#I know it's basically a christian song but it's such a THE FORCE song if changed to it from he

[lgbtyrus]

Andi Mack Reunion Live Stream Mini Recap:

-Tyrus is still endgame and had the most perfect wedding ever

-Ambi is canon

-Kippen siblings is canon

-Luke did the rap apology that TJ sang to Buffy and still knew 95% of it

-They said there was basically an entire episode that got deleted where Bex went on a date with someone and Andi was NOT okay with it.

-They all said they'd return for a reunion- Asher the first to say yes.

-They watched a Lemon Boy edit together and Asher said it was a "beautiful edit" and Trent said it was made by a genius and he teared up

-Emily said "Amber loves lesbians"

-The cast sang the theme song acapella 🥺❣️

-Asher had originally said "no" to playing Jonah because he wouldn't play frisbee and they auditioned many more guys until they were like "fuck it let's teach him frisbee"

-Emily had auditioned for Andi but since they had locked in on giving Peyton the role of Andi, they wrote in Amber for Emily specifically 😭 It was because her agent called the producers to say, "We know she messed up the audition, but she'd really like to try again." And after this, Terri knew they had to write in Amber for her.

-They also wrote Iris for Molly

-Terri Minski said Luke's hair was a character in itself. They had told Terri that Luke was an Evangelist Christian, so she took Luke and his parents to lunch to talk about it because she was stressed out because TJ was going to be gay. She had told Luke and his parents what was happening and they cried, and she was so nervous, and they told her that they were so honored. Luke said he thought he was going to get fired because he only shot one episode and didn't understand why he was being taken to lunch.

-The guy whose audition video played before Trent's got the part for 20 seconds before Terri saw Trent's audition

-Terri said Lilan wore the weirdest audition outfit ever, and it was her good luck outfit.

-Terri called them "lighting in a bottle" because she's not sure she'll ever get someone as special as this cast together again

-Tyrus was NOT supposed to be canon, but they shot the scenes anyways. They had said, "We gave you one gay character, we're not going to give you TWO." But they fought hard for it, and they found allies that allowed it to happen.

-Disney is still saying that they are looking for the "new Andi Mack" and Terri is adamant that they already have it, and she would love more than anything to bring the cast back together again for a spin off

-Terri had wanted Andi to repeat the cycle LMAO. AKA, teen pregnancy. Disney said, "NO WAY!"

Here is a pic of the stream before Josh and Trent had to leave! Terri left after a few more questions, too.

DJ Fruity Live Performance

-Younger fans would see Emily and scream "Amber alert!" and run

-Luke uses an Andi Mack journal as his personal diary

-Bi Bex Canon. Lilan said something along the lines of: Did you not see the clothes she'd wear? Of course she's bi.

-They played a behind the scenes clip of the Tyrus bench scene. I screen recorded, but THERE IS LAG. I'm sure there is a better video out there, but here is this for now.

-Luke and Josh wrote an episode of Andi Mack where a blackout happens in Shadyside and nobody can use their phone. Everyone is forced to go outside. But they were too scared to pitch it so nothing ever came of it. They also wrote an outline for an Andi Mack movie.

It was an extremely long live stream, and they were entertaining and funny the entire time. They were able to raise $20k for the families affected by the LA fires, and you can still donate here if you'd like it's live for another week as of now, 1/26/25. I missed them and the Andi Mack magic so much. I hope they do this again in the future.

[lushthemagicdragon]

I am absolutely obsessed with how Sammie is shot in this scene in comparison to his father. It's directly tied into a tl;dr I have about both how Christianity is treated in this film and how the magic system works in this story and so, while at some point I might write a whole ass blog post (or even an academic paper) in the future, here's the cliffnote word vomit version of why I think this is so fucking cool:

So basically, this film frames Christianity as one of the villains of the story (along with the white-liberalism-culture-vampires and the Klan), and heavily implies that what Sammie's dad wants from him is the same as what Remmick wants from him: to be used for the power of his music and subsumed into a soulless, cultureless whole. Where Sammie is lit in warm tones and dressed in warm colors, backdropped by green nature, his dad is lit in very stark cool tones with minimal contrast so he's almost in monochrome, surrounded only by the empty whiteness of the chapel. This film very clearly delivers a thesis that Christianity is a real-world culture-vampire that white people inflicted on the Black community, from the way Sammie's dad is shot and lit to look like the vampires do in this film, from Delta Slim's clear delineation that the blues isn't like that "religion they forced on us", to the way that Sammie's return to the chapel at the start and finish is intercut with scenes of Remmick. These flashes of Remmick and the horrors of that night that are cut into Sammie's dad telling him to repent and drop the guitar are the catalyst for Sammie leaving, because he figures it out. And in part he figured it out BECAUSE of the second thing that is fascinating, and that is basically the consistency of the magic system.

Basically, the magic system in this movie is antithetical to Christianity as a whole.

I'm going to preface this by saying that when I talk about Annie's hoodoo I'm NOT talking about real world hoodoo, which I know nothing about. I'm just talking about how the film presents hoodoo, and how the film presents the fae, and how these things all function within the same cohesive magic system.

Annie's Hoodoo, Sammie's music, and the Vampires are all diametrically opposed to Christianity, and are all within the realm of Faërie magic.

So when I say Faerie I don't mean specifically the sidhe, though the sidhe are part of Faerie. By Faerie magic I mean specifically the magic of the natural world, which is often ancestral, and often associated with an Otherworld that is still part of the World itself but is greater than humans. This is as opposed to sorcery (man-made magic) or heavenly/satanic (abrahamic/usually christian magic). When I say the entire magic system is Faërie it is because the Vampires are very CLEARLY laid out as Faërie, while Sammie's magic and Annie's Hoodoo are all part of the same consistent system of magic, laid out right at the start.

So basically right from the very first scene the film puts West African magic, Choctaw magic and ancient Irish magic as existing within the same frame of reality. All three have a concept of the magical singer, and all three (we later find out) know about vampires. It establishes that these all function in the same magic system, which is the Reality of this Secondary World. What is real for one group in this magic system is real for all of them. They may use different language to talk about the same thing, but the concepts are the same across the board in this universe. We're just talking about fictional secondary world magic system building here, and consistent storytelling, not real world understandings of these things.

the vampires are the most clearly Fae creatures (and by this I don't mean Fairies, but creatures associated with Faërie--imo they're like Changelings in that they were once human and then become Fae). Remmick is ancient Irish, out here singing Irish folk songs and handing gold coins to people at a crossroads, saying that the gold comes from an ancient place but it's no use to Mary while she's "alive" (human and not of the fae). It's super on-the-nose almost to the point of being irish stereotype caricature. I'll come back to him.

Annie's Hoodoo is never outright put in opposition to Christianity, but it's significant that she is not a mixed practitioner. There are no clear icons or crosses in her home. The grave marker for their dead child is not a cross but a carved African figure, which is very significant in 1930s Mississippi. She is solely a hoodoo practitioner, who lives in a ramshackle cottage in the words selling magical/natural cures. She's very witch-in-the-wood coded, but is never ever presented as wicked or evil. She's also the only spiritual figure in the film that can be trusted, and she is trusted implicitly. She is also the one who understands the consistency of the magic systems, as the teller of the intro tale and as the one who knows how to fight the vampires. This includes throwing NOT holy water on them, but garlic pickling juice. Crosses are also never used in her instructions on how to push them away (a very common vampire trope), just garlic, silver, fire, and stakes. I would also argue that Smoke's death scene with her and the baby is NOT heavenly, it's just afterlife coded (because white is generally the afterlife color code for visual media). Again, no angels, no heavenly coding, just afterlife coding. You COULD argue that she's virgin mary coded in this scene because she's breastfeeding, but we did see her actively have sex on screen earlier so that's tenuous at best. It's also shot with that same warped camera affect that happens whenever the mojo bag is in-use.

Then there is the Music. Music in general is a very common magical device in Faërie magic, and Tolkien is like the king of this: music holds power than the spoken word does not, music is the truest art of creating enchantment, this secondary world that the fae can produce, a fully realized enchanted art form. tl;dr there's a lot here but that's the cliffnotes version. Delta Slim outright says that the music is brought with them from home, rather than being forced upon them like Christianity. Sammie's music is what Sammie's dad wants to stamp out of him, or at least use to his limited means. It's Sammie's connection to the music that makes him a sinner in his father's eyes. But this is really hammered home in the final scene between Remmick and Sammie and then Sammie and his dad.

So I don't actually think Remmick's final monologue is supposed to be a final villain monologue so much as a final exposition monologue. I think the final villain monologue is Sammie's dad trying to compel him with the power of Christ, based on story structure. Generally speaking, a final villain monologue is supposed to be the peak of their evil plan, which is then foiled and shown to be wrong by the actions of the heroes. That's not exactly what Remmick's final speech does. In the final speech, Remmick explains that Christianity is the reason his culture is dead (and so the reason for the culture vampire void that needs to be filled), but he also says the following:

"They told stories of a heaven above and a devil below, and lies about the dominion of man over heaven and earth. We are earth and beast and God. We are woman and man. We are connected, you and I, to everything."

