#but debbie learned from her mistake and i don’t blame her for what she did | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

didsomeonesayventus · 4 years

Text

ESSAY TIME I love a ship please come hang out w/ me on this dinghy or like. dont because fates is awful and I can’t blame u for dodging that bullet but i just wanna scream because i love them and they’re the fixation rn so 321 GO

i cant blame anyone for not really seeing this because their support is. Ok. Its alright. Not amazing, it’s serviceable, better options are out there in fates I'll concede. Corrin has like. At least 3 other love interests who feel more canon LMAO but this isn’t about them

It's more from elsewhere in their characterization that really made me adore them and, as I mentioned in tags, a lot of this comes from how I write them which. Is largely filed under rp stuff right now but more ramble time on how i write them i guess dont forget to mark your free bingo space for throwing out large swaths of fates canon and writing. Also we're scooting their canon support gently to the side because it’s ok it’s not the most offensive writing this nightmare scrap heap of canon has to offer but a massive missed opportunity.

PART 1- One (1) Corn, With a Side of Emotional Neglect

*makes vague gesture at Disney's Rapunzel* Corrin would have been so much better recieved if the devs just took some notes from you instead of writing such a flat character i swear.

Corrin in particular with how I write her is getting a pretty massive rework in the emotionally stable department because honestly I don’t believe she would be. like. She's not dumb, but she is naive, important distinction, and it ends up coloring her views a lot and I have a ramble on that over here on the inverse graph that is Corrin’s confidence but to dissect where her attitudes came from:

Her family was limited to visits, and she has been directly/implicitly blamed for this for roughly a decade and a half, at least a decade, by not being an insane king's definition of strong enough to be with them. Bad memory makes her frail, swordsmanship isn’t up to par, doesn’t seem to offer much else in terms of skills unlike Xander, a Certified Badass(tm), Magic-oriented Leo and Elise, and Magically gifted but just plain ruthless Camilla. She’s held at arm’s length from her family, and while her siblings may have always loved her and expressed that love as often as they could, they’re not always there or a good yardstick to measure her progress with, and she had to always watch them go and likely wonder when they would come back, or if they even would.

As for our beloved butler and maids, being surrounded by servants was probably her most constant and consistent source of contact, and she does love them, but it can be very easy to wonder if they love her because they do or because it's their job to.

Corrin's faith in everyone around her and unwavering trust is there because any sort of doubt is basically redirected to. her. Because she is the dumbass who's still figuring the world out. She's hyper aware she's still learning and making naive decisions and she overcompensates that with "well what do I know" and not feeling really all that worthy to be Special Protagonist. She doubts herself before almost everything else.

Brief mention of Dragon arc because fates was dumb and neglected an entire arc for dragon feelings beyond chapter 5 and foreshadowing for Dad(tm) but I also write in an arc of the Dragon Is A Metaphor For Loving Yourself Faults And Trauma And All Love Yourself And You Can Control Yourself Dammit.

*Corrin hurt herself in her confusion!*

The way I write Corrin is not nearly as put together and confident as Canon™️ Corrin is, at least for a good chunk of the plot. She fakes it till she makes it because she is a leader and being mopey will not get things done but she’s also very self critical and mopey on the inside and quite paranoid that people don’t actually like being around her and just. ball of stress and anxious hidden under Many a uwu that she doesn’t want to talk about because why should she complain her childhood wasn’t That Bad and if she’s mopey how can she set a good example and people don’t like debbie downers and look its fine its fine lmao

PART 2- Mr. Perfect

As for Mr. Subaki he puts a lot of time and effort into looking perfect. I emphasize that because he may very well have natural talent, but honestly it feels like a large amount of his perfection is just. Stressing himself out by planning for and rehearsing everything possible! God this anxious idiot I love him!!! He's sociable and agreeable, but I think with basically everyone it’s. Skin deep. He’s charismatic Enough, and he digs a bit into the other’s history and personality if he’s interested, but he never really lets the other reciprocate like a magician never revealing his fraudulent secrets.

Biggest problem with that is he can't open up and vent because that is to admit a flaw and no no cant have that we cannot have that so he's just. Not sure who to turn to and has trouble being emotionally honest- even to himself. He just! Doesnt let himself have fun or relax; all perfect all the time baby. There’s basically no one who he could consider a close and trusted friend who can love him flaws and all. The closest would be Sakura and Hana and welp. gotta keep things professional and it’s not like Hana really expresses a sense of understanding and patience when they’re fiercely competitive with each other.

There’s probably a lot of muttering to his pegasus while he’s cleaning her hooves or braiding her mane, or staying up late thinking about how narrowly disaster was and wasn’t avoided that day but he. Also doesn’t really vent and also feels that imposter syndrome of “I’m honestly awful how did I even make it here.”

and it stinks because I think at his core he is a very sweet and caring guy and a massive dork, but he just plops himself on the edge of a pedestal and gives himself no room to be himself or anything less than perfect and is likely on the cusp of impending burnout.

you dumb anxious idiot i have S-Ranked you every fucking time I open this godforsaken game I didn’t even fucking plan for this

PART 3- (Patrick Warburton impression) “Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.”

So our characters and stage are set. We got FE Fates (I’ll default to Rev), we got my views when writing these two, so what next? What is the general plot I imagine since we’ve gently scooted aside the canon support chain?

The dumbasses-to-be think they’re out of each other’s league.

For Subaki, it is plot-irrelevant background character falling in love with the protagonist, which yields the exact sort of pining you’d imagine: man you are super cool and hit all my standards but I’d be dreaming if you felt the same about me. She’s sweet, she takes charge, she can fight for herself well enough, has he mentioned she’s sweet? He can actually relax a bit around her which is really odd but I guess that’s what happens when your personal skill is literally called “Supportive”. Oh yeah and also his Lady’s older sister which oof. Sakura? In law???? Hinoka in law???? Takumi in law?????????? ryoma in law oh gods.

