#I'm the first to shit on Christianity because history is fucked up and i think i would autocombust as soon as i step in a church

[ilikeclue]

Here's the thing. I appreciate all the social awareness that's going on, but y'all need to stop turning it into extreme individualism (not sure if it's the correct word, not my first language).

Let alone the fact that that you shouldn't burden your friends or people close to you or shitty stuff like that, because guess what? Friendships are exactly that, people who in honour of the love they hold to each other chose to share the burden with and for you. I want your burden and I want to be your burden. And if you drop your friends as soon as they say or do something not perfect you're a shitty friend.

But also all the stuff like "don't offer food because that person could be allergic or go against their religion and shit". If I knew I wouldn't, but given that I don't know them that well as to know those things I am going to offer. It's up to them to decline, I'm not holding a knife at their throat, I'm in a position of abundance and I'm offering to share it. It's up to you to set and respect your boundaries, if you can't do that I can't do it for you, I can just respect those you give me.

And people are gonna fuck up, we are humans, that's what we do, and you should allow people to fuck up in order to become a better person. And throw your fucking puritanism out of the window because if somebody said something controversial 10 years ago it's their fucking business.

[fdelopera]

Yo Goyim! Looks like I'm going to need to give some of you a crash course on what antisemitic language looks like, because I've been seeing entirely too much of it from some of you here on Tumblr.

Now, I think it's time for a Jewish history lesson, because I've been seeing way too many Nazi-related conspiracy theories going around. If you hear contradictions to the basic information that I am about to share (i.e., if you hear someone saying that the Jewish people are "a race that originated in Europe"), it is likely that you are hearing a white supremacist, anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.

So, here's the basics of Jewish history. Jews are indigenous to the Levant have been there for thousands of years. The Levantine people that Jews descended from have been in that area of the Levant since the Bronze Age. Jews as a distinct people have been there since the Late Bronze Age. Before it was Palestine it was the Kingdom of Judah, then Judea, and then Judaea, and that is literally where we are from. The word Jew means "a person from the Kingdom of Judah." The Romans renamed the area Syria-Palaestina (which they borrowed from the Greek name Palestina) in the 2nd century CE after destroying the Second Temple in Jerusalem and leading another campaign to try to eradicate the Jewish people (guess what, we're still here, motherfuckers).

And even after the Romans tried to annihilate us, even after they scattered many of us into European diaspora, many Jews came back, again and again over the ages, and there have nearly always been Jewish communities in the region throughout history.

And if you come for me or try to dispute any of this history with white supremacist bullshit, I am a Jew who has studied way more Jewish history than you. And as politely as possible, you can take your white supremacist conspiracy theories and fuck off into the sun.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's get into it!

Gloves are coming off, because this is just a sampling of the Nazi dogwhistles I've been seeing here on Tumblr about the Jewish civilians who were tortured, murdered, and worse:

- If you say shit like, "The Jews got what they deserved"...

GUESS WHAT? You're talking like a white supremacist, and you need to fucking check yourself.

- And if, on the other hand, you say shit like, "The reports were probably overblown. I think those were paid actors. I don't think those Jews were murdered. No Jewish children were killed. No Jewish bodies were desecrated" blahblahblah...

GUESS WHAT? You get to sit with the Nazis at their table for lunch.

- If you tell Jews "go back to Europe where you came from"...

GUESS WHAT? Not only are you telling the descendants of Jewish refugees to go back to the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the Nazi gas chambers, as I explained in this post, but you are also repeating a white supremacist conspiracy theory about the origins of European Jews.

Jews are a Levantine people from the area of the Middle East currently called Israel (formerly called the Kingdom of Judah, and then Judea). While there was some emigration to Europe during the late Roman Republic and the early days of the Roman Empire, the first mass migration of Jews to Europe was a forced migration. Gentiles from the Roman Empire dragged us there as captives after 70 CE, the year Rome destroyed the Second Temple.

- And if you're telling yourself that there are "good Jews" and "bad Jews," and those Jewish civilians were "bad Jews," so they deserved to be tortured and killed...

GUESS WHAT? You're spouting white supremacist ideology.

Antisemitism takes a long time to deprogram.

A lot of gentiles grow up with anti-Jewish ideology that they have never questioned.

And a lot of Christians are kept ignorant about Jewish history because preachers and priests fear it would make Christians question the many inaccuracies in the Bible.

But the first step in noticing antisemitic beliefs is to notice when you start singling people out *because* they are Jewish.

And I have been seeing some of you gleefully celebrating the murder of Jewish civilians *because* they are Jewish.

And that is antisemitism.

That is one step closer to the next generation of Jews getting shoved into the gas chambers. And there are only 16 million of us left in the entire world. We're 0.2% of the world's population. And we cannot afford another Holocaust.

And if your response to me saying that is, "Well, those Jews deserve it."

Guess what. You are making it easier for Nazis and white supremacists to spread hatred and commit acts of violence against Jewish people. And you will have to live with that blood on your conscience.

So...

If you are a gentile, and you see other gentiles repeating these kinds of white supremacist dogwhistles about Jewish people, here's how you can help:

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Help them direct their focus away from attacking random Jewish people online and towards helping Palestinians.

Actions that people can take right now are contributing to verified charities and relief organizations that help the people of Gaza. Only donate to organizations that are verified by CharityNavigator.org and CharityWatch.org.

2. Call that shit out. Tell people that they're being antisemitic, and explain that Jew-hatred is dangerous to Jewish people. Antisemitism gets Jews attacked and it gets Jews killed. In the US, many synagogues require round the clock security to protect against white supremacists who want to murder Jews. In Pittsburgh, my old home town, a group of Nazis from north of the city planned the murder of Jewish congregants at Tree of Life Synagogue, and so far only one of them (the gunman) has been arrested and convicted of the murders. The others are still at large.

3. Explain to them that it is antisemitic to celebrate someone's death *because* they're Jewish. ALSO, it is antisemitic to blame a random Jewish person for the actions of ANY government, whether that be the Israeli Government or the US Government.