*if* this was a classic villain finale monologue, the response to this would have been "oh look this weird anti-christian pagan creature is monologuing, so he's evil, and the church is good and correct and the Truth", but that isn't how the film ends. Instead, the Remmick looks into the sunrise and hears the call of the Otherworld and his people (rather than say, heaven, because it's given that same Faerie irish lilt) but instead the music turns and he goes up in horrible flames for his crimes. UP in flames, up into the sky, which is NOT Christian for a "demon" to do in death (because he's not a demon, he's fae, Sammie calls him the devil repeatedly because he hasn't figured this out yet). The film "ends" (prior to the epilogue) with Sammie remembering the torment he went through from these vampires, after hearing this monologue, while at the church with his father trying to compel him to join *his* coven/clan/flock, and Sammie realizing that what his father is doing to him is this same repeated cycle of violence that happened to Remmick and that Remmick was trying to repeat onto him, and LEAVES.

Because of this, I think those lines above are not the typical final villain monologue, but the final bit of exposition that tells the audience the truth: that Sammie's magic and Remmick's magic (and Annie's magic as the one spiritual figure of the bunch) are all connected, you and I, to everything, with no dominion of man over heaven and earth. It establishes the magic system as consistent, and diametrically opposed to Christianlity

Faerie is morally neutral, it is the magic-of-the-World rather than of a moral dichotomy. It can be revelatory and healing, and it can be seductive and destructive. Annie and Sammie's magic is Good, and the Vampires are Evil, but they are all together diametrically opposed to the Church.

This is why the framing of Sammie and his dad in that opening scene is so fascinating, because behind Sammie is the natural world, warm and vibrant and welcoming, and behind his dad is man-made emptiness and shadow. Title of the film says it all, this film is ABOUT the so-called Sinners, the un-Christians. And that's not presented as a bad thing to be at all, but a truly magical thing, and that being a Sinner is joyous activity.

[groovyghostnotes]

The Torchbearer is a Guardian Angel

(sorta)

again, this is something i’ve talked about more in depth on my youtube channel. you can find that video here: https://youtu.be/s4Z32ZzooAM?si=cC9PCoB8LzthKUQ2

basically, there’s a lot of evidence that suggests torchbearer/josh might represent a guardian angel, and tyler’s relationship with religion. the first piece of evidence for this is quite literally in his name: torchbearer. the guy who holds light. light is a concept brought up a lot in christianity. like the concept of god being “the light” in a person’s life.also the opening statement in the bible is quite literally “let there be light.”

the torchbearer also brings light, both metaphorically and literally. literally, because he runs around holding a torch. but metaphorically, since he’s the guiding bandito who helps those out of dema. banditos are also a symbol of hope, their presence can bring a “light” to the dema citizens.

i do want to bring up torchy’s first official appearance in the storyline, because the symbolism is fascinating.

we first see the torchbearer in the jumpsuit music video. while he doesn’t do much, his placement in this video still says a lot. he’s up on this cliff, looking down at clancy. the other banditos are there, with the big bright sky behind them. they are physically looking down at clancy, as if they’re heavenly beings watching a mortal. they’re so high up, it does look like they’re literally in the sky. you also have clancy/tyler physically looking up at them. as if he’s looking to some supernatural force to help him. and they do. they don’t interfere more than just throwing flower petals, but their presence alone helped motivate tyler to fight back. this reminds me alot of the song “march to the sea” where tyler talks about how religion helped him to find the bigger picture in life. i believe the banditos are telling a similar story here.

torchbearer also has superpowers, and no i’m not talking about his godzilla ones (what’s up with that?) in the navigating music video, we found out he has the ability to be in different places at the same time. that alone suggests some sort of supernatural being, but it’s more than that. torchbearer is always by clancy’s side. he’s the protective, guiding force that always saves clancy. sounds very guardian angel like, no? clancy is also the only person that can see torchy, at least when he’s astral projecting himself somewhere else. a protective force only one person can see reminds me alot of “true” stories involving guardian angels. plenty of people testify that “someone” saved them, but they were the only person who actually saw that person there. torchbearer will always cover clancy, even if he’s not there physically.

the angel symbolism gets even more on the nose with the heathens music video. and yes, i’m counting it. i know it’s not a video about the official storyline, but it’s still very important to the lore.

in the heathens music video, josh has a whole slew of fake tattoos on his arm. one of those appears to be a cross. another is a symbol for guardian angels. it’s a fictional symbol as far as i know. i believe it’s a rune that pops up in shadowhunters. even still, it’s a curious detail to add when you consider josh’s role in this video.

much like the torchbearer, josh is playing a guide. he’s helping tyler escape prison, being with him every step of the way. much like torchbearer, it seems like josh isn’t actually there. first of all, he’s playing drums in prison. i don’t think you can do that. second of all, they always add this glowing light around him. as if he really is some angel that’s helping tyler escape. lastly, he’s no where to be seen at the end of the video. when tyler is caught, it’s only tyler. if josh had physically been there, odds are he would’ve been busted with tyler. once again, it seems like this video is suggesting josh is taking on an angelic role of some kind.

i think it’s really sweet tyler chose his best friend to play such an important role. whether he genuinely means religion or not, i believe there’s something to be said about the casting. there’s certainly people in my life that feel like they’re guardian angels. i do believe friends can serve as a guiding light, whether you’re religious or not. tyler obviously loves josh a lot, and that’s so :,)

anyways, thanks for coming to yapville, i hoped you enjoyed your stay.

[hero-israel]

If there are significant amounts of Druze in Syria who are reluctant to accept Israel's backing, I suspect it's because once you go down that road, there's no going back. The Islamists and jihadists will wait 100 years to take their revenge, but the revenge will come eventually. They do not forget or forgive. And any slight against them will be punished with what we're seeing on the Syrian coast right now.

If the Druze pick a side, that side will be chosen forever. I think many of them know this ends with being a statelet propped up by Israel or being part of Israel entirely, or being loaded into trucks and made to bark like dogs before being shot at point blank and shoved into mass graves. Any actions they take to defend themselves are already seen as treason and collaboration with Israel. They can live at the (limited) mercy of Salafist goons or they have to let go of the idea of Syria altogether.

It's a similar situation to the Kurds, who will never in a million years disarm now. America is a flaky ally at the best of times, but with Israel's unparalleled air force, they might feel comfortable openly seeking an alliance with Israel. But they must know there's no going back. The jihadists have no intention of reincorporating Rojava into Syria peacefully. They have no intention of welcoming SDF units and commanders into the military. They will massacre a few villages to make a statement and they'll make a few notable politicians and generals disappear, and then they'll immediately start subjugating everyone else.

For the Christians, Druze, Kurds, Alawites, and every other non-Sunni minority in Syria, the choice is basically Israel or Death, Israel or Apartheid. Because Jolani and his thugs decided that that's what the choice has to be. If the West continues to refuse to say a word or do anything, expect to see more and more of these minorities (even open Israel haters) start to see the appeal of the IAF's protection.

Islamists do indeed have no value higher than outgroup subjugation and revenge, at the expense of ever building something good. They still to this day sing their lovely "Khaybar" song.... one stabbed Salman Rushdie in 2022 for a book he wrote in 1988.

I have read that the Druze in the Israeli Golan who did not apply for citizenship, over 55+ years, made that choice because they were afraid if Syria ever retook the land, no matter how long it took, they would be killed for ancestral disloyalty (and they were probably right).

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Angel Dust Redesign! (7/7)

FINALLY I AM DONE WITH THE MAIN 7 FREAKS.

Depending how I feel I might throw in some bonuses but these guys are your only guarantees! Going to be posting the full lineup separately because I don’t want to clutter this post!!

God okay where to start. I was talking about them in Husk’s post so let’s go with that. Angel’s clothing restrictions are his necklace and shoes. I might go on a bit of a tangent with this so forgive me 💔

For the necklace let me get this out of the way: yes it is a BDSM thing! I’m terrified people are going to take this as me being a weirdo but please as an adult content creator give me some space to explain before anyone jumps on me and hits me with a metal pipe. The intentions behind symbolism matter HEAVILY. I am against Vivzie’s portrayal of Angel’s abuse and the chain/collar imagery because it is blatantly either her being incredibly uncreative or her inserting her kinks into her shows. I think it is completely fine to use suggestive items in this way as long as the intentions are clear and not just there for no reason.

I would’ve probably done something else like a corset as a restriction, but I’d like to stop being so shy about Angel’s actual job. He is a pornstar and removing that outward aspect of him is taking a big chunk of his character away. I need more people to acknowledge that Angel enjoys sex and actively wanted to explore this side of himself. With the slip chain however, I would also like to portray how things Angel enjoys in his job have been used against him and made him come to resent what he does when he is forced into it. I think thats a pretty understandable thing to show.