For Corrin, it’s Mr. Prince Charming right there and he’s very nice and Sakura is saying so many nice things about him but wow she’s. a princess from a country that has consistently terrorized his and on top of that might a well have been raised under a rock!!! And she picks up details and nuances in people remarkably well, but she overthinks them. She can pick up that Subaki- while very polite and friendly -isn’t being entirely forthcoming about what he’s thinking or feeling, but she can’t pin down exactly what it is, and makes the educated guess that he's just being nice because she’s Sakura’s sister or something.

And they’re friendly. They help each other out a bit. There’s tension, sure, but no one really comments on it (except for everyone making bets in the bg). They don’t really yield on their internal messes because Corrin knows she’s a leader and can’t really do that and distracts herself with believing in everyone around her, Subaki just flat out would rather do literally anything besides admit he’s messed up anywhere or open up. So feeling are put on a low simmer for awhile.

Of course they fall in love, and it almost gets messed up because when Subaki requests to talk with her in private to confess, she immediately assumes he’s going to tell her that he’s not interested. Her simmer roars into a boil because she’s been under Protagonist Stress ON TOP OF having a crush she’s confident won’t be reciprocated, so she snaps quite a bit because that has all been shoved in a bottle and she just wants to get the mess over with if he’s just going to tell her very nicely that her company is lovely but hes not interested it hurts a lot to think that but its fine you don’t have to settle.

But the thing is being emotionally vulnerable like that, pointing out she’s scared too of always not being enough and living up to expectations, to finally get that off her chest, spurs him into it, too. Because she gets it. She honest to god gets it even if she bought into the lie he’s perfect she understands. Oh, yeah, she also reciprocates feelings that’s really excellent too. Like Subaki probably makes a lot of fuss about a bunch of ultimately meaningless details and having “standards” and yadda yadda gods help whatever poor soul asks him to pull out the list of traits of his ideal partner, but I think at the end of the day if he’s looking for love most of all, like a lot of people he just wants someone who he can just. be himself around. Who likes it when he’s being himself!

And they both learn that yeah maybe they’re more flawed than they’ve been lead to believe, but it starts to not matter at all because they still try really hard and everyone makes mistakes. They’re both here to say it’s ok your best is enough, YOU are enough. They both think they’re amazing regardless of their mistakes and love to see each other smiling and succeeding and just make. a nice little bubble of comfort. They’re stubborn and supportive, they learn how to poke and prod the bad moods away be it making a nice cup of matcha and talking it out or laughing at a tiny, meaningless mistake and repeating it to keep that feeling of dread away. Also they both spoil their partners regardless of who they end up with you can’t @ me on that they both do it which means guess what mega spoil time. And long hair on both just means they can braid each other’s hair no problem... waaaaaa.... Also early rise Subaki and late rise Corrin so there’s always a sleepy fight in the morning because UGH this is early you keep saying i’ll get used to it but im not i need a kiss first if you want me to be up this early. Subaki is better at logic and planning than Corrin, and Corrin keeps things optimistic and has a good gut for when to take an improvised risk. They’re always swapping places on who’s holding the other back from a fight that isn’t worth it because some asshole insulted the other, they mediate each other and will fight anyone who even harms a hair on the other’s head. They give and they give back and they work together perfectly.

And when it comes to the kids that bubble expands and they make sure they all have the tools to just take a deep breath and remember it’s okay Mama and Papa love you so much and you’re going to be amazing no matter what you do. Corrin’s got the best stories to tell and Subaki tucks the blankets in just right. They’re good parents with a lot of patience and plenty of mental health wisdom which is good because, as my mom would say, “bad brain chemistry is my bad”.

Like UGH I love them. I love them a lot. A good chunk of this is me making canon better thank me fates devs

Part 4- Katie All of This is Out of Your Noggin What About Canon

(DBZ abridged vc) WHAT ABOUT CANON but ok here have some canon quotes

“The two spent the rest of their lives together. Corrin ruling as the wise Queen of Valla. Subaki adapted quickly to royal leadership and became a great source of support for his wife. “ - Revelation route ending

“I feel like the pressure's off when I'm with you. I don't have to be perfect.” “You'll never be lonely as long as I'm around. Just call me and I'll come running.” - Friendship bonding quotes but also consider waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

“This might sound corny, but I think you're my soulmate.” - What he says when he is married to you and yes that is corny and its perfect

hot spring is dumb fanservice BUT if you can get the good RNG to get them both in there “A shared bath warms not just my bones, but my heart as well.” “I-I suppose so...I just wonder if it's right to be so happy...” (emphasis mine) IT ABSOLUTELY IS BE HAPPY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

also one of his quotes when u stop by your quarters is "Ah, welcome home, dear. Kick off those shoes and relax. You're with me now!" and you absolute himbo your wife doesn’t fucking wear shoes!!!!!!!!!

Part 5- I’m done I’ve yelled into the void good night enjoy a ship please be excited for the fic I have on the backburner that I will get out there one of these days but I want it to be perfect so RIP me I guess

#katie rambles #long post #in case read more fucks up on mobile

2 notes · View notes

queerchoicesblog · 5 years

Text

Wide Awake (TH: Monaco, Sonia x F!MC)

This fanfic was requested by the @darley1101 and it’s part of the February Challenge hosted by @endlessly-searching-for-you! Hope you lovelies like it!

After the masquerade, neither Sonia and Debbie (MC) can sleep. They both have a lot to process and they keep thinking about each other: can they really trust each other? Are they falling for each other against all odds? Inspired to the song WIcked Game by Chris Isaak (one of my all time favorite!).

