#Conformist society

[bea-lele-carmen]

What the Bible says about Babylonian System

Luke 21:24

In the sixth century BC, a new world—"the times of the Gentiles"—was ushered in. The Babylonian image has influenced the world since that time.

John W. Ritenbaugh Prophets and Prophecy (Part 3)

Galatians 1:4

Many professing Christians view everything from the perspective of this world, blindly assuming it is God's world. They see certain forces of evil in it, which they feel they must oppose. In this vein, they see the Christian duty as working to make this a better world.

However, this concept does not square with Scripture. The Bible speaks of Christ “deliver[ing] us from this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). Human society is not of God's making, but Satn's, as are its systems of government, basic philosophies, and business and religious practices. All nations are deceived, swayed, manipulated by the Devl (Revelation 12:9; 20:2-3). In other words, our civilization is Satn's evil handiwork, not God's.

God's Word tells us to flee from the midst of Babylonian society (Isaiah 52:11; II Corinthians 6:17; Revelation 18:4). Speaking to the Jews, Jesus says, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23). Later, when questioned by Pilate about His Kingdom, “Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here'” (John 18:36). Although Jesus lived in this world, He clearly saw Himself as a “citizen” of God's heavenly Kingdom. The same holds true of those who follow Him (Philippians 3:20).

Martin G. Collins Would Jesus Christ Vote? (Part One)

Revelation 18:11-13

The merchants, who gained wealth and perverse pleasures from this world's system of religion and commerce, cry and lament because it satiated their greed for materialistic acquisition and their lust for self-pleasure. As the Babylonian system incorporates every expression of corrupt government, so its prostitution includes every corrupt economic system and idolatry. Even human beings are reduced to cargo, traded as slaves to drive the engines of production, prosperity, and sinful pleasures.

Sadly, the modern descendants of Israel have promoted and become part of this self-serving, perverse world system. Sin inevitably brings its own punishment, and there are always consequences to disobedience. Thus, when today's Israelites go into captivity in the last days, t

Martin G. Collins Slavery and Babylon

Revelation 18:2, 4 (KJV): And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

[profeminist]

“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.” — Mignon McLaughlin

[fandaniel]

say what you will but i was getting really upset about life then i started doing character analysis why hermes to amon there is such a big character shift despite being the same soul and thought about it long and hard and was like damn i dont feel so bad anymore afterwards.

[musclesandhammering]

“Sorcerers who’ve been practicing and perfecting their craft for literal years are humiliated and outdone by a young pretty white girl who was magically born with all the powers the rest of them had to work for” has got to be the worst trope in fantasy movies.

[r4diof4wn]

I’ve just discovered that there are a multigenerational group of senior teachers in my school who are obsessed with The Secret History but they haven’t even started an exclusive secret society of the most intelligent and high-achieving students in the school or anything. Words cannot even describe how much I resent the adults and especially the teachers in this world.

[outoflamps]

All this talk about they/them pussy. Let's talk about they/them dick

[juniperandjustice]

Unpopular opinion - all the fear/disgust aimed at people being "victims" or getting seen as/called a "victim" or accused of having a victim mindset or playing victim, when there is legitimate hurt/harm/trauma/wrongdoing, is gaslighting and victim-blaming- just another weapon aimed at silencing victims and survivors. I have seen it used by narcissistic abusers more than not.

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

idk if its just me but i dont actually dig hyperfeminine super-made up glossy girls. like i can appreciate makeup skills but it doesnt tend make you more attractive to me. ill have a sleepy messy girl with visible acne scars whos not brushed her hair in a week anyday over the kind of girl who has to do her makeup everyday in order to feel worthy. glitz and glamour girls dont do it for me give me butches who havent touched a tube of makeup in 15 years. give me short eyelashes and cracked lips and raised spots and unkempt hair. give me girls who genuinely look like they just rolled out of bed. on the other hand though it gets attractive to me again when its clearly makeup done just for the fun of it, to make you look like a freak of nature. makeup done for the opposite of the male gaze. drag artists and ppl who look like theyve just rolled in a mountain of glitter. thats attractive to me again the sort of overtly doing over the top makeup as an art and self expression (rather than to blend in and look femininely attractive). 2 ends of the scale are beautiful to me but the stuff in the middle isnt. idk if that makes sense

