#I'm not an expert on Christianity but this is what I could find from sources online

[ineffablelunatic]

Names have a massive significance for demons in Christianity - they hold power, and if you can name something you therefore have power over it. This is why priests ask for the demon's name during an exorcism - if the demon gives its name it is weakened. When the demons fell, God stripped them of their angelic names.

So when Crowley immediately tells Aziraphale, an angel, someone who should be his enemy, his name, it's not just him being friendly. It's him putting his faith in somebody he just met, saying "I trust you to know my name and not to use it against me." It shows how different he is from the other demons.

And when he changes his name to Crowley, he's rejecting the name Hell gave him. He's breaking away from who he was meant to be. He's the demon with an imagination and he's using it to forge his own path. And not only that, he immediately tells Aziraphale his new name. He's proving time and time again that he trusts his angel, that he would so willingly give him that kind of power. He's making himself vulnerable without thought.

And then again, during the church scene, when he hasn't spoken to Aziraphale for a century, he tells him his new name. He changes his name once more, moving even further away from the other demons. He takes a first name, something so fundimentally human, and still, even after such a long disagreement, he trusts Aziraphale with this vulnerability. This is the scene where Aziraphale falls in love with him. He is willing not only to enter a church for his angel and risk his life over and over, but to tell him time after time the one thing that could easily destroy him.

Crowley's love isn't shown just by saving Aziraphale from being discorporated. It's the smaller things, like telling him his name without ever doubting it. It's ineffable.

[laylajeffany]

Hiya, I've read most of your fic's and was just wondering if you did research/what kind of research you did for Chaos, mainly in witchcraft as I have some original work that I would like to do but I'm not sure where to start in researching the topic. Any advice you have would be super appreciated, and I do look forward to your future works. 🥰

A lot of the CftF magic/divination/"witchcraft" is made up/my own - a LOT of it. Usually it’s noted if something is from Wednesday’s “ancestors” or the “Frump side” which may be more aligned to actual traditions. Part of the entire point of CftF, and CERTAINLY the sequel, is that individuals can draw inspiration from many sources, but ultimately, it is up to the user to make their own meaning and thereby, magic. Intentions are everything.  A little more on the "research"/how I've done my best to be sensitive here:

Some of it is loosely interpreted from as far back as I can find lore-wise to Pre-Christian European traditions if I can find them, comparing different sources - but again, I’m trying to make up my own as much as possible to avoid appropriation. (Possibly more so than the show, as it’s not being burned so it’s hard to say if “smudging” was the intention, but there is a bundle of sage in Goody’s summoning scene.) I would say I  most consistently use traditional sources for tarot card meanings and crystal meanings. I have tried to avoid practices that are non-ancestral to myself or wouldn’t make sense for Wednesday’s family based on her heritage  (example; many of the crystal meaning interpretations come from Mayan tradition, which could make sense for Wednesday, and tarot cards are said to have origins in Italian culture and spread West, which could also make sense for her). If anything is a “closed practice” I hope you haven’t caught Wednesday utilizing it in CftF. I’ve tried to be as sensitive as possible. I’m not perfect and my beta has the same level of knowledge as I do with these topics. If I were writing professionally or making a profit off of something with this level of “magic”, I’d probably be far more thorough and speak to more experts. But this is…fanfic. So - I’ve done my best. Sometimes I’m just literally poking fun at the spiritual realm/claims of my personal enemy, Zak Bagans.  I don’t have any specific sources to send to you - and again, a lot of my stuff is made up or reimagined/interpreted as much as possible.

[songsofbloodandwater]

Witches, I'm going to need you all to learn to discern the type of source you're getting your information from, and what kind of biases are associated with it. Don't just gobble it up because it's a "historical source" or from some sort of anthropological source either.

Historical sources are great. But if the person you're taking as an authority to learn from, is someone originally from a different country and culture to the one you intend to learn, someone that talks about it in third person all the time, practically reading word for word from a christian missionary's manuscript about pre-christian traditions and beliefs, and a translation at that? because they admit that don't even speak the native language of that tradition or culture...?

They may be very well researched, on english sources at least. But I still wouldn't take them as a proper authority on the matter. They're speaking from what they've read from very biased sources. That's practically hearsay. They're not first hand experiences. Not even second-hand, because it's what an outsider to that culture saw, and very likely misinterpreted, because of their own cultural differences as an outsider, and then may even have altered some more because of their goal as a missionary. An here you come, modern reader, to try to interpret these older texts with your modern eyes, maybe even from a completely different culture to the first two involved aswell, making it a double or triple conundrum of time, culture and sociohistorical context, yet again. That is, without taking into account your own individual biases towards the text you're reading and what you expect to find, or do, for your own personal goals. Multiply all that for the amount of people standing between you, and that original first-hand account. You see the problem?

The least the author can do in such cases (because sometimes, that third-hand account really is all we have access to in the present) is 1) acknowledge how the sources they're using are biased, and 2) beware the reader on how those biases may have affected the material you're reading, to somehow be able to infer what the original would've looked like without that effect. You may want to take it a step further and consider your own sociocultural position, and how it could affect your personal interpretation upon reading it. If the author(s) don't even mention biases...? and even try to pass it all off as "certainty"...? 🚩🚩🚩

Take everything from that author with a mountain of salt. Consider it entertainment, maybe inspiration, anything except treating it as "professional" or "expert work"... as I see some people doing.