Prompt: Enemy to lovers

Word Count: 1321

Perma Tag: @brightpinkpeppercorn @psychopathdreamer21 @abunchofbadchoices @akrenich @silverhawkenzie @bbaba-yagaa

Tags: @gayestchoices @countessannabelle

____________________

Debbie couldn't sleep. She kept tossing and turning in the sheets of her bed in vain. In the end, she gave up even trying. She stood and walked downstairs to the living room of the high-tech villa Rye found God knows how. She went straight to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a glass of a top-shelf gin Sybil stole in a high-class bar. She gulped it down and the bitter flavor of alcohol filled her mouth. She closed her eyes, cherishing the moment. Then she walked closer to the window and gazed off into the horizon. In front of her, Monaco's skyline shined in the distance. What a night. So much to process, so much to forget. I should have never followed that bastard into the wine cellar, she thought, grimacing. Am I losing touch? How could I let it happen? How could I make such a rookie mistake? What he said about Rye helping him betray her three years ago, what Rye later confirmed...she did her best to keep her cool and be a professional in front of the crew but the poison of Ansel's words was spreading in her mind against her own will. Rye was the closest she had to a best friend, a brother if you will, and even though he had a plausible explanation for his naivety she was still shaken. She had always trusted him blindly and God knows how particularly valuable trust was in their world...so knowing that he went behind her back at the time hurt like a punch in the stomach. They could have found a way to protect his mom together but he decided to turn to Ansel. Ansel, the rookie with glasses and potential, not Debbie, "basically the sister I never had". Not me, she repeated to herself grimly.

She poured herself another drink and gulped it down too. If only she could have someone to talk to now...she didn't want to share this with the new members of the crew: she knew better than playing Ansel's game and undermine the confidence and trust of the whole squad. Rye was out of the question for obvious reasons and Eris was still out blowing off steam and probably some stuff too. Her mind immediately went to Sonia and their chat on the balcony. Debbie found herself wishing her enemy's Chief of Security was at her side right now. She smiled sadly and sang to herself: "The world was on fire, no one could save me but you It's strange what desire will make foolish people do I'd never dreamed that I'd need somebody like you" Her world was truly on fire that night but Sonia, beautiful, smart, determined Sonia wasn't there to save her. She never will, Debbie thought. We're on opposite sides, she works with Ansel and she was a cop. I'm a thief, I break every rule she swore to protect. What we shared on that balcony was just...a dream, a fantasy, something that will never happen in real life. It was real for a bunch of minutes only because I was wearing a mask. She sighed heavily. Still, I wish she was here. I feel that she would understand me or at least just listen to me. Debbie imagined Sonia reassuringly rubbing her back as she talked and kissing her concerns, her fears away. The image of the former police investigator holding her tight through that troubled night crossed her mind and made her grimace. This is not gonna happen, thieves don't date cops and cops arrest thieves. But still...still I wish she was here. Tonight, tomorrow, the day after. Still, I wish she could see me more than just a thief and be my girl. ----------------- Kilometers away Sonia was laying wide awake in her bed too. Not because Ansel was still yelling at Ulrich for losing the flash drive and "messing everything up". They were downstairs but she could hear the ruckus from her room: Ansel seemed very cool all the time but when they reached their residence he started yelling at everyone and now was lashing out at Ulrich. Her boss didn't enjoy being questioned by Carlisle, the man he was desperately trying to impress or so it seemed to her. But that was not the reason why she couldn't sleep. No, it wasn't even the fact that no matter how hard she tried Debbie and her crew fled from the gala...she was so close to catch them! And obviously both Carlisle and Ansel put the blame on her because "that was the proof she clearly didn't know how to do her job". They were "forced" to hire additional security, Triton Security Services, to make sure there wouldn't be any trouble during the preparation to the royal wedding. Typical: blame the woman. Sonia already saw it happened in the Policia: whatever went wrong was her fault. The young woman was pissed, obviously, but she didn't truly care what those men think: let them hire additional security, whatever. They did just make her work easier: they just did what they should have done from the very beginning when she asked but they weren't listening. No, it was Debbie keeping her awake. Debbie or the mystery woman of the balcony, she said to herself walking to the window. How could she be fooled like that? She couldn't believe that a mask, a simple mask tricked her. Sonia felt incredibly stupid when Ansel pointed her on the other side of the room, the masked woman she kissed twenty minutes earlier or so. She whispered orders into her radio out of routine but she was taken aback. Debbie used her, she distracted her from her plan and now she knew what she thought about her. How could I be so naive to trust a stranger at a masquerade ball? She played her, deceived her when she was vulnerable because that's what criminals do, her sister learned that lesson in a hard way...and yet a voice inside her head kept whispering that Debbie looked awfully genuine on that balcony. Good acting, that's all! She remarked angrily to herself but that thought didn't fade away. That was a tough night for Sonia too.

She still remembered the taste of Debbie’s lips when she pulled her in for the most tender kiss, her perfume, the warmth radiating from her as their bodies flushed together. She still remembered how safe she felt in her arms, how Debbie immediately went checking on her at the bar after Ansel harassed her and made her smiled when she was at her lowest...how she had always been drawn to the thief like a magnet since that night on the beach. She admitted to herself that the Thief extraordinaire Debbie was nothing like the evil mastermind Ansel described her. “I may be a thief, but I’m not a bad person. I hope you can see that someday”, she told her on the boat, frowning and diverting her eyes. Maybe she was lying but the look in her face told her otherwise. Maybe just maybe...