[4everfin]

wearing ugly clothes is a wonderful anti-cultural statement and any hateful comment you get for your ugly clothes was spoken from the mouth of a conformist sheeple who was blinded in their third eye at birth

[bea-lele-carmen]

Mark: Would you like to go with me? Daria: Where? Mark: Wherever I'm going. Daria: Are you *really* asking? Mark: Is that your *real* answer?

[crippledanarchy]

Case and point: Reading "these people should shut the fuck up" as "these people should burn" is needlessly antagonistic

Go hang out in the radical neurodivergent tag then? Fuck.

Cripple posting in the cripple tags: delivery trucks were parked across all the accessible parking so I couldn't get groceries today, fuck inaccessibility and ableism

Like 10 random accounts on this site that are dedicated to being needlessly antagonistic: That means you haven't known the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of Neurodivergency

[velvetvexations]

as a japanese queer man, thank you for bringing up the racism of how western queer people apply western queerness to japanese queerness, and then get upset when our queerness is not western enough. its always frustrating in western fandom how often people refuse to care about japanese queerness and queer culture and history, and then say we're "bad queers" for not being western enough or not automatically fitting in western boxes or for being effected by our own queer history instead of western queer history. lots of people have the strange idea that things that are made in japan, by japanese people, for japanese people, are actually made for western consumption, instead of it being a privilege and gift to receive an export at all in most cases. so, they say our queerness is wrong and offensive, call gender non-conformity in a conformist society "bad queerness" and that they should be gender conforming trans people instead, and that somehow that would be more daring, and not that its actually often harder for people to come to terms with someone wanting to be a non-conforming *man/woman* and not see themself as a conforming man/woman who is trans and therefore more conforming. i feel like its every day i see western queer people online say our queerness needs to be fixed by westernization. it makes me not want to use western spaces anymore. so much racism on the topic. its the type of racism people seem unaware exists, and they have. "im not racist, i hate racists" and then they go on a rant about how japanese queerness is inferior and confusing and designed to harm western queer people? its a bit hard to put into words, but its frustrating and happens a lot. i was suprised to see you stand up for us, its really rare. thank you! boys who cross dress already are told to choose between becoming a conforming woman or a conforming man. its not fair to them and their choice to call them bad for refusing. queerness itself means strange, so.... i feel like they should be accepted with more understanding of how it feels to stand apart from everyone else.

They are truly convinced in their heart of hearts that gender is real and that Trans Woman is a Real Tangible Concept that exists in the genetic blueprint of the human race, and that any society that doesn't conform in such a way that divides gender expression exactly the way they do is doing it out of hatred for the Real Tangible Concept that is Trans Womanhood.

[stheresya]

"I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight […]" (Sansa III, AGOT) “Wed?” Sansa was stunned. “You and my aunt?” “The Lord of Harrenhal and the Lady of the Eyrie.” You said it was my mother you loved. But of course Lady Catelyn was dead, so even if she had loved Petyr secretly and given him her maidenhood, it made no matter now. (Sansa VI, ASOS)

I find that these little passages reveal something interesting about sansa's personality. specially when you juxtapose how she's characterized in the text and her worldviews here, and how at first glance they may seem contradictory. but first, let's take two things into account:

the patriarchal society of westeros is very strict on women's sexuality. which means that not only is female virginity held in great value, but also female adultery is very firmly condemned by everyone, unlike men who are allowed to maintain public mistresses and flaunt their bastards everywhere.

sansa is characterized as the conformist, the one who internalizes her society's rules. she's very religious, she's a proper lady in every sense of the word and she often says and does exactly what she's told.