4. Explain to people that they're not going to solve this conflict by posting antisemitic statements and memes online. All they will do is alienate the Jewish people in their lives and make those Jews feel scared and unsafe. And they will contribute to this current wave of antisemitism.

Antisemitic hatred doesn't help Palestinians. All it does is put Jewish people around the world in danger.

[hilacopter]

You say ur a zionist depending on the definition but you believe jews are indigenous to the levant? That is the definition why don't you just call urself a zionist

see the thing is I genuinely think a lot of the whole zionism controversy mostly stems from a giant stupid misunderstanding and people not being properly informed. me telling someone I'm a zionist can either give them the right idea or the completely wrong idea.

let me paint a picture for you: a self-identified zionist and a self-identified anti-zionist walk into a bar. the zionist thinks the definition of zionism is wanting a Jewish state in the Levant, they want peace and a two-state solution. the anti-zionist thinks zionism is kahanism, they want peace and a two-state solution. "are you a zionist?" the anti-zionist asks, "yes" the zionist answers, and they immediately get into an argument. "anti-zionism is antisemitism!" the zionist shouts, "zionists are fascists!" the anti-zionist yells. of course this could all have blown over peacefully if they had asked eachother what zionism is, but why would they need to? what else could the word possibly mean?

I respect people on this site who identify as zionists, providing of course their meaning is wanting Jewish self-determination and not denying the right to Palestinian life and self-determination alongside us (remember I'm literally saying all this as an Israeli, if anyone wants Jewish self-determination in Israel it's me because my life quite literally depends on it). but I feel like they create a lot of unnecessary conflict for themselves by identifying as such and in most cases not explicitly stating what they mean by zionism. I know there's the desire to make dumb people understand the actual definition of the word, but with how much the misconceptions have already been set in stone I think it's a battle we cannot win.

there's more to all this though, buckle up for a pretty long post because I have a lot to say which I won't religate to the tags for once. first of all, I genuinely think a lot of anti-zionists, especially on the younger side (saying this as a minor myself), do not even have a solid definition of zionism in their head. they just see all of their peers shitting on it and follow along, making up whatever zionism means in their head along the way. since in leftist spaces it's not very acceptable to actually ask about the cause, why everyone is doing what they're doing. you have to take everything for granted, after all you wouldn't want to look uneducated by not knowing what zionism is! (this aspect of leftism 100% comes from cultural christianity btw)

there are also many anti-zionists who, at least to some extent, do know zionism means self-determination of Jews in the Levant and wanting Israel to exist. a lot of which think Israel is a white colonizer state, unaware of the history of the region, how more than there are ashkenazi Jews in Israel there are mizrachi Jews expelled from Arab nations, and are unaware of Jewish indigeneity to the Levant. how this land was originally Judea, only renamed Syria-Palaestina after being conquered from us and having most of us expelled. unfortunately the vast majority of pro-pal activists are very much simply jumping on the trendy train, not bothering to actually do their own research about the history of this insanely complex conflict and simply know everything by word of mouth from other equally uneducated leftists. I do think a lot of these people genuinely just don't know and aren't actively denying Jewish history on purpose, I've had like two cases happen where I told anti-zionists of this sort about Jewish indigeneity to the Levant and they just went "really? I had no idea". but of course for every person like that, there will be a person who will double down and dismiss it as propaganda, a myth and a fairytale. those people can go fuck themselves, clinging desperately to their half-assed worldview rather than willing to own up to being wrong and better themselves. denying Jewish history. or in a rare case of exceptional shittiness an anti-zionist can view zionism as wanting Jewish self-determination in the Levant and know that Jews are indigenous, yet still choose to identify as an anti-zionist by that definition for what can be a myriad of horrible reasons, usually complete tride and true antisemitism.

so in conclusion, I don't identify as a zionist outright until I know what kind of anti-zionist is asking me the question. is it an anti-zionist who just wants peace as much as I do, or is it an anti-zionist who wants me and my family dead? I've had people call me a zionist, non-zionist, anti-zionist and I don't really know what to expect each time. I feel like this approach leaves the most room for me to open good faith discussions with people and educate them on the subject as someone who actually knows xir shit, more than the average pro-pal at least, rather than having them immediately dismiss me as whatever definition of a zionist they have. not that good faith discussions are easy to have with people on tumblr dot com, and really online in general, but I'd rather have the option in the rare case of an actual open-minded individual who is willing to listen to Jews and better themself.

[tyetknot]

I thought you were joking when you said that the Farrar's books were outdated but holy shittt, even for 1970s wicca/witchcraft those guys were like full gender heterosexual white magic ye harm none thing, I was also seeing their interview were christian kids interview them, and boy it is hard to watch, but on to my question kskk, do you know if they changed later down?,like Janet seems to be okay sometimes,I can't find anything of them on their "controversial views" except their later polyamorous relationship (wich come to think of it I would love to hear their gender rationale on that), and also, how do you personally (if you do so) reconcile this type of author?, like there is no doubt that they are important in craft history, but now they kinda do more harm than good.

Hi Anon! I'm sorry if you've been waiting for a bit, you know how Tumblr is.

So one thing it's important to remember is: back in the 1970s and 80s a religion where women run the show was very progressive. Feminism got bolted onto Wicca pretty quickly once it hit the American West Coast and Starhawk wrote The Spiral Dance. Things like worshipping a goddess who didn't need a man around to tell her what to do were really unusual for the time. All this hippie-dippy shit like being naked in your rituals and such was far out, man, not like those totally square and boring Christians.

The problem is that, like many older people who were once cool and progressive, they just kind of stopped where they were in the 70s and 80s and didn't really......well, progress past that point. This leads to things like statements like that one in A Witches' Bible where they think that actually gay people are perfectly OK in ritual (this was a bit of a controversial point at the time) as long as they act like their biological gender, which is hilarious to us in 2024 because they obviously conflate being gay with being trans in some bizarre fashion. This was progressive for the time. It comes across as incredibly ignorant today. And of course, if their ideas did change, well, the book is already out there, people are reading it, and you can't go back in time and change something that's already been published. You can add notes or amendments to further editions, but I don't believe they ever did that, and Stewart Farrar died in the early aughts.