A sudden realization hit her, abruptly stopping her train of thoughts. No no, it can’t be! I’m a Chief of Security, a former cop and she is a criminal! This can’t be, this will never be! This enemy to lovers thing only works in movies, in sappy romcoms ...and yet she was standing there, wide awake, thinking of Debbie. "What a wicked game to play To make me feel this way What a wicked thing to do To let me dream of you" --------------------- On the opposite ends of the city, two women were looking into the night sky, hoping to find an answer to a question they never dared to say out loud. An answer they feared. "No I don't want to fall in love This world is always gonna break your heart No I don't want to fall in love with you" ...but they both knew it was too late.

#VDay prompts #february challenge #the heist: monaco #sonia #sonia x mc #choices fanfic #choices stories you play

117 notes · View notes

xxsparksxx · 7 years

Note

Ok. I can't help myself. Another question for you. I don't think Ross ever sees Elizabeth's true character, which makes me crazy. His scene with Demelza in which he tells her about meeting Elizabeth in the graveyard makes me want to throttle him. His refusal to critically analyze her actions, to consider and admit that he has not seen her true nature, how she manipulated him, how he fell for it, to learn from it and grow is infuriating.

That and his failure to truly apologize to Demelza (in the show)….aaarrrgghhh! I hate the graveyard scene and him telling Demelza about it. I am worried about how Debbie will present both scenes. What do you think? Also, do you think it matters that Ross never sees or admits that he gravely misjudged Elizabeth’s character? In the books, his opinion of her is always good, and he believes that he has changed - that Demelza has changed him, which is also true.

To me, his character would much more admirable if he could and would do this. What do you think?

Hiya, sorry to take so long to answer you.

I don’t think Ross ever sees Elizabeth’s true character

I agree, and I’ve talked about it a bit before, here and here. He is blinded to her faults because of this idealised view of her that he has, leftover from when he was truly in love with her. Unlike Francis, who has to live with her (’whatever she lacks or has, she lacks perfection. Every human being does.’), or Demelza, who sees Elizabeth’s manipulations perhaps more clearly for being put upon by them, Ross very rarely sees anything in Elizabeth beyond his admiration for her - for her grace, her beauty, her demeanour. Sometimes he does, but not often. He certainly doesn’t see the full depths of her character. I sometimes think that actually, only George sees all of her, and even he is blinkered.

His refusal to critically analyze her actions, to consider and admit that he has not seen her true nature, how she manipulated him, how he fell for it, to learn from it and grow is infuriating.

I agree, it’s frustrating that Ross never really sees Elizabeth’s full character……but on the other hand, I absolutely don’t think the blame is all Elizabeth’s, and if he were to shrug his shoulders and say ‘I mistook her character, she manipulated me’, that could very easily be seen as amounting to an abrogation of his responsibility for his own actions. It could be seen as blaming Elizabeth entirely for Ross’s infidelity. She manipulates, she entices, she spurs him on - but he is responsible for his actions. Ross has to take that on board, and really, it’s the fact that he does finally admit to Demelza that what happened was a mistake, that through it he came to realise that he no longer loves Elizabeth, that makes her able to begin to forgive him. Instead of saying, basically, ‘something came over me, it wasn’t my fault’, he owns his actions and admits they were wrong.

And, as I’ve said before, I truly don’t think Elizabeth’s trying to manipulate him, when they meet (by chance, don’t forget!) in the churchyard, either in show or book. She’s desperate and unhappy and afraid, and Ross is the only person she could talk to about it.

do you think it matters that Ross never sees or admits that he gravely misjudged Elizabeth’s character?

No, in the end, I don’t think it does - as I discussed in one of the links above. I think he so completely accepts her position, her relationship to him - as a former love, a past love, somebody whom he will always think fondly of and want the best for but not somebody for whom he yearns - that in the end, it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t see her faults. I also think that the manner of her death, and the way Ross sees her then, means that I, personally, don’t and can’t think harshly of Ross for never admitting Elizabeth’s faults. I wish he did, but don’t judge him for not seeing the flaws.

And heck, even Demelza, in later years, says that Elizabeth was a much nicer person than Demelza was able to see at the time! Time and distance tends to lend a rose-tinted view of things.

Generally, it’s something about Ross’s character that I think becomes less irksome as time passes. It’s okay, I think, to reflect on past loves with a biased eye. It’s when that bias interferes with current life that it becomes a problem - ie, in s2, when Ross’s unhappinesses make him turn towards Elizabeth and away from Demelza. By s3, and moving onwards, he has recognised that his feelings for Elizabeth are in the past, and they don’t affect his current actions or decisions, so I don’t feel it really matters that he never sees Elizabeth ‘warts and all’.

#attymsb3 #sparks talks poldark #book spoilers

12 notes · View notes

boythirteen · 4 years

Text

This is my sermon.

Hello to everyone. I miss seeing you all but here we are together in the strange new world. I feel so susceptible to the strangeness of it that I’ve possibly become strange and will say something strange. So be it.

In the first reading for today, the prophet Jeremiah laments his calling to prophecy as something degrading that has made him a “laughingstock.” This is because he doesn’t get to herald positive news. “Violence and destruction” is what will happen—Judah will fall to Babylon (is what I was able to piece together as the context). And since no one in Judah wants to hear this or believe it at all, they berate Jeremiah for his negativity. Like Peter berating Jesus in the verses from Matthew.

But let me start with Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 20: 7-9

O God, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of God has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.

