of Ben Franklin come to life, and a deep sense of disquiet stirred in the pit of Bruce’s stomach.
Just can't fight the temptation
It's become my inspiration
Gonna get myself an axe
Break some heads, break some backs
It was only then that Bruce noticed the sickly sweet smell of death.
It seemed to come from the man in waves.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the man said, “my name is Merrick Garvis and I own Club Vlad. Maybe I can be of assistance.”
Bruce grew up in the south where manners and saving face were paramount. His mother and his grandmother both taught him that it was impolite to stare. Maybe he'd been in New York so long that he’d forgotten himself, or maybe Merrick Garvis was just the strangest looking man in the world. Either way, Bruce couldn’t help gaping at his strange appearance. Recovering, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I -”
Merrick smiled and waved one hand. Why was it so goddamn skeletal? “Don’t worry. I was injured in a fire a long time ago and this is the best they could do for me. To be honest, I’d stare too. What can I help you with, officer?”
“I’d like to talk to Joe Rossi,” Bruce said. “I understand he works for you.”
“He did,” Merrick said, “but I had to let him go. Did he do something wrong?”
Bruce sighed. “Well, yeah, he’s shacked up with a sixteen year old runaway.”
A look of concern crossed Merrick’s features, such as they were. “Oh, my, that is concerning. I haven’t seen him in several days. I assume he went home. He lives in Glens Falls.”
Bruce nodded, his mind working. If Rossi really was in Glens Falls, that meant the whole mess was someone else’s problem. He could send Bertha up there to bother some other poor barnacle head and be rid of her. Yet…he didn’t think Rossi was in Glens Falls. Bruce had a knack for knowing when people were lying, and he was certain that Merrick Garvis was doing just that. It couldn’t be a facial tick, as his features were largely unmoving, like clay. Maybe it was something in his cloudy eyes. Maybe it was the tone of his voice. Or maybe Bruce had the shining and knew things just for the hell of it. In any event, the certainty that Merrick Garvis was lying grew stronger with each passing second.
“Why’d you fire him?”
“He got drunk and hit one of the customers.”
“What did he do?” Bruce asked. “What was his position?”
“He was a bouncer.”
“Aren’t bouncers supposed to hit people?”
Merrick fumbled. “Well…not to punch them in the face for bumping into them.”
“How long did he work for you?”
“Six months.”
“Did you ever see him with an underage girl?”
“Of course not,” Merrick said, “you have to be twenty-one to get in. I make sure everyone’s ID is checked at the door.”
“What if she had a fake ID?”
“Then I guess she’d get in, but I’d assume she was of legal age.”
“You said he shoved someone, when did this happen?”
“Last week,” Merrick said.
“I thought you said he hit someone.”
Merrick again fumbled. “I did.” Now his face seemed to darken a little. A strange yellowish liquid, too thin to be snot, began to drip from his nostrils. Bruce barely suppressed a smear of disgust. “I understand you have a job to do but playing mind games with me isn’t going to solve anything. I can give you his address. Other than that, I can’t help you further.”
“Fair enough,” Bruce said. “But I’d like to see your ID please.”
Merrick glared at him. “I suppose you want my name, rank, and serial number as well.”
“Actually, yeah, I’d love that.”
Merrick drew a deep sigh. “Okay.”
In five minutes, Bruce had Merrick’s ID, social, and all other relevant information. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have bothered, even though he was well within his rights to ask for this information from someone he was questioning. But something about Merrick Garvis was off, and not just his weird face or strangely bulbous body. Bruce was just smart enough to realize that something was going on here, but not quite smart enough to even begin to imagine what.
When he had everything he needed and saw no reason to stick around, Bruce bid Merrick farewell and left the club. Before he could do anything else, he got a call from dispatch: Officer needed assistance in Pine Hills. Bruce slipped behind the wheel and went forth to help, momentarily putting Merrick Garvis out of his mind.
But soon or later, he would get back to him.
Oh yes he would.
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The man in sunglasses - his name was Joe - led Dom toward the club, and even before Joe spoke, Dom somehow knew that it was their destination. “There,” Joe said. “We’ll go around back.”
Dom and Joe had been walking for what seemed like an hour but couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. Dom stuck as close to Joe as possible as if for protection, and had become accustomed to his pungent smell. It was noticeable only at extremely close range, part sickly sweet and part…something else, something Dom could not place but still somehow recognized. They were two blocks from the club, maybe three, and Dom could hear the pulsing techo/house/whatever music as clearly as if he were standing in the middle of the dancefloor. He could hear the chatter of the people inside, or at least he imagined he could. He could smell them too: Beneath the odors of perfume, desperation, and spiritual rot was something richer, something blissful. Dom realized for the first time that he was parched - so parched - and drool filled his mouth.
A crowd of people waited outside Club Vlad, talking and laughing; some vaped, some stared down at their cellphones like Gollum with his precious ring. Dom’s first reaction was to avoid them. Perhaps sensing this…or perhaps feeling it himself…Joe ducked into an alleyway two doors down from the club. “We’ll go in the back,” Joe explained.
The back entrance to Club Vlad was a single door underneath a bare bulb. The music was so loud that Dom’s head began to throb. Inside, a dark hallway terminated in an archway filled with throbbing white light. Dread filled Dom as they approached it - he didn’t want to be around people - but thankfully they went into a room off the hall instead. An office. A cramped desk, a filing cabinet. A set of stairs disappeared into shadows.
“Sit,” Joe said.
Dom obeyed, sitting in the swivel chair.
Joe went up the stairs and Dom was alone. The deep coldness that had long settled into his bones made itself known again, and Dom leaned forward, wrapping his arms around his chest for warmth. The muffled music vibrated in his skull, setting his teeth on edge, and the various smells wafting in from the main room assaulted his senses. He was alternately repulsed and aroused by the crashing din of scents: The good, the bad, and the mouth watering. A sharp pain cut through his stomach like the killing edge of a knife, and Dom hugged himself tighter. Had his throat always been this dry? His throat felt like sandpaper; his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and getting it unstuck hurt so badly that tears sprang to his eyes.
Dom rubbed his arms with his hands and tried to still his chattering teeth. He looked around for a blanket, a discarded jacket, something to cover himself with, but there was nothing. Only drifts of glitter on the floor and walls. He supposed it came from a party or something. He’d never been to a night club but it seemed fitting.
A sound drew his attention to the door leading back into the hall. A woman - no older than a girl - stood there, looking confused and unsteady. She was dressed in black, wore glow sticks around her wrists and neck, and held a red solo cup. “I have to pee,” she said drunkenly and laughed. “I thought this was the bathroom.”
A cold wind washed over Dom, and Joe was standing next to him. “The bathroom’s up here,” he said.
“Oh, good,” the girl laughed, “I thought it was here but I didn’t know. This is my first time here.” She held her cup aloft. “Take me to it.”
Joe glanced at Dom. “Come on.”
They formed a party as they climbed the stairs, Dom in the tear and Joe at the head. The girl stumbled and held onto the railing, talking incessantly. Her voice hurt Dom’s head, but the hot smell wafting from her was intoxicating. Drool coursed down his chin and his breathing came in short, hot bursts. Another sharp pain rent his stomach, and he winced.
At the top of the stairs, where the lights were cold and white, a woman in black stood by a doorway, her back ramrod straight and her eyes vacant. Her face was gaunt, her white flesh pulled tight across her skull. She wore a black dress and her black hair long and straight. Dom only caught a glance at her before looking away again.
She looked like a ghost.
“Show her the bathroom,” Joe said.
The woman’s eyes slowly, ponderles, went from Joe to the drunk girl. Her expression, like Joe’s, was dead. She had no expression. “This way.”
She and the drunk girl disappeared down the hall, and Joe led Dom into a room. Though it was pitch black, Dom could still see; not very well…but he could see. Suddenly, a blinding white light flicked on in front of him, causing him to stop and fall back a step. Ahead, through an archway, sat a vaulted chamber, at the center of which sat a man. To Dom’s light dazzled eyes, he seemed a proud king perched upon a throne, the skulls of his many enemies piled around him. Dom blinked and turned his head slightly to the side. His eyes began to adjust, and the world came into focus.
The man was not, as it had first seemed, sitting on a throne. Instead, he was esconded in a motorized wheelchair. The piles of skulls were actually various pieces of machinery, the kind you’d find in a hospital room. A clear tube extended from one of them to the side of the man’s neck: Yellow liquid flowed from the machine and into the man. Another tube, this one in the other side of his neck, filtered out a mixture of what looked like yellow pus and black sludge. An infected malodor filled the air, and the machines whirred softly as they worked.
As for the man himself, his appearance was normal at first glance, Dressed in a flowing red velvet robe, a blue and green blanket with a plaid pattern draped over his shoulders, he was portly, about fifty, and had shoulder length grayish hair with a bald spot in the middle. If the local theater put on a production of Hamilton, they could cast a worse Ben Franklin than him.
On closer inspection, he was not normal at all. His complexion was yellow and waxy, like a statue, and his body was lumpy, misshapen, resembling an overfilled trash bag stuffed with cotton. His eyes were sick and yellow, and something about his posture seemed…off. It didn’t make sense, but the only thing Dom could think was: He looks impossible.
Joe stopped at the edge of the shadows, where the line between light and darkness lay. He seemed to stand up a little straighter, a general greeting his king. “Here he is,” Joe said.
The man squinted slightly against the glare of the light and motioned with one gnarled hand. “Step into the light,” he said. His voice was soft and kind, that of a senile though loving grandmother. Dom imagined he felt a pull toward the man, and did as he was bidden, wincing as the light stung his eyes.
For a moment, the man stared at him, his waxen features frozen fast as stone. Then, a subtle look of compassion flickered across his face. Dom did not believe in God, but he suddenly felt like a man standing before God, his every thought, feeling, and transgression laid bare. He had never felt so naked in his life, so exposed. He had the sense that the man before him could see everything, knew everything.
“You’ve been through a lot,” the man said. It was not a question, but a statement.
Everything Dom had been through over the past couple of days came back to him in a rush, and hot tears filled his eyes. He nodded.
The man nodded slightly, more to himself than to Dom. “Kneel down,” he said, “I want to look at you.”
Dom knelt without question.
The man lifted one hand and touched Dom’s face, tilting Dom’s head from one side to the other like a farmer appraising a horse. His fingers were long and bony, his nails ragged and unkempt; his touch was like ice. He brushed his knuckles over the purple bruise on Dom’s cheek, and there was such gentleness in that one act that Dom broke down sobbing. He leaned into the man’s touch like a cat and gave voice to his misery.
“Shhh,” the man said, “it’s all over now.”
“W-What’s happening to me?” Dom asked.
In his heart of hearts, however, he already knew.
“You died,” the man said patiently. “And you came back.”
Hearing it stated so plainly, Dom cried even harder.
“Only a handful of people throughout history can claim to have defeated death,” the man said, stroking Dom’s hair, “and you’re one of them. You should be proud.”
“How?” Dom asked between sobs. “What am I?”
The man stroked Dom’s cheek. “You’re the same thing I am.”
At that, Dom looked up at the man. “What are you?” he asked.
A little, knowing smile touched the man’s lips, and when he spoke, his canine teeth were longer and sharper than before. “I’m a vampire.”
“No,” Dom moaned and shook his head, “no, no, no.” He grabbed the man’s hand and held tight, his tears coming faster. He trembled like a frightened animal and squeezed his eyes closed, as if by doing so he could escape the hell his life had become.
But there was no escape.
“You have a lot of questions,” the man said, monologuing now rather than speaking directly to Dom, “I had the same questions when I was your age. I have spent the last forty-two years of my life trying to answer them, but every answer I find leads me to still more questions. There’s one thing I’m certain of, though.”
Dom blinked the tears from his eyes. The last of them had been squeezed from his dead tear ducts and he had no more to give. He simply stared into space, trying to come to grips with his situation.
“There is freedom in death,” the man said. “Death is easy. It’s simple. Once it’s over, you feel no pain, no sadness, no grief. It’s living that’s hard.”
As he spoke, he brushed his long nails across Dom’s scalp. It was a soothing feeling, and served to calm him. “People have so many troubles.” A note of revulsion crept into his voice. “So many needs, so many desires. People are complex but we’re not. We’re easy to please. A vampire wants only two things: A little blood and one more night.”
The combination of his touch and his voice had pacified Dom to the point of almost tranquility. “I’m scared,” Dom heard himself mumble.
Nodding almost reluctantly, the man said, “Fear is one of the only emotions a vampire can’t escape. Everything feels fear. Do you want to know a secret?”
Dom nodded.
“I’m afraid too,” the man confessed. “I’m afraid of death. Well…death as it were. I’m terrified that my body will rot away and leave me a pile of bones somewhere, unable to move but still aware”
A shudder went through Dom.
“As I’m sure you’ve seen yourself, the movies lied. We rot just like any other dead thing. Our flesh decays, our organs turn to sludge, and we go from rational men to monsters whose only thought is feeding.”
Now it was his turn to shiver.
“But…you’re not like that,: Dom said.’
The man smiled. “I’m lucky, I guess” A thin yellow fluid began to drip from his nostrils. He did not seem to notice. “What is your name?”
“Dominick,” Dom said.
“I’m Merrick,” the man said, “and this is my family.”
Dom realized that they were now surrounded by others, ten in all. They stood ramrod straight, their eyes vacant and their faces devoid of humanity. They were mainly men, though one was a woman. Some were pale, others were blue or black, and one was little more than a skeleton clad in withered brown skin, a white button up and jeans hanging from its frame.
A thought occurred to Dom. “You said my brain was going to rot…”
“Not necessarily,” Merrick cautioned, “though it’s possible.”
“Am I going to be…?”
“Like them?” Merrick asked. “Braindead and staring?”
Sheepishly, Dom nodded.
“Maybe,” Merrick allowed. “But these people are free of everything that troubles humanity. You were human just a short time ago. I’m sure you remember all too well what it was like. The constant politics, the moral quandaries, the philosophical pontificating. Human beings - and make no mistake, we are humans - were not meant for all of that. We’re animals. We were made to hunt, fuck, and sleep. Somewhere along the way, we got pretentious and started complicating things.” He looked at Dom, sizing him up, seeming to read him. “Things that animals take for granted, people work their entire lives to achieve. If an animal wants to fornicate, it fornicates. If a man wants to fornicate, he needs to be tall, handsome, rich, funny, progressive when it suits women but traditional when it doesn’t. If a man wants a home, he has to work thirty years for it. An animal has only to dig a hole in the ground.”
Every word struck a chord with Dom.
Because every word was true.
“Unfortunately, the living won’t allow us to live that freely, so we have to hide. These people here - my children - need a guiding hand, a protector, someone who can lead them. And I, an old man, need help.” Here he smiled playfully and patted his bulging stomach. “My body is mostly sawdust and cotton balls at this point, so I can’t do much. I share my wisdom and my knowledge with them, and they take care of me.”
“Why haven’t you…rotted?” Dom asked.
“Embalming fluid,” Merrick said. “Blood doesn’t sustain you. Embalming fluid does.” He smiled at Dom. “It can sustain you as well. If you’ll stay with us. We’re not the most attractive bunch, but we’re a family, and we really wish you’d join us.”
A family.
Dom’s parents had broken up and he lived with his mother. He had never had a family before, and had always wanted one, a real one, like in the movies. Even as a grown man, he sought the love, acceptance, and belonging that a family brings. He sought it in the wrong ways, but that - and not sex, not romantic love - is what he had really wanted all along.
This is what he had wanted all along.
“I want to,” Dom said.
Working quickly, Merrick slashed his wrist open with his thumbnail. An ugly mixture of stale blood, siphoned from someone else, and embalming fluid leaked out. “If you choose to drink, my blood will be in you. You will be my son and I will be your father. You will obey me as your father. You will do whatever is asked of you for this family, as this family will do for you. You will not reveal the secrets of this family to anyone outside of it. You will protect this family from all threats, both inside and out. Do you accept?”
He held his bleeding wrist out to Dom.
Dom did not question, nor did he hesitate. He grabbed the hand of his father, brought it to his mouth, and drank from the seeping wound. The fluid was cold, thick, and vile.
It tasted like belonging.
“Have you fed yet?”
“No,” Dom said.
“Before you do, I have a question for you. Who did this to you? Who made you?”
Dom thought. Everything was hazy. “Was it someone in this room?” Merrick asked.
Dom shook his head. “Her name is…” he wracked his brain. “Heather.”
Merrick nodded. “So there’s another out there.” He looked at Joe. “Did you turn her?”
“Yes,” Joe said.
Merrick looked annoyed. “I’ve told you not to go out and feed on your own. You have no self-control. You drink too much and create others, which creates headaches for the family. Tomorrow night, I want you and Dom to find her and bring her here.” “Okay,” Joe said.
Merrick looked over Dom’s shoulder. “Jess? Can you come here?”
The black haired woman from earlier came out of the shadows, the drunk girl with her, arms tied behind her back. The girl looked dazed. “Max,” Merrick said to the skeletal corpse-thing, “help her.”
Max, Jessie, and another vampire named Matt tied chains around the girl’s ankles and hoisted her aloft via a pulley system. Upside down, she swung back and forth. Merrick instructed the others to leave the room. “Max,” he said.
On his way out, the corpse-thing produced a knife and dragged it across the girl’s throat, slicing her skin; blood spurted out. Max leaned in to taste it, but Merrick shooed him away. When he and Dom were alone, Merrick told Dom, “Go to her.”
But Dom was already on his feet, his eyes transfixed by the crimson life flowing from her pumping throat. The hot, rich smell filled his nostrils and tantalized his senses. Saliva filled his mouth and his stomach panged with hunger. Some small, human part of his decaying brain screamed at him to stop, but he did not listen to it. He had been human for almost thirty years, and he had been miserable. Now, in this chamber of the undead, he gave himself over to his dark thirst. Like a man in a dream, he shuffled to her, inhaled the sweet scent of her blood, and shivered. He was so lost in lust that he hardly noticed the strange, cumbersome feeling of his descended fangs.
“Drink,” Merrick said.
Opening his mouth wide, Dom sank his teeth into the girl’s neck. Her blood filled his mouth and splashed down his throat. Warmth thawed the ice in his marrow and spread through him. His dead heart began to flutter, then to pound. His knees shook, his body trembled, and his mind rolled away on a tide of ecstasy.
As it was his first meal, he couldn’t drink much. Before long, his stomach was hard and distended and his body burned with fire. He collapsed to a heap on the floor and twitched as random nerve endings, stimulated by the blood, began to misfire. He felt full, warm, and drunk. He closed his eyes and let himself drift.
Dominick Mason had died.
And this…
This was heaven.
***
With all that was happening in the city of Albany, the last thing Bruce Kenner needed on Thursday morning was a visit from Bertha the bitch, but that’s exactly what he got. She flew into his office like she owned the place and instantly started in on him. Young man this and have you talked to Joe Rossi that. You’d think she was his boss. And if she were his boss, he’d quit and find another line of work. He heard McDonald’s was hiring.
Bruce almost snapped at her. He’d been up most of last night riding around Albany and looking for Dominick Mason. He and Vanessa expected him to drop dead somewhere close to the medical examiner’s office, but if he had, he’d done so in a super secret location.
“I’ve been busy,” Bruce said, “but I’m going to go by his place of work today.”
Tired and still confused over that bullshit from last night, he had no energy to argue with the old crone. He could spare a few minutes to talk to Joe Rossi, he figured. He assumed that Jessie was safe but he owed it to her to check. If he found the girl, he’d take her back to her grandmother (sorry, kid, really) and try to avoid arresting the guy. Unless he came off as a creep, then he’d bust his ass. See, people assumed that an older guy with a younger girlfriend was some master manipulator hell bent on evil deeds. Sometimes they were, but hell, his grandparents married when his grandpa was twenty-one and his grandma sixteen. They were married for fifty-five years and loved each other to the end. Maybe it was innocent, maybe not. It wasn’t his job to judge either way. Just gimme the girl so I can get her grandma off my back and no one gets hurt.