I find the polyamory thing to be pretty cringe, NGL, because I am a judgmental and suspicious piece of shit and think that an awful lot of the time polyamory is a tool used to make younger women sexually available to older men - good Lord, the age difference between Stewart and Janet - and that's very distasteful.

In my opinion the Farrars are probably the stodgiest and most conservatively-written books you'll find from that time period, and they're a good example of what coven-based Alexandrian Wicca looked like at that time, but there were a lot of more relaxed writers out there at the time and LOTS more a few years later. My primary complaint with A Witches' Bible is rather specifically that asinine Oak King / Holly King thing which they made up entirely and then ineptly shoehorned into the Wheel of the Year, where it just doesn't fucking work, and then everyone else just kind of went with it. No! It sucks and is bad, don't do it!

Do I think they do more harm than good? No, I don't. I think that anyone fairly new to Wicca shouldn't read this book first thing out the gate because it sets a lot of very unrealistic expectations, and because it's pretty old - Eight Sabbats for Witches was published in 1981, which makes it a few years older than me, and The Witches' Way in 1984, which makes it a year younger than me, and TBH there's much newer and fresher material being published every year. I would much sooner recommend someone like Thorn Mooney to new person interested in traditional Wicca.

[angellic-critique]

Honestly my biggest fear is to end up writing my characters the same way vivzie does, I feel like she doesn't even try on certain characters(female characters and literally any other that isn't her "uwu baby boi must be protected at all costs" characters like stolas, angel dust). Like imagine completely missing the point of your own character/srs

to everyone pre-release worries and anxieties just as much as I have-- Please take this time to read or explore different interests of books or authors of subjects and genres you like ! In the era of internet where the golden age of information is rusting into brainrot, the less time online anymore the better. I've been taking javascript/python tutorials for myself attempting to make a dating simulator for literal years at this point and its bounced around to the point of where I branched off to develop my own murder mystery 2-d sidescroller !

I wish for this to be a farewell letter to the crushed hopes and dreams I had for the original hazbin pilot and crew has moved on to other things whereas viv attempted to spitefully keep a story she clearly doesn't have any passion over- it is very evident over her lack of care for her own characters purely for the monetary gains of attempting and sadly wriggling her way into industry the way she did is so abhorrent to the world of genuine art and animation I grew up with.

Has Vivzie ever read a Felix the Cat comic strip or Dilbert even Hägar The Horrible? Does she even know about the history and strive of depth that animation has been at for hundreds of years? Does she even like comics, clearly not if she doesn't even have the patience to write her own and horribly rush whichever story she's interested in that day. I've never seen a careless writer be this selfishly unashamed to write literal garbage and surface level 'intrigue' of design and then falling flat face first at EVERY step. Hope she becomes as unbearable of a director as John K. is because honestly even though I'm cringing making that comparison, it's pretty fair in my book considering the outright ABUSE she has always trying to talk or hoard artists into her 'pet project' I recommend above anything else to watch Dan Stamanolous' 'Moral Orel' if you want an actually funny dark comedy or Christy Karacas' fast paced dark horror comic-come-to-life Superjail! for good animattion that doesn't belittle its audience... *[Trigger Warnings for Adult Swim-esque outdated 2007 humor and light transphobia, read for your own triggers if you dont want to though, please!]

The fact that Stollitz is written so flimsily like a wattpad fanficiton of tropes rolled into one is astounding to me, I used to like the dynamic pre-season 2 as I've mentioned on here and @tired-hellowl so I really don't want to get a headache going into how I USED to like it-Realizing the problematic consent issues all of STOLASS is, I physically cannot watch another Helluva or Hazbin promo anymore without rolling my eyes into the back of my head.

To the anons and people who used to also enjoy vivs work, there are other artists and there are other stories to tell. If you wish to be inspired from Dante's Inferno/Hell or WESTERN CHRISTIAN BASED RELIGION keep in mind what source material you're doing because I don't even think vivzie has picked up the bible once in her life.... And I say this as a drifter in the world who believes in reincarnation I don't really vibe with the athiest stereotypes however, I don't believe in most religion but more power to people that do get hope and love from their teachings and cultures.

She entirely missed the mark for several years, nearly a decade. Viv has had time and time again chance and opportunity to give a chance of storytelling with demons and what does she do? Adult Cartoon that has the demons scream 'FUCK SHIT DAMNIT DAMNIT LOOK IM SO HORNY AND SILLY AND WACKY WOAHH THE SCREEN IS CONSTANTLY MOVING YOU CAN NEVER HAVE A SECOND TO BREATH IN ANY AMOUNT OF WORLBUILDING OR SETTING BECAUSE FUCK. YOU.'--

I have said this time and time again- there is no substance or worth about Helluva Bosses or Hazbins writing, even without the show not being released because Amazon seems ashamed about it, I know it'll be a shitshow.

Honestly at this point I agree with the redesign community, take any character you used to like and rewrite them until it's unrecognizable from the original source material, let those fuckers in space fight alien pirates or hell take them out of the heaven and hell trope and just flip it on it's head entirely out of earth or wherever you want to set your story! I'm personally redesigning angel to be a slight aid to my addiction help via rewriting him into my murder mystery heheh while keeping the sexual abuse and recovery in mind because woah that shit happened to me too man !!!

I wish the best to any future writers, animators, programmers, lovers of animation or art, you can do what you put your mind and hands to! Spread more positivity and love then hate in this world please guys, this'll be the last time I pop in I promise I'm trying to get a better job and hopefully get accepted in a community college that i've been on the fence over trying to do more online coding ! The sky is the limit!<3

[pub-lius]

Hey, so recently I saw a post about the misogyny of hamilton, so I wanted to ask you if it was true. Not the part of misogyny (because in that time it was normal, I guess), but rather how much was? (does make sense?), did it affect the relationship with eliza or with her daughters?