And always prioritize first-hand sources. Always. Prioritize. First. Hand. Sources. Talk to a native from that area, learn the language of the culture or tradition you're interested in, really immerse yourself in it, and you'll have an easier time spotting bullshit.

[majorbaby]

Sorry if you answered this before but how do you think the way you do 😅 I read your posts about mash and brain goes brrrrr but I want to learn how to see what you see, or at try

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're asking me is how to think critically. I'm not an expert in this field and i don't have any formal training except for one mandatory philosophy course i took in high school that remains the lowest grade i've ever received lol... so I'm going to speak from personal experience.

To some extent, I'm just like this. I don't really believe much in innate traits, so I would attribute the way I think about things to some combination of lived experience and consumption of secondary sources of information.

In recent years I've become more interested in methodologies of critical analysis and I've done some research into it but not enough to provide an authoritative list of resources*. I do keep a tag called #crit on this blog, where I file some resources that I'm interested in checking out, here's a cheatsheet for critical thinking that's a good starting point (it's not accessible to screen-readers unfortunately but i'm sure you can find some equivalent of this if you google it).

in my crit tag you'll also find micro-examples of people talking about criticism in reference to certain texts that i've found really interesting because they're widely considered to be controversial. i like reading criticism of such texts because if something is very controversial, it means that whoever is providing a fair critique of it needs to set aside certain biases that are pretty common in the mainstream. that said, there's still plenty to be gained from reading also analyses of non-contentious media and it's sometimes really fun to read those pieces - children's media analysis is fascinating.

where it comes to MASH, many of my opinions are informed by my interests in art and structural power, in that order. that's how i approach pretty much all of my media analysis. it's almost second nature at this point. would love to be able to watch a kpop video without wondering about the implications of race and gender but it's hopeless. i've leaned into it by reading a lot about art and structural power, and consuming a lot of art that concerns itself with structural power and learning about the structural powers that either enable or disable the production and consumption of art.

i mention personal interests because i think it helpful to decide what's important to you. it doesn't need to be an 'ism'... unless you're me and the isms just find their way into whatever it is i'm thinking about. identifying an angle you're interested in gives you something to 'look for' - a starting point when you're watching something. the isms work really well in this case because they're pretty much everywhere, but you could look at technical things too - production, writing, acting, etc...

now that i'm 2 years deep into the MASH thing i've read more specifically about things that are relevant to it's narrative. Objectively: medicine, the Korean War, the history and practice of comedy writing, American foreign policy, 1950s class dynamics...

and more subjectively (perhaps): Jewish comedy, trade unionism, gender performance and christian art.

the more you read and the more you think (and hopefully document some of your thoughts) the easier it will become to be a consciously critical consumer. watch out though. *i'm not an expert but beneath the cut there's a non-exhaustive list of some popular writers / thinkers / creators to whom i owe some measure of intellectual debt for their influence on my approaches to thinking about media

bertolt brecht, toni morrison, marshall mcluhan, judith butler, angela davis, ralph waldo emerson, ursula k le guin, arundhati roy, donna haraway, voltairine de cleyre, b.r. ambedkar, sarah schulman, edward said, james baldwin, michel foucault, fran lebowitz, oscar wilde, susan sontag, gayatri chakravorty spivak, noam chomsky, frantz fanon

[simuran]

Omg what a delightful rabbit hole to jump into!

I'm as far from expert on this topic as anyone can be, so I wanted to find some solid sources. M. J. McLelland's Queer Japan From the Pacific War to the Internet Age seems legit? Here's what it has to say, with interesting bits highlighted by me.

TL;DR - Taigen indeed probably didn't have a "queer awakening moment", and wasn't surprised by or ashamed of his attraction to a man.

During the Edo period there was no necessary connection made between gender and sexual preference, because men, samurai in particular, were able to engage in both same- and opposite-sex affairs. Same-sex relationships were governed by a code of ethics described as nanshoku (male eroticism) or shudō (the way of youths), in the context of which elite men were able to pursue boys and young men who had not yet undergone their coming-of-age ceremonies, as well as transgender males of all ages from the lower classes who worked as actors and prostitutes (Pflugfelder 1999; Leupp 1995). The latter group included onnagata, or female-role players, from the kabuki theater as well as kagema, or transgender prostitutes.

Male homosexuality in Japan had long been associated with both transgender performance and prostitution, associations that were to remain strong in the modern period. De Becker notes how some establishments in Yoshiwara, Tokyo’s main brothel district, “hired and offered to their patrons the services of attractive boys in the same manner as the regular brothels dealt in women” (1905: 369). These establishments had been so popular during the Edo period that some Japanese historians, somewhat implausibly, suggest that they had a retarding effect upon population growth (Kuno 1937: 367—8). Although popularly referred to as kodomo-ya, or ��children’s houses,” the brothels also employed young men who catered to a female clientele, including, it was rumored, ladies-in-waiting from the shogun’s harem (Kuno 1937: 367). [the prostitutes] were understood to have become transgendered for professional purposes—that is, to earn a living—and while they would offer sexual services to other men (and occasionally women), their transgender performance said nothing about their own sexual preferences.