Jeremiah feels betrayed by God, “enticed” into God’s service, maybe with big ideas about the glory of it, and so is angry and embarrassed to be God’s prophet who has to foretell despairing news of destruction. He doesn’t get to bring uplifting news and feel proud about it in the funny way that we can feel proud when we bear interesting news. He doesn’t even get to be believed. Jeremiah is a debbie downer who people want to avoid or ridicule as a charlatan or even to actively restrain to make him shut up about his stupid fake news. Jeremiah blames God for putting him in this role. His expression of anger is a private complaint he makes only to God, not the public face he shows to the world, kind of like you wouldn’t believe some of the mad things I say in the privacy of my home, but still he gets mired in it. What he really wants is for God to intervene and deal with his detractors, to “bring down retribution” on them is what he asks for in chapter 15. And similarly, the people of Judah, those who are Jeremiah’s detractors, are at odds with Jeremiah in the first place because he isn’t validating their expectation that God will intervene and assure them victory. What seems to be happening overall is a kind of wishful thinking about God, a human projection about who God should be that everyone around Jeremiah must have, and possibly Jeremiah has, too, and Peter has in the New Testament, and probably all of us have to a degree, which is that God is supposed to intervene to alleviate suffering and assure victory or vindication for those whom God is supposed to love, because God is all powerful and should be able to and want to. Even though everyone’s experience of life and struggle doesn’t bear this out. Even though what is born out is that God is with us in the face of suffering— that God empowers all of us to abide the suffering and grow through it. But somehow this isn’t good enough or obvious enough or glorious enough, even though it is all of that but maybe is just too equitable and not as immediately, personally gratifying and ennobling as having God swoop in and hand out victories. It doesn’t allow people to rank their favorability to God according to their perceived “blessings” or positive outcomes. Which, I’ve been thinking, is part of what the crucifixion story is meant to illustrate—that there isn’t a ranking with God. That even Jesus isn’t plucked from the cross and afforded the human satisfaction of seeing his enemies brought low. That even the victory of the resurrection is lost on those who would then have to face their wrongness. Oh no that maybe we won’t get to see the Trump Administration squashed under God’s angry foot.

I’m getting ahead of myself but this is how my thoughts are unfolding. I’m having emotional thoughts. I’m mad about the world’s ways of ranking people. I’m very mad about the Christian Right’s coopting of Christianity, of the patriarchy’s manhandling of Christianity almost from the very start in service of upholding oppressive systems and hierarchies that privilege some and condemn others, as if God smiles on some and not others, as if God would bless one country over another, as if God would allow for a monstrosity like the Trump administration and its enablers to consider themselves chosen and blessed by God. And this corrupting of Jesus’ message, or, more accurately, the removal of Jesus’s message from what has become the most visible face of Christianity to the wider world—the patriarchal, white supremacist face that labels itself “Christian”—is beyond embarrassing and enraging to be even remotely associated with.

I’m just thinking about ways that claiming faith in God can be embarrassing to me since Jeremiah has brought up being embarrassed by it. Because something else affecting me about Jeremiah’s self-pitying complaint is his extreme, bare honesty, even coming close to being blasphemous. I feel inspired by the blasphemy of it, though, or permitted by it to look at my own blasphemous thoughts and even to speak them: That sometimes it feels ridiculous to believe in God, not because God isn’t alleviating suffering, which I’ve kind of deeply learned not to expect, or not to expect too eagerly, but just because the whole notion of a biblical God seems archaic and quaint and not so different from believing that the earth is 6000 years old or even that the earth is flat or that the sun is being carried across the sky by a chariot or that wives must obey their husbands.

But even if I succumb to the blasphemous thoughts and find myself at the very precipice of unbelief, I can feel what Jeremiah calls the burning fire shut up in my bones that belies my unbelief and kind of hurts. Remember in Miracle on 34th Street at the end when Natalie Wood is in the car, having not yet gotten her dream house for Christmas, and she’s saying “I believe, I believe” in a despondent way like she doesn’t want to but can’t help it? Like that.

It also occurs to me that having a fire shut up in my bones is something like how “growing pains” can feel, or what I think of as growing pains that I still do feel sometimes in my bones however fully grown I am. What it feels like is that I need to be bigger. And this is making me think of something I read in The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, which maybe you read as a young person but I never did so I just read it now. It’s about a boy studying to become a wizard, and Harry Potter is a knock-off of it. There’s a big emphasis in the story on the true names of things and of people, and how people and things are known in the world by their worldly names but also have true names that no one knows, or very few know, other than wizards, because magic is rooted in the knowledge of true names. But along the way in the story the boy does a terrible thing and falls from grace. His truest friend from wizard school comes to see him in the school hospital where he’s been recovering from his grave mistake,(which I won’t tell you about in case you want to read the book). But his friend shares with him his true name, which people almost never share with each other because it requires a level of trust that is rarely attained. So this is a great gift the friend gives of trusting the boy even after his terrible act. LeGuin writes that “[The boy] stood for a while, like one who has received great news, and must enlarge his spirit to receive it.” What I’m thinking about is the necessity of enlarging our spirits to receive something profound, something we don’t feel big enough for. I’m also thinking of true names, and of the name Emmanuel which is the name Matthew uses for Jesus in writing of Jesus’s birth, and how the name Emmanuel means God is with us. And how we have to enlarge our spirits to be big enough to believe this.

I have yet to enlarge my spirit enough to remain in belief. “I believe—help my unbelief.” I have yet to feel big enough for my true name—Beloved Child of God. What I’m seeing now is that believing that God is with me is kind of the same thing as believing that God loves me. This is what’s hard to consistently believe—that I’m loved. This is why it’s so tempting to believe in a God who proves love by bestowing blessings, to want this kind of God who takes away doubt.