Thankyu!!! (Muak)

hm okay so im not completely sure what you mean but i am going to do my darndest

So, in the time period which Hamilton was alive, which is the latter half of the 18th century, there definitely was a profound attitude of misogyny, but it was very different from what we know today. Most of our idea of sexism comes from the religious revivals of the 20th century (and people who know me know how i feel about the godforsaken 20th century when it comes to history). This is yk your typical idea of a housewife being at home, taking on the burdens of homemaking and child rearing and basically keeping everything together at home while the husband worked a stressful 9 to 5 and didn't do shit at home and weaponized incompetence and implicit biases and yadayada

This was not the case in the 18th century! 18th century gender roles are very different from what we're used to, and even more different than what the Victorians and Edwardians considered the norm. This is especially visible in Hamilton's relationship with women, so I'm quite excited to talk about this.

Firstly, I want to talk about the joker to my batman: Ron Chernow. A major theory he supports in his biography of Hamilton is the two sided nature of Hamilton's perception of women. He says that there is a clear distinction between two "types" of women in Hamilton's wife-- the good, Christian mistress of the house and the stupid, mentally unstable skank. These are his terms. I want to hit him in the head with a brick.

"Together, the two eldest [Schuyler] sisters formed a composite portrait of Hamilton's ideal woman, each appealing to a different facet of his personality. Eliza reflected Hamilton's earnest sense of purpose, determination, and moral rectitude, while Angelica exhibited his worldly side- the wit, charm, and vivacity that so delighted people in social intercourse." -Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, page 133

Yeah, this is horseshit. It gets worse when he compares Elizabeth Hamilton and Maria Reynolds on page 367, but I'm not going to get started because I won't stop. And this isn't about him anyway.

Instead, I want to talk about WHY this is horseshit. First of all, even Alexander "thinks with the wrong head" Hamilton didn't have this fucked up mindset, because it is heavily based in 20th century evangelicalism that didn't even exist in Hamilton's world.

Yes, obviously there was religious attitudes that condemned certain actions from women, but this was not as intense as in later periods. In the 18th century, an upperclass woman, such as Elizabeth Hamilton, would be responsible for maintaining the household, but this meant being in charge of the servants rather than doing the work herself. The work she did do would be maintaining the finances and the family's reputation.

Reputation was everything in the 18th century, and this especially applied to women. Not only did they have to maintain their own reputations, but they had to raise their children to have the skills necessary to do the same, and often had to fill in for their husbands in this department if they held public office. It's very difficult to maintain your reputation if you're beating people with walking sticks in the Continental Congress.

When it came to lower and middle class women, their jobs weren't different in that they carried an equally important role in the family. They would be doing household chores just as well as their husband, and these weren't easy chores that made women "feeble". They very often took a lot of physical strength and endurance, and it wasn't considered unladylike for women to do "men's" chores while their husbands were away. This isn't to say that women in later eras didn't do the same, but it wasn't as publicly frowned upon.

Hamilton had a very unique perspective as he was witness to both sides of this coin. His mother, a single, working class mother would be juggling both the man and woman's role. I think it was really this background that allowed him to have a much more informed perspective on womanhood. He was one of the few men in this period that I've seen write from the perspective of a woman, specifically a grieving mother.

"For the sweet babe, my doting heart Did all a mother's fondness feel; Careful to act each tender part And guard from every threatening evil. But what alas! availed my care? The unrelenting hand of death, Regardless of a parent's prayer Has stopped my lovely infant's breath-" -Papers of Alexander Hamilton, volume 1, page 43.

Chernow attributes this to Hamilton's deeply empathetic nature, which is fair, however I think it also shows that he was able to understand a woman's experience specifically.

I say this because Hamilton does tell us a little bit about exactly what was expected of women in the time during Elizabeth's first pregnancy in a letter that is usually used to call him a sexist, but I think it's a little more complex than that. Here's the excerpt:

"You shall engage shortly to present me with a boy. You will ask me if a girl will not answer the purpose. By no means. I fear, with all the mothers charms, she may inherit the caprices of her father and then she will enslave, tantalize and plague one half [the] sex, out of pure regard to which I protest against a daughter. So far from extenuating your offence this would be an aggravation of it." -Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, October 12, 1781

In this letter, Hamilton isn't telling Elizabeth that he wants a boy to inherit his fortune, to carry on his name, or the other reasons that were given by his contemporaries for preferring sons over daughters. He specifically states that his reasons are his fear that his traits will be passed onto his children, and that if its a daughter, she will be more discriminated against than his son because of her sex. Essentially, it was easier to be a gay son in the 18th century than a thot daughter. In that question, Hamilton would choose gay son because he knew that men were generally less criticized than women.

So, I'm not saying Hamilton wasn't sexist, because, by definition, he was. He was taught that women were fundamentally different than men, but he didn't look down on women for that, because that simply wasn't normal. You wouldn't be a gentleman if you looked down on a woman for being physically and psychologically different from a man, you'd be an asshole. While their interpretations of these differences don't align with what modern medicine has determined, they weren't the same as in the later eras in American history. Women were, most certainly, oppressed because of these perceived differences, but it was a different system of oppression than what typically defines our idea of sexism.

It's hard to say if it affected Hamilton's relationship with his wife and daughters, as there isn't any real written proof, but I imagine Hamilton's attitude specifically towards women did make their relationship different than other fathers, daughters, husbands, and wives of the time. We do know that Hamilton was a very hands on father who dedicated a lot of time and care towards his children, and he did not treat his daughters any differently than his sons. He put the same amount of energy into their education, though they weren't educated in the same thing, and he seemed to be equally close with all his children.

Hamilton and women is a very interesting topic, and it gets more complicated when it comes to Rachel Faucette and Maria Reynolds and those parallels, but that is a topic for another time. Good thing its women's history month! Hope this helped :)

[greatwyrmgold]

Another "The Problem of Susan" post

As you may know:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was not a standalone book. There were seven books in the series, each with more Christian allegory than the last.

(Or maybe it's not allegory? Apparently C.S. Lewis has said that Aslan is literally Jesus, so maybe it's all literally just Christianity.)