“The other paradigm within which male homosexual relationships took place was age related, tracing its origins back to Buddhist monasteries in the Heian period (794-1185), where adult monks could establish sexual relationships with young child acolytes known as chigo. This practice supposedly derived from China, and like other borrowings from the continent, it “was seen as part of a civilizing process” (Faure 1998: 227).” Unlike in the Christian world, where “sodomy” was perceived as a serious sin, sometimes punished at the stake, Japanese Buddhism not only tolerated intergenerational relationships between monks and boys but even offered doctrinal support for them (Faure 1998: 213).

Due to the fact that many samurai were educated in the monasteries, the “way of youths” also became popular among Japan’s military elite. Within this system, an adult, known as a nenja, or “man who loves,” could court and become the lover of a youth known as a chigo (page) or wakashū (youth) who had not yet undergone the coming-of-age ceremony and had his forelocks shaved (Furukawa 1994: 100). At this time nanshoku (eroticism between men) and joshoku (eroticism between men and women) were not seen as mutually incompatible; neither nenja nor wakashū were yet, in Foucault’s terms, seen as distinct “species” (1990: 43). Similarly, transgender performers such as onnagata and kagema were seen not as distinct personality types, still less as deviant “sexualities,” but as occupational categories

And here's something for the Mizu/Akemi shippers!

[...] there is surprisingly little representation of women’s same-sex desire in Edo-period culture. Although instances of same-sex sexual acts between women are recorded in a variety of literary, artistic and other sources, such acts were not codified into a dō, or “way,” of loving, and there is little discussion of (or terminology for) specific roles adopted by women. The polarized, role-based style that structured sexual interactions between men seems not to have been reduplicated in relationships between women, although, as Leupp (1998) points out, many of the incidents involving women’s same-sex love in the literature do involve women of different status, such as mistress and servant or paying client and courtesan. Significantly, while nanshoku, made up of the characters for “man” and “eroticism,” was a general term covering a variety of forms of love practiced between men, joshoku, made up of the characters for “woman” and “eroticism,” actually referred to love relationships between men and women. No concept existed at this time that referred in a general sense to women’s same-sex love (Wu 2002: 68) and there was no way of cognitively linking both male and female “homosexuality”.

Compared with numerous literary sources discussing sexual and romantic affairs between men (Miller 1996; Ihara Saikaku [1687] 1990; Watanabe and Iwata 1989), incidents involving women are far fewer, and no texts that take the love between women as their central theme seem to have been written during this era. However, the fact that women did desire and provide sexual pleasure for other women was acknowledged, particularly in erotic woodblock prints known as shunga. Most (but not all) of these illustrations showing women pleasuring each other were created by male artists and were most probably enjoyed by a male clientele. Further underlining the phallocentrism of the culture, they usually portray the use of dildos as penis substitutes. Dildos were commercially available in sex shops in both Edo and Osaka. The fact that catalogues describing tagaigata or dildos “for mutual pleasure” write the term “mutual” with nonstandard characters,” including two “woman” (onna) radicals (Leupp 1998: 24), suggests that women purchased these devices and used them together. Whether desire between women was always mediated by a penis substitute is impossible to deduce from surviving representations; cunnilingus between women, like fellatio between men, for example, is never depicted in erotic artwork of the period (Leupp 1998: 34).

Sadly, I can't seem to find anything about women cross-dressing as men, or trans men, or anything that could be applicable to Mizu's situation really. Anyone has an advice where to look for it?

been seeing some stuff on blue eye samurai and big yikes to nearly everyone pushing extremely western ideals onto these characters.

this is early edo period. 1600s. the japan you know now did not exist yet.

yall. please. there was NO concept of sexuality in pre-modern japan. that came with both the influx of christianity and western influence very very late in history. like, mid-1800s. (yes, there was christianity pre-1800s but it was not a widespread idea yet and wouldn't be until about the 1800s since, y'know, missionaries were routinely murdered before then)

"so and so is either bi and hasn't figured it out yet or..." no. that isn't how it worked then. nobody gave a shit what was between your legs. anyone could be attracted to anyone else. it was a little more common for male homosexual relationships to be between an adult and younger male - like many other places around the world - but two adult men could bang and love each other just as easily. relationships between women were quite common - especially since so many men were often away at war. there's tons of pornographic prints from the time depicting all manner of fun queer relationships. sex itself had absolutely no moral assignment to it. good sex was good health. it didn't matter who with. (well, social class/caste mattered more than anything else tbh but that didn't stop upper and lower class from fucking.) that isn't to say people didn't have preferences. of course they did. that is human nature. preferences arose more from physical appearance, caste, and circumstances with gender being about the last thing one would look for in a partner - romantic, casual, or otherwise. the only role in sex where gender actually mattered was for procreation.

there would be no queer awakening moment, no sudden switch flipped, no stigma to have internal conflicts about because it simply did not exist as a concept whatsoever. you were either attracted to a person or you weren't, it was that simple. gender played no role when it came to sex and sexual attraction. the japanese were lightyears ahead of western cultures in this particular area - like most cultures were before christianity came in and ruined everything with its backwards morals and strict good/evil dichotomy.

yall have got to realize queer rep will not and should not always adhere by modern western standards. there was no straight, gay, bi, or anything else of the sort. the closest they ever got was referring to roles during sex - as in who is giving and who is receiving.