and yet, in these passages we can see that sansa does not care much about societal rules when it comes to intimate feelings. she often hails aemon and naerys' (supposed) forbidden love without a single care that queen naerys was bound by duty to a husband and aemon was meant to be loyal to his king. but most astonishing of all is her nonchalant response to petyr's (false) information that her mother was not a virgin when she married. on one hand it may speak on sansa's views towards women's sexuality, since her current friends (mya and randa) are girls who engage in sex out of wedlock, and she never judges them, just like she doesn't judge her mother for apparently doing the same, and catelyn continues to be the person she admires the most. sansa also doesn't view her parents' relationship any differently because of this, the marriage between ned and cat is still as happy as she remembers, because all that matters to her is that there was love in the home she grew up in. the thing about sansa's character is that she plays by the rules up until a certain point, but on the inside she always prioritizes emotion over societal norms, and that's why she looks more upset at petyr for marrying someone while claiming to love another, because in her mind he's being unfaithful to his heart by marrying out of practicality. we have examples that showcase sansa's prioritizing feelings in AGOT when she, the good daughter, disobeys her father for the first time because she thought she was in love with joffrey, and in ASOS where she never thinks she owes tyrion anything just because he's her husband. so it comes as no surprise that she's so infatuated with the love story of an adulterous and incestuous relationship like aemon and naerys'. one of the main themes in this series is that feelings don't care about honor. and if love is the death of duty then sansa seems more than happy to see duty killed for the sake of love.

of course this doesn't mean she'll stay that way, specially when she's already lost her so much of her innocence and is now tangled in petyr's schemes where she must set her own feelings aside in order to act on his plans. and despite her silent judgement of petyr marrying someone he didn't love, her current betrothal with harry is an entirely practical union on her part since she feels nothing for him and only sees him as a means to an end. there have been many instances since book 1 where she was able to turn off her feelings in order to withstand certain situations. so... what even is sansa's mind? an interesting universe on its own for sure.

I just think sansa's romanticism is one of her most interesting traits (for better and for worse), something that truly contributes to the distinctiveness of her character, and I really hope petyr or anyone else are unable to completely kill that in her.

[conflictofthemind]

Thoughts on "Escape from Camazotz"

Oppressive Suburbia, Conformity, and Season 5 Themes

I've long thought that a major focus of Season 5 will be the contrast between the families of The Wheelers and The Byers, and exploring how non-traditional family environments can be freeing vs the oppressive structure of the nuclear family.

In a Wrinkle In Time, Camazotz is a planet controlled by the big bad of the book, the "IT", who forces the citizens into a conformity that resembles American suburbia. All of the houses the same, the citizens the same, doing the same things at the same time without individual identity. Without anything different. Different means a lot of things, but with Stranger Things dropping different in reference to Will's identity and the presumable themes of this season, it will heavily codify as queerness and how it threatens the cisheterosexual family model.

Henry was raised in the 1950s, a decade still revered by conservatives for it's traditional family dynamics that supposedly were the peak of culture and happiness for all. That was all a lie, of course, and Henry knew so as he shows to Nancy and Eleven during his monologue. The second most conservative decade aside from the 1950s in American society is widely considered to be the 1980s.

The Creels will serve in parallel to The Wheelers; the worst example of what they could become and the damage that this type of family could do to a child that is different in any way. Notice how Vecna selectively shows Nancy visions of The Wheelers dying, but not anyone else she may consider family or friends (like Jonathan).

That is; unless they change their ways and come together as a healthy functioning family facing their traumas, The Wheelers will be toast.

Karen has been moved up to a main character role this season. Ted's actor says the father starts to show up more for Holly (hold that) and realizes he wants to act differently. Holly has been recast. Finn has said Mike goes on a much more personal journey this season, and steps up as a leader.

Oh, also: the catalyst for all of this is that Holly goes missing. The contrast will help show how the Byers (including El and Hopper here) were able to pull together and help solve Will's disappearance, versus how the Wheelers as a closed off nuclear family grapple with Holly's vanishing.