“It’s about time you started doing your job,” Bertha said, “I heard on the police scanner last night that you people lost a body. What kind of town is this? Your coroner is a drunk who makes up stories about bodies walking away. He probably sold it to black people.”
Bruce couldn’t help it; he snorted laughter.
“Now what would black people want with a dead body?”
“Probably to use it as a prop in one of their rap videos.”
Bruce didn’t know much about music videos, but he was pretty sure that the people who made them didn’t like the smell of corpse any more than the rest of us. “I’ll be sure to round up all the local rappers for questioning. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Luckily for him, there was not, and Bertha left shortly thereafter. Alone and able to hear himself think, Bruce sat back in his chair and went over his mental checklist for the day. First order of business, go to Club Vlad. Second, find Dominick Mason. There were others, but that was the most important. He wanted the body found so someone could get to work explaining this whole weird thing. There had to be an explanation. The thought that there wasn’t, that a dead guy literally rose from the grave and disappeared into the night, deeply disturbed Bruce, and the more this whole thing remained ongoing, the more disturbed he would become.
Needing some fresh air, he decided to hit up Club Vlad.
Outside, the day was hot and sunny. Waves of heat shimmered from the pavement and not a single breath of air stirred in the whole world. Bruce slipped on a pair of sunglasses and drove over to Club Vlad. It occurred to him that the place might be closed during the day; it was the only place Joe Rossi was associated with. His address in the computer system was Glens Falls, far to the north. The messages he sent Jessie indicated that he lived onsite at Club Vlad.
The build, wedged between a corner store and a check cashing place, was as grimy and dumpy looking as it had always been. The front windows were blacked out and covered with posters and fliers for punk concerts, house bands, and far left political organizations: The Albany Social Justice Center, something called Bash the Fash 2025, and Bruce’s favorite. ACAB. He caught some kid spraying that on the side of the police station once, and under extreme police torture (ie, a good tongue lashing), the kid told him it meant All Cops Are Barnacleheads.
Bruce shot the kid on the spot and planted a gun on him.
How's that for barnaclehead?
Calm down, he didn’t really do that. He made him clean the graffiti off with a toothbrush. LOL he was out there for hours.
The sidewalk in front of the former theater was empty save for some little. The box office was abandoned. There was no open sigh, but then again, there was no closed sign either. He parked his cruiser at the curb, killed the engine, and got out, sweat instantly springing to his brow.
To his surprise, the door opened. Inside, a couple steps led down to a dance floor. A bar lined the wall to his right, and a couple more sets led up to a railed platform filled with tables. Above, a huge balcony looked down on him. A giant disco ball hung from the ceiling like a pair of glittery nuts and there were cages here and there. Presumably where girls danced go-go style. Oh yeah, nothing hotter than a woman behind bars. Why do you think Bruce became a cop in the first place?
Speaking of glittery nuts, there was glitter everywhere. On the floor, on the tables, on the bar. It twinkled like flecks of diamond and swirled around your feet when you walked. Bruce imagined big buckets of the stuff raining down on the dance floor at midnight and he shuddered. Imagine having glitter stuck in your hair. That shit would never come out.
Music played from the sound system, not as loud as it would be during operating hours. It sounded like ‘80s metal, not exactly what he expected from a place like this.
Some say life she's a lady
Kinda soft, kinda shady
I can tell you life is rich
She's no lady, she's a bitch
Being morning, the place was deserted except for a man behind the bar, busy at cleaning the countertop in anticipation for the night’s events. He was tall, Hispanic or Italian, and feminine, with a single earring and a tank top.
Bruce moseyed over to the bar and the barkeep looked up, missing a beat when he realized the fuzz was here. He sat down his rag and walked over. “Can I help you?” he asked in a whispy voice.
“Yeah,” Bruce said, “I’m looking for Joe Rossi. Is he here?”
“I don’t know,” the bartender said. He looked nervous. “I can check.”
Before Bruce could answer, he scurried off, leaving him alone.
They suck my body out
But friend there is no doubt
I'm gonna pay the devil his dues
Cause I'm sick of being abused
Bruce looked around, his fingers absently drumming on the countertop. Club Vlad was a clashing mix of grunge and glam that made his head hurt. He imagined what the place must be like at midnight, packed and noisy, and nodded to himself. Yeah, this was the spot, he guessed, the place all the cool kids went, if they went anywhere anymore. Hell, if he was thirty years younger, he might come here.
He had been waiting for almost twenty minutes when a voice spoke behind him. He turned with a start, and beheld the strangest man he had ever seen in his life. Short and plump - lumpy, even - he sat in a wheelchair, a red blanket draped over his shoulders and his hands resting on his knees. He was about fifty with sparse gray hair falling to his shoulders and a plastic-looking face. He looked like a wax statue of Ben Franklin come to life, and a deep sense of disquiet stirred in the pit of Bruce’s stomach.
Just can't fight the temptation
It's become my inspiration
Gonna get myself an axe
Break some heads, break some backs
It was only then that Bruce noticed the sickly sweet smell of death.
It seemed to come from the man in waves.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the man said, “my name is Merrick Garvis and I own Club Vlad. Maybe I can be of assistance.”
Bruce grew up in the south where manners and saving face were paramount. His mother and his grandmother both taught him that it was impolite to stare. Maybe he'd been in New York so long that he’d forgotten himself, or maybe Merrick Garvis was just the strangest looking man in the world. Either way, Bruce couldn’t help gaping at his strange appearance. Recovering, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I -”
Merrick smiled and waved one hand. Why was it so goddamn skeletal? “Don’t worry. I was injured in a fire a long time ago and this is the best they could do for me. To be honest, I’d stare too. What can I help you with, officer?”
“I’d like to talk to Joe Rossi,” Bruce said. “I understand he works for you.”
“He did,” Merrick said, “but I had to let him go. Did he do something wrong?”
Bruce sighed. “Well, yeah, he’s shacked up with a sixteen year old runaway.”
A look of concern crossed Merrick’s features, such as they were. “Oh, my, that is concerning. I haven’t seen him in several days. I assume he went home. He lives in Glens Falls.”
Bruce nodded, his mind working. If Rossi really was in Glens Falls, that meant the whole mess was someone else’s problem. He could send Bertha up there to bother some other poor barnacle head and be rid of her. Yet…he didn’t think Rossi was in Glens Falls. Bruce had a knack for knowing when people were lying, and he was certain that Merrick Garvis was doing just that. It couldn’t be a facial tick, as his features were largely unmoving, like clay. Maybe it was something in his cloudy eyes. Maybe it was the tone of his voice. Or maybe Bruce had the shining and knew things just for the hell of it. In any event, the certainty that Merrick Garvis was lying grew stronger with each passing second.
“Why’d you fire him?”
“He got drunk and hit one of the customers.”
“What did he do?” Bruce asked. “What was his position?”
“He was a bouncer.”
“Aren’t bouncers supposed to hit people?”
Merrick fumbled. “Well…not to punch them in the face for bumping into them.”
“How long did he work for you?”
“Six months.”
“Did you ever see him with an underage girl?”
“Of course not,” Merrick said, “you have to be twenty-one to get in. I make sure everyone’s ID is checked at the door.”
“What if she had a fake ID?”
“Then I guess she’d get in, but I’d assume she was of legal age.”
“You said he shoved someone, when did this happen?”
“Last week,” Merrick said.
“I thought you said he hit someone.”
Merrick again fumbled. “I did.” Now his face seemed to darken a little. A strange yellowish liquid, too thin to be snot, began to drip from his nostrils. Bruce barely suppressed a smear of disgust. “I understand you have a job to do but playing mind games with me isn’t going to solve anything. I can give you his address. Other than that, I can’t help you further.”
“Fair enough,” Bruce said. “But I’d like to see your ID please.”
Merrick glared at him. “I suppose you want my name, rank, and serial number as well.”
“Actually, yeah, I’d love that.”
Merrick drew a deep sigh. “Okay.”
In five minutes, Bruce had Merrick’s ID, social, and all other relevant information. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have bothered, even though he was well within his rights to ask for this information from someone he was questioning. But something about Merrick Garvis was off, and not just his weird face or strangely bulbous body. Bruce was just smart enough to realize that something was going on here, but not quite smart enough to even begin to imagine what.
When he had everything he needed and saw no reason to stick around, Bruce bid Merrick farewell and left the club. Before he could do anything else, he got a call from dispatch: Officer needed assistance in Pine Hills. Bruce slipped behind the wheel and went forth to help, momentarily putting Merrick Garvis out of his mind.
But soon or later, he would get back to him.
Oh yes he would.
2024.05.15 17:37 Cesmina12 Genuine question: What's with all the looks-bashing?
Can someone explain to me why they do this? Like any good internet user, I love to bash cast members for bad behavior, but I don't get why folks feel compelled to pick apart their faces and bodies. There seems to be this sentiment of "They decided to go on TV and they're a jerk, so I can say whatever I want and it won't mean I'M a jerk. Even though by all accounts I sound like one right now."
Prime examples are Angela and Big Ed. Those two are beyond problematic and deserving of a ton of criticism and jokes at their expense, but Angela can't help her age and Ed can't help his birth defect. So why not stick to the things they actually CAN help? Namely that they're abusive people. There's also a shit ton of completely, totally, utterly average-looking cast members as well who are regularly pegged as physically repulsive (example: Clayton, who just looks like a regular white dorky guy). For the female cast members, there's a lot of "Well, she's not even that pretty, her nose...her extensions...blah blah."
If a cast member has plastic surgery, people are even harsher, probably because fans think that it speaks to that person's vanity. So we relentlessly bully someone when we don't think they look good, and then we crucify them when they have work done. It especially bothers me when I see people making fun of Darcey - that woman clearly has MASSIVE issues with self-worth and it seems like a lot of people follow her just to snark on her filters and procedures. I'm truly, really curious about what that does emotionally for the people knocking her. Do they feel better about themselves after? More at peace in their own bodies? Are they just blowing off steam?
Just a thought: when you make fun of a physical feature on a cast member, remember that it's ALSO hurtful to uninvolved people who have the same physical feature. If you looked up "100% average-looking White lady" in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of me, but if I went on this show there'd be a million posts about how I'm basically Quasimodo.
submitted by Cesmina12 to 90dayfianceuncensored [link] [comments]
Prime examples are Angela and Big Ed. Those two are beyond problematic and deserving of a ton of criticism and jokes at their expense, but Angela can't help her age and Ed can't help his birth defect. So why not stick to the things they actually CAN help? Namely that they're abusive people. There's also a shit ton of completely, totally, utterly average-looking cast members as well who are regularly pegged as physically repulsive (example: Clayton, who just looks like a regular white dorky guy). For the female cast members, there's a lot of "Well, she's not even that pretty, her nose...her extensions...blah blah."
If a cast member has plastic surgery, people are even harsher, probably because fans think that it speaks to that person's vanity. So we relentlessly bully someone when we don't think they look good, and then we crucify them when they have work done. It especially bothers me when I see people making fun of Darcey - that woman clearly has MASSIVE issues with self-worth and it seems like a lot of people follow her just to snark on her filters and procedures. I'm truly, really curious about what that does emotionally for the people knocking her. Do they feel better about themselves after? More at peace in their own bodies? Are they just blowing off steam?
Just a thought: when you make fun of a physical feature on a cast member, remember that it's ALSO hurtful to uninvolved people who have the same physical feature. If you looked up "100% average-looking White lady" in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of me, but if I went on this show there'd be a million posts about how I'm basically Quasimodo.
2024.05.15 15:07 JigglyJello7 My Mom Pushed me yesterday, and since then I have been feeling really guilty and like I'm a Bad Person which makes No Sense when I think about it..Why Am I Blaming Myself for EVERYTHING?(can skip to 💥)
Yesterday was one of the worst fights I've had with nmom since moving back in 1 year ago. I was making lunch for us when she randomly calls me to her room(we both work from home). My cousin(the golden child) and I are coincidently dealing with divorces at the same time, and nmom told me that she was going to go with her to the courthouse this week and asked if I wanted to go with them.
I said no thanks and she disappointedly told me that she thought I'd have some questions to ask. I explained that I had no questions to ask and that I actually found alot if not all the information I needed online months ago, and that I'm currently just saving up for a divorce lawyer but struggling since tax season set me back... This is where it starts.
In a very mean girl style, which is TYPICAL OF HER, she sarcastically and judgingly responds "oh how good" as she turned away from me with a snide expression. For those of us here, I know you guys know EXACTLY what your parents Really mean by their many verbal and facial expressions. Basically, you know what they Really mean at any moment and how to read between the lines with them. She triggered my self doubt and low self esteem which she's been trampling on for my WHOLE life and out of self respect I confronted her. Bad move I know, because they don't change.
I told her that she's my mom and should actually be glad that I'm confident in my choices and that instead of judging me and putting me down she should actually be supportive or encouraging. I also told her that at the very least she can have a NEUTRAL response and not make me feel like I HAVE TO do what SHE WANTS. She tells me that she has no idea what I'm talking about of course, and that I'm just taking everything the wrong way "as usual", and that she was simply asking me a question... she basically kept deflecting and gaslighting. She continued to make really weird conversation and ignored EVERYTHING I ACTUALLY said. She was saying random shit that made no sense like, "I don't how your way works so I can't tell you if it's right or wrong!" This I think was in response to telling her she should be encouraging. I explained that that's not necessary to be encouraging. And she finally snaps and tells me that I need to tell her exactly how I'm doing research because she just wants my divorce done...wtf, I told her she just proved that she WAS Judging me All ALONG.
💥By this point she's telling me that I can't ask her any questions, that I need to Shut Up, that I'm being disrespectful, ungrateful, and that I need to let her get back to work on her computer... She Fucking Calls The GC MY Cousin for HOURS to Talk Shit and Gossip EVERYDAY during working hours... I told her that I would like her respect and undivided attention because everytime she turned towards the computer she would start Completely Ignoring me. She starts freaking talking to me like I'm a 5 year old and starts yelling at me, commanding me to shut up and leave her room.
I say no, and I slid her just a couple inches to the left of her desk using her desk rolling chair so she can't ignore me anymore. I didn't even touch her, I used my body/hip against her chair and took a step against the chair... she proceeds talking down to me, and when I look at her face I can tell she wanted to freaking Hit Me. I don't know if that's the narc face that people say they do before raging and becoming violent but I could literally see her intentions on her face. She then shoved me Directly on my body Hard with her FUCKING HAND...
And something broke on the inside. My mom's never been actually physical with us, which I think helps convince her that she's somehow a good mom because she was never actually physically abusive. And when she did that, I felt like she finally crossed a Major boundary. I know I wasn't being the most stand up citizen either but the feeling of her fucking hand, just the sensation from someone who never hugged me or showed me love...was so upsetting and uncomfortable.
I left her room. Locked my bedroom door and started crying. I packed a bag and went for a drive before nstepdad came home so they couldn't gang up on me only to have her blowing up my phone at 5pm and 8pm saying I need to be back home, asking where am i, and saying BS like she can't sleep peacefully unless I'm home...I'm 26F btw. I felt suicidal, getting out of an abusive marriage and moving back in with them has been VERY Triggering... I just want out but it feels like there's just too many obstacles...
My dumbass nsister owns an entire 2 floor house, no kids and is a spoiled housewife, has never once offered to let me live with her greedy ass... the last time she visited she proudly said she's never moving back here!
I feel stuck, sick, and on the borderline of finally breaking and I'm scared. I didn't ever imagine such a hopeless future. As a kid I was dominantly a fawn type and I remember thinking to myself that when I'm finally an adult my life will just come together like it somehow does for everyone else...
submitted by JigglyJello7 to raisedbynarcissists [link] [comments]
I said no thanks and she disappointedly told me that she thought I'd have some questions to ask. I explained that I had no questions to ask and that I actually found alot if not all the information I needed online months ago, and that I'm currently just saving up for a divorce lawyer but struggling since tax season set me back... This is where it starts.
In a very mean girl style, which is TYPICAL OF HER, she sarcastically and judgingly responds "oh how good" as she turned away from me with a snide expression. For those of us here, I know you guys know EXACTLY what your parents Really mean by their many verbal and facial expressions. Basically, you know what they Really mean at any moment and how to read between the lines with them. She triggered my self doubt and low self esteem which she's been trampling on for my WHOLE life and out of self respect I confronted her. Bad move I know, because they don't change.
I told her that she's my mom and should actually be glad that I'm confident in my choices and that instead of judging me and putting me down she should actually be supportive or encouraging. I also told her that at the very least she can have a NEUTRAL response and not make me feel like I HAVE TO do what SHE WANTS. She tells me that she has no idea what I'm talking about of course, and that I'm just taking everything the wrong way "as usual", and that she was simply asking me a question... she basically kept deflecting and gaslighting. She continued to make really weird conversation and ignored EVERYTHING I ACTUALLY said. She was saying random shit that made no sense like, "I don't how your way works so I can't tell you if it's right or wrong!" This I think was in response to telling her she should be encouraging. I explained that that's not necessary to be encouraging. And she finally snaps and tells me that I need to tell her exactly how I'm doing research because she just wants my divorce done...wtf, I told her she just proved that she WAS Judging me All ALONG.
💥By this point she's telling me that I can't ask her any questions, that I need to Shut Up, that I'm being disrespectful, ungrateful, and that I need to let her get back to work on her computer... She Fucking Calls The GC MY Cousin for HOURS to Talk Shit and Gossip EVERYDAY during working hours... I told her that I would like her respect and undivided attention because everytime she turned towards the computer she would start Completely Ignoring me. She starts freaking talking to me like I'm a 5 year old and starts yelling at me, commanding me to shut up and leave her room.
I say no, and I slid her just a couple inches to the left of her desk using her desk rolling chair so she can't ignore me anymore. I didn't even touch her, I used my body/hip against her chair and took a step against the chair... she proceeds talking down to me, and when I look at her face I can tell she wanted to freaking Hit Me. I don't know if that's the narc face that people say they do before raging and becoming violent but I could literally see her intentions on her face. She then shoved me Directly on my body Hard with her FUCKING HAND...
And something broke on the inside. My mom's never been actually physical with us, which I think helps convince her that she's somehow a good mom because she was never actually physically abusive. And when she did that, I felt like she finally crossed a Major boundary. I know I wasn't being the most stand up citizen either but the feeling of her fucking hand, just the sensation from someone who never hugged me or showed me love...was so upsetting and uncomfortable.
I left her room. Locked my bedroom door and started crying. I packed a bag and went for a drive before nstepdad came home so they couldn't gang up on me only to have her blowing up my phone at 5pm and 8pm saying I need to be back home, asking where am i, and saying BS like she can't sleep peacefully unless I'm home...I'm 26F btw. I felt suicidal, getting out of an abusive marriage and moving back in with them has been VERY Triggering... I just want out but it feels like there's just too many obstacles...
My dumbass nsister owns an entire 2 floor house, no kids and is a spoiled housewife, has never once offered to let me live with her greedy ass... the last time she visited she proudly said she's never moving back here!
I feel stuck, sick, and on the borderline of finally breaking and I'm scared. I didn't ever imagine such a hopeless future. As a kid I was dominantly a fawn type and I remember thinking to myself that when I'm finally an adult my life will just come together like it somehow does for everyone else...
2024.05.15 12:43 crucial_lover_ TW proceed with caution- neck trauma
Hey Reddit fam. I have escaped a violent FV situation since childhood and am now an adult with health impacts from childhood.