This is harder to explain but the gist of it is just don’t be afraid to acknowledge Angel’s job. It’s okay to use sexual things as metaphors. Have you heard any christian song ever/hj

Alright with that out of the way, with the shoes. Angel’s feet are a large insecurity and discomfort of his which already makes his shoes some sort of restriction on their own, however if controlled, they can be made to stumble forward, fall over, etc. I wanted to show how Angel has freedom to go mostly wherever he pleases, though once again, that free will can be taken away very quickly.

I hated his suit so all suiting is gone entirely. He’s supposed to look attractive or eye catching at the very least. I’ve also added back the outer fangs he had in my first redesign!

I am much happier with the new one in comparison to this old guy. I know it’s only a few months old but you can really see how differently I draw him and the details I pay attention to more like the shape of his hair. Aside from the old one! I wanted Angel himself to still keep the reddish pink to show wrath and destain being masked as lust, except now his clothing is actually the pinkish-purple lust colour and it covers more eye grabbing parts of his body like the chest, hands, hips, and so on.

I don’t think I’ve ever outwardly mentioned Angel having polycoria but he does and it’s probably my favourite feature to draw aside from his hair. About the hair and fur: Angel used to have spots and basic stripes before his contract with Valentino, where afterwards they began to curl into their cordiform shapes. Most physical overlord changes with hair and skin tend to not go away, so depending on who you make a contract with it’s either a fun perk or a sort of scar.

Once again, not sure if I will be continuing with anymore in this specific lineup, but if I do end up posting more of these I really hope you like those too! 💣

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my mom to stop singing?

okay so a couple months back i (a uni student) moved out of my old apartment and back in with my parents while i try to find a new one. the only issue is, since i first moved away, my parents had moved into a smaller house than they had when me and my siblings were growing up. they now have their bedroom and my dad's study, but no additional bed or guest rooms. for this reason, i have been sleeping on their living room couch.

my mom also doesn't have a room of her own, so her laptop is also in the living room, as is mine. so basically the living room is our shared domain for the time we spend at home. i have class and friends to spend time with, so i'm away relatively frequently (though i'm on winter break now of course), while my mom is retired and is at home basically 95% of the time year-round.

me and my mom both listen to music a lot and our tastes do not overlap basically at all. i listen mostly to indie, folk, rock, the kind of stuff white queer kids love, while my mom's music is almost entirely soulful christian pop about big j and stuff.

up until recently, my mom didn't wear headphones. she'd play music directly from her laptop speakers. this obviously bothered me somewhat, but i hadn't said anything about it. recently (i.e. a couple weeks ago) i asked her if she'd consider starting to wear headphones, which she has for the most part, though sometimes she forgets. i just kinda let her do whatever if she does, i haven't mentioned it again since.

so that's the first time i asked my mom to be quieter, and i don't think i'm an asshole for that. my worry is about the second time. you see, over the last week, she's taken to singing along to her tunes. maybe she did that before and i just didn't notice over the actual song itself? anyway, i can definitely hear it now.

and of course it's not the best musical performance, it's a lady with little singing experience belting along to her favourite songs, but it's not really about the quality of the singing. i don't like the music she likes and would prefer not to listen to it, is all.

today, whilst she was singing, i gently asked her: "could you stop singing?" i didn't mean forever, just in that moment. i really tried to say it in a nice way, and i don't think i sounded particularly rude? it should be noted, though, that my parents do seem to think of me as some kind of sensitive sally intent on criticizing every little thing they do. that feeling does kind of go both ways, but i admit sometimes i can be harsh on my mom, because she can be overbearing and a bit neurotic, and i don't really get to have the space i wish i could, especially not now when i'm living with them.

anyway, so i ask: "could you stop singing?" and my mom says something like "okay- well, i would prefer not to." the way she said it really made it sound like i had hurt her feelings. so i said, "okay. that's alright. you can sing." she stopped singing and has been sort of running around for the last 10 minutes or so restlessly doing random things.

my parents are that kind of people who are really really deep in "politeness" and genuinely baffle me since i'm autistic (like, a couple of days ago we had some leftover cake, and my dad straight up forced me to take half of what was left over even though i said i didn't want it. i still don't really know why?) so i'm sure even though i said "okay, nevermind then," my mom didn't believe me.

while she was running around doing random things, i told her, "sorry if i hurt your feelings." and she said, "oh, it's nothing." i genuinely don't know if i'm in the wrong here. i feel like, on the one hand, this is a space we have to share, and i should have the right to ask her not to make noise (i always wear headphones and never sing along to music or vc with friends when my parents are around), but on the other hand, it's her house, and she should have the right to sing in it, right? i don't know.

TL;DR: i asked my mom to stop singing in the only space for our computers in the house and i'm pretty sure it upset her. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[tyrantisterror]

My Personal History with My Good Friend, Satan

My first encounter with The Devil - that I can remember, at least - came when I was about three or so. My mom liked to borrow VHS tapes from libraries to show me and my siblings a lot, and one of the libraries she used was the one at our church. It was a small and obviously very religion-centric collection, but it left a notable mark on me - like, that's where I saw this weird, kinda shitty cartoon version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe which might be responsible for irreconcilably fucking up my taste in women? I just have this distinct memory of watching the scene where Edmund is tempted by the White Witch and thinking, "Yeah, he's making the right call." If anything I was frustrated that he hesitated - three year old me was already simping for this woman. Just imagine a child channeling Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters and growling, "When a terrifying and beautiful woman offers you candy and a private sleigh ride, you say YES!" and that's basically me as a kid.

Where was I? Right, Satan. So, the other video from that library I remember was this cartoon retelling of Bible stories, and really I just remember the Adam and Eve part. The temptation scene had this huge, super gnarly-looking demonic red snake in it, and he was so cool and badass and I was already predisposed to like snakes anyway, so of course he was my instant favorite. But, like almost all media featuring reptiles that captured my little child heart, he turned out to be the bad guy - literally The Devil, in this case - and was punished at the end of the story. And that pissed me off.

Sometime shortly thereafter - or at least that's how I remember it, this was over thirty years ago so things might be smushed closer together than they really were by the fog of ages - some of the kids in my preschool chastised me for liking snakes. "Don't you know the devil is a snake? Snakes are evil!" I remembered the movie, and it made me angry.

Because snakes aren't evil, and as a kid I knew that because my parents taught me it. Snakes were just animals, they don't know right from wrong, and to call them evil it to judge them for what they are, not what they do. That experience taught me a very important lesson: The Devil is a tool to make people hate the innocent. And as I'd later learn, snakes were far from the only innocents people would vilify because of a demonic association.

The second time I met the devil came a few years later, when I was six or seven or so. My Grampa and Grams liked to take us up North to Mackinac City and the Upper Peninsula each summer, and I have a lot of fond memories of those trips, but there was one in particular that's relevant to this discussion. We saw a sign for a "laser light show" in the shopping district, and I got to stay up late to see it with my family. The show in question was basically a cartoon projected into the night sky adapting the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia. It was super primitive and hokey and cornball and terrible and I loved every second of it. I was enchanted, absolutely delighted with the spectacle and the silly song where the devil was less a force of evil and more a comically bumbling inept supervillain - one of my favorite archetypes, even back then. So that's the second lesson about the devil I learned: The Devil can be fun sometimes.

Now, Godzilla, one of the few reptile characters I encountered as a kid who didn't end up a villain (at least not in the first movie of his I saw, Godzilla vs. Megalon), had already set me on the path to loving monsters of all stripes and, by extension, horror fiction in general, so as I grew up I had many more encounters with the devil. But while I warmed up quickly to most monster archetypes, like vampires, zombies, werewolves, etc., I always felt dismissive of demons. It kind of coincided with me becoming disillusioned with Christianity as a whole, in fact. A story about fighting evil, Christian-style demons is ultimately an allegory for fighting evil as defined by Christianity, and Christianity's definition of what evil is, well, sucks. It's bad! They got some things right, but some things horribly wrong. The devil is the tool Christianity uses to make you hate the innocent, and I struggled to enjoy a lot of demon stories because of that. Still do with some, in fact.

There were exceptions, of course - I loved The Evil Dead series as soon as I saw it at too-early-of-an-age, but then, the demons in it aren't super Christian. They aren't repelled by holy water or crucifixes or prayer, and in fact God and Jesus barely get mentioned in the series and never come up as a potential solution. They're kind of secular as demons go, and maybe that made them easier to stomach. But overall, demons ranked pretty low in the hierarchy of monsters to me - they were too tainted by the religion that spawned them for me to enjoy.

Until college, anyway. I quietly renounced my faith during my Freshmen year, and then, as if seeking one last chance at redemption in my eyes, the devil came to me again the following year. That's when I had a class on Medieval literature, and was exposed to far older devil stories than I had ever seen before. And Medieval devils kick ass. They have so much more personality and variety than I had come to expect, and some are downright affable, even sympathetic to a degree. It was one of many moments in college when I realized there was much more to a topic I'd previously written off as boring and trite.