Something about these several months of the world being turned upside down feels like just the time for believing and unbelieving all at once— for enlarging my spirit and not being big enough at the same time. I remember in the beginning of the pandemic when the preface to everything written or spoken was “during these uncertain times.” I don’t know if we’re still needing to say that, but not because we aren’t uncertain but because uncertainty is where we exist now. I was thinking that this sermon could kind of be about our collective uncertainty as a spiritual condition, a spiritual practice or discipline that has been imposed on us in the most intense way by a natural phenomenon beyond our control, but that is also something we’re beginning to wield or to use as a tool to effect change. We’ve all become far more acutely aware of the societal structures of oppression that those who cling to power have imposed on everyone else over generations. We see the need to tear down the old and oppressive structures, but with incomplete or early-stage ideas as to what will replace them, or whether to replace them at all. I’m thinking of things like the abolition movement and Defund the Police—these movements that strive to push us toward a more just and loving world free of dehumanizing prisons and brutal cops on patrol with their guns. But always the questions arise about what then to do with those who perpetrate violence if we won’t be arresting them and jailing them, as if the grossly profitable business of incarceration, the brutish system of racist policing we now have in place in any way serves to secure justice or staunch violence. Maybe we don’t have a fully formed imagining of what society could look like, how it could function without prisons and police forces to beat it into submission. What we can fully imagine, though, is that such a society would be far, far closer to the Commonwealth of God than what we live in at present. We can move forward with uncertainty—not as a deterrent but as an inspiration, a new and uncharted way.

And in saying this, it’s striking me now that I’m possibly talking about faith, or maybe about hope, a driving force of hope and faith—a belief. Maybe belief is the spiritual aspect of uncertainty. “God is with you” is the belief we share at MCCNY. It’s the solid truth to hold on to amidst the swirling uncertainty, but is also what requires a spiritual discipline to fully and consistently believe, because of uncertainty, or doubt, being so persistent. But faith is strengthened by doubt. Uncertainty is kind of like fuel that keeps us ever restless and reaching for truth, with truth seeming to be the solid place where maybe we could rest if we could just keep our footing there.

Well, now I want to read the verses from Matthew:

Matthew 16:21-28

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” For the Son of Humanity is to come with his angels in the glory of God, and then will repay everyone for what has been done.

I think of Jeremiah being upset that he must herald news of violence and destruction instead of a victorious kind of news that everyone would love to hear, but what about the news that Jesus foretells? Not only is it about violence and destruction, but the violence and destruction is what will happen to Jesus personally. And Peter doesn’t want to be told about it. But Jesus, instead of being mad at God for any of this, is mad at Peter for not enlarging his spirit enough to accept it and be supportive of Jesus in the midst of it. Because it isn’t easy, even for Jesus, to accept. It’s hard enough that Jesus calls Peter Satan for not helping him, even though Peter thinks he is being helpful and supportive. Peter thinks Jesus should be victorious in a traditional, worldly way of defeating his enemies and rising to the top, But Jesus is talking about something so radically different that here we are still trying to accept and understand.

Let me go through my own attempt at understanding. First about Jesus “undergo[ing] great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be[ing] killed.” It isn’t my belief that Jesus will be killed because God demands a sacrifice for human sin. I don’t believe in a God such as this and feel embarrassed that so much of Christianity adheres to the notion of the crucifixion being required by God for our salvation, as if Jesus is a lamb slaughtered on God’s altar to please God in some perverse way. This, to me, is something a sadistic tyrant would demand, not a loving God. It’s something a patriarchal power structure would set up to keep the citizenry in obedience to it, the concept of benevolence being tied to sacrifice, a tit for tat, and the ultimate benevolence of the patriarchal tyrant being exhibited by their willingness to offer their own child as the sacrifice, as if this makes such an unthinkable act somehow good and loving. As if our loving relationship with God is reliant on God having to symbolically kill us in the first place. This interpretation of the crucifixion, of God and of Jesus, is upsetting me now in an overwhelming way. It feels like the ultimate thing to fight against, the patriarchal insistence that something grossly submissive is required of us—obedience or sacrifice or swearing of allegiance—to be loved by God, to be accepted into the commonwealth of God. Imagine a loving parent requiring this of a child. Imagine any kind of genuine love being predicated on this sort of trade—I’ll love you if you obey me. I don’t believe in obedience to God. I’m sorry if I’m being blasphemous again. I believe in accepting the loving guidance offered by Jesus and burning in my bones, the deep prompting to love. Jesus is crucified because misguided people demand it, not a loving God. Trump is who demands obsequious obedience. The people in authority in Jesus’s day, the elders and chief priests and scribes, (or, so as not to generalize, those among the religious leaders who are driven by greed and lust for power), demand that Jesus be crucified because Jesus’s teachings about love and equity threaten their control, their patriarchal power structure that secures their high place. But still God won’t be swooping in to rescue Jesus from the suffering they impose on him. It won’t be like a movie with God cutting Jesus’s persecutors down to size at the end, to all of our great satisfaction. Jesus says to Peter, who wants that kind of ending, “for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

I can’t say for sure what I believe the divine things are, because divine things are mysteries that get talked about in parables or strange statements like: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Or “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

I can say what I think these statements don’t mean. I don’t think they mean that God requires everyone to be crucified, or that Jesus must suffer and die in the most humiliating way as some sort of proxy for humanity, a payment for the reward of God’s love. The God Jesus reveals to us isn’t one who implements a system of reward and punishment or makes trades for love or loves some of us more than others. Maybe the meaning is something closer to it just not being the point of God to remove our suffering— that God’s eternal love for us isn’t exhibited in this way and isn’t bounded by our earthly lives. And that the commonwealth of God isn’t what will come because God snaps God’s fingers and removes all the man-made, self-serving, patriarchal obstacles that stand in the way of it, even the most violently destructive ones. Humanity is trudging toward the commonwealth, not having the winding road miraculously straightened and cleared as we casually skip to my lou. We grow toward the commonwealth. We carry our heavy crosses of humanness, of mortality, through all of our wide array of human experience.

So maybe the divine things, the very most divine thing, is simply and grandly that God will be with us to the very depths of all of these human experiences. God will be the burning fire shut up in our bones. Because this is what Jesus’s crucifixion will exemplify—that the divine Jesus knows first-hand what it feels like to suffer to the extremes of human experience, and, strangely, that God knows what it feels like to lose a child. And this is what the resurrection will insist—that God can’t be driven out of us, not even through the most acute suffering and humiliation even unto death.