I've had facial surgery from having nose and jaw broken but now am investigating brachial plexus injury after putting up with the pain since childhood.
I'm awaiting vascular confirmation but have confirmed neurogebic thoracic outlet syndrome from neck and head trauma.
I just wanted to know how many other survivors have survived this? I work in FV and FV and know strangulation is common but why do these abusers always know to grab the neck.
I can't believe the numbness in my arm was dismissed al these years despite my AVO against my mother, violence from my brother and past boyfrornds.
I'm so angry that these assaults have caused so much nerve damage. I'm now awaiting thoracic surgery which will be my 4th.
How many other women have experienced post traumatic brachial plexus or thoracic outlet syndrome as a result of trauma?
Thank you
submitted by crucial_lover_ to domesticviolence [link] [comments]
I've had facial surgery from having nose and jaw broken but now am investigating brachial plexus injury after putting up with the pain since childhood.
I'm awaiting vascular confirmation but have confirmed neurogebic thoracic outlet syndrome from neck and head trauma.
I just wanted to know how many other survivors have survived this? I work in FV and FV and know strangulation is common but why do these abusers always know to grab the neck.
I can't believe the numbness in my arm was dismissed al these years despite my AVO against my mother, violence from my brother and past boyfrornds.
I'm so angry that these assaults have caused so much nerve damage. I'm now awaiting thoracic surgery which will be my 4th.
How many other women have experienced post traumatic brachial plexus or thoracic outlet syndrome as a result of trauma?
Thank you
2024.05.15 11:33 Frosty_Department536 Things people inherently know is learned behaviour for me.
CW: brief mentions of child abuse & alcoholism
I think this is an aspect of masking that people talk about less, and for a while it was a roadblock in my diagnosis journey. That is, whenever asked if I could pick up on nonverbal forms of communication (body language, gesturing, etc.) I would always say yes BUT only because I have worked extremely hard to learn what those things mean.
Partially because being a woman or fem presenting person means that, in order to identify danger, you gotta do stuff like learn the body language of interested creepy men. Also, women are socialised to be more "emotionally attuned" which sometimes simply means to walk on egg shells. You will quickly learn what nonverbal things mean if you receive a negative reaction enough times when you're clueless. I myself grew up in a very abusive household where I was hyper aware and vigilant of my father's nonverbal signs for when he was drunk. In fact, whenever someone asks me if I understand nonverbal cues, my brain immediately goes to my poor home life for an example, because it was instilled in me from a young age that in order to be safe, I had to assess a threat as subtly as possible. Things like swaying, dozing off, glazed-over eyes, are all nonverbal cues I know very well. I have C-PTSD and many of my loved ones now that I'm too paranoid regarding body language, angry gesturing and facial expressions, etc.
I think the idea that autistic people are completely clueless when it comes to body language/gestures/facial expressions isn't necessarily untrue, but also stems from a very sanitised (and mostly male-centric) experience of autism. I still struggle with these things from time to time, but I think it's unfair for a core building block of an autism diagnosis to be something that a lot of AFAB and abuse surviving individuals slip through the cracks with. Don't know if this is just me, though.
submitted by Frosty_Department536 to AutismInWomen [link] [comments]
I think this is an aspect of masking that people talk about less, and for a while it was a roadblock in my diagnosis journey. That is, whenever asked if I could pick up on nonverbal forms of communication (body language, gesturing, etc.) I would always say yes BUT only because I have worked extremely hard to learn what those things mean.
Partially because being a woman or fem presenting person means that, in order to identify danger, you gotta do stuff like learn the body language of interested creepy men. Also, women are socialised to be more "emotionally attuned" which sometimes simply means to walk on egg shells. You will quickly learn what nonverbal things mean if you receive a negative reaction enough times when you're clueless. I myself grew up in a very abusive household where I was hyper aware and vigilant of my father's nonverbal signs for when he was drunk. In fact, whenever someone asks me if I understand nonverbal cues, my brain immediately goes to my poor home life for an example, because it was instilled in me from a young age that in order to be safe, I had to assess a threat as subtly as possible. Things like swaying, dozing off, glazed-over eyes, are all nonverbal cues I know very well. I have C-PTSD and many of my loved ones now that I'm too paranoid regarding body language, angry gesturing and facial expressions, etc.
I think the idea that autistic people are completely clueless when it comes to body language/gestures/facial expressions isn't necessarily untrue, but also stems from a very sanitised (and mostly male-centric) experience of autism. I still struggle with these things from time to time, but I think it's unfair for a core building block of an autism diagnosis to be something that a lot of AFAB and abuse surviving individuals slip through the cracks with. Don't know if this is just me, though.
2024.05.15 08:27 Eastern_Camera_2222 I can't shake the feeling that I have nothing to live for.
I realized that the reason my ex hurt me so badly is that I saw her as a salvation. Beta, low T, whatever, sure.
I did everything for her, baked, cooked, cleaned, adopted her cats, bought her a bike, a Stata license, tried to teach her how to drive, learned how to cook and bake cakes, drove her all over, helped with her personal debt, paid the rent, bought organic groceries, proofread and edited her papers, helped her read theorists she didn't understand, always took her to get ice cream or walk around the cattle fields whenever she wanted, bought her every book she wanted.
She was my only friend for years, I took a chance and moved across the continent with her, and then she began abusing me in any way possible: financially, ran up a ton of credit card and loan debt, emotionally, wouldn't let me make new friends, cut me off from my old friends, started fights with my department cohort, accused me of cheating constantly, get drunk and hit me, called me a fag, gay, ugly, barely a man, more than a few times told me to "just transition, you look like an infant anyway, it'll be no loss," called me a colonizer, shitty white man, mediocre white man, once tried slitting my throat and screaming that Marx wanted the subalterns to kill the parasites, meaning whites, meaning me, told me to kill myself every time I accomplished something and that everyone would be relieved, take my phone and call my family racist over text and instagram then delete the messages, search my phone for "evidence" of cheating or that I told anyone what happened, install Tinder on her phone randomly and swipe in front of my face, have me drive her to Topeka or Kansas City then get angry when I would ask if we could hang out closer.
Now I'm back home and I truly feel like I have nothing to live for.
Other than a hookup or two I haven't tried dating. I go lift and I feel like it's all vanity. I read a book and then I cry that I don't have any friends or children to talk about it with, I look at my body and I see a freak, I shoot myself with the meds I now depend on and feel like a monster that should have been thrown off of the cliffs of Taygetus, I write patches and maintain some software projects as a hobby and that feels futile and vapid, I ask my brother and sisters to hang out and they make plans without me because "I" called them racist from across the country for four years (btw now I know why they refused to visit even though I called up every month for them to come visit). I think about becoming a bitter old man in my 50's and wonder if I even want to know how bad things can get.
submitted by Eastern_Camera_2222 to abusiverelationships [link] [comments]
I did everything for her, baked, cooked, cleaned, adopted her cats, bought her a bike, a Stata license, tried to teach her how to drive, learned how to cook and bake cakes, drove her all over, helped with her personal debt, paid the rent, bought organic groceries, proofread and edited her papers, helped her read theorists she didn't understand, always took her to get ice cream or walk around the cattle fields whenever she wanted, bought her every book she wanted.
She was my only friend for years, I took a chance and moved across the continent with her, and then she began abusing me in any way possible: financially, ran up a ton of credit card and loan debt, emotionally, wouldn't let me make new friends, cut me off from my old friends, started fights with my department cohort, accused me of cheating constantly, get drunk and hit me, called me a fag, gay, ugly, barely a man, more than a few times told me to "just transition, you look like an infant anyway, it'll be no loss," called me a colonizer, shitty white man, mediocre white man, once tried slitting my throat and screaming that Marx wanted the subalterns to kill the parasites, meaning whites, meaning me, told me to kill myself every time I accomplished something and that everyone would be relieved, take my phone and call my family racist over text and instagram then delete the messages, search my phone for "evidence" of cheating or that I told anyone what happened, install Tinder on her phone randomly and swipe in front of my face, have me drive her to Topeka or Kansas City then get angry when I would ask if we could hang out closer.
Now I'm back home and I truly feel like I have nothing to live for.
Other than a hookup or two I haven't tried dating. I go lift and I feel like it's all vanity. I read a book and then I cry that I don't have any friends or children to talk about it with, I look at my body and I see a freak, I shoot myself with the meds I now depend on and feel like a monster that should have been thrown off of the cliffs of Taygetus, I write patches and maintain some software projects as a hobby and that feels futile and vapid, I ask my brother and sisters to hang out and they make plans without me because "I" called them racist from across the country for four years (btw now I know why they refused to visit even though I called up every month for them to come visit). I think about becoming a bitter old man in my 50's and wonder if I even want to know how bad things can get.
2024.05.15 07:47 killerpyro_861 Worried about facial recognition being used in the near future?
I know there are already locations utilizing facial recognition tools to help catch criminals and missing people, but are you at all worried that these tools could potentially track you wherever you go?
I am all for ways to help people find criminals, but I think this could be abused for nefarious reasons. What are some things you're worried about when it comes to facial recognition tools and software being used all over the place now?
submitted by killerpyro_861 to DigitalPrivacy [link] [comments]
I am all for ways to help people find criminals, but I think this could be abused for nefarious reasons. What are some things you're worried about when it comes to facial recognition tools and software being used all over the place now?
2024.05.14 23:59 thehumblecookie009 AITA for snapping at my Mother and father in front of my Siblings and refusing to reconcile with my Father and for giving my mother a ultimatum?
Hello everyone, I am 50M, lately I have been going through an interesting life bump. Just a little background about me. I am a single father of three children. I grew up in an abusive household. My dad would physically abuse my mom and also beat my siblings and me. I have four younger siblings, three of them being girls. I was the oldest and would try to take the beatings for them. My oldest just was locked up on various charges and his ex is living with me because my son was abusing her. I actually posted about it, ill leave a link in case anyone wants to read it.
I do not like my father, I still have a relationship with my mom because I do love her dearly even though I partially blame her. A week an a half ago while my daughters were out at disney land, I got a surprise visit from my family. I opened the door to see my brother and sisters in front. I of course asked them if everything was okay and if mom was okay. I was told by my brother that I will have to take a deep breath and that I wasn't gonna like this. It was hard to see past them but I was able to see my mother getting outta the car with a man and my first thought was "oh boy" but it quickly turned to 'a long and violent " fuck". I swear to god I couldn't believe it, She was walking arm to arm with my fucking father.
I looked at my siblings with the expression of " what the fuck is this?" I told them to come inside and I stepped outside to confirm what I was seeing. I didn't say a word verbally but im sure the my facial expression spoke for me. I turned around and went back inside, i do not know what I was gonna say but I had to give me some time to process it. I closed the door behind me, leaving my parents outside. Admitttalty as AHOLE move. I asked my siblings about what was going on, we kinda had a sibling meeting. Everyone was kinda caught off guard as well by it as they were in a similar situation as me. I let my parents in after a few quick minutes.
We all sat down in the living room and we waited for the meeting to start. My mother started it off by thanking all of us for being here ( like if i was invited) and that she thinks its time that we forgave our father. I am not completely sure what she said after words but she was speaking for him and I angrily asked her if he cant speak for himself, If he lost his sharp tongue. My father was about to speak but mom raised her hand a bit signaling to stay quiet. She told us " your father wants to reconcile with you guys and wants to build something with you guys. That he came to her flowers in hand asking for forgiveness." there was a lot more but im going to be honest. I blanked it all out. I sorta snapped at her and told her that she was out of her mind. To come into my house arm and arm with the fucking animal I spent my childhood defending every single one of you from. To come in here and to tell me to just forgive him, be buddies, be father and son. To ask my siblings to do the same. My sisters were trying to get me to water down a bit but I told them to say something as well, this was the same monster that made them hide in their rooms growing up. They just sat down and stayed mute.
That she of all people should loathe this man, for the shit he did to her, for the shit he did to us. At this point I was ranting and looking at my siblings for help or for them to say something. They just looked at me. I turned to my father and told him to speak, not one word from him has been muttered. When he spoke, it was like the speech from the lich ( adventure time) that's how it felt for me. " After all this time, you remain the same man, unable to move past and find forgiveness in your heart. You are the same man as me and yet you look at me with such hate." He continued to utter garbage at me, not once did he apologize to me or my siblings, not once that he talk to me like an equal. He started to "remind me (us)" about all the things he did for us, the family. I scoffed at him. I Told him that him breaking my nose, and making me put down our dog because he was barking to loud over your show was really doing it for the betterment of the family. Like burning my sisters clothes because you thought they were too revealing. Or perhaps beating mother with a broom stick until it broke was for the betterment of the family.
My mom was trying to stop me from continuing on but I told her to keep her mouth shut, that this was between the animal and me. I told him the only reason you decided to come back from the grave was because his was dying, alone, with nobody by his side and the only people he ever had was his family. After all these years, he only now decide to come and ask for our forgiveness. To not only come to us like a coward hiding behind our mothers weaponized emotional incompetence. That he finally realized how pathetic his existence has been.
My siblings stayed quiet but only nooded at me when I turned to look at them. I refuse to accept his bullshit reconciliation plan. That he was more than welcomed to die alone. In some cold and empty room. I told my mother that the same faith would follow her if she decided to continue her association with him. She has had my support, my blood and tears for as long as I have been alive for. I told her If she wants to throw that away for this animal than she can walk out my fucking house with him.
My siblings have my back on this, they are not forgiving him. I love my mother with all my heart but I will die on this hill if i have to. AITA?
Edit: I have apologized to my mother, and to each one of my siblings since. My mother and I haven't really spoken since. My siblings all said that the reason they stayed quiet was because they were gonna decide after I made my decision. If I forgave him than they would to. That they didn't say anything because I was speaking for them. I am not sure what the fuck my mother was thinking.
submitted by thehumblecookie009 to AITAH [link] [comments]
I do not like my father, I still have a relationship with my mom because I do love her dearly even though I partially blame her. A week an a half ago while my daughters were out at disney land, I got a surprise visit from my family. I opened the door to see my brother and sisters in front. I of course asked them if everything was okay and if mom was okay. I was told by my brother that I will have to take a deep breath and that I wasn't gonna like this. It was hard to see past them but I was able to see my mother getting outta the car with a man and my first thought was "oh boy" but it quickly turned to 'a long and violent " fuck". I swear to god I couldn't believe it, She was walking arm to arm with my fucking father.
I looked at my siblings with the expression of " what the fuck is this?" I told them to come inside and I stepped outside to confirm what I was seeing. I didn't say a word verbally but im sure the my facial expression spoke for me. I turned around and went back inside, i do not know what I was gonna say but I had to give me some time to process it. I closed the door behind me, leaving my parents outside. Admitttalty as AHOLE move. I asked my siblings about what was going on, we kinda had a sibling meeting. Everyone was kinda caught off guard as well by it as they were in a similar situation as me. I let my parents in after a few quick minutes.
We all sat down in the living room and we waited for the meeting to start. My mother started it off by thanking all of us for being here ( like if i was invited) and that she thinks its time that we forgave our father. I am not completely sure what she said after words but she was speaking for him and I angrily asked her if he cant speak for himself, If he lost his sharp tongue. My father was about to speak but mom raised her hand a bit signaling to stay quiet. She told us " your father wants to reconcile with you guys and wants to build something with you guys. That he came to her flowers in hand asking for forgiveness." there was a lot more but im going to be honest. I blanked it all out. I sorta snapped at her and told her that she was out of her mind. To come into my house arm and arm with the fucking animal I spent my childhood defending every single one of you from. To come in here and to tell me to just forgive him, be buddies, be father and son. To ask my siblings to do the same. My sisters were trying to get me to water down a bit but I told them to say something as well, this was the same monster that made them hide in their rooms growing up. They just sat down and stayed mute.
That she of all people should loathe this man, for the shit he did to her, for the shit he did to us. At this point I was ranting and looking at my siblings for help or for them to say something. They just looked at me. I turned to my father and told him to speak, not one word from him has been muttered. When he spoke, it was like the speech from the lich ( adventure time) that's how it felt for me. " After all this time, you remain the same man, unable to move past and find forgiveness in your heart. You are the same man as me and yet you look at me with such hate." He continued to utter garbage at me, not once did he apologize to me or my siblings, not once that he talk to me like an equal. He started to "remind me (us)" about all the things he did for us, the family. I scoffed at him. I Told him that him breaking my nose, and making me put down our dog because he was barking to loud over your show was really doing it for the betterment of the family. Like burning my sisters clothes because you thought they were too revealing. Or perhaps beating mother with a broom stick until it broke was for the betterment of the family.
My mom was trying to stop me from continuing on but I told her to keep her mouth shut, that this was between the animal and me. I told him the only reason you decided to come back from the grave was because his was dying, alone, with nobody by his side and the only people he ever had was his family. After all these years, he only now decide to come and ask for our forgiveness. To not only come to us like a coward hiding behind our mothers weaponized emotional incompetence. That he finally realized how pathetic his existence has been.
My siblings stayed quiet but only nooded at me when I turned to look at them. I refuse to accept his bullshit reconciliation plan. That he was more than welcomed to die alone. In some cold and empty room. I told my mother that the same faith would follow her if she decided to continue her association with him. She has had my support, my blood and tears for as long as I have been alive for. I told her If she wants to throw that away for this animal than she can walk out my fucking house with him.
My siblings have my back on this, they are not forgiving him. I love my mother with all my heart but I will die on this hill if i have to. AITA?
Edit: I have apologized to my mother, and to each one of my siblings since. My mother and I haven't really spoken since. My siblings all said that the reason they stayed quiet was because they were gonna decide after I made my decision. If I forgave him than they would to. That they didn't say anything because I was speaking for them. I am not sure what the fuck my mother was thinking.
2024.05.14 23:31 surprisedkinder Childish Gambino's "This is America" is Actually a Drake, Jay Z and Diddy Diss
Before going into it, I want to mention how this post was inspired by three things. One was user u/HastyvonFuego2 and their post on going down the rabbit hole on the Kendrick sub last week. It was also inspired by Childish Gambino’s first album release in nearly 6 years where I have been sitting on this idea for a while but he inspired me to finally post this week like he did (never posted on Reddit at all before so be gentle if I am not doing it right)! I was also inspired by an interview Bino gave to GQ about breaking down his most iconic characters. In this interview he says how This is America started out as a Drake diss but then he realized the song was too hard for just Drake so he kept working on it. He also talks in this interview about how all culture is about compression. Which means that yes, This is America is about the gun violence and police issues in America, but compressed in this video is also more about where that culture comes from which he shows is from a small handful of rap moguls, namely Drake, Diddy and Jay-Z (bear with me on this long post, I think/hope it will be worth it). At the end I talk briefly about how Little Foot Big Foot might be in this same vein of cultural compression.
[Intro: Choir]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
The beginning of this song has no background music yet, which really gives it an ‘in the beginning’ feel. Then Gambino starts doing his dances with weird facial expressions. I will explain as we go through his video how those expressions and dance moves represent different famous rap moguls. One easy look to pick out right away is Jay-Z’s famous lip curl/growl look that Gambino gives with a head nod repeatedly. The colonial pants have been a hot topic, but since it’s only the pants that are colonial, Gambino is saying the bottom or basis for this violent culture in America is ultimately colonialism. The lyrics ‘Go Away’, are likely foreshadowing the rap moguls wanting other popular rap rivals to ‘go away’ or they will make them (aka murder them) for profit.
[Bridge: Childish Gambino & Young Thug]
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you (Yeah)
Usually you want money for yourself and to party for yourself, so this is a bit odd. But what Gambino is referring to is similar to these Diddy ‘freakoff parties’ we are hearing about where people who want to be famous are really partying for these rap moguls so they can get close to them. Where they suck up to them saying that they want to earn the mogul money from their songs.