The series stars the four Pevensie siblings who show up in most of the books—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. They're absent from The Silver Chair and The Magician's Nephew, but all appear together in the other five books, with one exception.

The last book, called The Last Battle, features Peter, Edmund, and Lucy, but not Susan. Not only does Susan not appear, she's mentioned exactly once:

"Sir," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. "If I have read the chronicles aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?" "My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia." "Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'" "Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up." "Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." "Well, don't let's talk about that now," said Peter. "Look! Here are lovely fruit trees. Let us taste them."

(Oh yeah, the kids were kinds and queens of Narnia for a few decades when they were kids. Don't think about it too much.)

The Problem of Susan gets even worse because right at the end of the book, Aslan reveals that the Pevensies, their parents, and other Earth-humans who went to Narnia (like the Eustace and Polly mentioned above) died right before coming to Narnia this last time. And now that the Book of Revelations is done, they will live forever in "the true Narnia," which is either an allegory for Revelation's New Jerusalem or literally heaven, I'm not sure which.

Susan is still not there.

So, the first part of the Problem of Susan is that a formerly major character—one that many young fans of the series felt attached to—who gets all but dropped from the finale. This is particularly egregious, since—this is a direct quote— "Everyone you had ever heard of (if you knew the history of those countries) seemed to be there" by the end. Every character from the entire series, from Mr. Tumnus the faun to that cab driver who became the first King of Narnia, it makes sense in context.

But not Susan.

And I guess that makes sense in context, too; she's not dead. But C.S. Lewis wrote the context. It was C.S. Lewis's decision to kill off the other Pevensies, and C.S. Lewis's decision to keep Susan out of this last adventure.

Christian Apologetics, for Kids!

I've seen three common responses to The Problem of Susan from overly-protective fans of the series.

The first is, perhaps unsurprisingly, just a remix of shit fundamentalist Christians say about Heaven and Hell. Just as agnostics will burn in the fires of hell for their ambiguous faith, so Susan will be barred from "the true Narnia" for being less allegorically(?) pious than her siblings.

Speaking as an ex-Christian, I could write a whole series of posts about why that's fucked-up and wrong. But I will instead remain on topic and recommend you read basically any atheist blog from the early '10s; that eternal damnation/salvation shit is low-hanging fruit for guys who want to make fun of fundies.

Second, you have people who see Susan as materialistic, caring so much about "nylons and lipstick and invitations." First off, nothing in the text suggests she was maliciously materialistic, or greedy, or anything else that would merit getting kicked out of Narnia. Second, the text just...does not support this reading. Susan's sin isn't greed, it's growing up too fast.

Third are the people who agree with the text; Susan "always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up." This has textual support, and not just from the one page in The Last Battle that mentions her. The problem is, of course, that this isn't a sin worthy of punishment either.

(Zeroth: Susan spent decades as a queen of Narnia, but since because the books want us to think that that wouldn't have any real impact on the kids, we will continue not thinking about it too much.)

With that out of the way: Wanting to be older than you are is fine, wanting to be younger than you are is fine, wanting to be the age you are is great. There is nothing inherently wrong with either wanting to be treated as a grown-up or seeking the joy of youth. It can lead to bad behavior, but none of that is described in the actual text of The Last Battle.

Susan is described as misremembering the fantastical adventures the Pevensies had as children, and wanting to be a young adult for as long as possible. Who. Cares.

It seems like C.S. Lewis puts an unreasonably high premium on the innocence of childhood. (This has what I consider to be unfortunate implications when combined with his advocacy of blind faith in The Silver Chair, but that's a topic for another ramble.) This is, I feel, ridiculous. It's fine to seek the joy of youth, but to treat losing that joy as some kind of mortal sin is absurd! Treating the loss of innocence as an inevitable tragedy is one thing; treating it as something worth punishing a kid for if they stumble into it too quickly is horrific.

(And it's really hard to not think about that time Susan was a literal monarch. Well, there were four of them, so I guess she was more of a tetrarch? Whatever.)

Anyways. The fourth response is to point to things C.S. Lewis said after publishing The Last Battle. And I'm going to discuss that.

Contrite-over-Susan Lewis

Unfortunately, I can't find the actual quotes by C.S. Lewis, not in the time I'm willing to spend researching a Tumblr post about a book that was old when my parents were young. But C.S. Lewis has acknowledged the problem of Susan.

The gist of what he said is that he's not happy that Susan's story is incomplete, but writing her redemption arc would put the story into a whole different genre, and that's no good.

My first problem is, of course, the idea that Susan needed to change to be worthy of Narnia. So what if she was always the most skeptical Pevensie? So what if she wanted to grow up? So what if she likes nylons and lipstick and invitations? If the Susan we see in the other books isn't worthy of the true Narnia, that's Lewis's problem, not Susan's.

The second is that C.S. Lewis never wrote that book. Lewis would say that it's out of step with the rest of the series, that the tone would be off, but so is The Last Battle to anyone not drowning in Armageddon-lust. And it's not like character arcs are foreign to the series, either. There are plenty of examples of kids from our Earth going to Narnia and having it change their worldview or attitude. They're mostly small subplots, but elevating a Susan character arc to a booklong undercurrent would not be that much of a divergence.

And even if Lewis committed himself to only writing seven books for numerological reasons—well, first off, he probably could have cut one of the other books. A Horse and his Boy is neat, but depicting the lives of ordinary Narnians during a dramatic time probably should have taken a back seat to a character arc you think is required for her to join the finale. Anyways, he could have written the Susan character arc as a subplot in Prince Caspian or Voyage of the Dawn Treader if he tried.

But he didn't try.

Conclusion

C.S. Lewis supposedly said that Susan was his favorite character, the one he saw the most of himself in. If true, that is not reflected in The Last Battle.

Lewis set some arbitrary conditions Susan would have to meet to join her siblings at the end—at the climax of the entire series, arguably the most important event in Narnian history since the world's creation. He then chose not to write anything that would let Susan meet those conditions, left her out of the last book, and left it ambiguous as to whether she'd ever see her siblings in paradise.