This is when I read Dante's The Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost and Marlowe's Faust and Ben Johnson's The Devil Is An Ass. It's when I read early Gothic Horror novels like Matthew Gregory Lewis's The Monk, and dived into The Twilight Zone, which has more than a few episodes that are updates of medieval-style devil folktales in a more modern (i.e. 1960's) setting. And so many of these works presented the Devil not as a stand-in for everything Christianity hates, but as a person - a deeply flawed person, yes, but a person with actual wants and feelings and thoughts of his own, a person who was interesting and compelling - and sometimes funny, and sometimes charming, and sometimes really sad. There was, dare I say... sympathy for the devil growing in my heart.

In the last year of my undergraduate studies, I attended my college's yearly Medieval Studies Congress, where people from all over the world came to Kalamazoo just to share their research papers on medieval history and literature. One girl's thesis paper was on the subject of "rueful devils," i.e. depictions of demons in literature where they wanted to repent their sins and redeem themselves, which uniformly ended with the devils' hopes being dashed as they could not fully repent. This idea... possessed me. The idea that the devil could repent, or at least try to - that there could be hope even in the most debauched sinner. It was such a good narrative trope in my eyes - why did it die out centuries ago?

Well, because the church didn't like it, you see. If the devil can repent - if the Absolute King of Evil can choose to become a good person - then he's not very useful as a tool to make people hate the innocent anymore. The devil MUST be "pure evil" to work as intended. A rueful devil, a repentant devil, a devil that can be redeemed, forces us to be more forgiving and kind. It forces us to be better. It prevents us from hating people because an old book says so. And some people just couldn't have that, and so the trope died.

...

After I got my bachelor's degree, I entered the job market and, after applying to fifty different places or so, was finally hired as a high school english teacher about two weeks before the school year started. Said school year was the worst year of my life. Like, I've had extreme self loathing issues and suicidal ideation since, like, sixth grade, but holy shit it was NEVER as bad as it was in that nine month stretch between 2012 and 2013. There was this bridge I had to cross on the way to work each morning, and about two months in the job was so stressful that part of my morning routine was thinking, "You know, if I just swerve to the right, this can all be over and I'll never have to worry again." About halfway in I began drastically losing weight despite not changing my diet or getting more exercise and it was so traumatic that to this day whenever my weight starts to drop my initial reaction is dread rather than excitement. I impulse bought the first two Kung-Fu Panda movies and, after watching each for the first time and crying hideously, proceeded to watch them on repeat for an entire weekend while sobbing myself hoarse for reasons I couldn't comprehend at the time.

I was in Hell. And the devil met me there.

I started writing a story during that year. I didn't get very far, just a couple chapters, but it was one of the few things that gave me a sense of accomplishment. Despite all the stress and sadness and misery, I made something. It was a story about demons, and Hell, and trying to make your life better even when the world around you seems deadset on making you suffer as much as possible.

When my bosses called me into their office at the end of that year and told me that I had to quit my job so the assistant principal could take my teaching position and survive the downsizing they'd get next year, and that if I didn't quit they'd give me the lowest teacher evaluation they could and make it supremely difficult for me to get hired elsewhere... I was relieved. I'd been let out of Hell. After a handful of months left to finish out the year, I was free.

And then I went home, with nothing. No job, no desire to pursue the career for which I'd spent five years and an ungodly amount of money getting a degree to pursue, no nest egg, nothing. Nothing except a few chapters of a book.

The years that followed were hard. I did a lot of temp work, it took me a very long time to find something that worked for me. I may have left the worst year of my life, but there was still a lot of misery waiting for me. And through it all, I felt the need to accomplish... something, ANYTHING. I had to make something to prove I had a reason to exist, even if it was something that only had value to me.

With three years of work, those chapters became my first novel, No Sympathies: A Tale of Those Who Trespass Against Us. It was about the devil, and Hell, and finding salvation even when things seem inescapably bleak. It was my first novel, and now, eight years later, it's the first of five.

The devil saved my life. He saw me at my lowest, lifted me up, whispered, "It'll be ok. You have to keep going. I'll be with you, but you have to keep going," and goddammit, he kept me from swerving right.

That's when I learned the greatest truth about the devil, at least to me. The devil is a tool to make people hate the innocent, yes, this is true, but because of that, the devil can be a savior for the broken, the beaten, and the damned. You can feel like you're worthless, wretched, and doomed. But if the devil can rise from Hell, if the devil can choose to change, if people are willing to pray for the one sinner who needs it most - then there's hope for you too, isn't there?

Demons are creatures of rebellion - against God, against nature, against the powers that be, against doom and damnation itself. They were made to be a tool to hurt the innocent, but that's not what they have to be. Devils can lift us up, because no matter how far you fall, no one can say whether it's the end for you except you.

...I would like to point out that I am being figurative here. The devil does not literally exist, at least not in my view of things. He's a fictional character, nothing more. But he's a prolific fictional character, and how we portray him can say so much about us. And, to me, he is a dear friend, despite being imaginary, because the devil was there for me when I was low, and it was on his wings that I rose from doom.

...again, figuratively, not literally.

[vanilleidollie]

⏦ﾟ♡︎ ~ Welcome to my blog ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

♡ . sora ; nea 🕯️

ᛝ isfp ◞ 3teen !!

🪞 ‎‎‎. she / they

🗝️ ‎ ◠◠ .🧺

﹒ ︶︶﹒︶︶୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︶︶﹒︶︶ ﹒

basic info

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

𝜗𝜚┆I’m a minor (adult’s — dni)

I’m African American + prolly is mixed..

𝜗𝜚┆my birthday is February 14, making me born on Valentine’s Day.

my mbti is - isfp and I’m an Aquarius.

prns are : she : her . they : them . I’m ace

I’m a Christian girl (and no, not THAT type of ‘Christian girl’, but I do go to church!)

𝜗𝜚┆random fun fact: my most favorite animals are fawns, cats, dogs, snow leopards, and seals .. Quite the variety, I know, but the ones I see are always so adorable and cute!! ꒰#’ω`#꒱੭

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

𝜗𝜚┆my fav music artists! (・ω<):

﹒ ︶︶﹒︶︶୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︶︶﹒︶︶ ﹒

Recent song listened to~

mitski, faye Webster, laufey, deftones, mac demarco, tv girl, radio head, cigarettes after sex, lana del rey, alex g, the smiths, fiona apple, temachii, adrianne lenker, birth day, billie eilish, kikuo, coco & clair clair, wave to earth, nightcord at 25:00 (Niigo 25).

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

𝜗𝜚┆hobbies! (๑･▱･๑):

﹒ ︶︶﹒︶︶୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︶︶﹒︶︶ ﹒

: ~These are the things I do in my spare time, or for extracurricular activities

drawing, baking, doomscrolling on pinterest, instrument playing, crafting, acting hella dumb, choir singer (by force), helping others, randomly saying words of affirmation/praise, talking to my friends, making moots

(please note that if you are a proshipper, darkshipper, pdf-file/pedo.. or those ppl who asks to do nsfw stuff/content. I WILL block you without hesitation.. so don’t moot me if you’re any of those things.)

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

𝜗𝜚┆favorites/likes! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و:

﹒ ︶︶﹒︶︶୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︶︶﹒︶︶ ﹒

‘Cutecore’ aesthetic (idk what else to call it), coquette aesthetic, girly things, pinterest, rilakkuma + korikkuma, chiikawa, being kind to others, soft colors + dark colors, trinkets, gifts from friends, matching pfp’s (bios, etc), flowers, anime, making gifts 4 friends, music, drawing, baking, crafting, acting hella dumb, cats, dogs, fawns, seals

Fandoms: MLP, BSD, PMMM, Lucky star, K-ON, ALNST, CRK, LITC, OJHS, GI, HSR, ADWD, PJSK, JJK

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

𝜗𝜚┆non-favorites/dislikes! Σ(-`Д´-ﾉ；)ﾉ:

﹒ ︶︶﹒︶︶୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︶︶﹒︶︶ ﹒

: ~This is basically things that I don’t want my acc to be centered around, and things i don’t feel comfortable with being projected to myself. Being/doing any of these things (like I’ve stated b4) will get you blocked, maybe even reported.

Proshippers, comshippers, homophobes, racists, ableists, old men/anyone of any age that want sketchy shit, having or showing attitudes (such as racial prejudice), or ideas (such as falsehoods) that are offensive, disturbing, or harmful. Ppl who involve themselves with incest (deliberately)/ have a liking to any form of incest, grooming, SA, abuse, you name it.

: ~I don’t want it, I don’t want the ppl who I moot or follow me to feel bad, or have a bad mentality due to the problematic behavior shown. My account is meant to be a ‘safe space’ where everyone can express themselves the way they like. I’m sorry that you may feel as though you are being invalidated, just bcs you are those things, but this is my boundary, and I plan to keep it that way.