Because God being with us is the certain thing, but we just can’t seem to be certain of it in a consistent way. Or I can’t—let me speak for myself. Because of what I told you—that I can’t seem to feel fully loved. I think of God being with me as something divine that can be added to me, something that isn’t already part of who I am. Because I think of myself as a lesser, frail being who, on my own, is lacking in all ways—flawed, selfish, only human after all— but who can perhaps be strengthened and bettered by the loving presence of God. And this seems to be a positive thing to believe and try to hold on to—that God will be with me and strengthen me, that I can do all things through God who loves me. That being loved by God will allow, impel me even, to love others. But what if the truth is bigger than that? That God isn’t a separate, greater thing to love me and bolster me but is actually inside of me, the essence of me that is in my bones. If God is Love, then this means that I am Love, too.

Maybe eternal life is when I am wholly, absolutely immersed in the certainty of God 's Love to the point of being fused with God. I can’t completely do this in my earthly life because earthly life is organic and earthy, and if I did completely fuse with God I would be divine and not of the earth anymore, even though I already am eternally divine but don’t know it completely because of being an organic, mortal creature. Even Jesus didn’t know his eternal divinity completely until his resurrection, and the resurrected Jesus didn’t remain on the earth.

But I can come close to knowing my divinity, which maybe is part of what losing my life for Jesus’s sake means, or for others’ sakes, for my neighbors and even my enemies sakes, by practicing the ways of love that Jesus teaches me are in my truest beloved and loving nature to practice, even as simply as wearing a mask for the sake of my neighbor’s, my enemy’s wellbeing.

Maybe what all sermons are meant to do is proclaim in the widest range of preacher voices and perspectives that God is with us and loves us, and one of these ways will deeply resonate with you and kindle your fire.

Amen

0 notes

melindarowens · 7 years

Text

Very Fake News Scandal Consumes CNN as Jeff Zucker, Network Flack Refuse to Comment on Russia Retraction to Own Network

The scandal surrounding CNN’s mishandling of a very fake news hit piece on President Donald Trump and his associates grows bigger on Sunday night as the network’s president Jeff Zucker and public relations team is refusing to comment to anyone — even to CNN media reporter Brian Stelter — about what happened.

Stelter, in his Sunday evening newsletter named for the television program he hosts Reliable Sources, credited a Breitbart News investigation with forcing what he admitted is an embarrassing retraction for his employer CNN.

“On Friday evening CNN.com fully retracted a story after questions were raised about the accuracy of the reporting and sourcing,” Stelter wrote:

The story, by Thomas Frank of the investigative unit, said Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” It didn’t get TV airtime, but it was shared on the web, where it was spotted and scrutinized by Breitbart. On Friday night the story was replaced by an editor’s note: “That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled.” The editor’s note included an apology to Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci, who was named in the story. The next morning Scaramucci responded via Twitter: “CNN did the right thing. Classy move. Apology accepted. Everyone makes mistakes. Moving on.” Some prominent conservative figures, like Donald Trump Jr. and Sean Hannity, seized on the story as an example of anti-Trump bias and anonymous source malfeasance…

But then, after calling this episode “an embarrassing moment for CNN,” Stelter dropped a neutron bomb on his own employer: He revealed that CNN is refusing to comment on or explain the matter, even to CNN.

“The truth is, there’s still a lot we don’t know,” Stelter wrote. “On Saturday and Sunday I asked CNN PR for details and comment. A network spokeswoman declined to comment as of Sunday evening.”

Stelter called for a full accounting of what went wrong so CNN can learn from its significant mistakes.

“I sometimes complain to my editors about the layers of editing and oversight that exist at CNN,” Stelter wrote. “But these processes exist for good reasons. Determining what went wrong this time will help prevent future damage to the news organization…”

Losing Stelter as a public defender, for now, is a huge moral loss for the network as this scandal grows bigger and casts a wider net internally. His voice joins others, like Breitbart News and BuzzFeed News, in calling for CNN’s public relations team to answer questions about the matter. As more in the media become aware of the scandal and get involved in covering it as well, especially now that the weekend is over and it’s not getting any better, insiders at CNN worry that this is spiraling out of control quickly.

A @CNNPR “network spokeswoman declined to comment as of Sunday evening.” — @brianstelter, a @CNN reporter

pic.twitter.com/3QEjVkMZr1

— Scott Nover (@ScottNover) June 26, 2017

But that’s not all: Now calls are coming for Zucker himself to stand before the public and press to address what exactly went down here.

Debbie Dooley, a Georgia-based conservative activist with Main Street Patriots and organizer of recent protests against CNN outside the network’s headquarters this month, is calling on CNN’s president to address the network’s recent retraction scandal in an on-camera press briefing before the American public.

“If Zucker demands President Trump’s team answer questions on camera, then he should be willing to hold an on camera press conference and take questions about the Fake News crisis at CNN,” Dooley told Breitbart News on Sunday evening. “Viewers and advertisers should demand it.”

Dooley organized a sizable protest a few weekends ago at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters. The argument that Zucker should answer questions on camera in an on-record televised press briefing comes as CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta and others at the network have whined repeatedly as White House press secretary Sean Spicer moved briefings off-camera this past week. Acosta and Stelter have hammered the White House for refusing to allow Acosta to aggrandize himself using Spicer or other White House officials as a foil at press briefings.

Others in media, including ex-CNN anchors and reporters like Howie Kurtz and Ed Henry — both of whom are now at Fox News — have criticized CNN for Acosta’s and Stelter’s and others’ over-the-top reactions to the White House decision. Spicer himself, in an interview with Kurtz, said that Acosta’s silly games are “sad.”