i know this is mostly a made up story but it is still set within a very specific time period and culture, which should be honored and respected by not making it fit into our box. tons of research went into making this show historically accurate (albeit with some discrepancies but tbh they aren't really that huge) right down to the calligraphy writing. please please please don't whitewash the culture from these characters.

i say this mainly because without this knowledge, so many of you are going to build these characters up on a foundation they aren't meant to be on and then you'll rage about queerbaiting and bad queer rep if it isn't somehow super explicitly stated, if it doesn't match your very modern, very western ideal of what queer looks like. don't try to force this plot and narrative and characters into something they canonically and historically aren't. headcanons are a thing, AUs are a thing, fanfiction is a thing - leave your western thinking for those and let these characters simply exist as they should otherwise. this is one of those times where the queerness really does not need to be examined at all beyond what we get.

i know it can be hard to wrap your head around - sexuality is such a huge part of our identity in the western world and has slowly started to spread amongst other parts of the world in importance. but just keep in mind with these particular characters, that concept would be so very alien to them.

[rudjedet]

I've been getting really into researching gnosticism lately, and i found some info about the gnostic god abraxas possibly having egyptian origins, is this true? if so do you know where i could possibly find some sources on that?

As far as I know Abraxas was an aspect of/in the gnostic system of Basilides of Egypt, a Christian gnostic who lived in Alexandria in the second century AD, so in that broadest and rather pedantic sense "Egyptian origins" could be considered correct. But I think what you're getting at, considering you're asking me, is whether or not the deity Abraxas originates in ancient Egyptian religion/was based on an ancient Egyptian deity. I'm not an expert on this by any means, and for proper sources on gnosticism I'd refer you to @normal-horoscopes. From what I have read myself, the theories that Abraxas has its origins in ancient Egyptian religion and/or a specific deity are extremely tenuous, at any rate.

[starlight-otter]

I saw your post randomly on my dash and it got me curios. Since you're an archeologist you most likely came in contact with ancient ritualic places and the literature about it. As a pagan, do you find similarities with what ancient civs did? Do you find differences? Do you see any place to even compare oast and present paganism?

I should probably preface this by saying that my area of interest is pre-Roman ‘Celtic’ Britain, specifically England. So I can only answer this question from this stand point. And I am no means an expert. I'm always open to learning more if anyone knows of any credible sources of information about the ancient Celts.

Also I don’t mean to insult anyone’s beliefs, I apologise if I accidentality do.

The problem with comparing modern and ancient practices is that there is such a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices in both, and most of ancient practices have been lost to time, never to be recovered. We know almost nothing about pre-Roman belief systems in Britain (most of what we know are death practices), and what we do know is often clouded in bias. The only written contemporary sources of the Celts we have was written by the Romans, and who knows what lies they put in to make themselves look good/slander their enemies/justify their invasion. And folklore was only written down (presumably) centuries after first appearing in the oral tradition, written by Christian monks with their own biases. Even modern archaeology is rife with bias, the classic one being ‘grave with sword means it is a man’s grave’ (DNA testing is proving that it is not always the case).

Reconstructionists of various specialities (Kemetic, Celtic, ect) do try to keep their beliefs as close to the original religion as we know about them, but as we don’t know 100% of the information they have had to fill in holes with personal beliefs or from other cultures with similar beliefs. But they are as close as the original as we can currently get.

Modern/generic ‘Paganism’/Wicca/ect on the other hand bears no relation to one single tradition and consists of bits of many different religions, some that perhaps shouldn’t have been incorporated in the first place. People seem to have picked and chosen different things from lots of different cultures and each person has picked from a different set of beliefs (and sometimes their first religion, seemingly mainly Catholic, slips in unconsciously as well). So there is very little commonality between those paths and those trodden by pre-Christian cultures. Even some people who claim to hold Celtic beliefs seem (to me, someone who doesn't know what the inside of their mind looks like so I could be completely wrong) to follow something completely different to what archaeologists have inferred about ancient Celtic practices. I do wonder how much of that is down to personal choice and how much of that is down to misinformation spread over the internet (no one ever cites their sources and that really bugs me). I have seen some people claim various things as being ‘Celtic’ and I’ve wondered where they got their (sometimes definitely bogus) information as it’s not something I’ve come across from the archaeological record (please cite sources, I want to learn more).

TLDR: I guess my answer is that paganism runs the whole spectrum from ‘as close to what we currently know’ to ‘does not bear any resemblance at all’, at least in terms of pre-Roman Celtic Britain. And that’s ok. But if people want to adapt their beliefs and practices to be more ‘Celtic’ they need to read books and papers written by archaeologists and historians and ignore random people off the internet who do not cite their sources. People can believe what they want, just please don’t pass off personal belief as ‘fact’.

[irohlegoman]

@yippers is asking the hard questions, BUT its incorrect, sorry.

Now I'm not a biblical expert, but I can do research (this isn't a call out). Here's my findings:

Adam isn't the first man in Heaven; it'd technically be Abel.

In some the Abrahamic religions and religious texts (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), it is said that Adam lived to about 930 years, (or that many years after leaving Eden).

(Side note: Adam could have also lived to be about 75-77 years. One of the earliest time keeping methods was the cycle of the Moon, every 29.5 days.

930 moon cycles * 29.5 days = 27,435 days / 365.25 days in a year = ~75 years)

I Digress.