~Thank you in advance for reading this c(ˊᗜˋ*c)

﹒ ︵︵﹒︵︵୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︵︵﹒︵︵ ﹒

𝜗𝜚┆socials (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄):

Spotify

TikTok

Discord- sorazai

﹒ ︶︶﹒︶︶୨ ꒰ㅤ꒱ ୧︶︶﹒︶︶ ﹒

Bye baiii (●❛⃘ᗜ❛⃘●)੭ु⁾⁾

[lakeshorez]

An Anecdote of Asexuality, Autism, and Other Oddities.

i originally posted this absolute essay of a comment underneath Carseatheadrest’s song “It’s Only Sex for, obvious reasons, however - I figured possibly it would be helpful to post it here to reach more folks who may resonate. (The song is fire btw, y’all should check CSH out!!) Apologies for any grammar mishaps - I wrote this after waking up from a five-hour long nap prior to taking my meds (whoops), and my autism can make it difficult when writing long-form pieces like this.

This is merely a slightly unhinged vent-post that seemed to get out of hand as I continued to write it; mainly focusing upon my own struggles with intimacy and how society views it as a whole - my relationship with being asexual, and how my autism leads me to perceive the act of sex in a slightly altered light compared to most.

General content warnings for: surface-level mentions of sexual content (nothing too explicit, I promise.), and brief mentions of past trauma.

That being said - I introduce you all to a glimpse inside my thoughts - and hopefully - despite having few followers, lol - some of you can relate, understand, or hell, possibly even learn something new about yourselves!

————————————

I’m 17 and although I’ve never been intimate nor do I have a partner - I’ve always felt immensely disconnected from most people’s allure towards intimacy since I find it weirdly “feral” in a way? Like, perceiving how aggressive people act within sexual scenarios with one another seems to put me off. As if they’re ’drunk off lust’ or something, being fully controlled by desire I guess? But to be fair, the only blatant exposure I’ve had to intimacy is through written text, along with hearing others’ testimonies on the manner. But, whenever I hear people going on about how they find it arousing when someone uses dirty talk I just feel weirdly— put off? I don’t know. Plus, I might be the only one who feels this way, but I absolutely despise the feeling of being in the act - more so the physical aspects of it. Sure, the closest I’ve had to actually being intimate is with by my own hand - but my point is, the sensations that are being absolutely overblown throughout the rest of your body; heavy breathing, sweating, a dazed mind, trembling limbs, etc - feel too overwhelming to me. I think I could be a result of me being autistic, and likely having heightened sensory impulses makes it feel so strange. But another thing I’ve noticed for me, is that the sensations feel eerily similar to when I’m upon the brink of a panic attack strangely enough. Not to mention how utterly tainted with filth I feel after the fact. Sure, I’ve tried to read articles upon articles on why sex and self pleasure is a natural occurrence - the health benefits and all - how it’s abnormal to feel ashamed or disconnected from the act, how I purely need to suck it up because if I dare express any destain from engaging in it, I’m considered a fault in the system. And yet, the internalized feelings of disconnect from my own body still linger, regardless how often I try to convince myself it’s normal.

It’s gotten to the point where I’ve sorta realized - perhaps it’s just not for me. Perhaps, I feel better when I’m not forcing myself to be someone I’m not? Or perhaps, what if all this time I’m merely lying to myself - what if my apathy and disgust regarding it was a result of unresolved childhood trauma? Perhaps made even more so of how I’ve never even held hands romantically with another human being. What if I’m wrong? Wrong about not understanding what all the hype is about — an unmoved fault in a sea of flirty playboy bunnies. I’m still trying to properly unpack a lot of what may have caused me to feel so strange about it, likely a large mess of factors; past trauma, growing under the watchful eye of a Christian mother, the fact I’m a pan trans guy- but I think one large part of it may be due to my autism. I’ve noticed, with a lot of basic tasks life throws at me, I always had a tendency to overanalyze and dissect a lot of things, sex included. I tend to view it in a very literal and logical light - sure, I can fully understand why people enjoy it, how they enjoy the emotional bond it creates, how they feel sparks from the bounds of pleasure that surge throughout their bodies - but other than that, I never can comprehend why people seem to place it on such a high pedestal? I could never quite comprehend why people put intimacy on the same level as eating, breathing, or even sleeping. I could never comprehend why people seemed to make such fusses over it. How my own mom couldn’t comprehend I don’t care much for the act, how people can’t physically accept the fact someone could live without it, as if the sensation itself is the elixir of life.

I feel whenever there’s conversations regarding the topic, autistic people such as myself tend to be left out of the conversations a whole lot. I suppose it’s unfortunately due to a whole slew of factors, such as infantilization; people viewing us as innocent children who’d never engage in something as adultery and taboo as sex because in their minds, we’re practically nothing more than overgrown children. However, I recall reading about how studies have shown that people assigned female at birth on average tend to have more nerve endings displayed around their reproductive organs - therefore, often feeling sexual sensations to a more heightened degree compared to our amab counterparts. However, I think it could also be linked to the discussion of being autistic and our feelings regarding intimacy. Since we tend to already have an intense heightened display of sensory inputs - primarily touch - I suppose it makes sense why I, and a lot of other afab autistic individuals feel like we’re on the brink of having a sensory overload when feeling any sexual stimulation. What would be considered as pleasurable to someone who isn’t autistic, could be interpreted as something almost painful to someone who is.

Whenever I try to learn on how to be more comfortable with the idea of intimacy, often the advice is so blatantly intended for non-autistic folk, along with taking on a very cisgendered-heteronormative view upon the matter as well. I’ve always felt extremely alienated when it came to talks about it and whatnot - mainly due to my autism, the fact I’m a trans pansexual dude, and past trauma relating to intimacy. Yet …in an odd way, whenever I browse through comment sections of videos on talks about intimacy and how to be an intimate partner, it’s like I’m seeing a glimpse in an alternate reality - a reality where everyone just seems to “get it”. A reality where not a single person ever had to cope with a horde of internalized mental struggles regarding such a topic, they openly state how much they enjoy being intimate with their partners, going into immense detail upon what makes them “tick” with tens of comments beneath them sharing that same anecdote. Cracking jokes and sharing their stories like it’s a normal Tuesday. And yet, part of me can’t help but feel like I’m an anomaly in an odd sense. Why regardless of how many sex-positive articles and videos I burn into my mind, I’ll constantly feel like I’m a flaw upon the system. How there’s always an eerily familiar contortion lodged deep within a pit in my stomach whenever the mere thought is brought up. How the nauseating pit only continues to expand itself - feeding off my utter discomfort, my inability to “get it”, like a spreading sickness that lacks no means of ending. But the pit never leaves, it just sits there within me. It only expands and contracts itself, constantly shifting its size and intensity to remind me of my abnormality. I can feel it deep within my body - I can feel its cruel weight make itself known whenever the topic of intimacy is brought up, whenever I feel that desire burn throughout my skin.

I suppose it’s why I felt like there was something wrong with me when I despised the sensations intimacy brought. Whenever I’d bring it up, I was told I was just a goddamn immature 17 year old who needed to ‘grow up’ and wait until I found a partner, then I’d finally “get it”. Then I’d finally understand what all the hype was about, then I’d finally feel whole. After all, being a virgin your whole life is something to be ashamed of, isn’t it? And yet, the closest thing I’ve had to experiencing any sexual stimulation is by my own hand - but even while I’m in the act, I can’t help but feel the overwhelming sensation of my heavy breathing, my heart throbbing at an unsteady rhythm, my limbs trembling, the almost burning sensation that only increases between my thighs until it boils over. And after? I feel disoriented. Like my mind is attempting to sew itself back together through trembling limbs and shaken breaths. And I want to cry. To sob, to clutch my shaken limbs around myself in a desperate means of granting myself comfort - I feel like I’m about to explode, with no other means to feel whole once again.

And despite it all, I often find myself wondering; “Why did nobody warn me about this?” Why didn’t they warn me of the intense barrage of sensations being thrown at my body in the most uneven hellish masses imaginable? Why didn’t they mention how my body would feel like it’s dying? After all, isn’t it guilty pleasure? A pleasure unmatched by anything granted by nature itself? A pleasure delectable as the sweetest honey, the closest thing to heaven humanity has acquired without the act of death. Shouldn’t it feel immaculate? Shouldn’t I feel satisfied? And yet, I lie between my disheveled bed sheets, clutching onto a pillow as heavy tears stain its fabric. And I can’t help but internally beat myself up over my emotions - why I feel so dejected and mentally shaken over a sensation that’s considered one of nature’s greatest gifts. How no matter how many times I mentally prepare myself to ‘fix’ my ongoing barrage of mental turmoil through watching videos of a person who clearly hasn’t felt the anguish I’m in explain in detail how to ‘enjoy’ the act. Assuming it comes naturally to anyone who watches, assuming that not a single person on the opposite side of the screen has ever felt such alienation from the rest of the human race over something that everyone just seems to magically have imbedded within their minds from birth. Assuming nobody is as utterly flawed as I am.