I know you wanna party
Party just for free
Girl, you got me dancin' (Girl, you got me dancin')
Dance and shake the frame (Yeah)
Then this almost feels like the Diddy rebuttal where he’s like ya I know you want to party and you want to do it for free. Like Katt Williams says, “you gotta tell Diddy no”, it is never free to go to those parties. There are always consequences. When you are partying you are dancing, but shaking the frame could refer to how those boundaries/edges are being crossed, lines are blurred, etc.
Then in the video, the fellow who was playing the guitar gets shot and things turn dark from happy music. I believe that this guitar tune is meant to represent 2Pac and Nas’s song Thugz Mansion. It’s one of the original greats from ‘in the beginning’. Nas famously has always had major issues with Jay-Z too (More on why 2Pac and Nas later). It also represents how it was these moguls who murdered 2Pac like Jaguar Wright and Katt Williams keep saying. Where these murders only lead to more money and fame for the killers when the dead artists’ and their music are exploited more easily.
Also note that the gun gets taken away by a school kid after the shooting, more on this later as well.
[Verse 1: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Blocboy JB & 21 Savage]
This is America (Skrrt, skrrt, woo)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy)
Look how I'm livin' now
Police be trippin' now (Woo)
Yeah, this is America (Woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (Word, my area)
There is a song called Guns in My Area by Lil Weiner and Baby Chapox that paints a vivid picture of the everyday struggles and conflicts faced by those living in communities affected by gun violence. More compression of other songs and the American gun culture.
I got the strap (Ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry 'em
I am almost certain this line is referring to 2Pac’s song Changes. Throughout This is America, Gambino takes lines from Pac’s song: “They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone” (referred to later in this a Celly, that’s tool) “That's the sound of my tool, you say it ain't cool, My mama didn't raise no fool”
“And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped, And I never get to lay back” It seems like Gambino broke up these lyrics and scattered them throughout his song. This plays into the theme that everyone is using 2Pac and enriching themselves off of his image and music. I show below how this particular section of the video represents Diddy meaning that Diddy himself is exploiting his music (and alleging that Diddy killed Pac?). We could see this exploitation play out at length with how much Diddy milked the death of Biggie like in Every Breath You Take.
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go into this (Ugh)
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla (Woo)
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go get the bag
The song Gorilla War by $uicideboy$ and Ramirez talks about getting a bag repeatedly in the course. Also in Otis with Kanye and Jay-Z their lyrics talk about going gorilla (I talk about this song more further down), so it could be referring to this as well. It seems like Gambino is trying to pull out lyrics from all across the rap culture and embed them in his song to highlight the ‘cultural compression’.
Yeah, yeah, I'm so cold like, yeah (Yeah)
I'm so dope like, yeah (Woo)
We gon' blow like, yeah (Straight up, uh)
I think that all of the school kids in the video represent all of the rappers that are signed with these big labels. Which is interesting because they are the ones facilitating the guns for the moguls in the video. You can see that the mogul is really focused on the kids and gets agitated and directs them to follow him whenever they stray off a bit like they are his pupils, or like he owns them. Then all of a sudden the camera comes into a scene where you can see more kids shooting a rap video and all shooting money from a Supreme gun. The camera zooms out almost to show you that this is the mogul’s whole rap empire they are looking over, all of their kids in one place (this empire already includes some chaos in the background). It’s subtle but hilarious, Gambino puts fricken chickens on the ground where the kids are filming the rap video. He is directly calling all of these rappers complete chickens for playing up this lifestyle and being the cause of so much chaos rather than coming out and telling somebody what’s really going on. Trying to get their money over everything else.
[Refrain: Choir & Childish Gambino]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Get your— Black man)
This is where things start to get interesting. Gambino is literally saying, go tell somebody about this! We all know what’s happening, why don’t you go let people know how bad it is? But like Jaguar Wright said, who do you tell when these moguls have the cops and feds paid off? This video is literally Gambino putting it all out there in this extremely popular song for everyone to see but yet we still just see the dancing and the violent chaos of people and police in the streets and not the root cause that is hidden in plain sight.
The vast majority of those who reviewed this video until now think this scene represents the tragic church shooting in Charleston in 2015. I think it does, but we also have to look at this from an angle of compression.
The people in the choir are all of the people who are currently singing the rap mogul’s praises and who are focused on going and getting what’s owed to them, get their money (who are also profiting off of the dead fellows music since it goes back to the original tune). You can see that each choir member has a distinct look to them. Think about who you are hearing about now who is about to be implicated in these freak offs and evil deeds. Is that Will Smith in the back left corner!? The short bald fellow in the front left maybe Kevin Hart? Rick Ross or TD Jakes maybe the bigger guy towards the back right? When the camera zooms in on the choir right at first to show their faces, doesn’t the guy in the bottom middle look like an uncanny version of Jordan Peele? Or is that meant to be Cuba Gooding Jr? Then just like the guitar fellow at the beginning, bang. You may be singing Diddy’s praises now, but he will cut you down whenever he suddenly feels like it.
I think almost for sure this initial section of the music video is Gambino acting as Diddy, because right after he shoots the choir, he does the elbow pump/chicken dance. At 3:14 in Diddy’s video for P.E. 2000 he does the chicken dance (he is up first in the video and I think Gambino is trying to say here I first present to you the first public enemy of 3 in this song). That elbow dance signals that it was Diddy and this is the end of his section.
[Chorus: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi & Quavo]
This is America (Woo, ayy)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Woo, woo, don't catch you slippin' now)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy, woah)
Look what I'm whippin' now (Slime!)
There have been many accounts of celebrities being given fancy cars after suffering abuse at the hands of these moguls. So these lyrics are saying that you better not slip up and tell people what’s really going on. And if you don’t look at this sweet carecord deal/movie contract I am going to give you. Beiber told this story about Diddy wanting to give him a luxury car.
Now suddenly, the dance switches from the chicken dance to a sudden bicep flex to signal us that we have now moved on from Gambino representing Diddy to our next mogul.
[Verse 2: Childish Gambino, Quavo, Young Thug, 21 Savage & BlocBoy JB]
This next chunk of the video is all about Jay-Z. I think this is the case because he throws his arms up in a bicep flex just like Jay does in the Otis music video at 2:38. And it makes sense Gambino would pick a dance move from a video with a huge American flag in the background to fit the ‘This is America’ theme. Gambino is mocking him saying, who are you really, the pretty guy or this hard gangster like Gambino shows in his dancing. Also right before they pan to the kids on the balcony, Bino also does Jay-Z’s signature lip curl look a couple times so we know it’s him and to signal the end of his section.
Look how I'm geekin' out (Hey)
I'm so fitted (I'm so fitted, woo)
Jay-Z is famous for making the fitted Yankees cap famous, it’s his signature look. More signs this verse is about Jay.
I'm on Gucci (I'm on Gucci)
Jay-Z has been seen in full wallpaper Gucci sweat suits but could also be referring to Gucci Mane who he hung out with at Beyonce’s tour around the time this song was released.
I'm so pretty (Yeah, yeah, woo)
I'm gon' get it (Ayy, I'm gon' get it)
Watch me move (Blaow)
These lines are probably referring to Jay-Z having a hidden preference for men, especially with the way Gambino flicks his wrist in the video when he says I’m so pretty.
This a celly (Ha)
That's a tool (Yeah)
On my Kodak (Woo) Black
I think that “this a celly, that’s a tool” harkens back to 2Pac’s lyrics in Changes where he sings, “They get jealous when they see ya with your mobile phone” then shortly after that he sings about the sound of his tool, referring to shooting a gun. But Childish flips these lyrics on their head. He is saying that it’s really the phone that’s a tool to be using, not a gun. And pans up and shows (the school kids specifically) on the balcony filming everything going on below. He’s telling the kids/other rappers, use your phone as a tool, you can record these bad deeds when you get blackmailed into being at the freak off. That’s how you can kill them and their career, not with a gun. Go tell somebody! There is also the reference to Kodak which plays into the picture taking theme, but also because Kodak Black has been accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a hotel room. So we have a good idea of what Gambino suggests all the kids start filming and collecting evidence of.
Ooh, know that (Yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it (Woo, get it, get it)
Ooh, work it (21)
Now we are onto Drake’s part. In the video Gambino starts doing the BlocBoy JB dance called Shoot. Drake is known for doing these little viral dance moves like in Hotline Bling. But not only that, this dance is also used in the song that both BlocBoy JB and Drake collaborate on for their video Look Alive. It starts at 2:07 in the Look Alive video. So this is Drake’s dance to signal his part is now starting.
Note this is where the pale horse rides by also potentially saying that Drake is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Interestingly, Drake’s collab with BlocBoy JB was pretty much the apocalypse for BlocBoy’s career, who hasn’t had a hit since.
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (Hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (Contraband)
I got the plug in Oaxaca (Woah)
They gonna find you like "blocka" (Blaow)
Again, we know this is Drake’s section because his song 10 bands starts out by saying “10 bands, 50 bands, 100 bands” almost identical to Bino’s lyrics here. Also Blocka was famously used by Biggie in his song Gimme the Loot which could be referring to Biggie's demise like Pac’s and making money from his death. Everything in this industry originates from pushing drugs, which has been alleged through the trafficking that Diddy, Jay-Z and Drake do through their private jets likely connected to their bosses, the Clive Davises and Lucian Grainges of the world. This escalates rap beefs and the whole culture to the next level where murder is often a consequence for young rappers in their prime when international drug lord money is involved.
An interesting point is this is the only time where Childish was about to shoot someone in the video, but where he didn’t have a school kid either handing him the gun or taking it away carefully from him. (Maybe also a diss at Drake that even though he acts hard he doesn’t shoot, he gets his horseman of the apocalypse to do his dirty deeds for him instead perhaps?). This is the beginning of the end for the rap mogul as he no longer has his kids doing his bidding for him. A simple message to show how the violence can be stopped, that these shootings can end when the kids stop enabling them. So then as soon as he can’t react in that moment and shoot someone his anger is forced to chill out, as shown by smoking a J, and to go back to exploiting the dead man’s music instead. If you don’t put a gun in someone’s hand when they are heated, those feelings too shall pass - kinda feel.
[Refrain: Choir, Childish Gambino, & Young Thug]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
America, I just checked my following list, and
You mothafuckas owe me
Whose voice does that sound like!? It sounds a lot like Diddy to me, public enemy #1. This is basically saying that the moguls are the ones who we all owe it to for all of this glorified gun violence in America. That we owe them way more follows and likes for what a massive influence they have had on the violence and chaos we see in America today.
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
(1, 2, 3—get down)
In Moneybagg Yo’s song 1, 2, 3, he also has a line that says “1, 2, 3, let’s go!” in a similar vein.
But something interesting I came across was Nas’s song Get Down where they use a sample from James Brown's “The Boss” that sounds extremely similar to the way Gambino screams “Get Down!” Which would fit well if the guitar singer from the beginning is meant to be Nas and Pac doing Thugz Mansion.
Also make sure you check out Nas’s song Get Down so that you can hear how much Jay-Z outright copied this song for The Story of OJ. From the musical structure with the piano and interwoven samples right down to the theme reiterated by the sample at the end of Nas’s song: “If that’s how our people are gonna get down, how are we ever gonna get up?”
SZA
Finally to wrap up the video, I have been stumped for a long time as to why SZA is randomly at the end of this video sitting on one of the cars. But I think I finally know why and it reconfirms that this last scene is all about Drake. If you watch Drake’s music video for Worst Behavior (not very Canadian of him to spell behaviour that way I might add) you will see Drake rapping and dancing with a few cars surrounding him and one of those cars has other rappers making cameos in it. In Gambino’s video SZA represents that car with a famous cameo. I think this is further confirmed when the black edges of the video start closing inwards at the end of This is America, the exact same way that Worst Behavior ends. So why SZA as the cameo then? Cause it reminds people that Drake is a p*do.
This is from an article in the Rolling Stone: In 2020, Drake revealed publicly that he and SZA had dated over a decade ago, well before she was an established artist (her earliest music goes back to around 2012; her critical breakthrough, Ctrl, came in 2017). On 21 Savage’s “Mr. Right Now,” Drake rapped about a newer fling who was a fan of SZA’s: “Yeah, said she wanna fuck to some SZA, wait / ‘Cause I used to date SZA back in ’08 / If you cool with it, baby, she can still play.” A few days later, SZA responded, corroborating Drake’s claim with a slight correction: they dated in 2009, when both would have been over 18. Since SZA would not have turned 18 until late 2008, she wanted to set the record straight. “in this case a year of poetic rap license mattered 🥴lol I think he jus innocently rhymed 08 w wait [sic],” she tweeted. “I just didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening . Completely innocent . Lifetimes ago . [sic]”
If you have to specifically say something isn’t creepy and distance yourself from it being lifetimes ago, it usually is creepy. Drake would’ve been 22 when she was 17. Metro Boomin also happens to be on the Mr. Right Now track. He is currently in trouble for resurfaced old tweets showing how Metro used to tweet disgusting things about what he wanted to do to underage girls. Interestingly, Metro Boomin is also now beefing with Drake.
Drake doing his dance on the car of the original musician’s music seems to be accusing Drake directly of stealing 2Pac’s music. Orlando Brown recently said the cryptic statement that “Drake is Pac” which likely means he stole 2Pac’s approach/style/audience after his death. Gambino did some good foreshadowing here too with the recent AI release Drake put out of 2Pac.
This dance scene also signals that the Drake section is now over.
[Outro: Young Thug]
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin' expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain't life to a dog
For a big dog
The outro lyrics speak to how these gatekeepers keep black men down and control them with things like being forced to wear a dress to become famous or to submit to homosexual/p*do acts.. In the video, as I mentioned above, the black edges close in on Drake’s dancing scene in This is America. But they don’t completely close and end things like they do in the Worst Behavior video. Instead, in Gambino’s video, the camera pans to show the mogul running for his life with Young Thug’s lyrics almost like a quiet echo in the background. He isn’t running from the cops though, he’s running from the kids and from the public. When I mentioned earlier that the kids not handing over the last gun before Drake’s scene signalled the beginning of the end for the moguls, this is that conclusion. Where it is showing that if all the kids come together to stop enabling and rather expose the moguls, people will be chasing these bastards down once we realize what has been going on behind the curtain. Then the song that Young Thug is singing can just be a quiet echo of the way things were in the past.
If you don’t think Gambino would be this deep and that I went too far down the rabbit hole, do a Google search on the calculations that he came up with for why he sings about loving until 3005 in his song. He seems to go real deep with his lyrics. So a big question this leaves us with is, what did Childish Gambino witness in the rap industry? His whole rap career plays out like he is trying to avoid industry norms.
Even in Sweatpants, he has lyrics like:
No hands like soccer teams and y'all fuck boys like Socrates
You niggas ain't coppin' these, niggas ain't lookin' like me (Nah)
Nah, I ain't checkin' I.D. (Nah), but I bounce 'em with no problem
Seems like he is trying to make it really clear across his catalogue of music that he isn’t a p*do but that other rappers are. Where he is saying that he doesn’t need to ID his potential partners because he can tell they are obviously too young and that’s not hard to do.
Tell 'em, Problem (Problem!)
I'm winnin', yeah, yeah, I'm winnin' (What?)...
Rich kid, asshole, paint me as a villain
So who was trying to paint him as a villain, Drake? And that’s why the diss was originally meant for him?
Don't be mad 'cause I'm doing me better than you doing you…
Better than you doing you
Fuck it, what you gon' do? (What?!)
He’s taunting the other rappers cause he knows they can’t say shit if they are creeps. He has the same sentiment in Bonfire “It’s a bonfire, turn the lights out, I’m burning everything you mother fuckers talk about.”
Childish Gambino has always refrained from talking about the meaning of This is America whenever he is asked, and I can only assume that all of this is why.
Little Foot Big Foot
Now with his new release, Little Foot Big Foot and applying cultural compression to it, it has me wondering if he is referring to Megan Thee Stallion and the Nicki beef? People like Nicki (calling Megan Big Foot) have been claiming for some time she wasn’t even shot in the foot by Tory Lanez. There were many people laughing and making fun of Megan over getting shot. Which could be an interesting story for Childish to tell to represent how crazy this violent culture has gotten that people just laugh and blame the victim now when you get shot. Also a good metaphor for things like ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ for not having a lawyer look over potentially predatory industry contracts like in the beginning of his video. That you want to get in the cool kids club so bad you overlook it. Not as sure on this one though since the song just came out and I have only heard it a few times.
One last thing that is really interesting, there have been tons of artists on podcasts like Shay Shay talking about the strings these ultra rich moguls can pull. Like buying awards or gatekeeping people from being in the industry at all. There was even a story, I think maybe it was Gene Deal who told it, that when Killer Mike won at the grammys that Jay-Z was so angry he made sure to mess up his night by getting him locked up as soon as he left the awards stage. These moguls are extremely powerful and have an incredible amount of sway in the world/industry. If you check out Gambino’s profile on Youtube, his old music videos keep getting taken down, like Bonfire for example is just gone. Fans have been having to upload the videos themselves. There is a reply to a comment, on one of the fan uploaded vids, from Gambino’s account himself when someone asks why the videos are being taken down. His account just replies “Noone knows why :(“ Seems a bit odd all things considered and like maybe he has been at the mercy of these gatekeepers for going against the system.
I am so curious to know what the rest of you think about all of this!
submitted by surprisedkinder to donaldglover [link] [comments]
[Intro: Choir]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go away
The beginning of this song has no background music yet, which really gives it an ‘in the beginning’ feel. Then Gambino starts doing his dances with weird facial expressions. I will explain as we go through his video how those expressions and dance moves represent different famous rap moguls. One easy look to pick out right away is Jay-Z’s famous lip curl/growl look that Gambino gives with a head nod repeatedly. The colonial pants have been a hot topic, but since it’s only the pants that are colonial, Gambino is saying the bottom or basis for this violent culture in America is ultimately colonialism. The lyrics ‘Go Away’, are likely foreshadowing the rap moguls wanting other popular rap rivals to ‘go away’ or they will make them (aka murder them) for profit.
[Bridge: Childish Gambino & Young Thug]
We just wanna party
Party just for you
We just want the money
Money just for you (Yeah)
Usually you want money for yourself and to party for yourself, so this is a bit odd. But what Gambino is referring to is similar to these Diddy ‘freakoff parties’ we are hearing about where people who want to be famous are really partying for these rap moguls so they can get close to them. Where they suck up to them saying that they want to earn the mogul money from their songs.
I know you wanna party
Party just for free
Girl, you got me dancin' (Girl, you got me dancin')
Dance and shake the frame (Yeah)
Then this almost feels like the Diddy rebuttal where he’s like ya I know you want to party and you want to do it for free. Like Katt Williams says, “you gotta tell Diddy no”, it is never free to go to those parties. There are always consequences. When you are partying you are dancing, but shaking the frame could refer to how those boundaries/edges are being crossed, lines are blurred, etc.
Then in the video, the fellow who was playing the guitar gets shot and things turn dark from happy music. I believe that this guitar tune is meant to represent 2Pac and Nas’s song Thugz Mansion. It’s one of the original greats from ‘in the beginning’. Nas famously has always had major issues with Jay-Z too (More on why 2Pac and Nas later). It also represents how it was these moguls who murdered 2Pac like Jaguar Wright and Katt Williams keep saying. Where these murders only lead to more money and fame for the killers when the dead artists’ and their music are exploited more easily.
Also note that the gun gets taken away by a school kid after the shooting, more on this later as well.