I don't think this would be quite so egregious if Susan was at least mentioned more. Again, Susan is never mentioned before Tirian asks where she is, nor after Peter decides to taste some fruit. She gets three and a half paragraphs where her brother and "friends" bitch about her, and that's that. They make fun of her for growing up and liking nylons and lipstick, then they decide to eat fruit, end of chapter, end of Susan.

It's like the characters don't give a shit about Susan. They're not angry, they're not disappointed, they're not confused. They state a few things about Susan when directly asked, then move on, like these are just facts about some fictional character and not the reasons they're estranged from a sibling or longtime friend. Heck, the younger Pevensies don't even bother to speak up! They don't care!

And if the characters don't care about the formerly important character—important both to the story and, more importantly, to them—why should I think the author did?

[jacksprostate]

Howdy jacksprostate can you give us some thoughts on the narrators father/upbringing? Im curious on how you interpret what the book/movie gave us in terms of his absent dad

Also i love ur posts btw and thank you for replying to like all of my fight club art 😭 It genuinely pushes me to make more for the community so i thank you

Howdy :)

The narrator's father is an important, ever present, and completely lacking figure in the book and movie. (Obligatory disclaimer I mostly focus on the book) Here's some things I've been thinking about:

The chapter detailing fight club, its start, its rules, is intertwined with fatherhood. As the narrator explains his first punch with Tyler, as he looks upon his new disciples, as Tyler reads out the rules:

"Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer. 

Tyler never knew his father. 

Maybe self-destruction is the answer."

"Me, I knew my dad for about six years, but I don't remember anything. My dad, he starts a new family in a new town about every six years. This isn't so much like a family as it's like he sets up a franchise. 

What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women."

You have the lines, Tyler’s in the movie, the narrator’s in the book, you have:

"My father never went to college so it was really important I go to college. 

After college, I called him long distance and said, now what? 

My dad didn't know. 

When I got a job and turned twenty-five, long distance, I said, now what? My dad didn't know, so he said, get married. 

I'm a thirty-year-old boy, and I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer I need."

You have:

"Tyler was fighting his father. 

Maybe we didn't need a father to complete ourselves. There's nothing personal about who you fight in fight club." 

And you have his boss; his boss he blows up, Tyler constantly tells the narrator how he could do it, Tyler’s words come out against his boss about how he could shoot up the office, begging to be punished, using the copy machines, begging for more than nothingness; you have:

“The problem is, I sort of liked my boss.

If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And sometimes you find your father in your career.

Except Tyler didn’t like my boss.”

You have: 

“I am Joe’s Broken Heart because Tyler’s dumped me. Because my father dumped me. Oh, I could go on and on.”

You have, Tyler’s words in the mechanic’s mouth:

“"Your father was your model for God.

…

If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?

…

What you end up doing … is you spend your life searching for a father and God.

What you have to consider … is the possibility that God doesn’t like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that can happen."

How Tyler saw it was that getting God’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all. Maybe because God’s hate was better than His indifference.

If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?

We are God’s middle children, according to Tyler Durden, with no special place in history and no special attention. 

Unless we get God’s attention, we have no hope of damnation or Redemption. 

Which is worse, hell or nothing?

Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved.”

And we have Tyler using paraffin, so the narrator can be in Heaven, chided by God.

So like, what does it all mean?

A generation of men raised by women. His dad franchises, he’s not sure if another woman is really what we need. Men with no male models. Men with shit fucking fathers who are fighting them with impersonal proxies. Men who know they're destroying themselves because they have no constructive examples to follow because every single man just fails every son.

And that IS important. It's important to note there is misogyny in the fact that men demand male idols and refuse to even borrow women, but can I condemn them for the same thing I know matters to myself? Can I condemn them for wanting to see men who aren't shit, when I want to see women who aren't shit, when I want to see both not fucking failing their children? Shit fathers fuck over everyone, I don't think it's wrong to see that problem. It's classic male to say it by implying women are lesser, so fucking classic, but it IS true — they're in large part like this because men fucking fail everyone including each other and themselves. There is a gaping, wide fucking asshole where decent men should be, and they’re throwing fits about it rather than stepping up, but I think it’s notable that the narrator DID break the cycle. He’s not franchising. 

And man, the Christian thing. Your father is your model for God because that is the point. Patriarchal religion serves a damn purpose. The father anoints himself as God, tells his children to have unbreakable faith, then disappears. What a shit fucking father. Isn’t disillusionment inevitable? When you can’t find him in his petty figures, not in your father, not in your boss?

Truth is, he says it twice. He likes his boss. As a person maybe. He’s around. But he’s absent too. He doesn’t give a shit. Just like his fucking father, he’s putting him in shit situations, telling him that’s just how it is, and expecting him to, what, be happy with it?

He likes his boss, but a part of him really wants to kill him. He likes his boss, but he begs his boss to do something, anything other than indifference. And he doesn’t. So the narrator invents his own boss, his own father, his own God, and he kills his boss, and he’d kill God and his father if they weren’t already practically dead and gone. 

Dead and gone, even if they're there, he could beg them to care and they wouldn't. Society is set up for them to be the ultimate judgement, the hallmark by which you can measure yourself, the ruler for your fucking life, especially as a guy. And you get nothing. Indifference at best. Be the best son, disciple, worker you can, your boss God father doesn't give a shit. Self improvement isn't the answer. Wouldn't it be better, to know God, your father, your boss cared enough even if it's just to hate you?

Wouldn't it be great to track him down, tell God, "I am stupid and bored and weak, but I am still your responsibility."

He externalizes all that violence, it’s always Tyler who wants to kill his boss, who says he wants to be God’s enemy. And Tyler is his stand in boss father God, so just like the others, he leaves him. Even his fantasies can’t imagine better. 

And honestly, yeah. Myself, I’ve got a pretty good dad. He loves me. He’s been around. I still hate his guts. He abuses my mom and I hate his fucking guts for it. If you asked my brothers, maybe they wouldn’t have that “but”. What he does to my mom is so baked into society that he may as well be a five star father. He’s not beating us. He’s still here. Can it really get better? I have friends that love their dads. But I don’t have any friends that love their dads that don’t have shit moms. When it’s not the choice between bad and worse. The bar is so low. What does that mean for us?