Each of the Byers is in some kind of a non-1950s conformist relationship, but particularly Will (not in one now but we all know he will be). I think El might represent, after she breaks up with Mike, the fear of the unmarried woman being satisfied without a husband. The above shot really emphasizes my point.

I predict that Will will end up coming out to his family rather early on, and we will see all of them immediately accept him with little surprise or push-back. Will is a visible gay man who comes from an open minded non traditional family (divorced, non-married, adoptive) that is willing to have honest conversations.

But this theme will place the most focus on the Wheelers. Mike is the main character of said family and this will particularly focus on his arc, and his acceptance of his queerness in the midst of suburban conformity.

He is not visible, he comes from a Reagan-supporting family who don't communicate with each other. He is not particularly close with his family like Will is. He pushes his feelings down and tries his damn hardest to be normal despite it all. His trauma hasn't really been addressed at all. He is falling back into his usual habits - the one thing he dared to do different (grow his hair long) has gone back to how it was.

It's not all doom and gloom though. This season above all will be a redemption arc of the American nuclear family, how they choose to escape their conformity and learn to be there for each other, thus overpowering Vecna. Not that the Wheelers are going to end this personally.

"Great, more hysteria. Just what we need". "It's the news, now indistinguishable from the tabloids".

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

Stede Bonnet and the Subversive Shirt

In season one, despite the colours, lace, and detailing, Stede’s dress is mostly conformist in cut and style. His shirts are high-buttoned, cravated, and do not show much flesh below his chin. Coupled with the pantaloon and waistcoat, Stede’s wearing the clothes of traditional masculine presentation of his era.

There are times Stede’s clothing becomes less formal. During the sword practice with Ed in 106, Stede’s shirt is open and the cravat loosened. Again, in 107 we see Stede in his open nightclothes wandering on deck. During evening story hour, his jacket is removed. Stede usually seems more relaxed during these moments too.

Stede’s style changes properly on the second leaving of Bridgetown. What Stede is wearing openly as he drags the boat to sea is a rather romantic poet-pirate look with billowing shirt and sash. The look has links with future nineteenth-century Romantic freethinkers, championing individualism, revolution and liberty - including sexual liberation.

The open-neck shirt was popularised by Byron and Shelley a hundred years later. It was a deliberate choice of styling in opposition to enforced gender presentation and monogamous heteronormativity. The fashion of the times, similar to the 1700s, was high collars and neck-wrapping in order to force the holding of the male head in a stately and erect manner. It’s all about rigidity…

For an English gentleman of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to have his shirt open and loose in public, was a sign of effeminacy. It was women who showed their décolletage in society, who were allowed a softer presentation; this new style hinted strongly at sexual and gender nonconformity. Women were viewed as more animalistic, men as cultured. Cultured people cover up. Softness, looseness - these are aspects of female sexuality, a bit bestial. And women are also a little bit insane. Why would any man, especially a man of status, want to present as feminine and lesser? And what does it say about patriarchy if some men actively choose to relinquish their privileged status by presenting more effeminately? It’s dangerous.

By today’s standards, Byron was pansexual and polyamorous. Shelley’s sexuality is less clear, but he was viewed as a subversive atheist and disinherited. Both might consider themselves nonbinary today. Shelley especially seems to have had a strong gnc presentation. Both left England for more liberal Europe.

I feel the costume department must’ve made a very deliberate and informed choice regarding Stede’s shirts post season one, but I don’t feel it’s the one some people think it is. I know part of DJenks stated aim was to ‘make Rhys Darby as sexy as possible’, but it’s not about appearing more masc. just because he’s showing more flesh. It’s about appearing more Stede. Stede is expressing a new-found confidence in his sexual identity and gender expression, by choosing a more freer, less structured, less traditionally masculine way of dressing, associated rather presciently with future Romantic liberalism. It seems poets and pirates have more in common than we realise. And both were considered dangerous for questioning the system.