I suppose my detachment in regards to intimacy - even if it’s limited to merely touching myself once in a goddamn blue moon - has convinced me that I, in all my traumatized asexual autistic glory, would make one hell of a horrible partner. Who wants a partner who flinches at the slightest of touch, a partner who feels like they’re on the brink of a panic attack when the sensations get too intense for them to bear, who can’t stop hyperventilating and sobbing through thick and heavy tears as they try to soothe me like a distraught child, how dare I try and have my partner be some therapist for my issues…After all, that’s what a horrible partner does…right? A horrible partner doesn’t care for their spouse’s sexual needs - haven’t I heard of all those couples who break up because they couldn’t be satisfied in bed? How dare I try and insinuate that my future partner should settle for less, that they should live in an unfulfilling relationship unable to act upon a natural desire because I’m too utterly messed up to have it drilled into my thick skull that it’s normal. How dare I be so selfish.

It’s all I hear when I tell people I’m asexual, when I try and explain my autism physically does not allow me to think nor feel any different, how my entire being practically makes me feel differently around the entire discussion regarding intimacy. And yet, they express their worries and condolences. Not directed towards me, but to whatever future partner may interweave their fingers with mine someday. They mourn more intensely for that nonexistent entity over the person who’s standing in front of them in the flesh. They mourn for the fact that my future partner will have to somehow settle for less in their words, they try and convince me that merely granting my affection and love through hand-written notes and carefully crafted gifts and trinkets will never compare to the sheer raw intimacy sex can bring. How dare I insinuate that someone could be happy and fulfilled without such a need for something so natural, how dare I express one can feel fulfilled through other means that do not entail intimacy. How dare my sheer existence challenge their narrow mindset. How dare someone who chooses to become my spouse be understanding and grant me their compassionate empathy for simply being, how dare they feel fulfilled and satisfied by being granted affectionate notes and gifts over being touched by their beloved, how dare they “settle for less” and be content with simply experiencing the light of their partner through a clothed body. How dare they challenge the status quo for merely existing. It’s as if, people physically cannot fathom that someone can feel equally happy and fulfilled without the need for it. However, I suppose I don’t blame them - it’s everywhere you look. The expectancy to engage in it is practically being advertised and gossiped about in every corner of the world around them. As if feeling any distain or discomfort with the idea is an immediate challenge against something bigger. Like an act of rebellion, almost. But, am I being rebellious? How is me being some traumatized asexual autistic person on par with being some rebellious teenager? I’m not trying to challenge anything nor anyone, but it seems as if my sheer existence is already capable of doing that.

But hey, I guess you could say - it’s only sex :3 (I’m so sorry)

[thewhizzyhead]

hi its me so back when wattblr was at its peak (2020), watt basically gave me a drug that made me really fuckin creative and want to do a bajillion musicals. 4 years later, warriors has now force-fed me this drug again. Welcome back to me being annoying as fuck woo here's the Izzy Original Rambly Musical Masterlist - Part 1

+ Misfits - been developing this SINCE I WAS 13 and um its Basically A Show Within A Show idea inspired by my past experiences with my former church and their Christmas musicals. TO UNDERSTAND THIS HERE IS SOME BACKSTORY: so when I was 10-13 I used to be in Christmas musicals staged by my sunday school. These musicals were Pilipino translations (the songs stayed English) of Typical American Children Christmas Musicals found on youtube (check out A Rocking Royal Christmas on YouTube yes we did a Filipino translation of that and I played the narrator when I was 11 I'm not kidding). When I was 13, I wanted to make something more resonant to the teen crowd as um to be quite honest the stuff my fellow Sunday school people were going through were Fucking Heavy and i wanted to feature that + I always knew that the Very Kiddy Musicals we set up were mainly a show for the parents and all that. I wanted a message of faith that actually resonated with my age group - and i developed it far enough that at 14, i was commisioned by my sunday school teachers to work with the church's orchestra in actually having this developed! But 15 happened and I started questioning a lot of the stuff my Sunday school and church does in terms of like politics, mental health stuff, sexuality and identity and pressuring me and my fellow teens to become something we were not, and it really felt alienating, almost as if I was simply putting on a show to appease all those that look to me and want me to be the Best of Young Christian Soldiers

So the concept of Misfits is um okay just read this ramble i wrote 3 years ago that is MUCH MORE COHERENT AND COHESIVE than the descriptions ive been whipping up for three hours now:

There is more to this like I have been developing this for 7 years now and there IS A TRACKLIST and each character has a storyline and a certain dynamic with all of the characters - like all are connected one way or another - but the basic gist is:

1.) The Narrators Put On A Show For The Religious Audience, then Start Crumbling at The Questions Presented and Prompted by The Misfits, but also Upon The Realization Of How Much Pressure They Are Under in Supporting A Narrative They Are Conditioned To Unquestionably Trust + the reveal of the secrets they hide and deny about themselves in order to seem as the Perfect Model Christian (sexuality, mental health issues, parental/pastoral pressures, abuse, psychological trauma as a result of Putting On The Show - the Time Travel element is not just there for the purposes of the show, it has a very important plot element too that connects the leader of the Narrators with the defacto leader of the Misfits) + how do they deal with these secrets being slowly revealed when They Know They Are Being Watched

2.) The Misfits Try To Navigate The Strange Musical Scenario and Why The Narrators Seem Preachy, While Also Being Forced to Address Their Pasts and Presents on why They Are Deemed "Misfits" in the First Place (outside of Christian conservatism, there exists undeniable concern for the wellbeing of the "Misfits" aka juvenile delinquency and poverty, mental health issues, and um the defacto leader being a Former Member of the Narrators wHICH WILL BECOME THE RUNNING THREAD TO THE PLOT TWIST which is why they were chosen in the first place), so basically The Misfits Are Challenged to Acknowledged that They Are Indeed Troubled (especially with carefully planted plot points and script prompts used by the Narrators to have these in the open) - but the original Producers Approved plotline has them Turn Back To God, but how can they do so if the problems they face are rooted in the current religious institutions in place? That is the question presented by the Misfits to the Narrators - which is what causes their show to fall apart

3.) Through Questioning The Mission They Were Given and the Environments That Mandate Them To Do So Despite Their Own Struggles (Narrators), and Through Questioning Themselves, Their Struggle, and The Acknowledgment That They Do Need Help (Misfits), the two groups face what I want to be the ultimate thesis question of the musical: when you grow up, where does one find hope? This is my attempt at breaking down the concept of religion because ultimately, people look to a higher figure in the dream of hope and the want for answers - thus, religion cannot ultimately be taken away from people who truly want and seek it. But we gotta deconstruct the narrative that hope is only limited to these religious institutions - and criticism must be relayed to the institutions that mandate that people serve them for the hope they supposedly provide but subsequently break because of prejudice, conservatism, and close-mindedness towards the people the Bible says to serve above all.

So yea the thesis slogan is basically: grow as you go, redefine your mission, and break the script if needed be.

Also it's pop rock, very inspired by SPRING AWAKENING, we are the tigers, and a dash or rent. The songs are English when They Are Part of the Producer's script, and Tagalog when They Are Not Part of the Script (like the characters being honest or unexpected rebuttals to the narrators' preaching moments or when the narrators themselves reveal their secrets). Otherwise, dialogue is taglish YAY

[tlkshowhost]

“  i  choked  /  on  such  longing  i  couldn’t  spit  it  out  /

desire  is  so  different  when  god  bore  you  hungry.  ”

pinterest.

basics

full name: max atkinson

age: twenty four

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: bisexual ( maybe preference for girls????)

star sign: scorpio

label: the wanderer

occupation: attendant at silver coin laundromat and gas attendant at dolly's diner

theme song: looking for knives by dyan

aesthetics:

worn out jackets with too many pockets that you refuse to get rid of no matter the holes and patches. spending quarters on an old jukebox in a beat up bar as you dance like nobody’s watching. moss growing on your feet, you’ve been forced still for so long you never learned how to be alive. seraphic, honey dripping lips cacheing jadded fangs. black combat booots as stash for belongings you don't own but have swiftly picked from a passerby. a cross that you still wear around your neck even though it burns and suffocates you but your’se till looking for pieces of god in you ( you don’t know if it’s to pry them out or in attempt to beg forgiveness / finally be allowed holiness ). cannibalism as a metaphor for desire and the guilt of wanting. biting your lip instead of speaking, you’re used to the taste of blood at the tip of your tongue. an old haunted cathedral slowly collapings onto itself. being a ghost witnessing your own life passing you by but feeling the unescapable need for ransom. survivor’s guilt. feeling on the verge of combustion but no matter how much you burn inside the icy layer does not melt. maniacally scrubbing under your nails to remove dried blood.

info: ( tw: christian trauma )

a beat up house, in a beat up town. all preachers, fake saints, begging a god that often seemed deaf. they used his silence to their advantage, twisting it into words that served themselves, appearing bigger than the church's walls itself. the town was a place where nothing grew but gossip, shame, and the same poisonous weeds she pulled up, over and over. she knew the woods and its trees, and the whiskey stench and that she was supposed to keep quiet and pure.

her days were spent dangling between the hovering halls of the church and the woods (there's nothing to do in this beat up town), where how the shadows tangled between trees felt freer than the hovering halls of the church. it seemed as though he couldn't reach her. so she danced freely, finding herself in an endless loop of sin and atonement, keeping stashes of things she knew she shouldn't own. she couldn't help it, the more they kept her caged and forced blinds in her eyes, the more she wanted to live, run and find out, discover the world they hated. she found an addicting kind of shame into realizing that she was born to life the day life was gifted to her directly from the pastor's daughter's lips.