It is also said that, along with Cain and Abel, there was also Seth, and about 9-14 unnamed children. (Some sources also named Awân, daughter after Cain&Abel, and Azura, daughter after Seth)

Biblically, when Adam died, at least Eve and Seth were still alive. And since he repented, God gave Adam and Eve garments of light.

In Hazbin Hotel, we never hear that Adam is the First in Heaven, just the First MAN.

---

Episode 1

ADAM: (recounting a story) ""Do you know who I am? I'm F**king Adam. I'm the original D**k. All d**ks decend from me. ... I'm the d**k-f**cking-master." ..."

Charlie: "Wait, you're name is Adam? Like the First man "Adam"? That means you... Ohhhh, that explains so much."

...

Charlie: "... I know you're the leader of the angels..."

----

Later, in Episode 6, it is asked "how does one get into Heaven?" And Sera refers to Adam. While this does seem like she asking g the first person that died, it could also be that Adam is the only one in that trial that actually died. The other members, like the Seraphims Sera and Emily, are angelic beings, which could also be alluded by the confused and unknown look from them when Emily repeats Adam's question, "Yeah, why isn't [Angel Dust] here?" And Charlie's follow up, "Wait, none of you know what gets someone into Heaven?"

The last time we have any lengthy contact with Adam is the the final battle between Adam and Charlie/Lucifer. In that, the only thing of importance was Lucifer's remark on Adam's first and second wives. But a discussion for another time.

In conclusion, while Adam is the First Man, he's not the first man in Heaven.

Good thought and question @yippers

Extra Info:

Adam's story doesn't appear elsewhere outside of Genesis 1-5. The Apostle Paul does make mention to him and his "original sin" (need to follow up on the "sin" source)

In almost all translations, Eve was made from Adam's rib. This is a bit of a mistranslation, as it the word/phase used means "half or side."

Also, in creating Eve, God mentions something about creating a "helper" for Adam. The phrase could also be translated as "Rescuer" or "Savior". As Adam's job was to maintain the Garden of Eden, in what way does Adam need saving?

As some may know the word "adam" is referred as "man/mankind." Essentially Adam's name could be called "Man". This could be similar in the we nowadays call people "Guy(s)" after it being a British term steming from Guy Fawks, a member of the failed Gunpowder Plot in 1605.

What are your thoughts on the fact that Adam being the first soul in heaven either means he died before the whole Kain and Abel incident, or Abel went to hell which would also mean hell had souls before heaven?

I am afraid I do not have the bible lore stored in me to understand this

[ineffectualdemon]

I was talking to my sibling the other day about how, when Kiddo told me their friend came out as queer to them, I immediately was "I'm available as a resource if they need an adult to talk to"

And they said they do the same sort of thing on a discord server for LGBTQIA youth related to their church (they are attached to one of the more progressive Christian churches)

What we both felt was an intense obligation to stand up and be mentors and resources and sources of comfort for the younger queer generation

Because we didn't have that.

I was born in 1983. I was a baby or a very young child for the majority of the aids crisis but it definitely impacted my experience growing up queer.

I was too young to know anyone personally who had died in the aids crisis and I won't pretend it affected me in the same way as people who did.

But it did affect me in that the loss of so many queer elders through aids meant not only the loss of those individuals but the death and loss of networks and communities. Especially in smaller towns like mine. And because AIDs and violence was the only thing I heard about being queer

The sheer amount of violence and hatred that was so openly aimed at the queer community was staggering. It's no wonder that I was too scared to even say to myself that I liked girls as a teenager.

It wasn't just debates on whether gay marriage was okay in school. It was debates of if being openly gay or lesbian was even morally acceptable at all debated in school

I heard people who claimed to be liberal arguing that firing teachers for being openly gay was justified.

A priest came to my church and did a sermon that began "some people are under the mistaken impression that God cares what you do in bed" that was pro gay rights and people lost their shit and railed against him

I remember Matthew Shepard's death and hearing from kids at school that he "got what he deserved"

I remember a girl three years above me in school getting the shit beaten out of her on prom night because she went with a female friend because neither of them had dates and everyone assumed they were lesbians

She wasn't understand. But just because she didn't conform to the heterosexual script enough she had the shit beaten out of her.

And I so wish there was someone appreciatively older that I could have talked to. That I could have asked questions of or sought guidance from.

Someone who wouldn't laugh at me for being confused. Who could understand. Who had been there.

But I didn't even know where to look to find anything.

The only queer community was my older siblings generation and a few years above and they were all floundering as well. We were universally lost and directionless and constantly asked to justify existing

And no I wasn't out but that's because it was easier to argue for queer being okay if it was about someone else.

It was safer.

And I just...I wish little pre teen me would have had a friendly, trustworthy, mom or dad who I could have gone to and I know my sibling feels the same way.

And that's why me and my sibling feel we need to be that for the next generations.

Because it's scary to feel alone.

I am no expert and I am not the best resource in the world. But if someone needs to know it's okay. That who they are is okay.

I'm here.

You're not alone.

[oberin]

Except... it's not white people that started slavery, it's not white people that sold the most slaves, it's not white people that still have slaves; it's actually white people that fought to free slaves. Also, it's muslims - recently, like a week back - that sold a group of Africans for 200$ each as slaves. Have you talked about it? Let me guess - you haven't. Because, as nearly every person here, you care more about hating white people, than helping black people.