[Verse 1: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Blocboy JB & 21 Savage]
This is America (Skrrt, skrrt, woo)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy)
Look how I'm livin' now
Police be trippin' now (Woo)
Yeah, this is America (Woo, ayy)
Guns in my area (Word, my area)
There is a song called Guns in My Area by Lil Weiner and Baby Chapox that paints a vivid picture of the everyday struggles and conflicts faced by those living in communities affected by gun violence. More compression of other songs and the American gun culture.
I got the strap (Ayy, ayy)
I gotta carry 'em
I am almost certain this line is referring to 2Pac’s song Changes. Throughout This is America, Gambino takes lines from Pac’s song: “They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone” (referred to later in this a Celly, that’s tool) “That's the sound of my tool, you say it ain't cool, My mama didn't raise no fool”
“And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped, And I never get to lay back” It seems like Gambino broke up these lyrics and scattered them throughout his song. This plays into the theme that everyone is using 2Pac and enriching themselves off of his image and music. I show below how this particular section of the video represents Diddy meaning that Diddy himself is exploiting his music (and alleging that Diddy killed Pac?). We could see this exploitation play out at length with how much Diddy milked the death of Biggie like in Every Breath You Take.
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go into this (Ugh)
Yeah, yeah, this is guerilla (Woo)
Yeah, yeah, I'ma go get the bag
The song Gorilla War by $uicideboy$ and Ramirez talks about getting a bag repeatedly in the course. Also in Otis with Kanye and Jay-Z their lyrics talk about going gorilla (I talk about this song more further down), so it could be referring to this as well. It seems like Gambino is trying to pull out lyrics from all across the rap culture and embed them in his song to highlight the ‘cultural compression’.
Yeah, yeah, I'm so cold like, yeah (Yeah)
I'm so dope like, yeah (Woo)
We gon' blow like, yeah (Straight up, uh)
I think that all of the school kids in the video represent all of the rappers that are signed with these big labels. Which is interesting because they are the ones facilitating the guns for the moguls in the video. You can see that the mogul is really focused on the kids and gets agitated and directs them to follow him whenever they stray off a bit like they are his pupils, or like he owns them. Then all of a sudden the camera comes into a scene where you can see more kids shooting a rap video and all shooting money from a Supreme gun. The camera zooms out almost to show you that this is the mogul’s whole rap empire they are looking over, all of their kids in one place (this empire already includes some chaos in the background). It’s subtle but hilarious, Gambino puts fricken chickens on the ground where the kids are filming the rap video. He is directly calling all of these rappers complete chickens for playing up this lifestyle and being the cause of so much chaos rather than coming out and telling somebody what’s really going on. Trying to get their money over everything else.
[Refrain: Choir & Childish Gambino]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
You go tell somebody
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Get your— Black man)
This is where things start to get interesting. Gambino is literally saying, go tell somebody about this! We all know what’s happening, why don’t you go let people know how bad it is? But like Jaguar Wright said, who do you tell when these moguls have the cops and feds paid off? This video is literally Gambino putting it all out there in this extremely popular song for everyone to see but yet we still just see the dancing and the violent chaos of people and police in the streets and not the root cause that is hidden in plain sight.
The vast majority of those who reviewed this video until now think this scene represents the tragic church shooting in Charleston in 2015. I think it does, but we also have to look at this from an angle of compression.
The people in the choir are all of the people who are currently singing the rap mogul’s praises and who are focused on going and getting what’s owed to them, get their money (who are also profiting off of the dead fellows music since it goes back to the original tune). You can see that each choir member has a distinct look to them. Think about who you are hearing about now who is about to be implicated in these freak offs and evil deeds. Is that Will Smith in the back left corner!? The short bald fellow in the front left maybe Kevin Hart? Rick Ross or TD Jakes maybe the bigger guy towards the back right? When the camera zooms in on the choir right at first to show their faces, doesn’t the guy in the bottom middle look like an uncanny version of Jordan Peele? Or is that meant to be Cuba Gooding Jr? Then just like the guitar fellow at the beginning, bang. You may be singing Diddy’s praises now, but he will cut you down whenever he suddenly feels like it.
I think almost for sure this initial section of the music video is Gambino acting as Diddy, because right after he shoots the choir, he does the elbow pump/chicken dance. At 3:14 in Diddy’s video for P.E. 2000 he does the chicken dance (he is up first in the video and I think Gambino is trying to say here I first present to you the first public enemy of 3 in this song). That elbow dance signals that it was Diddy and this is the end of his section.
[Chorus: Childish Gambino, Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi & Quavo]
This is America (Woo, ayy)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Woo, woo, don't catch you slippin' now)
Don't catch you slippin' now (Ayy, woah)
Look what I'm whippin' now (Slime!)
There have been many accounts of celebrities being given fancy cars after suffering abuse at the hands of these moguls. So these lyrics are saying that you better not slip up and tell people what’s really going on. And if you don’t look at this sweet carecord deal/movie contract I am going to give you. Beiber told this story about Diddy wanting to give him a luxury car.
Now suddenly, the dance switches from the chicken dance to a sudden bicep flex to signal us that we have now moved on from Gambino representing Diddy to our next mogul.
[Verse 2: Childish Gambino, Quavo, Young Thug, 21 Savage & BlocBoy JB]
This next chunk of the video is all about Jay-Z. I think this is the case because he throws his arms up in a bicep flex just like Jay does in the Otis music video at 2:38. And it makes sense Gambino would pick a dance move from a video with a huge American flag in the background to fit the ‘This is America’ theme. Gambino is mocking him saying, who are you really, the pretty guy or this hard gangster like Gambino shows in his dancing. Also right before they pan to the kids on the balcony, Bino also does Jay-Z’s signature lip curl look a couple times so we know it’s him and to signal the end of his section.
Look how I'm geekin' out (Hey)
I'm so fitted (I'm so fitted, woo)
Jay-Z is famous for making the fitted Yankees cap famous, it’s his signature look. More signs this verse is about Jay.
I'm on Gucci (I'm on Gucci)
Jay-Z has been seen in full wallpaper Gucci sweat suits but could also be referring to Gucci Mane who he hung out with at Beyonce’s tour around the time this song was released.
I'm so pretty (Yeah, yeah, woo)
I'm gon' get it (Ayy, I'm gon' get it)
Watch me move (Blaow)
These lines are probably referring to Jay-Z having a hidden preference for men, especially with the way Gambino flicks his wrist in the video when he says I’m so pretty.
This a celly (Ha)
That's a tool (Yeah)
On my Kodak (Woo) Black
I think that “this a celly, that’s a tool” harkens back to 2Pac’s lyrics in Changes where he sings, “They get jealous when they see ya with your mobile phone” then shortly after that he sings about the sound of his tool, referring to shooting a gun. But Childish flips these lyrics on their head. He is saying that it’s really the phone that’s a tool to be using, not a gun. And pans up and shows (the school kids specifically) on the balcony filming everything going on below. He’s telling the kids/other rappers, use your phone as a tool, you can record these bad deeds when you get blackmailed into being at the freak off. That’s how you can kill them and their career, not with a gun. Go tell somebody! There is also the reference to Kodak which plays into the picture taking theme, but also because Kodak Black has been accused of assaulting a teenage girl in a hotel room. So we have a good idea of what Gambino suggests all the kids start filming and collecting evidence of.
Ooh, know that (Yeah, know that, hold on)
Get it (Woo, get it, get it)
Ooh, work it (21)
Now we are onto Drake’s part. In the video Gambino starts doing the BlocBoy JB dance called Shoot. Drake is known for doing these little viral dance moves like in Hotline Bling. But not only that, this dance is also used in the song that both BlocBoy JB and Drake collaborate on for their video Look Alive. It starts at 2:07 in the Look Alive video. So this is Drake’s dance to signal his part is now starting.
Note this is where the pale horse rides by also potentially saying that Drake is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. Interestingly, Drake’s collab with BlocBoy JB was pretty much the apocalypse for BlocBoy’s career, who hasn’t had a hit since.
Hunnid bands, hunnid bands, hunnid bands (Hunnid bands)
Contraband, contraband, contraband (Contraband)
I got the plug in Oaxaca (Woah)
They gonna find you like "blocka" (Blaow)
Again, we know this is Drake’s section because his song 10 bands starts out by saying “10 bands, 50 bands, 100 bands” almost identical to Bino’s lyrics here. Also Blocka was famously used by Biggie in his song Gimme the Loot which could be referring to Biggie's demise like Pac’s and making money from his death. Everything in this industry originates from pushing drugs, which has been alleged through the trafficking that Diddy, Jay-Z and Drake do through their private jets likely connected to their bosses, the Clive Davises and Lucian Grainges of the world. This escalates rap beefs and the whole culture to the next level where murder is often a consequence for young rappers in their prime when international drug lord money is involved.
An interesting point is this is the only time where Childish was about to shoot someone in the video, but where he didn’t have a school kid either handing him the gun or taking it away carefully from him. (Maybe also a diss at Drake that even though he acts hard he doesn’t shoot, he gets his horseman of the apocalypse to do his dirty deeds for him instead perhaps?). This is the beginning of the end for the rap mogul as he no longer has his kids doing his bidding for him. A simple message to show how the violence can be stopped, that these shootings can end when the kids stop enabling them. So then as soon as he can’t react in that moment and shoot someone his anger is forced to chill out, as shown by smoking a J, and to go back to exploiting the dead man’s music instead. If you don’t put a gun in someone’s hand when they are heated, those feelings too shall pass - kinda feel.
[Refrain: Choir, Childish Gambino, & Young Thug]
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody
America, I just checked my following list, and
You mothafuckas owe me
Whose voice does that sound like!? It sounds a lot like Diddy to me, public enemy #1. This is basically saying that the moguls are the ones who we all owe it to for all of this glorified gun violence in America. That we owe them way more follows and likes for what a massive influence they have had on the violence and chaos we see in America today.
Grandma told me
Get your money, Black man (Black man)
(1, 2, 3—get down)
In Moneybagg Yo’s song 1, 2, 3, he also has a line that says “1, 2, 3, let’s go!” in a similar vein.
But something interesting I came across was Nas’s song Get Down where they use a sample from James Brown's “The Boss” that sounds extremely similar to the way Gambino screams “Get Down!” Which would fit well if the guitar singer from the beginning is meant to be Nas and Pac doing Thugz Mansion.
Also make sure you check out Nas’s song Get Down so that you can hear how much Jay-Z outright copied this song for The Story of OJ. From the musical structure with the piano and interwoven samples right down to the theme reiterated by the sample at the end of Nas’s song: “If that’s how our people are gonna get down, how are we ever gonna get up?”
SZA
Finally to wrap up the video, I have been stumped for a long time as to why SZA is randomly at the end of this video sitting on one of the cars. But I think I finally know why and it reconfirms that this last scene is all about Drake. If you watch Drake’s music video for Worst Behavior (not very Canadian of him to spell behaviour that way I might add) you will see Drake rapping and dancing with a few cars surrounding him and one of those cars has other rappers making cameos in it. In Gambino’s video SZA represents that car with a famous cameo. I think this is further confirmed when the black edges of the video start closing inwards at the end of This is America, the exact same way that Worst Behavior ends. So why SZA as the cameo then? Cause it reminds people that Drake is a p*do.
This is from an article in the Rolling Stone: In 2020, Drake revealed publicly that he and SZA had dated over a decade ago, well before she was an established artist (her earliest music goes back to around 2012; her critical breakthrough, Ctrl, came in 2017). On 21 Savage’s “Mr. Right Now,” Drake rapped about a newer fling who was a fan of SZA’s: “Yeah, said she wanna fuck to some SZA, wait / ‘Cause I used to date SZA back in ’08 / If you cool with it, baby, she can still play.” A few days later, SZA responded, corroborating Drake’s claim with a slight correction: they dated in 2009, when both would have been over 18. Since SZA would not have turned 18 until late 2008, she wanted to set the record straight. “in this case a year of poetic rap license mattered 🥴lol I think he jus innocently rhymed 08 w wait [sic],” she tweeted. “I just didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening . Completely innocent . Lifetimes ago . [sic]”
If you have to specifically say something isn’t creepy and distance yourself from it being lifetimes ago, it usually is creepy. Drake would’ve been 22 when she was 17. Metro Boomin also happens to be on the Mr. Right Now track. He is currently in trouble for resurfaced old tweets showing how Metro used to tweet disgusting things about what he wanted to do to underage girls. Interestingly, Metro Boomin is also now beefing with Drake.
Drake doing his dance on the car of the original musician’s music seems to be accusing Drake directly of stealing 2Pac’s music. Orlando Brown recently said the cryptic statement that “Drake is Pac” which likely means he stole 2Pac’s approach/style/audience after his death. Gambino did some good foreshadowing here too with the recent AI release Drake put out of 2Pac.
This dance scene also signals that the Drake section is now over.
[Outro: Young Thug]
You just a black man in this world
You just a barcode, ayy
You just a black man in this world
Drivin' expensive foreigns, ayy
You just a big dawg, yeah
I kenneled him in the backyard
No, probably ain't life to a dog
For a big dog
The outro lyrics speak to how these gatekeepers keep black men down and control them with things like being forced to wear a dress to become famous or to submit to homosexual/p*do acts.. In the video, as I mentioned above, the black edges close in on Drake’s dancing scene in This is America. But they don’t completely close and end things like they do in the Worst Behavior video. Instead, in Gambino’s video, the camera pans to show the mogul running for his life with Young Thug’s lyrics almost like a quiet echo in the background. He isn’t running from the cops though, he’s running from the kids and from the public. When I mentioned earlier that the kids not handing over the last gun before Drake’s scene signalled the beginning of the end for the moguls, this is that conclusion. Where it is showing that if all the kids come together to stop enabling and rather expose the moguls, people will be chasing these bastards down once we realize what has been going on behind the curtain. Then the song that Young Thug is singing can just be a quiet echo of the way things were in the past.
If you don’t think Gambino would be this deep and that I went too far down the rabbit hole, do a Google search on the calculations that he came up with for why he sings about loving until 3005 in his song. He seems to go real deep with his lyrics. So a big question this leaves us with is, what did Childish Gambino witness in the rap industry? His whole rap career plays out like he is trying to avoid industry norms.
Even in Sweatpants, he has lyrics like:
No hands like soccer teams and y'all fuck boys like Socrates
You niggas ain't coppin' these, niggas ain't lookin' like me (Nah)
Nah, I ain't checkin' I.D. (Nah), but I bounce 'em with no problem
Seems like he is trying to make it really clear across his catalogue of music that he isn’t a p*do but that other rappers are. Where he is saying that he doesn’t need to ID his potential partners because he can tell they are obviously too young and that’s not hard to do.
Tell 'em, Problem (Problem!)
I'm winnin', yeah, yeah, I'm winnin' (What?)...
Rich kid, asshole, paint me as a villain
So who was trying to paint him as a villain, Drake? And that’s why the diss was originally meant for him?
Don't be mad 'cause I'm doing me better than you doing you…
Better than you doing you
Fuck it, what you gon' do? (What?!)
He’s taunting the other rappers cause he knows they can’t say shit if they are creeps. He has the same sentiment in Bonfire “It’s a bonfire, turn the lights out, I’m burning everything you mother fuckers talk about.”
Childish Gambino has always refrained from talking about the meaning of This is America whenever he is asked, and I can only assume that all of this is why.
Little Foot Big Foot
Now with his new release, Little Foot Big Foot and applying cultural compression to it, it has me wondering if he is referring to Megan Thee Stallion and the Nicki beef? People like Nicki (calling Megan Big Foot) have been claiming for some time she wasn’t even shot in the foot by Tory Lanez. There were many people laughing and making fun of Megan over getting shot. Which could be an interesting story for Childish to tell to represent how crazy this violent culture has gotten that people just laugh and blame the victim now when you get shot. Also a good metaphor for things like ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ for not having a lawyer look over potentially predatory industry contracts like in the beginning of his video. That you want to get in the cool kids club so bad you overlook it. Not as sure on this one though since the song just came out and I have only heard it a few times.
One last thing that is really interesting, there have been tons of artists on podcasts like Shay Shay talking about the strings these ultra rich moguls can pull. Like buying awards or gatekeeping people from being in the industry at all. There was even a story, I think maybe it was Gene Deal who told it, that when Killer Mike won at the grammys that Jay-Z was so angry he made sure to mess up his night by getting him locked up as soon as he left the awards stage. These moguls are extremely powerful and have an incredible amount of sway in the world/industry. If you check out Gambino’s profile on Youtube, his old music videos keep getting taken down, like Bonfire for example is just gone. Fans have been having to upload the videos themselves. There is a reply to a comment, on one of the fan uploaded vids, from Gambino’s account himself when someone asks why the videos are being taken down. His account just replies “Noone knows why :(“ Seems a bit odd all things considered and like maybe he has been at the mercy of these gatekeepers for going against the system.
I am so curious to know what the rest of you think about all of this!
2024.05.14 21:19 Jazzlike_Elk_6535 I'm an irredeemable monster who deserves nothing but suffering and a slow painful death.
NSFW Warning
I truly don't know what to do anymore, I'm completely lost.
I'm a 20 year old male with autism and possible OCD.
There are many things I want to talk about so this is going to be really long and unorganised.
From age 18 up until last year, I viewed and masturbated to CSAM, and the way I went about getting hold of it is equally bad, if not worse. I cannot express in words the shame and remorse I feel for this.
I know most of you hate me now and I don't blame you, and I guarantee you I hate myself more for it.
The most confusing part about it is I don't find children attractive, there's no groinal response, urges, desires, arousal, nothing. I don't even take a second glance or stare, the only thing I have is intrusive thoughts. Recently I was sat in the corner of a crowded bus, and since there was nowhere else to sit, three boys, none of which could have been older than 13 sat by me, one next to me, and the other two across from me, to which I felt nothing of that nature whatsoever.
My instincts when I've been around children in recent times is purely parental and protective.
I'd never hurt a child, especially in that way, I'd slit my wrists or set myself on fire before I did that, I might just slit my wrists anyway.
I'd run into a burning building, I'd run out onto a busy road, I'd give my life to save a child's life.
I don't go out of my way to be around children, I find them for the most part irritating, I don't hate them though. Throughout my entire life I preferred the company of adults. I even live across from a playground ffs.
I'm scarred for life by some of the things I saw in those images and videos, how the hell could someone do something like that?! I want to climb through the screen and protect those kids, give them a hug and let them know nothing can hurt them anymore.
I stumbled across an image hosting site when I was 16 whilst trying to find material involving my peers again, and the site hosted lots of cropped images of teens on webcams and older kids on webcams (it was obvious what they were doing), and on the page for the accounts, it usually displayed an email where stuff could be traded, but I didn't pursue that until 2 years later.
I went about acquiring it through sending old images and videos of myself, and in a lot worse way as well.
Starting from 14 up until last year, I very occasionally placed my phone in the bathroom and filmed my friends urinating, this happened definitely less than ten times, and most of them I deleted from everywhere, but I kept one and a screenshot of a few others, I started posting these images, as well as my own nudes, on an old reddit account which was deleted not long after, I made sure to hide their identities while doing this, I enjoyed the attention and compliments I would get, and I loved bigging up my friends and seeing them get compliments.
Then I used this content to acquire the bad stuff years later, including the stuff of me.
I had an Idea that this was considered wrong but I didn't understand how it could have been harmful.
This happened to less than 5 friends, all the content I had I have long since deleted and wiped any access to, and I have no intention to do this again, but the main issue is the fact that copies could have been made of it, and I accidentally sent the uncropped video once. There's the possibility none of this stuff is out there, but it's still vile and repulsive.
One of them was my closest friend, who I had known basically all my life, I broke down to him and told him what I had done and what I believe does me to this awful, reprehensible place, and you know what he did? He told me he forgave me and that some video possibly being out there doesn't phase him and his life isn't ruined at all and it will go on either way.