But, now the game that Stelter and Acosta have played with the White House seem to backfiring more on CNN at a time when the network cannot handle any more problems.

“Why does CNN even care about on camera briefings when they run ridiculous made up fake news stories?” Dooley told Breitbart News. “I am really beginning to wonder if Baghdad Bob is calling the shots at CNN. Jeff Zucker should definitely answer questions about the lack of journalistic integrity at CNN.”

Dooley added that more and more protests are planned outside CNN and that her growing group will continue to hammer the network President Donald Trump has identified as a “very fake news” network until they stop reporting fake news.

“We plan on protesting CNN every month as long as they report fake news,” Dooley told Breitbart News.

This crisis represents one of the biggest the network has ever faced. Late last week it was forced to retract the very fake news hit piece it ran on President Trump and his associates Anthony Scaramucci and Stephen Schwarzman.

The piece inaccurately alleged that Scaramucci and Schwarzman were under investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Treasury Department for supposed ties to what is actually a completely normal Russian investment fund. It turns out that not only is the Senate Intelligence Committee not investigating the matter, as Breitbart News discovered from sources close to Senate GOP leadership, but the Treasury Department looked into the matter and determined unfounded allegations that originated with far-left-wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to be “without merit.”

Insiders have blamed Warren’s staff and the staff of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) for pushing the very fake news to CNN, something CNN has not denied nor has Warren’s staff. Harris’s staff did deny the charge, but her spokeswoman’s claim of certainty that nobody in the office spoke to CNN or was involved in pushing this out — made just a couple hours after an initial request for comment — strains credulity since it would be highly unlikely the spokeswoman could have spoken with every Harris staffer in that timeframe.

The now-retracted CNN piece, which was originally published late Thursday night, was deleted from the internet on Friday night originally without explanation. Then, an editor’s note was added to the original link announcing the retraction of the story. The editor’s note apologized to Scaramucci.

“On June 22, 2017, CNN.com published a story connecting Anthony Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund,” CNN said in the late Friday night editor’s note. “That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.”

It’s worth noting that CNN did not apologize to Schwarzman or President Trump, or others maligned in the hit piece it retracted.

More than two days later now, CNN has offered no public explanation for what it did or why, who was responsible, and what editorial changes will be made as a result. In fact, CNN has offered no public comment whatsoever other than the editor’s note appended to the retraction. And as a result of the network’s continued silence on the matter, it finds itself embroiled in scandal two days after the retraction in a mishandling of the matter that has now compromised the network’s coverage of the entire Russia scandal altogether.

CNN’s president Zucker, both Breitbart News and BuzzFeed News have confirmed, is leading an internal investigation into what went wrong and who was responsible. As BuzzFeed reported, both Zucker and the head of HR at CNN are now “directly involved” in the internal investigation. The report from BuzzFeed also noted that “people will be disciplined” because the network’s handling of this scandal in the words of a CNN insider to BuzzFeed is a “massive, massive fuck up.”

It is unclear if the reporter on the byline of the retracted story, Thomas Frank, has been disciplined in any way. It is also unclear if he is still employed by the network. Questions are also swirling around Frank’s use of social media to provide political advice to the House Democratic conference — something supposedly objective reporters are not supposed to do — another damning fact for which CNN has thus far had no comment.

It is unclear which editors published the hit piece, who handled the retraction, why the retraction was done late Friday night, and whether consequences will be handed down to those people — and what such consequences will be.

All these questions and more continue dogging CNN until Zucker and the network’s public relations team answer them fully and completely.

CNN corporate spokeswoman Emily Kuhn has repeatedly refused to answer such detailed questions on the matter and is refusing to provide Zucker — the head of the internal investigation — for an interview. She has also refused to answer when asked by Breitbart News if Zucker will be, as Dooley is calling for, stepping in front of television news cameras for an on-camera press briefing on the scandal engulfing CNN.

What’s more, CNN has apparently altered its internal editorial processes for all “Russia-related content,” per a staff memo that was leaked to BuzzFeed.

“No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason [Farkas] first,” CNNMoney’s executive editor Rich Barbieri wrote in the internal email to all editorial staff. “This applies to social, video, editorial and MoneyStream. No exceptions. I will lay out a workflow on Monday. Thanks.”

The email was headlined “IMPORTANT: Russia-related content.”

Sources inside CNN tell Breitbart News that the leadership of the company is scrambling internally to determine who is leaking the information out of the network to news outlets like BuzzFeed News and Breitbart News, but they cannot find the leaks since hundreds of employees work there and most are upset with the way Zucker and others in senior management are handling this. What’s more, insiders say, the longer Zucker and CNN’s public relations team hold out in providing a clear, concise, and detailed explanation to the public about what happened, the more likely it is that Zucker himself will be dragged into the throes of this scandal.

Some inside the network are hoping Zucker himself appears publicly to explain this and answer questions and clear it up once and for all. It remains to be seen if he will.

But reporters, editors, producers, and anchors at the network alike are all concerned this badly mishandled scandal has now tainted anything the network covers on Russia, and they are worried that any scoops it would normally get will go to other news outlets instead. They fear that sources will cut them off because of the significant hurdles the new editorial processes will place in front of stories getting published, and even if reporters can compete with other outlets and get past the hurdles, this scandal stains all of the network’s Russia reporting.

The restrictions on use of social media when it comes to “Russia-related content,” as revealed in the leaked memo, are also infuriating many CNN editorial staff who do not like the constricting nature of Zucker’s management.

Source link

source http://capitalisthq.com/very-fake-news-scandal-consumes-cnn-as-jeff-zucker-network-flack-refuse-to-comment-on-russia-retraction-to-own-network/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/very-fake-news-scandal-consumes-cnn-as.html

0 notes

everettwilkinson · 7 years