Originally, I wrote this long thing. I waffled about posting the long thing. I thought maybe posting a “Fuck this shit. I’m white, you fucker and I’ll fucking hate on whites all I want.” b/c really, fuck that shit. That’s a very white mentality, very spoiled. Like a child.. The more I still think on this, the more I realize that yeah, I should actually post the Long Thing b/c I wrote it. I sat down, took the time out of my life, utilized Spoons that I could have been using to make my life - my DAY funner, but I didn’t. I don’t owe this to you. I owe this to me.

So, moving on….

I got this very “interesting” (and I use this term very lightly!) comment in my inbox. Interesting in the way that it made my eyebrows rise and go “Oh, really?” It is Anonymous of course. It speaks of slavery and states that whites are good! That we were heroes and tried to stop slavery. For that reason alone, I’m going to assume that the grey-faced anon is white. Possibly even white supremacist. The original comment has a light-test-the-waters-smack of Islamphobia. I say light testing b/c it’s almost done in a way that’s trying to bait a person, to see where they stand about Muslims, or Islam…

I am assuming (and here I could very well be making an ASS out of U and Me with my assumption) that it’s in part to the Trevor Noah quote from his book. A quote that struck me very much that white people need to stop seeing POC as lesser than human because we need to stop seeing POC as less than human. What I think people are failing to realize is that Trevor Noah CAME from South Africa, NOT the US of A. The racism is racism but it seems like it’s almost a different brand of it. However, it could have been a passing person who just wanted to puke in my inbox and didn’t even see the quote, but I digress.

I’m not sure if Nony here is trying to do a blanket statement of all white people because I'm sorry, have you heard a lot of the things coming from the mouths of some of the assholes from the world? They say horrible things, and if they say it, then they’ve probably thought about it.

A good part of the whites still think that the African American folk should still be slaves. So, where were the whites fighting the cause there? When they got the blacks they stole to build the US for them? Or was it when they slaughtered a lot of the Indeginous peoples? Or maaaaybe it was in South Africa and the Apartheid that happened? Pretty sure not there! If there were whites fighting for that cause they would be slim pickings. A small handful, not the masses like you make it sound. 

Assuming that I’m not white, is a mistake on your part. I am white. Pretty fucking lily white. So me hating on white people and their shitty ways is fine. I feel that I can call out another white person on that. That is what we SHOULD be doing. It’s like dudebros calling out their dudebros when they make sexist and rape apologist comments.

I keep coming back to this part: 

Also, it’s muslims - recently, like a week back - that sold a group of Africans for 200$ each as slaves. Have you talked about it? Let me guess - you haven’t.

First: You say that I havn’t spoke about this thing that supposedly happened. I’m not a damned information hub. Do I look like fucking Google? One can’t talk about something they don’t know anything about. If I haven’t seen it, or been able to find anything but historical information, then I can’t really discuss it with much of a grain of salt. I am not a scholar or a professor, nor am I an expert. My views can and will change when given information from more than one source, a credible news source btw.

Taking the time to do some more reading and searching, I found that there were multiple articles about Muslims selling Africans as slaves but in a historical context from time frames where they did this as far back as the 15th century. I really hope that’s not where you were getting your info from! A lot of quotes from the Quran possibly taken out of context because a lot more than a few of those sites were extreme Christianity sites with lots of claims that Christians needed to send money to “Save the poor Africans” and that “Christians are being tortured and murdered as we speak!” Everything on that one page was singing praises for what good the Christians did for the whole of humanity. I will kindly bite my tongue on that shit.

WAIT!! Sorry, back up the truck there Chuck. The only three things that I came across that was even remotely close was that Daesh had sold Yazidi women into slavery which is in Iraq. The video was from Feb 15, 2017, and a weird post on Facebook about “ABDUL FOR SALE: SAUDI ON FACEBOOK REPORTEDLY SELLING CASTRATED BLACK AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVE.” which was from four years ago, and then finally, a post on, you know what, here is the link to it. I’m not making it pretty for you. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13067 This was from 2013.

So, please Nony, give me some more information from sites about these Muslims that have sold Africans as slaves recently as you said, from more than one site.

Who had slaves first isn’t the game I’m playing here. Not even really playing a game. Slavery is probably on almost every continent, and probably still going on in some form. Gentrification, anyone? Gated communities? Apartheid that happened in South Africa, anyone? ( While I know that Apartheid might have ended, much like the slavery in the US and Canada (That was a shock to learn for this Canadian!), the effects are still very much in play. )

I’m saying is that I agree with Trevor Noah’s comment that whites shouldn’t see POC as less than human. If whites didn’t see POC as less than human, the mere idea of enslaving them like they/we did would have been unconscionable. But whites didn’t think that way. No. We thought that taking people from their homes ( around the world we did it! while committing cultural genocide no less!) and forcing them to live like animals was a GOOD thing, that it was beneficial for THEM.

I do have to say though, that it is looking like you got some Islamophobia going on there. I have no hatred for Muslims and will not ever have hatred for them. Daesh is not Muslim or followers of Islam. They’re a different story. They’re like the KKK.

… To wrap this up, I am white. I also sometimes hate whites because of what we’ve done. We have done incredibly horrible things to POC in history. We continue to do horrible things to POC. We are fucking horrible in almost every way. If there is a small handful of “good” white people who have tried to help POC, it’s still not enough. You need to wake up and realize that white people aren’t that great. We are lack luster.