But he understandably said we can't see each other anymore, that he still loves me, believes I'm a good person and wants me to live a good life and make the world a better place, which was a dream of ours.
It's extra difficult because we were so close, we had experienced so much together, held all the same interests and beliefs, and I loved him only like family could, so the fact I committed this vile act of betrayal rids me with so much shame, and deservedly so. In a way I find it harder to get through because I didn't understand the true consequences of my actions and how this could have affected him and others, it would be less confusing and easier to accept I'm just the lowest form of humanity that way.
I displayed other problematic behaviours from a young age, all to do with boundary issues, I sometimes used to touch my friends when I was 12 but never their actual genitals, and I used to jokingly show my erection to people as well.
The only constant that I knew for certain is wrong is genuine rape and molestation, which is a line I know for certain I could never cross, and never will.
From a very young age (around 3 or 4) my mother would do very inappropriate party tricks around me with her friends late at night when they were drinking, her friends would call me sexy, and as I got older and hit puberty, she started making comments about my bulge and other things despite the fact I hated it and told her so.
When I was 7 I was groomed and molested by an 8 year old boy, I wanted him to help me pass a level on my DS game and he said he'll do it if I have sex with him, me being 7 I didn't understand what that was and with him being older I complied. We were naked during this, he fondled my genitals and got me to do the same to him, he inserted his fingers into my anus as well.
When I was 10, two of my close friends groomed me, they simulated blowjobs on each other and got me to do the same to them.
When I was 11, my 12 year old friend groomed and molested me despite me protesting, he got me to get in my bed with him and he rubbed up against me. Earlier that day he also got me to sit in his lap whilst cuddling me from behind, we were wearing underwear.
When I was 13, that same friend when he was nearly 14 and another friend who was already 14 groomed and molested me in my pool again, I had an erection in the pool and jokingly showed one of them it, and it escalated from there. They both got naked and got me to do so, I protested but eventually gave in to the pressure, they also showed each other their genitals and got me to do the same, later that boy got me to sit in his lap again whilst the older boy rubbed up against me.
There was also just the normal experimenting stuff, one of my friends used to show me his erections and I would do the same.
All of my friends were going through puberty and their bodies were changing and so was mine, which I found incredibly fascinating and arousing, and I had seen most of my friends genitals and some other students genitals throughout growing up, so me being young and autistic, I became very curious.
Kids before finishing Elementary/Primary School were swearing and talking about sex, then as I got older (11) kids were drinking, smoking, doing drugs, talking about masturbation habits and apparently having genuine sex. Then by the time I was 13, there was a lot of students taking nudes, nudes being spread around school and nudes being leaked (including mine, which distressed me for a few days, but only because people knew they were mine, if they were spread around but they didn't know it was me, I wouldn't have cared), kids with condoms and other stuff etc.
I started watching non-pornographic sexual content online (sex scenes from movies, TV shows, games etc) at age 9 which I would genuinely get an erection from watching.
At age 10 I hit puberty (testicles largened) and I started masturbating to non pornographic stuff. Including videos of animals mating. I also tried to find stuff involving my peers and found a fake video of stuff suggestive of that.
At 11 I started to grow pubic hair and had my first ejaculations, as well as discover porn, and I had my first crush which was on a 12 year old boy who was another friend, who I would masturbate to. This crush lasted a number of years, but he was straight so it couldn't go anywhere. This was also the age I started taking nudes and videos of me masturbating.
At 12 I started to grow underarm har and facial hair began to appear on my upper lip, I was watching porn very heavily at this point.
At 13 my voice had broken and I was nearly my full adult height, this was also the age I first masturbated to a non-sexual nude image of a child. As well as videos of stuff like naturism and videos of circumcision (I don't have a pain or gore fetish, I would just blank it out and focus on the genitals.)
By 14 I was my full adult height, I had adult sized ejacualtions and my penis had fully grown. And that is when I started posting my nudes online. To which I would have sexual conversations with adults, not knowing I was setting myself up to be groomed and have something normalised in my head which shouldn't be.
By 15 I was growing facial hair, as well as chest and abdominal hair. And I found a shotacon involving a boy my age having sex with an adult woman, and I would pretend to be him.
At 17, a 19 year old flirted with me and got me into sending nudes to him, and he did the same, which I didn't see as bad and despite it being technically illegal, I still don't.
I also did the same when I was 19 with a 17 year old stranger online, but they were very willing and I didn't pressure them, no personal info was shared between us.
I also messaged a 15 and 14 year old at some point but stopped myself from letting it go any further. And cut them off before anything could be shared.
And when I started watching the CSAM, it was mostly teens 9n webcams that I watched, I was lured into thinking that this content isn't kids being assaulted or anything (which it is) and due to my experiences twisting my view, I thought kids were enjoying it (which they weren't) since I would have had enjoyed it at that age (which I wouldn't have) it wasn't until I saw unmistakable suffering which is when I stopped and vowed to never go there again. It was mostly stuff involving boys, the stuff involving girls I just found too revolting. I wanted to relive those experiences, go back to a time I was happier. It felt safe and comforting.
All of these experiencs warped my views and understanding of things, desensitised me and made me believe things were ok that weren't and that kids aren't as innocent as they are seen to be (which they are). I have never commited rape or an act of molestation and never will, these are acts I've always seen as vile and disgusting.
I've suffered with mental health issues for a long time as well.
I've struggled with feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness since around 9 or 10.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 13, I've been self harming and suicidal since 15, I've also been attempting suicide since 15.
I've always felt like the odd one out, I always felt like I was the worst at everything, I was the one who was left out of games at school, the one who was always picked last in sports.
I was bullied a lot growing up, by students and occasionally teachers alike.
My mother is narcissistic and has been emotionally and occasionally physically abusive to me since I was 14 (telling me she hates me and that everyone else hates me, tells me how horrible I am, tells me that I should kill myself and do everyone a favour, threatened to stab me in my sleep, hit me on the occasion, bit me, threw things at me, including heavy things and glass, strangled me).
I truly don't know what to do anymore, I'm completely lost.
I'm a 20 year old male with autism and possible OCD.
There are many things I want to talk about so this is going to be really long and unorganised.
From age 18 up until last year, I viewed and masturbated to CSAM, and the way I went about getting hold of it is equally bad, if not worse. I cannot express in words the shame and remorse I feel for this.
I know most of you hate me now and I don't blame you, and I guarantee you I hate myself more for it.
The most confusing part about it is I don't find children attractive, there's no groinal response, urges, desires, arousal, nothing. I don't even take a second glance or stare, the only thing I have is intrusive thoughts. Recently I was sat in the corner of a crowded bus, and since there was nowhere else to sit, three boys, none of which could have been older than 13 sat by me, one next to me, and the other two across from me, to which I felt nothing of that nature whatsoever.
I'm sexually attracted to males 20 and over, and I'm romantically and sexually attracted to females 20 and over, I wouldn't even date an 18 or 19 year old.
My instincts when I've been around children in recent times is purely parental and protective.
I'd never hurt a child, especially in that way, I'd slit my wrists or set myself on fire before I did that, I might just slit my wrists anyway.
I'd run into a burning building, I'd run out onto a busy road, I'd give my life to save a child's life.
I don't go out of my way to be around children, I find them for the most part irritating, I don't hate them though. Throughout my entire life I preferred the company of adults. I even live across from a playground ffs.
I'm scarred for life by some of the things I saw in those images and videos, how the hell could someone do something like that?! I want to climb through the screen and protect those kids, give them a hug and let them know nothing can hurt them anymore.
I stumbled across an image hosting site when I was 16 whilst trying to find material involving my peers again, and the site hosted lots of cropped images of teens on webcams and older kids on webcams (it was obvious what they were doing), and on the page for the accounts, it usually displayed an email where stuff could be traded, but I didn't pursue that until 2 years later.
I went about acquiring it through sending old images and videos of myself, and in a lot worse way as well.
Starting from 14 up until last year, I very occasionally placed my phone in the bathroom and filmed my friends urinating, this happened definitely less than ten times, and most of them I deleted from everywhere, but I kept one and a screenshot of a few others, I started posting these images, as well as my own nudes, on an old reddit account which was deleted not long after, I made sure to hide their identities while doing this, I enjoyed the attention and compliments I would get, and I loved bigging up my friends and seeing them get compliments.
Then I used this content to acquire the bad stuff years later, including the stuff of me.
I had an Idea that this was considered wrong but I didn't understand how it could have been harmful.
This happened to less than 5 friends, all the content I had I have long since deleted and wiped any access to, and I have no intention to do this again, but the main issue is the fact that copies could have been made of it, and I accidentally sent the uncropped video once. There's the possibility none of this stuff is out there, but it's still vile and repulsive.
One of them was my closest friend, who I had known basically all my life, I broke down to him and told him what I had done and what I believe does me to this awful, reprehensible place, and you know what he did? He told me he forgave me and that some video possibly being out there doesn't phase him and his life isn't ruined at all and it will go on either way.
But he understandably said we can't see each other anymore, that he still loves me, believes I'm a good person and wants me to live a good life and make the world a better place, which was a dream of ours.
It's extra difficult because we were so close, we had experienced so much together, held all the same interests and beliefs, and I loved him only like family could, so the fact I committed this vile act of betrayal rids me with so much shame, and deservedly so. In a way I find it harder to get through because I didn't understand the true consequences of my actions and how this could have affected him and others, it would be less confusing and easier to accept I'm just the lowest form of humanity that way.
The other two friends I stopped communicating with, I wiped the account wiped the content from all areas they were stored on, deleted what they were stored, everything, and there is a possibility it's not out their at all.
I displayed other problematic behaviours from a young age, all to do with boundary issues, I sometimes used to touch my friends when I was 12 but never their actual genitals, and I used to jokingly show my erection to people as well.
The only constant that I knew for certain is wrong is genuine rape and molestation, which is a line I know for certain I could never cross, and never will.
From a very young age (around 3 or 4) my mother would do very inappropriate party tricks around me with her friends late at night when they were drinking, her friends would call me sexy, and as I got older and hit puberty, she started making comments about my bulge and other things despite the fact I hated it and told her so.
When I was 7 I was groomed and molested by an 8 year old boy, I wanted him to help me pass a level on my DS game and he said he'll do it if I have sex with him, me being 7 I didn't understand what that was and with him being older I complied. We were naked during this, he fondled my genitals and got me to do the same to him, he inserted his fingers into my anus as well.
When I was 10, two of my close friends groomed me, they simulated blowjobs on each other and got me to do the same to them.
When I was 11, my 12 year old friend groomed and molested me despite me protesting, he got me to get in my bed with him and he rubbed up against me. Earlier that day he also got me to sit in his lap whilst cuddling me from behind, we were wearing underwear.
When I was 13, that same friend when he was nearly 14 and another friend who was already 14 groomed and molested me in my pool again, I had an erection in the pool and jokingly showed one of them it, and it escalated from there. They both got naked and got me to do so, I protested but eventually gave in to the pressure, they also showed each other their genitals and got me to do the same, later that boy got me to sit in his lap again whilst the older boy rubbed up against me.
There was also just the normal experimenting stuff, one of my friends used to show me his erections and I would do the same.
All of my friends were going through puberty and their bodies were changing and so was mine, which I found incredibly fascinating and arousing, and I had seen most of my friends genitals and some other students genitals throughout growing up, so me being young and autistic, I became very curious.
Kids before finishing Elementary/Primary School were swearing and talking about sex, then as I got older (11) kids were drinking, smoking, doing drugs, talking about masturbation habits and apparently having genuine sex. Then by the time I was 13, there was a lot of students taking nudes, nudes being spread around school and nudes being leaked (including mine, which distressed me for a few days, but only because people knew they were mine, if they were spread around but they didn't know it was me, I wouldn't have cared), kids with condoms and other stuff etc.
I started watching non-pornographic sexual content online (sex scenes from movies, TV shows, games etc) at age 9 which I would genuinely get an erection from watching.
At age 10 I hit puberty (testicles largened) and I started masturbating to non pornographic stuff. Including videos of animals mating. I also tried to find stuff involving my peers and found a fake video of stuff suggestive of that.
At 11 I started to grow pubic hair and had my first ejaculations, as well as discover porn, there was also an image I masturbated to which depicted a boy of my age giving oral to a man, and I had my first crush which was on a 12 year old boy who was another friend, who I would masturbate to. This crush lasted a number of years, but he was straight so it couldn't go anywhere. This was also the age I started taking nudes and videos of me masturbating.
At 12 I started to grow underarm har and facial hair began to appear on my upper lip, I was watching porn very heavily at this point.
At 13 my voice had broken and I was nearly my full adult height, this was also the age I first masturbated to a non-sexual nude image of a child. As well as videos of stuff like naturism and videos of circumcision (I don't have a pain or gore fetish, I would just blank it out and focus on the genitals.)
By 14 I was my full adult height, I had adult sized ejacualtions and my penis had fully grown. And that is when I started posting my nudes online. To which I would have sexual conversations with adults, not knowing I was setting myself up to be groomed and have something normalised in my head which shouldn't be.
By 15 I was growing facial hair, as well as chest and abdominal hair. And I found a shotacon involving a boy my age having sex with an adult woman, and I would pretend to be him.
At 17, a 19 year old flirted with me and got me into sending nudes to him, and he did the same, which I didn't see as bad and despite it being technically illegal, I still don't.
I also did the same when I was 19 with a 17 year old stranger online, but they were very willing and I didn't pressure them, no personal info was shared between us.
I also messaged a 15 and 14 year old at some point but stopped myself from letting it go any further. And cut them off before anything could be shared, or any messages could be exchanged for that matter.
And when I started watching the CSAM, it was mostly teens 9n webcams that I watched, I was lured into thinking that this content isn't kids being assaulted or anything (which it is) and due to my experiences twisting my view, I thought kids were enjoying it (which they weren't) since I would have had enjoyed it at that age (which I wouldn't have), it wasn't until I saw unmistakable suffering which is when I stopped and vowed to never go there again. It was mostly stuff involving boys, the stuff involving girls I just found too revolting. I wanted to relive those experiences, go back to a time I was happier. It felt safe and comforting. It was relatable.
All of these experiencs warped my views and understanding of things, desensitised me and made me believe things were ok that weren't and that kids aren't as innocent as they are seen to be (which they are). I have never commited rape or an act of molestation and never will, these are acts I've always seen as vile and disgusting.
I've suffered with mental health issues for a long time as well.
I've struggled with feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness since around 9 or 10.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 13, I've been self harming and suicidal since 15, I've also been attempting suicide since 15.
I've always felt like the odd one out, I always felt like I was the worst at everything, I was the one who was left out of games at school, the one who was always picked last in sports.
I was bullied a lot growing up, by students and occasionally teachers alike, and even my boss at my first job.
My mother is a heavy drinker, narcissistic and has been emotionally and occasionally physically abusive to me since I was 14 (telling me she hates me and that everyone else hates me, tells me how horrible I am, tells me that I should kill myself and do everyone a favour, threatened to stab me in my sleep, hit me on the occasion, bit me, threw things at me, including heavy things and glass, strangled me). There was also manipulation tactics like gaslighting, she alienated me from others by telling her friends and family how awful I was. Pushed me into meltdowns and got me to lash out, to which she called the police and got me arrested and made me look like the bad one on multiple occasions.
My father was a drug addict who died when I was 14, I saw him less than ten times my whole life, he grew drugs in my room when I was an infant, my most distinct memory is him coming to my house very late one night when I was around 9 or 10 talking about demons and bad spirits.
Addiction runs in my family (my father's father is an equally heavy drinker, his mother is a drug addict who ran a brothel), so the addictive tendencies have been past down to me.
I probably was addicted to porn by 13, and had been feeding it for years without knowing it.
My adopted grandfather died when I was 4, and my adopted grandmother (which I lived with from birth) who was my guiding light, died less than a week before my dad did.
The only father figure I really had (who was an alcoholic but otherwise very good with me) was my mother's partner who she met when I was 6, and he died when I was 8.
I was also very close to my mother's best friend, who had been more of a mother to me than my actual one had been some time died when I was 17.
My mother had an abusive ex who stalked her and threatened to set fire to the house, who also left ranting letters and stood in the back garden at night, so we lived in fear of stuff like that for over a year from when I was 12 through 13.
She also had an abusive lodger who was an even heavier drinker than she is, so from when I was 14 through 16 I witnessed them physically fight, both get arrested and on a few occasions I had to defend her from him.
Many of my friends have betrayed me over the years (I know I'm one to talk) but when this started to happen I would have never dreamed of betraying anyone, personal stuff was shared about me which I trusted them with, there was a lot of bad talking about me without me knowing. My toe closest friend turned on me at age 12 and isolated me from my other friends, I blamed myself at the time which I why I moved schools at 13 since I thought I was just making everyone miserable.
I didn't get diagnosed with autism until I was q9 despite trying to get it since I was 12, it hurt knowing I had been paying my whole life for being different, feeling ashamed of who I am (and rightly so now really), wondering why what I said was offensive, why I didn't understandfulky why this was wrong, why I was so sensitive to jokes, why I took e everyhing literally, why I made impulsive and reckless decisions without understanding the consequences of them.
I was never considered attractive and was ridiculed for it (girls used to jokingly flirt with me to torment me at school). I'm 5'6, always have struggled with weight, hairline started receding at 16, eczema so my skin is always red, dry and flaky, really bad diastema and acid reflux which means it's really hard to make my breath smell nice and my teeth are very worn because of it. I have had sex with someone who was older than me and we were both consenting adults, and we were both very respectful of boundaries.
I was also desensitised to other things slide gore and violence, I played a lot of violent video games when I was a kid, my mother is really into controversial shock movies (she got me to watch Cannibal Holocaust with her when I was 11).
The worst part about all of this is the fact all my friends who I love would hate me if they knew about what I've done so, none of them would trust me anymore or respect me, which is what friendships are all about right? So in a way they feel strange, they feel fake.
I could never find a relationship or true love because nobody wants to date a serial sex offender.
I hate knowing the fact I'm a sex offender, it's eating me alive.
I'm not registered and there is no real proof of what I did, so I can't turn myself in or anything.
I want to do good in the world, I have so much love to give, but it feels wrong me helping people because it feels like there is a sinister undertone to everything I do.
I've always enjoyed being charitable, I love giving money to the homeless or putting change in a donations box.
I feel guilty whenever I feel hapoy since I don't deserve to be, the only things that I enjoy now are food and playing video games, it's the only job I get out of day to day life.
The only fate I deserve is being stabbed to death in prison or something.
All I want is to be loved and accepted despite my flaws and mistakes, but I never could be.
The only other person I've told is my mother, who has been supportive.
I've been on antidepressants since 18 and I'm trying to get therapy, but I'm not hoping or expecting anything good will happen from this. I've been in and out of therapy since I was 11.
I had dreams, I had aspirations, I wanted to change the world for the better, I wanted to have a son, not to hurt him, but so he doesn't end up like me, but I reliase that is not possible. I don't deserve to be around children.
I hate keeping secrets, but I have no choice but to keep this one.
I want to identify with good people, but I can't.
Every good thing I do is invalidated now.
I forgive everyone who has wronged me in anyway, since I'm worse than them.
I just pray I can go out doing good, doing the right thing.
I am no better than Jimmy Saville, Ian Watkins or any of them types of people.
If you want to motivate me to end it all, feel free.
If you have read through all of this, thank you.
submitted by Jazzlike_Elk_6535 to confessions [link] [comments]
I truly don't know what to do anymore, I'm completely lost.
I'm a 20 year old male with autism and possible OCD.
There are many things I want to talk about so this is going to be really long and unorganised.
From age 18 up until last year, I viewed and masturbated to CSAM, and the way I went about getting hold of it is equally bad, if not worse. I cannot express in words the shame and remorse I feel for this.