However, Stede is also an individual in flux and he circles back to a part of his former self. The Red Suit is a sort of hybrid male/female costume. The cuffs, detailing and shirt itself are femme. But there are elements of traditional masculinity which are quite toxic. The epaulettes reinforce the inverted masculine triangular shape. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s will remember their mothers feeling forced to wear exaggerated shoulder-padding as they entered male-dominated workspaces. They also enforce military rank. Stede thinks he needs this imagery to ‘be the Captain’. He doesn’t. The exaggerated coattails are also absolutely synonymous with upper class male power. It’s masculinity as performance and power-play. Stede needs to let all of this cursed patriarchal nonsense go.

As so often’s the case in OFMD, external struggle, this time with the crew over the Red Suit, could also be a manifestation of Stede’s internal conflict and shifting identity. It’s a final letting go of patriarchal ideas, especially around captaincy. The crew certainly don’t want it. Stede is (more than) adequate just as he is. At the end of all the pushing and pulling, Stede keeps the most relevant bit of the outfit - the shirt. It’s the least restrictive part, the more feminine and therefore, the more subversive on a male body. It’s a sartorial representation of a changing Stede.

The three shirts worn in series two are deliberately opened-collared and low-cut, showing more and more of Stede’s chest. This is a traditional feminine aesthetic which historically on a man, at least in the anglosphere, was considered subversive and dangerous. And Stede couples his shirts with a different sort of masculinity, a leather trouser. Class-wise, this is a traditional working man’s garment. Through his new choice of clothing, Stede is rejecting entirely his previous role within patriarchal hegemony, both the imposed status and imposed gender norms.

This was in my drafts a while but inspired to try and pull it together by @celluloidbroomcloset posts here and here

[ckret2]

Which are you personally going with for the obviously-3D pictures of Billy wearing sneakers: a) Billy in Sneakers is just a translation of one cute thing to a more 3D friendly cute thing, or b) We don't actually know how the second dimension works and it's wrapped and tangled in an incomprehensible and impossible to parse way that we limited beings shall never fully understand but which allows for sneakers? I could see you going either way tbh

God that's no contest, option A all the way. I've been working option A in every drawing I've made of Bill's dimension for well over a year. Option B's needlessly complicated for no benefit in a way that contradicts the lore we already have and that would open up a whole bunch of unnecessary cans of worms.

Bill all but says he's visually "translating" the image for our benefit. And we already know from Exwhylia in Journal 3 that Alex is well-versed in how physics & vision work in Flatland, and J3 heavily implied that Exwhylia is similar to Bill's home dimension. Sure, Bill says you'd need psychedelic food poisoning to fully understand his world, but the J3 Exwhylia page makes very clear that even if a human can see the lines that make up a world like his and understand intellectually what they represent, that doesn't mean you'd actually make sense of what you see—which accounts for Bill's claim just fine.

Combine that with all the themes Bill's universe borrows from Flatland (inability for normal people to see "up," a very conformist society, a plot based around one enlightened character futilely trying to teach the people around him about the third dimension, etc), and there's absolutely no good reason not to think his world's design is passably similar to Flatland or Exwhylia.

So, why do we all draw baby Billy and his family like this

instead of accurate to a Flatland-style 2D universe like this?

Because that ain't cute. rigid fidelity to the lore is less important than good storytelling and that means if you want to show your audience (i.e., us real people) how cute Bill was as a baby, you've gotta say "fuck it" to the lore and draw a cute triangle. Not draw a lore-accurate line and say "if you were a Euclidean that would look sooo cute to you, trust me bro." Making it actually look cute is what we all do as fanartists, and it's what the artists did in The Book of Bill.

Anyway who says his dimension needs to be some bizarre incomprehensible thing in order for him to wear sneakers? There's nothing stopping him from wearing squeaky sneakers in an accurate Flatland-style 2D universe. They'd just be built different. His shoes would look like an outline around his foot. Here, have an accurate Flatland-style 2D baby Bill (top down view) (with a squeaker in his sneaker)

I even kept the baseballs on his shoes.