It’s so easy to point at all this and be disturbed and angry about this pathetic fucking white man letting his daddy issues result in terrorism, and like, yeah. But god, fucking everyone has daddy issues, and we shouldn’t. He’s right that it’s a problem. What to fucking do.

Fight Club sits as a “how to NOT deal with several major crippling problems in society,” obviously. But what are we doing to do? It’s not up to me, obviously. I’m not a man, father, not even someone who could raise her standards for the man she partners with, because I don’t do that shit. And hell, you raise your standards and men say you’re killing them and shoot up all the women in an engineering class because jobs are making them too uppity. So. It’s up to them, whether they decide that the fallout of having such a shit father means they should, I don’t know, change something. But as it is, father as God, boss as father is baked into society, the paternalism is extensive and everywhere. It’s baked in.

The narrator is a product of so many issues. A little clown car of a vehicle for them. I don’t really need to consciously think about what his upbringing and absent dad was like, because really, as he accurately assesses, “if his parents weren’t divorced, his father was never home, and here he’s looking at me with half my face clean shaved and half a leering bruise hidden in the dark. Blood shining on my lips. And maybe Walter’s thinking about a meatless, painfree potluck he went to last weekend or the ozone or the Earth’s desperate need to stop cruel product testing on animals, but he’s probably not.” 

Most people, on an overwhelming scale, due to how the world is damn designed, do not need to consciously think about what his upbringing and absent dad was like, because damn if it’s not relevant even if your dad was home.

[fluffy-lovely-clouds]

LONG POST

hate to be serious for a second guys but I'm seriously thinking about leaving the hazbin hotel fandom, and its because i just cant fucking stand vivsie

i haven't supported her in any way ever since i heard about her history which was a while ago, maybe around when she finished her first season of helluva boss. well i stopped watching that, and hadnt planned to watch hazbin when it finally came out until one of my friends encouraged me to. so i had pirated all of it, that way i wouldn't support vivsie in any way, and for a while ive been okay with it, until now.

its not just the fact that i dont wanna watch a show because its by her, its because of all the messed up shit thats in the show, and plus how the fandom is (NOT pointing any of you guys out, you're all great).

For one, it feels like vivienne has such a terrible grudge on Christianity. im not Christian myself, im more or less an agnostic, but i still respect Christianity extremely, along with every other religion and belief as people should. The fact that the whole basis of her story and the way she presents it is a warped telling of Christian places (heaven and hell) and figures (angles, demons, Lucifer) is kinda disrespectful. i get that there are tons of other movies and shows that fantasize christianity and stuff, but hazbin hotel feels like vivienne is just trying and WANTING to outright insult the religion. taking such a big figure such as lucifer and making him goofy as hell, or showing that heaven is full of nothing but assholes, with ADAM being the biggest fuck of them all, just feels too far to me personally.

don't get me wrong, the chance that there are demons in hell that can redeem and be good people and that not everyone in heaven is perfect makes for a great story in my opinion, but i think that plot could be written and presented so much better than what vivsie's done

secondly, there are too many characters in the show that make me so uncomfortable and disgusted, and what's bad is these characters seem really glamorized. im talking about valentino. HE IS A LITERAL ACTIVE SEXUAL ASSUALTER WHO CONSTANTLY ABUSES ANGEL. THAT IS NOT OKAY. THAT IS A HUGE RED FLAG. but guess what, hes still fucking glamorized. not just by vivsie herself but by the fandom as well. you would think something bad would happen to him personally in the show to pay for his actions, but the worst i can remember happening to him is getting bit by fucking niffty, and angel standing up to him, BUT THAT IS NOT HIS DEFEAT. HE IS CONTINUOUSLY SHOWED THROUGHOUT THE SHOW BEING WRITTEN OFF LIKE NOTHING'S WRONG. His friendship with velvet and vox is seen as positive and even cute. i dont like vox much either because of the very fact that he makes out with valentino, and it makes me wonder if vivsie wrote vox off to know that valentino commits sexual abuse. if she did, then that means vox knows he's literally making out with a groomer and yet is okay with it. im gonna fucking explode

the fandom can be just terrible in the fact that people know all this but don't give a shit anyhow and draw/ write all the disgusting, shitty characters glamorized anyway cause they're messed up and think they're hot or whatever (VALENTINO). that's it. ive seen it in this community. there was a post about him where he teased y/n and it was meant to be seen positively. it got popular pretty fast. again, im gonna fucking explode. also, there's the deal with Alastor. IT IS CANON HE IS AROACE. But I have seen the fandom completely ignore that and sexualize him so much im starting to lose faith in humanity.

so yeah, i could keep going a bit but i think y'all get the point. i MIGHT not leave completely because i dont hate everything about the show, but by that i mean that husk and angel's relationship are like the only thing i care about. you MAY still see those two on here every once in a while, but that's it

so.. sorry guys, but i hope ive made yall understand

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: The Truth About Christmas | Real Time with Bill Maher

Finally, New Rule: Praise Jesus, it's a Christmas miracle. For the first time in the 21 year history of this show we are on in December, which gives me a chance to explain to everyone something I've always wanted to expound upon in this show.

You know that whole thing about Jesus being born on December 25th? Well it's a crock of shit. Now, this is not an attack on Jesus. Although, he was a nepo baby. But also a revolutionary philosopher with a beautiful message. As to whether he's a God, that's up to you.

But if the subject is "Gods born on December 25th," we have enough of those for an entire Jeopardy category.

He was the Egyptian god who took the form of a falcon. Who is Horus?

He is the god from ancient Persia born bearing a torch. Who is Mithra?

He is the Greek god of rebirth. Who is Adonis?

He was the fertility god in Cleopatra's time. Who is Osiris?

This Greek deity was known for having a good time. Who is Dionysis?