Leaving wasn’t easy. It never was. But moss had started to creep up her feet, and if she stayed, she’d become nothing but roots and could-have-beens. She made her plan, rehearsed it until there was no way to back down. she wasn't sure of where to go, and knew that once outside of the town's perimeter she would've been casted to a life mad of sacrifices and survival, that it certainly wasn't going to be soft beds and warm meals. but she didn't care, she would've payed whatever price if it meant getting to live her life without costantly feeling on the edge of choking. anna didn't follow, but max knew she'd be fine, it'd be easier that way, she wouldn't have to worry about anyone else. i made myself a promise; even if it meant becoming a stranger to my loved ones, even if it meant keeping secrets, I would have a life of my own.

after the first step, it was hard to stop. one place blurred into the next, one goodbye folded into another. she learned to leave before anyone could ask her to stay, before she could want to. she carried no reasons for leaving, only a weight in her chest that told her there was nothing worth staying for ( loneliness being the other face of freedom ), but a weight that often resembled just the need to see & feel more. her hands grew rough, her feet blistered, but something inside her stayed soft—a quiet thing, almost deer-like, that moved through the world wide-eyed and flighty..

and then, red creek. it caught her off guard, the way no other place ever had. The woods were thicker here, the air heavier, and the trailer she found had just enough space to be a home without pinning her down. she turned it into something that felt hers. maybe not forever—she still liked to fantasize about leaving, especially while working at dolly's diner, following the trucks rolling by with her imagination—but for now, because the world still stretched into every direction and she didn't know exactly what she wanted out of it yet. she just knew that she wanted.

headcanons:

the whole point of her character is that she's elusive af and rlly hard to read. kinda feels like a ghost sometimes but at the same time she has this... fire nd vivaciousness inside of her that is just waiting to be lit. kind of if she was drenched in gasoline but didn't have a match.

bites her lip often because sometimes she wants to say things she's not sure she's supposed to say. she can't stay still and is always moving in some way.

this leads to her being very calculated nd observing. had to learn how to function in society by studying people, there's a quote that goes 'awesome behavior dude seems very natural do u mind if I mimic it to appear human' nd its vry funny nd vry her. so sometimes she just reacts to stuff based on what she thinks would be right because she's very good at assessing situations.

this is all a bit exaggerated. she's less weird than what it seems jkads... that was... all internal stuff. generally she's very soft spoken, gentle nd bubbly but can feel so very mysterious and almost ghostly like. can be a bit spooky, and def may take people by surprise 'cause she can come up with unexpected things to say

still has a weird relationship with religion like ‘ i will take a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces of god in me ’ because kinda attracted by what they always deemed as sin (literally everything?) but at the same time looking for forgivness and redemption.. but it's more like maybe just a wanting to be understood?...

she's a bit of a kleptomaniac which is a habit she took on the road in order to survive nd still uses it right now because money is tight. sometimes she steals to pawn stuff, other times because she likes them. she's esp always stealing sweets.

very masculine in an extremely feminine way. she sits and speaks like a trucker, often with a mouthful, always manspreading and possibly mistakenly fleshing her underwear or having her legs dangling from somewhere, but she's sooo delicate with it that sometimes people don't even realize???? def uses her angel face to her advantage.

she's always witty and never replies seriously esp if the question is dumb, might be a bit of a compulsive liar nd likes making stories up on the spot. has a little grin always plastered on her lips because she finds it just soo amusing.

loves everything morbid and macrabe. there’s a sort of self redemption in liking everything that they labelled as forbidden. she’s also soo thirsty for knowledge nd… life?? so she’s vry curious… maybe dangerously so.. def got in trouble cause of it… which is all to say that in regards to this whole thing going down… she’d be trying to figure out more.

still has an issue with her sexuality. it's rare for her to do something with a girl bc it brings back memories and it's just so much more.... gut-wrenching than with men bc she's so so hungry for it.

she flirts by batting her melancholic big deer eyes at you. might b deceiving. but mostly because of the mentality she had to learn to have while on the road! is def doing better now that she spent a whole year in red creek.

always carries a pocket knife that was gifted to her while traveling.

wcs:

( male presenting ) someone she slept with when she first moved. might have used them just to have a soft bed to sleep on nd warm water to shower. might be interesting if we added feelings nd unsaid things nd all..... we can plot out whether they're still hooking up or not!

( female presenting ) a lil homoerotic friendship hehehe. the person who convinced her to stay bc max would've tried to up nd leave.... but was like... 'k I'll stay for now just because of them

people she investigates with? a lil scoobydoo gang?

maybe someone that works at the post in the attic and she either pawned stuff to or tried to.

this.

anything nd eeeverything!

[venus-as-a-boy123]

what hell/heaven means to me :

when i was about 13 i listened to this song over and over again called Leaving the Past by Immortal Technique. a specific lyric called out to me.

“Hell is not a place you go if you're not a Christian. It's the failure of your life's greatest ambition."

this is sort of my belief of hell. for me “hell” is your all time low,your rock bottom. hell is a mindset. a place you go where life has given you no other option. hell is a trickster of a savior. it’s a part of life. it is a dark force of the universe,of fate (this mindset will happen eventually) or chance (this mindset will happen but it depends your situation and basically your “plot” aka shit happens).

(i also watched possession 1981 for the first time and sort of inspired me to make this post ,hence the sister fate and sister chance. that just gave me a better way of explaining and i cannot explain my way of thinking without making weird references)

hell is kind of like dante’s inferno,but instead of an AFTERlife,it’s just life.

and instead of the nine circles of hell,where you have 9 things to do before heaven,you have about four points of existence and experience. which are :

1-existing or birth.

you can die at birth.you can exist for awhile without experiencing hell.

2-hell. metaphorical death/suffering (inspired by buddhism) ofyour soul/personality/your body and mind.

i’m gonna get personal here. i have gone through hell and i am recovering. i have been a victim of abuse since i was a child. i was abused by a therapist and my personality changed. i’ve been suffering all my life,and this was my breaking point. i was quiet,my eyes were lifeless and my body looked like a corpse. i had selective mutism. i could not look anyone in the eye,and i did not use my voice. i am a very bright and loud person(i literally never shut up)i am highly opinionated and assertive. just to give you some context.

3-recovery,post suffering

recovering and healing is a very long process. i’m still in it. well,i’m 16 while writing this,so i have alot of hope. healing/recover is hard,it’s ugly,it’s harsh. it’s different for everyone i must say though. it’s almost like your experiencing hell or your trauma again (i believe these can be separate or the same depending on the person) you’re just thinking about it,especially when you are writing about it or are in therapy.

4-rebirth/metaphorical reincarnation.

when you’re in hell,or more specifically my definition of hell that you are dead ,spiritually. and after you’re healed you’re reincarnated back into the person you were before,or a step forward as a being.

if you made it to the end of my rambling ,thank you for reading. i know this is probably hard to understand plus my grammar/punctuation LOL and i apologize.

[asap-n0-rocky]

Top 10 personal favorite protagonists (unordered)

Maybe one day I’ll put them in order but I just felt like showing some appreciation for my favorite protagonists

10. Nicole from Class of 09

It might be recency bias but she’s definitely one of the more interesting characters I’ve come across recently and a lot more complex than I few people give her credit for. She’s a horrible person and even an outright villain sometimes but if you look at her environment you can understand how she became that way.

9. Cesar from the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy

Seeing his development throughout the movies and him saying less than 10 words in the first movie to basically being fluent in the third movie was truly something to behold. Also a Christian it was really cool how many religious themes they managed to fit into these films and his character.

8. Thomas Shelby from Peaky Blinders

Although I haven’t finished the series yet (this list may be changed in the future) he is still such a cool yet complicated character to follow as he’s not really a good person by any means, but we root for him and his family because there’s worse people out there. (And I love stories like that)

7. Master Chief from the Halo series

343 is not a perfect studio by any means but I absolutely loved how they handled his character. They struck a perfect balance between being the stoic force of nature he was established as while also adding more emotional depth to his character. He also means a lot to me personally as I started playing the games shorty before entering high-school and he’s been one of my favorites ever since.

6. Walter White from Breaking Bad

Admittedly I can’t say a whole lot about him that hasn’t been said. He is still such a great and complex character to this day as well as a cautionary tale of letting your pride get the better of you.

5. Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler

Jake Gylenhall’s performance is one of the many reasons this is my favorite movie of all time. One of the best ways I can describe this character is that he feels AI generated, and that’s not a bad thing in this case. He does a good job of playing somebody who feels less like a human and more like a monster or alien pretending to be human.

4. Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia

The best protagonist to come out of Disney Tv Animation IMO. Her character arc with her learning to stand up for herself and the frogs combined with Brenda Song’s great performance make her so memorable. Also her voice is very unique.