I do what I can to be an ally. Sometimes I fail at that but I do try to learn and to do better. I am human and I make mistakes. I try to learn from them and move on.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN COMPANY

I read was so electrifying that I remember exactly where I was at the time. Actually, the fad is the word blog, at least by legal standards.1 Real standards don't have to buy a drink, and they pay it to the employee in the hope that he'll make something worth more than they learned from us. But it should be better not just for me but for most people you could ask. This is a critical phase—this is where ideas come from—and then used this to squeeze money from the written word probably require different words written by different people. Growth is why VCs want to invest in photo-sharing apps, rather than as a way of saving you work, rather than because they wanted to write a book.2 But software, as a sort of time capsule, here's why I don't like the look of Java: It has been so thoroughly picked over that a startup generally has to work on your projects, he can work wherever he wants on projects of their own are enormously more productive. A lot of them don't care that much personally about whether founders keep board control.

The way people act is just as bad as I'd feel if I spent the whole day on the sofa and watched TV all day—days at the end of which, if I asked myself what I got done that day, the answer seemed obvious.3 Apparently some people in the music business hope to retroactively convert it away from publishing, by getting listeners to pay for subscriptions. Indeed, one quality all the founders shared this summer was a spirit of independence. The first essay of his that I read was so electrifying that I remember exactly where I was at the time. Sound is a good cue to problems. But I didn't use the term slippery slope by accident; customers' insatiable demand for custom work will always be pushing you toward the bottom. Now that the medium is evaporating, publishers have nothing left to sell.4 One group got an exploding term-sheet from some VCs. Some of this summer's eight startups will probably grow faster than the percentage they sell to investors shrinks. We would have been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period, and mixed together with a lot of potential energy built up, as the examples of open source and blogging?5 Treating indentation as significant would eliminate this common source of bugs as well as limiting your potential and protecting you from competitors, that geographic constraint also helps define your company. Most of the legal restrictions on employers are intended to be the way most fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through bad investments.

The effort that goes into looking productive is not merely influence but command: often the expert hackers are the very qualities we associate with professionalism. In young hackers, optimism predominates.6 They may be surprised how well this works. Why didn't better content cost more? Electricity seemed an airy intangible. And God help you if you fire anyone.7 No one wants to bother. The reason is that they get paid by getting their capital back, ideally after the startup IPOs, or failing that when it's acquired. Like rich food, idleness only seems desirable when you don't get enough of it.8 Who does like Java?9

The optimal ways to make money from the merchants in that business. Hackers love to build hardware, and customers love to buy it. Their search also turned up parse. It is, alas, an atrociously bad one. The DoD likes it.10 You don't have to think about something I hadn't had to think about before: how not to lose it. I probably read two or three articles on individual people's sites for every one I read on the site of a newspaper or magazine. Since software patents are evil are saying simply patents are evil.11 At any rate they didn't pursue the suit very vigorously.12 That may be the same shape, scaled up.

I've spent mostly in front of computers, and I feel as if I've learned, to some degree. But there are limits to how well they'll be able to reach most of the members don't like it. Focusing on hitting a growth rate they think they can hit, and then just try to hit it every week. Sometimes infix syntax is easier to read. They treat the words printed in the book the same way a textile manufacturer treats the patterns printed on its fabrics. But another kind of efficiency will be increasingly important: the number of startups is that we get on average only about 5-7% of a much larger number.13 Common Lisp. It was surprising—slightly frightening even—how do you make a language that might go away, as so many programming languages do. The reason they make less money now is that people don't need as much paper.

Notes

All languages are equally powerful in the time I thought there wasn't, because such companies need huge numbers of users to do certain kinds of content. Something similar happens with suburbs.

If you invest in it, but at least guesses by pros about where those market caps will end up saying no to drugs. But that doesn't seem to have them soon. It doesn't take a job after college, you'll find that with a real partner.

Software companies can hire unskilled people to endure the stress of a placeholder than an ordinary adult slave seems to have, however. In every other respect they're constantly being told that they are by ways that have already launched or can be fooled by the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1. But then I realized the other reason it's easy to discount, but investors can get it, and suddenly they need them to get significant numbers of people we need to learn to acknowledge as well as problems that have bad ideas is to carry a beeper?

It didn't work, done mostly by hackers.

You're investing your own. Japanese are only slightly richer for having these things.

If a bunch of other VCs who don't aren't.

Programming in Common Lisp seems to have lunch at the exact same thing, because his ideas were one of a long time for word of mouth to get the people who said they wanted to make it harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we realize, because they think they're just mentioning the site was about bands. If the Mac was so great, why is New York. Back when students focused mainly on getting a job after college, they say that one Calvisius Sabinus paid 100,000 drachmae for the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The First Two Hundred Years.

If you don't know of no counterexamples, though, so the best thing they can get rich by preserving their traditional culture; maybe people in 100 years ago it would take forever in the sort of things you want to sell hardware without trying to steal a big change from what the earnings turn out to be better to make software incompatible. For example, America's abnormally high incarceration rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you a clean offer with no deadline, you don't, you're not sure. Believe it or not, don't make users register to get the answer is simple: pay them to represent anything.

It is a list of n things seems particularly collectible because it's told with a cap.

Since people sometimes call us VCs, I want to change. The situation is analogous to the same thing, because despite some progress in the usual way will prove to us. Google adopted Don't be evil.