I know most of you hate me now and I don't blame you, and I guarantee you I hate myself more for it.
The most confusing part about it is I don't find children attractive, there's no groinal response, urges, desires, arousal, nothing. I don't even take a second glance or stare, the only thing I have is intrusive thoughts. Recently I was sat in the corner of a crowded bus, and since there was nowhere else to sit, three boys, none of which could have been older than 13 sat by me, one next to me, and the other two across from me, to which I felt nothing of that nature whatsoever.
My instincts when I've been around children in recent times is purely parental and protective.
I'd never hurt a child, especially in that way, I'd slit my wrists or set myself on fire before I did that, I might just slit my wrists anyway.
I'd run into a burning building, I'd run out onto a busy road, I'd give my life to save a child's life.
I don't go out of my way to be around children, I find them for the most part irritating, I don't hate them though. Throughout my entire life I preferred the company of adults. I even live across from a playground ffs.
I'm scarred for life by some of the things I saw in those images and videos, how the hell could someone do something like that?! I want to climb through the screen and protect those kids, give them a hug and let them know nothing can hurt them anymore.
I stumbled across an image hosting site when I was 16 whilst trying to find material involving my peers again, and the site hosted lots of cropped images of teens on webcams and older kids on webcams (it was obvious what they were doing), and on the page for the accounts, it usually displayed an email where stuff could be traded, but I didn't pursue that until 2 years later.
I went about acquiring it through sending old images and videos of myself, and in a lot worse way as well.
Starting from 14 up until last year, I very occasionally placed my phone in the bathroom and filmed my friends urinating, this happened definitely less than ten times, and most of them I deleted from everywhere, but I kept one and a screenshot of a few others, I started posting these images, as well as my own nudes, on an old reddit account which was deleted not long after, I made sure to hide their identities while doing this, I enjoyed the attention and compliments I would get, and I loved bigging up my friends and seeing them get compliments.
Then I used this content to acquire the bad stuff years later, including the stuff of me.
I had an Idea that this was considered wrong but I didn't understand how it could have been harmful.
This happened to less than 5 friends, all the content I had I have long since deleted and wiped any access to, and I have no intention to do this again, but the main issue is the fact that copies could have been made of it, and I accidentally sent the uncropped video once. There's the possibility none of this stuff is out there, but it's still vile and repulsive.
One of them was my closest friend, who I had known basically all my life, I broke down to him and told him what I had done and what I believe does me to this awful, reprehensible place, and you know what he did? He told me he forgave me and that some video possibly being out there doesn't phase him and his life isn't ruined at all and it will go on either way.
But he understandably said we can't see each other anymore, that he still loves me, believes I'm a good person and wants me to live a good life and make the world a better place, which was a dream of ours.
It's extra difficult because we were so close, we had experienced so much together, held all the same interests and beliefs, and I loved him only like family could, so the fact I committed this vile act of betrayal rids me with so much shame, and deservedly so. In a way I find it harder to get through because I didn't understand the true consequences of my actions and how this could have affected him and others, it would be less confusing and easier to accept I'm just the lowest form of humanity that way.
I displayed other problematic behaviours from a young age, all to do with boundary issues, I sometimes used to touch my friends when I was 12 but never their actual genitals, and I used to jokingly show my erection to people as well.
The only constant that I knew for certain is wrong is genuine rape and molestation, which is a line I know for certain I could never cross, and never will.
From a very young age (around 3 or 4) my mother would do very inappropriate party tricks around me with her friends late at night when they were drinking, her friends would call me sexy, and as I got older and hit puberty, she started making comments about my bulge and other things despite the fact I hated it and told her so.
When I was 7 I was groomed and molested by an 8 year old boy, I wanted him to help me pass a level on my DS game and he said he'll do it if I have sex with him, me being 7 I didn't understand what that was and with him being older I complied. We were naked during this, he fondled my genitals and got me to do the same to him, he inserted his fingers into my anus as well.
When I was 10, two of my close friends groomed me, they simulated blowjobs on each other and got me to do the same to them.
When I was 11, my 12 year old friend groomed and molested me despite me protesting, he got me to get in my bed with him and he rubbed up against me. Earlier that day he also got me to sit in his lap whilst cuddling me from behind, we were wearing underwear.
When I was 13, that same friend when he was nearly 14 and another friend who was already 14 groomed and molested me in my pool again, I had an erection in the pool and jokingly showed one of them it, and it escalated from there. They both got naked and got me to do so, I protested but eventually gave in to the pressure, they also showed each other their genitals and got me to do the same, later that boy got me to sit in his lap again whilst the older boy rubbed up against me.
There was also just the normal experimenting stuff, one of my friends used to show me his erections and I would do the same.
All of my friends were going through puberty and their bodies were changing and so was mine, which I found incredibly fascinating and arousing, and I had seen most of my friends genitals and some other students genitals throughout growing up, so me being young and autistic, I became very curious.
Kids before finishing Elementary/Primary School were swearing and talking about sex, then as I got older (11) kids were drinking, smoking, doing drugs, talking about masturbation habits and apparently having genuine sex. Then by the time I was 13, there was a lot of students taking nudes, nudes being spread around school and nudes being leaked (including mine, which distressed me for a few days, but only because people knew they were mine, if they were spread around but they didn't know it was me, I wouldn't have cared), kids with condoms and other stuff etc.
I started watching non-pornographic sexual content online (sex scenes from movies, TV shows, games etc) at age 9 which I would genuinely get an erection from watching.
At age 10 I hit puberty (testicles largened) and I started masturbating to non pornographic stuff. Including videos of animals mating. I also tried to find stuff involving my peers and found a fake video of stuff suggestive of that.
At 11 I started to grow pubic hair and had my first ejaculations, as well as discover porn, and I had my first crush which was on a 12 year old boy who was another friend, who I would masturbate to. This crush lasted a number of years, but he was straight so it couldn't go anywhere. This was also the age I started taking nudes and videos of me masturbating.
At 12 I started to grow underarm har and facial hair began to appear on my upper lip, I was watching porn very heavily at this point.
At 13 my voice had broken and I was nearly my full adult height, this was also the age I first masturbated to a non-sexual nude image of a child. As well as videos of stuff like naturism and videos of circumcision (I don't have a pain or gore fetish, I would just blank it out and focus on the genitals.)
By 14 I was my full adult height, I had adult sized ejacualtions and my penis had fully grown. And that is when I started posting my nudes online. To which I would have sexual conversations with adults, not knowing I was setting myself up to be groomed and have something normalised in my head which shouldn't be.
By 15 I was growing facial hair, as well as chest and abdominal hair. And I found a shotacon involving a boy my age having sex with an adult woman, and I would pretend to be him.
At 17, a 19 year old flirted with me and got me into sending nudes to him, and he did the same, which I didn't see as bad and despite it being technically illegal, I still don't.
I also did the same when I was 19 with a 17 year old stranger online, but they were very willing and I didn't pressure them, no personal info was shared between us.
I also messaged a 15 and 14 year old at some point but stopped myself from letting it go any further. And cut them off before anything could be shared.
And when I started watching the CSAM, it was mostly teens 9n webcams that I watched, I was lured into thinking that this content isn't kids being assaulted or anything (which it is) and due to my experiences twisting my view, I thought kids were enjoying it (which they weren't) since I would have had enjoyed it at that age (which I wouldn't have) it wasn't until I saw unmistakable suffering which is when I stopped and vowed to never go there again. It was mostly stuff involving boys, the stuff involving girls I just found too revolting. I wanted to relive those experiences, go back to a time I was happier. It felt safe and comforting.
All of these experiencs warped my views and understanding of things, desensitised me and made me believe things were ok that weren't and that kids aren't as innocent as they are seen to be (which they are). I have never commited rape or an act of molestation and never will, these are acts I've always seen as vile and disgusting.
I've suffered with mental health issues for a long time as well.
I've struggled with feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness since around 9 or 10.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 13, I've been self harming and suicidal since 15, I've also been attempting suicide since 15.
I've always felt like the odd one out, I always felt like I was the worst at everything, I was the one who was left out of games at school, the one who was always picked last in sports.
I was bullied a lot growing up, by students and occasionally teachers alike.
My mother is narcissistic and has been emotionally and occasionally physically abusive to me since I was 14 (telling me she hates me and that everyone else hates me, tells me how horrible I am, tells me that I should kill myself and do everyone a favour, threatened to stab me in my sleep, hit me on the occasion, bit me, threw things at me, including heavy things and glass, strangled me).
I truly don't know what to do anymore, I'm completely lost.
I'm a 20 year old male with autism and possible OCD.
There are many things I want to talk about so this is going to be really long and unorganised.
From age 18 up until last year, I viewed and masturbated to CSAM, and the way I went about getting hold of it is equally bad, if not worse. I cannot express in words the shame and remorse I feel for this.
I know most of you hate me now and I don't blame you, and I guarantee you I hate myself more for it.
The most confusing part about it is I don't find children attractive, there's no groinal response, urges, desires, arousal, nothing. I don't even take a second glance or stare, the only thing I have is intrusive thoughts. Recently I was sat in the corner of a crowded bus, and since there was nowhere else to sit, three boys, none of which could have been older than 13 sat by me, one next to me, and the other two across from me, to which I felt nothing of that nature whatsoever.
I'm sexually attracted to males 20 and over, and I'm romantically and sexually attracted to females 20 and over, I wouldn't even date an 18 or 19 year old.
My instincts when I've been around children in recent times is purely parental and protective.
I'd never hurt a child, especially in that way, I'd slit my wrists or set myself on fire before I did that, I might just slit my wrists anyway.
I'd run into a burning building, I'd run out onto a busy road, I'd give my life to save a child's life.
I don't go out of my way to be around children, I find them for the most part irritating, I don't hate them though. Throughout my entire life I preferred the company of adults. I even live across from a playground ffs.
I'm scarred for life by some of the things I saw in those images and videos, how the hell could someone do something like that?! I want to climb through the screen and protect those kids, give them a hug and let them know nothing can hurt them anymore.
I stumbled across an image hosting site when I was 16 whilst trying to find material involving my peers again, and the site hosted lots of cropped images of teens on webcams and older kids on webcams (it was obvious what they were doing), and on the page for the accounts, it usually displayed an email where stuff could be traded, but I didn't pursue that until 2 years later.
I went about acquiring it through sending old images and videos of myself, and in a lot worse way as well.
Starting from 14 up until last year, I very occasionally placed my phone in the bathroom and filmed my friends urinating, this happened definitely less than ten times, and most of them I deleted from everywhere, but I kept one and a screenshot of a few others, I started posting these images, as well as my own nudes, on an old reddit account which was deleted not long after, I made sure to hide their identities while doing this, I enjoyed the attention and compliments I would get, and I loved bigging up my friends and seeing them get compliments.
Then I used this content to acquire the bad stuff years later, including the stuff of me.
I had an Idea that this was considered wrong but I didn't understand how it could have been harmful.
This happened to less than 5 friends, all the content I had I have long since deleted and wiped any access to, and I have no intention to do this again, but the main issue is the fact that copies could have been made of it, and I accidentally sent the uncropped video once. There's the possibility none of this stuff is out there, but it's still vile and repulsive.
One of them was my closest friend, who I had known basically all my life, I broke down to him and told him what I had done and what I believe does me to this awful, reprehensible place, and you know what he did? He told me he forgave me and that some video possibly being out there doesn't phase him and his life isn't ruined at all and it will go on either way.
But he understandably said we can't see each other anymore, that he still loves me, believes I'm a good person and wants me to live a good life and make the world a better place, which was a dream of ours.
It's extra difficult because we were so close, we had experienced so much together, held all the same interests and beliefs, and I loved him only like family could, so the fact I committed this vile act of betrayal rids me with so much shame, and deservedly so. In a way I find it harder to get through because I didn't understand the true consequences of my actions and how this could have affected him and others, it would be less confusing and easier to accept I'm just the lowest form of humanity that way.
The other two friends I stopped communicating with, I wiped the account wiped the content from all areas they were stored on, deleted what they were stored, everything, and there is a possibility it's not out their at all.
I displayed other problematic behaviours from a young age, all to do with boundary issues, I sometimes used to touch my friends when I was 12 but never their actual genitals, and I used to jokingly show my erection to people as well.
The only constant that I knew for certain is wrong is genuine rape and molestation, which is a line I know for certain I could never cross, and never will.
From a very young age (around 3 or 4) my mother would do very inappropriate party tricks around me with her friends late at night when they were drinking, her friends would call me sexy, and as I got older and hit puberty, she started making comments about my bulge and other things despite the fact I hated it and told her so.
When I was 7 I was groomed and molested by an 8 year old boy, I wanted him to help me pass a level on my DS game and he said he'll do it if I have sex with him, me being 7 I didn't understand what that was and with him being older I complied. We were naked during this, he fondled my genitals and got me to do the same to him, he inserted his fingers into my anus as well.
When I was 10, two of my close friends groomed me, they simulated blowjobs on each other and got me to do the same to them.
When I was 11, my 12 year old friend groomed and molested me despite me protesting, he got me to get in my bed with him and he rubbed up against me. Earlier that day he also got me to sit in his lap whilst cuddling me from behind, we were wearing underwear.
When I was 13, that same friend when he was nearly 14 and another friend who was already 14 groomed and molested me in my pool again, I had an erection in the pool and jokingly showed one of them it, and it escalated from there. They both got naked and got me to do so, I protested but eventually gave in to the pressure, they also showed each other their genitals and got me to do the same, later that boy got me to sit in his lap again whilst the older boy rubbed up against me.
There was also just the normal experimenting stuff, one of my friends used to show me his erections and I would do the same.
All of my friends were going through puberty and their bodies were changing and so was mine, which I found incredibly fascinating and arousing, and I had seen most of my friends genitals and some other students genitals throughout growing up, so me being young and autistic, I became very curious.
Kids before finishing Elementary/Primary School were swearing and talking about sex, then as I got older (11) kids were drinking, smoking, doing drugs, talking about masturbation habits and apparently having genuine sex. Then by the time I was 13, there was a lot of students taking nudes, nudes being spread around school and nudes being leaked (including mine, which distressed me for a few days, but only because people knew they were mine, if they were spread around but they didn't know it was me, I wouldn't have cared), kids with condoms and other stuff etc.
I started watching non-pornographic sexual content online (sex scenes from movies, TV shows, games etc) at age 9 which I would genuinely get an erection from watching.
At age 10 I hit puberty (testicles largened) and I started masturbating to non pornographic stuff. Including videos of animals mating. I also tried to find stuff involving my peers and found a fake video of stuff suggestive of that.
At 11 I started to grow pubic hair and had my first ejaculations, as well as discover porn, there was also an image I masturbated to which depicted a boy of my age giving oral to a man, and I had my first crush which was on a 12 year old boy who was another friend, who I would masturbate to. This crush lasted a number of years, but he was straight so it couldn't go anywhere. This was also the age I started taking nudes and videos of me masturbating.
At 12 I started to grow underarm har and facial hair began to appear on my upper lip, I was watching porn very heavily at this point.
At 13 my voice had broken and I was nearly my full adult height, this was also the age I first masturbated to a non-sexual nude image of a child. As well as videos of stuff like naturism and videos of circumcision (I don't have a pain or gore fetish, I would just blank it out and focus on the genitals.)
By 14 I was my full adult height, I had adult sized ejacualtions and my penis had fully grown. And that is when I started posting my nudes online. To which I would have sexual conversations with adults, not knowing I was setting myself up to be groomed and have something normalised in my head which shouldn't be.
By 15 I was growing facial hair, as well as chest and abdominal hair. And I found a shotacon involving a boy my age having sex with an adult woman, and I would pretend to be him.
At 17, a 19 year old flirted with me and got me into sending nudes to him, and he did the same, which I didn't see as bad and despite it being technically illegal, I still don't.
I also did the same when I was 19 with a 17 year old stranger online, but they were very willing and I didn't pressure them, no personal info was shared between us.
I also messaged a 15 and 14 year old at some point but stopped myself from letting it go any further. And cut them off before anything could be shared, or any messages could be exchanged for that matter.
And when I started watching the CSAM, it was mostly teens 9n webcams that I watched, I was lured into thinking that this content isn't kids being assaulted or anything (which it is) and due to my experiences twisting my view, I thought kids were enjoying it (which they weren't) since I would have had enjoyed it at that age (which I wouldn't have), it wasn't until I saw unmistakable suffering which is when I stopped and vowed to never go there again. It was mostly stuff involving boys, the stuff involving girls I just found too revolting. I wanted to relive those experiences, go back to a time I was happier. It felt safe and comforting. It was relatable.
All of these experiencs warped my views and understanding of things, desensitised me and made me believe things were ok that weren't and that kids aren't as innocent as they are seen to be (which they are). I have never commited rape or an act of molestation and never will, these are acts I've always seen as vile and disgusting.
I've suffered with mental health issues for a long time as well.
I've struggled with feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness since around 9 or 10.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 13, I've been self harming and suicidal since 15, I've also been attempting suicide since 15.
I've always felt like the odd one out, I always felt like I was the worst at everything, I was the one who was left out of games at school, the one who was always picked last in sports.
I was bullied a lot growing up, by students and occasionally teachers alike, and even my boss at my first job.
My mother is a heavy drinker, narcissistic and has been emotionally and occasionally physically abusive to me since I was 14 (telling me she hates me and that everyone else hates me, tells me how horrible I am, tells me that I should kill myself and do everyone a favour, threatened to stab me in my sleep, hit me on the occasion, bit me, threw things at me, including heavy things and glass, strangled me). There was also manipulation tactics like gaslighting, she alienated me from others by telling her friends and family how awful I was. Pushed me into meltdowns and got me to lash out, to which she called the police and got me arrested and made me look like the bad one on multiple occasions.
My father was a drug addict who died when I was 14, I saw him less than ten times my whole life, he grew drugs in my room when I was an infant, my most distinct memory is him coming to my house very late one night when I was around 9 or 10 talking about demons and bad spirits.
Addiction runs in my family (my father's father is an equally heavy drinker, his mother is a drug addict who ran a brothel), so the addictive tendencies have been past down to me.
I probably was addicted to porn by 13, and had been feeding it for years without knowing it.
My adopted grandfather died when I was 4, and my adopted grandmother (which I lived with from birth) who was my guiding light, died less than a week before my dad did.
The only father figure I really had (who was an alcoholic but otherwise very good with me) was my mother's partner who she met when I was 6, and he died when I was 8.
I was also very close to my mother's best friend, who had been more of a mother to me than my actual one had been some time died when I was 17.
My mother had an abusive ex who stalked her and threatened to set fire to the house, who also left ranting letters and stood in the back garden at night, so we lived in fear of stuff like that for over a year from when I was 12 through 13.
She also had an abusive lodger who was an even heavier drinker than she is, so from when I was 14 through 16 I witnessed them physically fight, both get arrested and on a few occasions I had to defend her from him.
Many of my friends have betrayed me over the years (I know I'm one to talk) but when this started to happen I would have never dreamed of betraying anyone, personal stuff was shared about me which I trusted them with, there was a lot of bad talking about me without me knowing. My toe closest friend turned on me at age 12 and isolated me from my other friends, I blamed myself at the time which I why I moved schools at 13 since I thought I was just making everyone miserable.
I didn't get diagnosed with autism until I was q9 despite trying to get it since I was 12, it hurt knowing I had been paying my whole life for being different, feeling ashamed of who I am (and rightly so now really), wondering why what I said was offensive, why I didn't understandfulky why this was wrong, why I was so sensitive to jokes, why I took e everyhing literally, why I made impulsive and reckless decisions without understanding the consequences of them.