3. Emma from The Promised Neverland

Usually I don’t like characters that are as morally good as her but she works so well. she had every right and reason to become jaded and lose her joy but she never did. Her sheer persistence and love for her friends and family make her such a compelling character. Now that I think about it her and Nicole are kinda like two sides of the same coin.

2. Barry Berkman from Barry

I never said though I would find Bill Hader of all people scary until I discovered this show. One thing I hate in writing is when the creators don’t allow their flawed characters to be flawed, and Barry doesn’t do this at all. It does a great job of making you feel sympathy for Barry while also making you understand he is not a good man and what he does is evolve. I won’t get too personal here but I also relate to his struggle of wanting to overcome his struggles and vices while also continually falling back into them due to the people around him and his own actions.

1. Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul

I know I said this would be unranked but Saul is hands down my favorite protagonist of all time. Seeing what he went through in Beter Call Saul completely recontextualizes his character in Breaking Bad. It’s truly remarkable how the writers turned his character from (haha funny lawyer man) into one of the most tragic and complex characters in TV history.

[skyj80]

more info about Ángelito cuz im invested. please anything

I GOTCHU I GOTCHU I ALWAYS WANNA TALK ABOUT MY SON

the way I imagine Ángel looking is based off my big brother (just tanner) Side by side comparison of my bro and Ángel

His favorite musical artists are Lauryn Hill, Bruno Mars, and 50 cent

One of his favorite things to do is write lyrics to carmen's beats (she does instrumental stuff on her guitar)

He likes to freestyle rap

He has undiagnosed dyslexia

When his family got a cat, he named it coquí

he says "im sleepy, like, all the time" (someone tell this boy about depression)

He doesn't actually know Carmen named him, he thinks he was named after his dad (if u want the name lore lmk) (oooo u want the name lore so bad. you really really wanna ask my about the name lore)

he took baseball for a while and HATED it (hispanic right of passage. we've all had to take baseball at one point.)

Since carmen can no longer be the first to go to college like she always wanted he feels pressured by the rest of the family to be the first

really good at video games

mainly watches cartoons/anime

unreligious like his mom (his dad and sister are christian. His mom was christain when he was growing up but lost her faith over time)

opposite to carmen (who is always trying to see the best in their parents) Ángel see's his mom and dad very negatively

got drunk ONCE at a party and it was incredibly traumatic for him (there is gonna be a whole scene and song for that moment)

good cook

forces himself to drink his coffee with milk even though he prefers it black (his mom drinks her coffee black he doesn't like having anything in common with her)

He and Dahlia (carmen's girlfriend) have days out where she will drive him to the mall and buy him shit

always wearing a hoodie

I don't have a love interest in mind for him (nor do I think there will be character like that for him) but I think his perspective of love was skewed due to his mom and dads marriage and was only mended when he saw how deeply Carmen and Dahlia loved each other (Ángel is gonna have a song where he basically kicks his feet and giggles at the thought of his future wife)

Definitely gets the "ay bendito" treatment from his family due to his grades and lack of girlfriend LKJHGDHJK

Ill probably add to this list as I think of more

THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT MY BOY ILY

[f0point5]

I fully support the Jos Hate Brigade coming after the Ocons, also what is up with Anthony Hamilton👀👀 i am honestly getting irritated with people acting like Jos is the devil incarnate, completely ignoring how Max seems to have a pretty good relationship with him (and that radio message telling him how proud he is of him was actually so sweet)

Anthony Hamilton remortgaged his house, and quit his full time job in IT (I believe to be a contractor) to manage Lewis’s karting career. All this while he had a wife and other kids to support.

Nowhere near as bad as Ocon’s parents because while Lewis likes to insinuate that he crawled out of the gutter like a Victorian street urchin, the Hamiltons by all accounts, were a middle class family (owned property, Anthony worked a steady, skilled job). Him quitting his job didn’t mean he didn’t have income, as far as I’m aware. Contracting work pays a lot more than fixed income, you are just able to take breaks in between contracts and have a more flexible schedule, and he had the skills to return to full time work if he wanted. So not as far as betting his family’s future but still..pretty sure Lewis was about 9 at this point.

Also, he managed Lewis’s career for a long time. He was the meddling parent. Lewis eventually fired him in I think 2010. It came out that Anthony had misled Lewis over a deal that had lost him a lot of money (around 20 million if I remember right), which Anthony tried to conceal because he thought he could fix it. Lewis fired him and they then weren’t speaking, but Anthony publicly claimed that Lewis owed him about 4 million for his services as a manager. Lewis said last year that having his dad as his manager meant his dad basically wasn’t able to be an emotional available father to him.

All that, and I believe that Anthony was the one who contacted Christian about a red bull seat last year without Lewis knowing, because he’s still a meddler.

He just seems like he lived through Lewis. He gives interviews saying nothing good ever happened to him (bro you’ve been married twice and have two kids…rude) but it did for Lewis, and how driving for Ferrari was always his dream for Lewis. He also just has that same “life was oh so tough for me poor me” vibe that he seems to have forced on his son. It’s crystal clear he was the pushiest of dads, which don’t get me wrong, you need in order for a kid to be successful, but to choose to be a manager rather than a father when it matters…is he your son or your product?

Idk, he’s giving Jos Verstappen, and not in a good way. Lewis talking about his experience with his dad and comparing it to Max’s the other week in the press was the only time I was like, “yes king speak”. And to be fair he was very respectful. But he point blank said he knew how unhelpful it was when the lines get blurred.

On the Max note, I always say Jos wouldn’t get the wrap he does if more people knew what it takes to get a kid to this less of sport. Jos made his mistakes 100% but you won’t get your kid to F1 by being the perfect parent. Also, Jos did a lot wrong but you can see he probably did more right. People overlook how rare it is to be able to have the relationship he has with Max. To be Max’s age, with Max’s achievements, and his resources, and still want Jos around that much and for them to be that close, that doesn’t come from a relationship with no positives. People act like Jos was tough on Max 100% of the time, but if he wasn’t emotional present, Max wouldn’t want him around all the time, in a personal capacity. He has said many times that he calls Jos for advice on personal stuff. The fact that Max’s favourite song is still the one he used to listen to in the van with Jos on their way to Italy speaks volumes. And for all his “Verstappen 2.0” shit, it’s clear that he appreciates Max as a son. And he seems to have a good relationship with his other kids. (My controversial theory is that he is a soft girl dad but that’s a whole other thing). But yeah basically I think he is over-roasted by people who don’t really understand the industry of high performing kids.

[tvlipsandbread]

Today I read Song of the Magdalene, thanks to my friend (ily Lee <3), anyways, it’s a “Christian novel” but it’s a fictional piece. It entails of the adventures, love and tragedy of Mary Magdalene before she met Jesus. Obviously we have no clue what her life was like, but the book was interesting nonetheless and a good read. So if you already planned to read it at some point here’s a spoiler alert.

So basically the part of the book that consumes my thoughts is the relationship between Miriam ( Mary) and her love interest Abraham. Abraham is cripple, unfortunately the religious people of those times did not view it as an illness or disability, instead they dubbed him an idiot ( he was very intelligent) and cursed, or plagued by evil. Miriam also discovered and hid the fact that she experienced “fits” (she had epilepsy, I think). Anyways they fell in love, and religious or not I think it’s a type of love anyone would want.

Bear with me as I try to get to my point. Her father is rather wealthy, she’s of “age”(she was fifteen💀) and she needs to get married, she’s expected to get married to a proper Jewish man. She’s very independent and unlike the other women in her village, she also has the seizures which she keeps a secret from the majority (which makes her undesirable and not a proper fit,her words not mine). She wants to marry Abraham, but he’s cripple, it would look bad, they aren’t even sure if it was possible to conceive children in the union. So she decides she’ll never marry. Her relationship with Abraham blossoms despite this. In the latter part of the book he gets sick, and everyone in the household can tell that he’ll die. They kiss, sleep side by side, she takes care of him, she’s washed his body, oiled his feet yadda yadda, and it’s suggested that they had sex because she does end up carrying his child. He ends up dying, and her father is on edge about the pregnancy, he didn’t want his grandchild to be a “bastard”. He wished more than anything that Abraham pulled out the ring before he died, that they made their union official and public, forcing the community to accept them, it never happened. I don’t know the exact quote word for word, but Miriam says something kinda like this “married in the eyes of the creator” and calls him her husband.

Now, if anyone even sees this, I know some members of the faith might have something to say about it. It put the whole meaning of marriage in a new perspective for me. Can two people be married before they’ve actually gotten married?. I’ve never been in love so what do I know, but let’s say two people are in love, it’s a pure, honest love that’s pleasing to God. Is it possible (both partners are of faith) that God could bless the union, and accept it as a marriage, even without the ring, or the vows, or the ceremony. I would like to think so. Based on my knowledge, marriage in a spiritual point of view is not about any of those things, isn’t it the joining of two souls under the watchful eye of the Creator?. I’m sure this has been said or discussed before, I just wanted to type my thoughts.

Edit: their relationship kinda reminds me of the song fragile by laufey