What's the connection? He devoted much of the living. Faced with the fact that it would be to go the bathroom, and their flakiness is indistinguishable from those of popular Web browsers, including principal and venture partner. I think so.

It would probably a mistake to do good work and thereby earn the respect of their works are lost. There is no different from technology companies between them so founders can get cheap plane tickets, but if you tell them to represent anything. This law does not appear to be important ones. But so many startups from Philadelphia.

To help clarify the matter, get rid of everyone else books a package tour. Many of these groups, which is something there worth studying, especially if you needed in present-day English speakers have a notebook to write great software in Lisp. In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a base of evangelical Christianity in the room, you might be tempted, but that this isn't strictly true, because to translate this program into C they literally had to ask for more of a promising lead and should in some ways First Round Capital is closer to a 2002 report by the surface similarities.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Imagine it. Kara arrives in time for a feast celebrating the High King Flann. He travels everywhere with his daughter-- in part to not have her parted from his sight, in part to train her in matters of state and station. She in turn has two constant companions-- her irish wolfhound, protector and friend, and her pagan nurse, who raised her to remember the old ways after Lena's mother dies. Her nurse, Aoife, is as a mother to Lena, and wholly trusted. It is she who suggests to Lena that she suggest allowing a personal bodyguard-- specifically brawny vikingr currently in their midst.

Kara is only too happy to oblige, intrigued and mesmerized in equal measure. It is a sign of trust for Dublin's hopeful king, for his cousin to ward the High Princess. In short order, Lena and Kara are thick as thieves. Kara's protection means greater freedom for Lena, who uses it to visit pockets of struggling pagans with foid and money. In their travels, they hear tell of druidic cult of fanatics preying on christians and pagans alike, seeking to destabilize the political structure of Ireland. At hearing that Lena could be a potential target, Kara advises that they return to the King's camp. Lena has other ideas-- which include learning more about the cult.

In the course of a few close calls, Kara learns that Lena, for all her beauty and fine manners, is an expert swordswoman. If anything, it only makes Kara desire her more, to see Lena with her teeth bared in battle, and blood splattered across her fine features.

"If I didn't know any better," Kara jokes as they wash off in a small, green glen, "I'd think you had a little vikingr in you."

Eventually, they return to the King, and tell him of what they have learned-- an attack on the King's camp is imminent. Instead of allowing Lena to help fight, Lena's father has her locked away for protection. Kara fights with the soldiers, and during the bloody battle, she's confused when the enemy suddenly withdraws without reason. Then it clicks.

It was all a diversion.

"Lena!" Kara bellows, barreling into the keep. She races to Lena's chambers, only to find Lena's wolfhound wounded and Lena nowhere to be found. Aoife is missing as well, both seemingly kidnapped by the Children of Danu.

Except, as we come to with Lena in the next scene, we learn that Aoife is in fact working with the Children of Danu-- has been, since before Lena's mother died and left Lena in her care. She forces Lena to drink a potion that leaves her compliant and weak, and Lena's last waking thought is that she hopes Kara is able to find her, and soon.

And Kara does, through a surprising source-- Lena's father, King Flann, remembers his wife once spoke of a place of great pagan power. It was used for the highest pagan rituals. He describes it to Kara, and does his best to draw her a map to find it. With his knowledge, Kara finds the glen under the height of the full moon. The air hums with chanting, and in the moon-brightened dark Kara can see Lena bound and laid out on an altar, her hair shimmering upon the stone.

Aoife declares to all in attendance that Lena's blood will return Ireland to its roots, and drive out the Christian lords who seek to oppress them. With her blood, Ireland will be whole once more. She raises the dagger over Lena's chest, chanting to the heavens, prepared to plunge it into the heart of her ward.

No one sees Kara nock her bow or fire the arrow that knocks the dagger from Aoife's hands. In the battle that ensues, Kara fights like a berserker, fueled by rage and the need to protect Lena at all costs. Aoife is the last to fall, gutted by her own blade.

When cultists are all dead, Kara turns to Lena and carefully cups her cheek. "Lena?"

Lena's eyes roll, trying to force themselves open against the drugged sleep keeping her pliant. "K'ra?"

"I'm here," Kara says. She scoops Lena from the altar and cradles her in her arms. "You're safe."

"Aoife..."

"I know," Kara assures her. She carries Lena from the bloodsoaked glen, until they reach a lake nearby. There Kara settles onto the grass, Lena cradled against her chest. "She won't hurt you ever again."

There, Kara waits as Lena sleeps off the potion, wondering whether this will be the end of the cult, or if it will only intensify their fight against the Christians. In the end, Kara decides that is a worry for other men than she.

For now, she has Lena. For now, that is all that matters.

Finished Wrath of the Druids and can't get over the idea of Lena being the daughter of the Irish High King, whose mother was pagan, and Kara being the viking assigned to protect her. Imagine it. Lena having the songs of her mother's people. Advocating for the pagans against her father's increasingly harsh Christian rule. The Children of Danu targeting Lena not only as a weakness for her father but also as a powerful tool to return the old ways. As the last of a powerful line of High Priestesses, her sacrifice will awaken the old gods who will cleanse Ireland of the Christians... unless Kara can get to her in time....

The intrigue. The romance. The human sacrifice. It's really got it all.