I was never considered attractive and was ridiculed for it (girls used to jokingly flirt with me to torment me at school). I'm 5'6, always have struggled with weight, hairline started receding at 16, eczema so my skin is always red, dry and flaky, really bad diastema and acid reflux which means it's really hard to make my breath smell nice and my teeth are very worn because of it. I have had sex with someone who was older than me and we were both consenting adults, and we were both very respectful of boundaries.
I was also desensitised to other things slide gore and violence, I played a lot of violent video games when I was a kid, my mother is really into controversial shock movies (she got me to watch Cannibal Holocaust with her when I was 11).
The worst part about all of this is the fact all my friends who I love would hate me if they knew about what I've done so, none of them would trust me anymore or respect me, which is what friendships are all about right? So in a way they feel strange, they feel fake.
I could never find a relationship or true love because nobody wants to date a serial sex offender.
I hate knowing the fact I'm a sex offender, it's eating me alive.
I'm not registered and there is no real proof of what I did, so I can't turn myself in or anything.
I want to do good in the world, I have so much love to give, but it feels wrong me helping people because it feels like there is a sinister undertone to everything I do.
I've always enjoyed being charitable, I love giving money to the homeless or putting change in a donations box.
I feel guilty whenever I feel hapoy since I don't deserve to be, the only things that I enjoy now are food and playing video games, it's the only job I get out of day to day life.
The only fate I deserve is being stabbed to death in prison or something.
All I want is to be loved and accepted despite my flaws and mistakes, but I never could be.
The only other person I've told is my mother, who has been supportive.
I've been on antidepressants since 18 and I'm trying to get therapy, but I'm not hoping or expecting anything good will happen from this. I've been in and out of therapy since I was 11.
I had dreams, I had aspirations, I wanted to change the world for the better, I wanted to have a son, not to hurt him, but so he doesn't end up like me, but I reliase that is not possible. I don't deserve to be around children.
I hate keeping secrets, but I have no choice but to keep this one.
I want to identify with good people, but I can't.
Every good thing I do is invalidated now.
I forgive everyone who has wronged me in anyway, since I'm worse than them.
I just pray I can go out doing good, doing the right thing.
I am no better than Jimmy Saville, Ian Watkins or any of them types of people.
If you want to motivate me to end it all, feel free.
If you have read through all of this, thank you.
2024.05.14 18:58 Impact_Cheap [TOMT] A song my friend needs to find
My friend is trying really hard to find a song and I’m trying to help but nothing I’m googling seems to fit. He describes it as
“about abuse/a toxic relationship that had its lyrics start with "Elliot" ... if not the first lyric, its definitely one that starts a verse. and the elliot in question you can tell is abusing the singer in this relationship.”
It’s been like 14 hours and I have no idea what it is. I was hoping you guys could help??
EDIT FOR MORE HELP:
He added — “i would play it on youtube and the cover art was a yellow/orange photo* i believe where the singer, a girl, was looking in a mirror i think and there was a guy behind her im pretty sure???? i cant remember for the life of me.
i think there were parts saying they were driving far away from here and how the singer didnt know herself... Please help me
when i say *photo i mean like irl photography and i think theyre in a dresser room and the frontwoman is sitting at a vanity mirror with lights??? i also think she was blonde”
EDIT #2: (After suggesting Ballad of the Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan)
“holy shit LOL this is THE closest approximation so far but its not the right band unfortunately! i think the girl had long blonde hair and MAYBE red lipstick? I also definitely think it was beyond the 2000s, im not certain whether it was within the last few years but i think ill put 2010s-2020s as the time range... i have no clue about specifics past that “
Edit: SOLVED! Threat by Charly Bliss!
submitted by Impact_Cheap to tipofmytongue [link] [comments]
“about abuse/a toxic relationship that had its lyrics start with "Elliot" ... if not the first lyric, its definitely one that starts a verse. and the elliot in question you can tell is abusing the singer in this relationship.”
It’s been like 14 hours and I have no idea what it is. I was hoping you guys could help??
EDIT FOR MORE HELP:
He added — “i would play it on youtube and the cover art was a yellow/orange photo* i believe where the singer, a girl, was looking in a mirror i think and there was a guy behind her im pretty sure???? i cant remember for the life of me.
i think there were parts saying they were driving far away from here and how the singer didnt know herself... Please help me
when i say *photo i mean like irl photography and i think theyre in a dresser room and the frontwoman is sitting at a vanity mirror with lights??? i also think she was blonde”
EDIT #2: (After suggesting Ballad of the Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan)
“holy shit LOL this is THE closest approximation so far but its not the right band unfortunately! i think the girl had long blonde hair and MAYBE red lipstick? I also definitely think it was beyond the 2000s, im not certain whether it was within the last few years but i think ill put 2010s-2020s as the time range... i have no clue about specifics past that “
Edit: SOLVED! Threat by Charly Bliss!
2024.05.14 10:50 The_Way358 Essential Teachings: The Meaning and Purpose of Life
The Purpose of Life for Man
One of the most direct verses on the subject of "the meaning (or purpose) of (human) life" in the Bible can be found in Revelation:"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."-Revelation 4:11This, of course, should prompt us to ask what exactly does God take pleasure in?
Conversely, what doesn't He take pleasure in?
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"-Micah 6:6-8God does not take pleasure in mere outward religiosity and ritual, but rather finds honest acts of love towards Him and others as more important when pertaining to our fulfillment of what God expects from us as His creation. God takes great pleasure in us doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him. This is what He requires of us. In other words...
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."-Ecclesiastes 12:13-14The Book of Ecclesiastes is an existential treatise on the futility of finding any meaning or fulfillment in life apart from God. In it, "the Preacher" (or "Teacher" in some translations) explores the limits of human experiences which may provide meaning or fulfillment in this life before the author of the book inevitably concludes that the only thing we can do that has any kind of meaning or permanence in the end is fearing God and keeping His commandments. The reason for this is because the march of time and our own mortality effectively make most human endeavors hevel. The Hebrew word "hevel" is translated as vanity in the King James.
The following is taken from BibleProject:
[...]In Hebrew, hevel literally refers to “vapor” or “smoke.” The teacher uses this word 38 times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes as a metaphor to describe how life is temporary and fleeting, like a wisp of smoke, but also how life is an enigma or paradox. Smoke appears solid, but when you try to grab it, it’s like nothing is there.
The Preacher gives us a "reality check" by demonstrating how time and death effectively make things like scientific and artistic discovery (1:10-11), mirth (2:1), alcohol (2:3), architecture (2:4), amassing property (2:7-8), and luxury (2:8) all hevel. Materialism and hedonism fail to fulfill, and though wisdom and righteousness are acknowledged by the preacher to be advantageous, the righteous and wise are still often victims of injustice and unfairness in the world while the wicked get to prosper and have longevity at times (1:13-18). Generally, your life will probably be better by living in the wisdom given in Proverbs (Ecc. 7:11-12; 9:13-18), but it's no guarantee that you will have a good life as bad things still happen to good people, and good things still happen to bad people. This isn't entirely "hevel" but it's confusing and disorienting because things don't always work out the way we think they should in this life.The author’s basic goal is to target all of the ways we try to build meaning and purpose in life apart from God and then let the teacher deconstruct them. The author thinks that people spend most of their time investing energy and emotion in things that ultimately have no lasting meaning or significance. And so he allows the teacher to give us a reality check.
Again, from BibleProject:
Fearing the Lord doesn’t guarantee success in this life, but it is the right thing to do, and ultimately God will clear the "hevel" and bring His justice on all we have done. Therefore, we ought to keep God's commandments.So what’s the way forward in the midst of all this hevel? Paradoxically, the teacher discovers that the key to truly enjoying life is accepting hevel, acknowledging that everything in your life is totally out of your control. About six different times, at the bleakest moments in his dialogue, the teacher suddenly talks about “the gift of God,” which is the enjoyment of the simple, good things in life such as friendship, family, a good meal, or a sunny day.
You and I can’t control the most important things in our lives. Nothing is guaranteed, and, strangely, that’s the beauty of it. When I adopt a posture of complete trust in God, it frees me to simply enjoy life as I actually experience it and not as I think it ought to be. In the end, even my expectations about life, my hopes and dreams, are all “hevel, hevel. Everything under the sun is hevel.”
The teacher’s words come to an end, and the author takes over, bringing the book to a close. He says that it is very important to hear what the teacher has to say. He likens the teacher’s words to a shepherd’s staff with a goad, a pointy end that will hurt when it pokes you. But that pain can ultimately steer you in the right direction towards greater wisdom.
The author warns us not to take the teacher’s words too far. You can spend your entire life buried in books trying to answer the existential puzzles of human life. Don’t exhaust yourself, he says. You’ll never get there. Instead, the author offers his own conclusion that we should “fear God and keep his commands; this is the whole duty of humans. For God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil” (Ec. 12:13-14).
Through Jesus, we see the Bible clearing the confusion many have, and still have, about God's commandments and what exactly they are (in essence, at least):
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-Matthew 22:37-40The apostle Paul puts it like this:
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."-Galatians 5:14The apostle John, like this:
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."-1 John 4:16In other words, the first and second greatest commandments can be seen as inextricably intertwined, as one cannot truly love God without loving their fellow man, and vice versa.
So, to put it bluntly, the meaning, or purpose, of (human) life according to the Bible is simply love.
"What Does It Mean to Love Biblically?"
But, what exactly is love anyway? We know that, according to the apostle John, God is love. But, what does that mean exactly?The ancient Greeks had anywhere between four and eight different words for love (depending on the source):
- Storge: affection
- Philia or Phileo: friendship
- Eros: sexual, erotic
- Agape: unconditional, divine, selfless
- Ludus: flirtatious, playful, casual, uncommitted
- Pragma: committed, long-standing
- Philautia: self-love
- Mania: obsessive, possessive, addictive, dependent
This is what the Bible defines as true love, or at least, is the kind of love it's most concerned about.
In order to demonstrate to another that we love them, we sacrifice something. For God, He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins (John 3:16). For Jesus, he sacrificed himself to save us from our sins:
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."-John 15:13In essence, true love is self-sacrifice. Putting others before ourselves is the greatest kind of sacrifice.
God didn't have to send His Son, but He did. Jesus didn't have to accept the mission, but he did.
God loves you, and Jesus loves you.
We demonstrate to others that we love them by sacrificing our wants and desires for them. These sacrifices can range from really small, to really big. Loving others is a daily practice of making greater and greater sacrifices.
A stumbling block for many in their walk with God is the inability to love one's enemies and to love unlovable people as Jesus did. It’s difficult for us to show love to people we don’t feel love for; to people we despise or dislike. We also tend to struggle with extending grace and mercy to those who’ve hurt us. I myself often wonder whether I am even capable of loving everyone the way Jesus does.“You can will to love people. Love is not a feeling. Love is a willing, and the Lord says to love people. He did not mean [to merely] feel love for them” — A.W. Tozer
As I grow in my faith, I realize it’s not that I’m incapable of loving like Jesus; I’m just not always willing to. My unwillingness to love indicates that I am unwittingly adopting the worldly view of love, which is based on feelings and merit. I am choosing not to love people I feel are underserving of my love. The more I study Scripture, though, the more I realize Biblical love is not a feeling or an emotion; it’s a decision. It is an action, and it’s sacrificial. It’s not something you feel; it is, again, something you practice.
Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). He also said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). Since the Lord commands us to love, that means it is within our power to do so; therefore, love is a decision we make. Although feelings will accompany love, it’s not an emotion; it’s the decision to love regardless of how we feel.“Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ’s command.” — Tony Evans
As believers, we’re taught to love our enemies, and do good to those who hate us, and if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, "turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39). It’s not easy to do; hating our enemies comes naturally to us because of our evil nature. It is impossible to love our enemies on our own strength; we need the help of the Spirit of God.
The decision to love your enemies arises from the decision to obey the will of God and the desire to be Christlike. We choose to love our enemies because God said so and loved us first. Jesus said we are to love as he loved us.
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”-Romans 5:8So Biblical love is sacrificial love. It is not a feeling but an act of will; the desire to put the welfare of others above your own. This type of love is not a love based on affection or emotion. Instead, it’s agape love, a love that is not concerned with self but is concerned more with the good of others.
We are not going to like everyone, nor are we called to; we are called to love everyone regardless of how we feel about them. It’s possible to love someone without feeling love for them when we decide to love everyone the way God loves us. The more we love through our actions, the decision to love will become a choice the heart is more willing to make.
Again, this doesn’t mean you will like or feel love for everyone, but when you put your trust in the Lord and pursue wisdom and holiness through prayer and Scripture, you will naturally develop a love for others.
To put it succinctly: Biblical love seeks the best interests of others, even our enemies, often to the detriment of ourselves. "Best interests" here doesn't necessarily mean what the other person thinks are their own best interests. It just means we do for them what we know or believe is best for them, and what we know or believe is best for them should be informed by an active participation with the Spirit of God and by His Word (the Bible) itself. Feelings may or may not accompany this, but how we feel towards the other is not what determines whether or not we're exhibiting the love of God, in the view of Jesus and the apostles. In their view, it's about whether or not we can still decide to seek the best interests of those who might harm us, or who we might not even like.
What the Real Heavenly Treasure Is
Now, this all brings us to an important question that needs to be answered: Is it wrong to love God and others while making a reward the objective for doing so?We must ask this question, because all throughout Scripture we are told that the faithful followers of God will be "rewarded" some day for everything they've done to merit this. Giving an exhaustive list of passages that proves this point would be endless, but here are some examples of just a few:
"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."-Luke 14:12-14The answer to this question depends on what we define as "rewards." Most will typically adopt some vague idea of material possesions that await the believer when they get to heaven as one's reward for faithfulness towards God, or that the reward is simply an escape from punishment for one's own sins, or perhaps even some combination of these things both.
"I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."-Acts 20:35
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil."-Luke 6:35
However, none of these are the "rewards" the Lord is promising to those who obey the first and second commandments. If they were, our motivation to love God and others would ultimately be selfish. Think about it. Our motivation for rewards would inherently be me-centered, and not other-centered.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives the following command:
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."-Matthew 6:19-21We know there are heavenly treasures, because Jesus says so, but what are they? The issue of heavenly treasures or eternal rewards is riddled with question marks. It’s a subject that has been abused by some (“Store up treasure by giving to my ministry”) and left in the too-hard basket by others.
But the answer here is simple, and two-fold. One of our rewards are God Himself:
"After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."-Genesis 15:1What is the reward of the seeker but to find that which is sought? If you are searching for God, you will find Him and He will be your very great reward.
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."-Hevrews 11:6
Now, if you are the newest believer or the eleventh-hour worker, you will be as richly blessed as the oldest, most faithful saint. Eternity will not be divided into the haves and have-nots, for we are all one in the New Jerusalem.
But we can distinguish God our reward from the heavenly treasure that Jesus said can be stored up. You cannot "store up" more of God, after all.
So what are heavenly treasures? The answer may surprise you, but it’s people.
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."-Psalm 127:3What is the only thing you can take with you? People, a.k.a. eternal friends, a.k.a. spiritual offspring. This Psalm is not just talking about biological children. God has bigger plans for you and they involve spiritual children. Lots of them. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Don’t limit God.
So much time and effort is spent debating heavenly treasures as though they were some great mystery. What are they? Jesus makes it plain: it's people.
- Just as Abraham was called to be the father of many nations, so are you.
- Jesus said those who followed him would be fishers of men. What is a fisherman’s reward? It’s fish, or people in this case.
- What is the reward of the one who sows and waters the good seed? It’s a harvest of people.
- What is treasure that never wears out and cannot be stolen? It’s people.
It is children.
“Sounds great, but I am no evangelist.” You don’t need to be an evangelist to win eternal friends. Believers can live such godly lives that unbelievers will be won to the kingdom (1 Pet. 2:12; Matt. 5:16).
God's desire is to grow the world’s largest family and He treats people like treasure. This is obvious once you see it. Indeed, it’s a theme that runs throughout Scripture:
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth."-Deuteronomy 7:6Like Jesus, Paul eagerly gave to the poor (Gal. 2:10). He did not give out of religious duty or to put a shine on his reputation. He did it because he loved people and wanted to share the love of God with as many as possible (1 Cor. 13:3).
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth."-Deuteronomy 14:2
"And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments;"-Deuteronomy 26:18
"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;"-1 Peter 2:4-9
Life is a gift that is easily wasted. We can waste it running after inferior rewards that rust, or we can do what Jesus and Paul did and invest ourselves in the only reward that lasts: people.
God Is Faithful
Someone once asked me, "Why would God be concerned as to whether or not we 'have trust and confidence in him' when He's judging us and when He determines what our fate will be?"Having trust and confidence in God, according to the Biblical authors, is required for us to fulfill His commandment that we love Him, and thus also love others. (See Hebrews 11.)
As with a spouse, you cannot truly love them if you do not have some level of trust or confidence in them, and vice versa. All relationships require trust, from both parties. God wants us to trust Him that He will keep His promises towards those of us who love and follow Him. He also wants to trust us that we will enter the kingdom of heaven with a righteous and loving character. He doesn't want another rebellion in paradise, so He's trying to see if we truly love righteousness for righteousness' sake. A truly righteous person wouldn't want to rebel against Him when the time comes that they enter the kingdom of God themselves, because a person with a righteous character wouldn't ever do such a thing.
As Open Theists, we believe we're being consistent in our belief that God, at times, puts trials before us to test whether or not we will remain trustworthy enough in our character to be deemed worthy of entrance into His kingdom. The Classical Theist doesn't have the luxury of being consistent if they have this same belief.
In the Book of Job, Satan makes an accusation towards someone God has deemed as truly righteous: Job.
Satan assails God’s wisdom and character in running the world by alleging that people only serve Him because of what they get out of it. God protects them from disaster and blesses them in other ways. Their obedience, he is suggesting, isn’t really a free choice. "There is no genuine virtue in the world," Satan is claiming. "There are only self-serving bargains, and obedience for the sake of being protected and blessed is one of them. Hence, true holiness and virtuous obedience are an illusion." "Take away a person’s protection," Satan insists, "and let me have my way with people, and they will stop living for God" (Job 1:9-11; 2:4-5).
God has so much faith in Job that he will not succumb to proving the false accusations being levied towards him and God's way of running things in general that He ends up accepting the challenge. For God, this is as much a test of His faith towards His servant as it is for Job for his Lord. The adversary, we see, was assailing God’s integrity and wisdom in overseeing the creation. Satan was, in effect, accusing God of being a Machiavellian ruler. In the context of this narrative, it was an assault that could only be refuted by being put to the test.
Had God simply forced Satan into silence, without proving him wrong, it would have simply confirmed the accuracy of Satan’s charge. It would have shown that there is no integrity or wisdom in how God runs the world after all. "There is only the exercise of power, used to manipulate beings into obeying Him. People serve God only as a bargain, not out of genuine love."
No, the challenge had to be answered by having it put to the test. The most righteous man on the earth was thus chosen to be tested. If Job failed, the narrative suggests, then Satan will have made his point. If he succeeded, however, then God’s wisdom and integrity in running the cosmos will have been vindicated. Hence, the protective fence around Job is removed and Satan is allowed to afflict him.
In the end, Job proves faithful to God and is even referenced in the New Testament as an example of the kind of faithfulness He expected of first century believers facing persecution and trials:
"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."-James 5:11While most of us aren't dealing with the life-threatening kind of persecution that believers faced in the first century, for the very fact that the eschatological end of physical Israel and the Old Covenant system was fastly approaching for them (and already has approached), we still each face our own trials that God puts in our lives as individuals to see if we truly love Him. Job is simply the ultimate example of one who loved God because they chose to, not because God forced them to.
After all, you never know if your love is pure if it isn't tested...