So you may be asking - those are all real by the way, I think that was the problem, they think I'm making this up but I'm not - why do all the gods want the same birthday? Well, because December 25th was a pagan holiday coming a few days after the shortest day of the year, when primitive peoples noticed that the days were starting to get longer again, and so a cause for celebration.

Cut to:

And that's the story of Christmas. A holiday I love by the way. The tree, the presents, the music, the Christmas memories with my sister and our cousins filling the bong with eggnog. It's the only time of the year it's okay to put alcohol in milk. Christmas is fun if you just accept it's pretend time. Like a Hollywood wedding.

Yes, I love Christmas and always have. Just don't try to make me take it seriously.

And that is what has been going on a lot lately here in America. We have a new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who says America is actually a Biblical Republic and that he's even got a flag picked out that hangs outside his office, and which also could be seen in the mob on January 6th. Mike also says, "the separation of church and state is a misnomer," and congresswoman Lauren Boebert concurs saying she's, "tired of this separation of church and state junk." So too Marjorie Taylor Green, who says, "I say it proudly, we should all be Christian nationalists."

Now I know it may seem like this is just a few crazies, but I gotta tell you, dumbass Republicans who believe horrible ideas are like ants: there's always more that you can't see.

And in in fact, these ideas are no longer the fringe. According to a recent survey, over half of Republicans are either adherents of Christian nationalism or sympathetic to it. And they agree with statements like: "The US government should declare America a Christian Nation," and "Being Christian is an important part of being truly American," and "God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society."

I'm sorry but I don't want anyone exercising their dominion over me unless I pay them and we've established a safe-word.

Boebert says, "The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church." Well, no and no. Neither one is supposed to direct the other. That's what separation of church and state means.

Republicans, Jesus fucking Christ. First you stop believing in democracy - Senator Mike Lee said it, among others. Trump lives the idea every day, and here we have the Speaker of the House saying it. And now Republicans also don't believe in the separation of church and state? Does anyone in that party remember what fucking country you're living in?

We're the place that stakes so much of our greatness on being the first to specifically prohibit having a state religion. There are dozens of countries that have an official religion. There's 13 where being an atheist is punishable by death. Four have "Islamic" right in the title of the country.

And maybe that warms the hearts of the TikTok crowd who lately have found heroes in Hamas and Osama Bin Laden. But that's not us. That's not what we do here. I get it you kids like to switch things up. But I can only handle one side at a time being ridiculous about religious fanaticism, and right now I've got my hands full with Mike Johnson.

Because Mike Johnson has the power to actually make laws. And I don't want my global warming policy decided by someone who is rooting for the end of the world so we can get on with the Rapture. And who once filed a legal brief before the Supreme Court arguing that what he called "deviant same sex intercourse" should be a crime. Even the lesbian stuff?

Mike thinks God personally chooses, raises up our leaders, which is a very dangerous thought, because then when you lose an election you think it's just another of God's tricks to test your faith. Like fossils. Mike says, "We began as a Christian nation." We didn't. Did you miss that day in home school, Mike? If you don't know that the pilgrims came here to get away from the Church of England then you don't know, literally, the first thing about our country. Mike says, being a Christian nation is, "our tradition," and, "it's who we are as a people."

It's not. We're the people who have a First Amendment which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." And we have an Article Six which says, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office."

So, I take these people at their word when they say that they think we should be Christian nationalists. But then they have to take John Adams at his word when he wrote, "the government of the United States of America is not an any sense founded on the Christian religion."

But I still love Christmas!

--

Introduction The rising influence of Christian nationalism in some segments of American politics poses a major threat to the health of our democracy. Increasingly, the major battle lines of the culture war are being drawn between a right animated by a Christian nationalist worldview and Americans who embrace the country’s growing racial and religious diversity. This new PRRI/Brookings survey of more than 6,000 Americans takes a closer look at the underpinnings of Christian nationalism, providing new measures to estimate the proportion of Americans who adhere to and reject Christian nationalist ideology. The survey also examines how Christian nationalist views intersect with white identity, anti-Black sentiment, support of patriarchy, antisemitism, anti-Muslim sentiments, anti-immigrant attitudes, authoritarianism, and support for violence. Additionally, the survey explores the influence Christian nationalism has within our two primary political parties and major religious subgroups and what this reveals about the state of American democracy and the health of our society.

==

Freedom of religion and freedom from religion are the same thing.

[officeshelpdesk]

For once in my life I want Tumblr people to tell me if I'm wrong for the following statement and explanation

Recently I've witnessed a kinda constant implosion among American right wing influencers, and maybe I'm just high on the hopium but I feel like there's a palpable reason for this

So for background, Asser Levy died in the 1680s. "Offices" I hear you say "what in the fuck does Asser Levy have to do with the American right I'M GETTING TO IT Jesus. Asser Levy lived in New Amsterdam now New York. He lived a full life there and died and we still know his name. He died before the first 13 states, he died before most modern states had white settlers within them. Asser Levy outdates the whole of the United States by 100 years.

The original conservative desire of the United States was the enslavement of black people and the murder of indigenous people. This is a fact. On the side of enslavement, it lost.

The next right wing was the oppression of black people, the murder of indigenous people, and the suppression of Catholicism in America. On the side of Catholicism, they lost.

Banning Chinese people from the country, they lost, preventing black people from getting the vote, they lost, preventing women from getting the vote, they lost, they lose and they lose and they lose.

And where are they now?

Despite what they would like to think, the far right does the same thing the Democrats do, they try to big tent.

Sneako, a "Muslim", can pose with white nationalists who think Islam is barbaric because both people's views on the world are technically conservative

The big Nazis in America don't claim to be American nationalists, they're "Christian nationalists". Despite the overbearing whiteness of the American experiment, there's no American Ethnicity. You can't be an American Nationalist while also letting minorities in

Thus, Asser Levy died before America was born. There is no common thread to create a solid far right base of American nationalism, Jewish people have been here longer than Montana.

But even then! The Christian nationalism makes no sense! The founders of every dumb protestant church these idiots jerk off in are rolling so hard in their graves that you could power a city. Because the right lost on Catholicism! The papists are in the white House! You need the dumb trad caths!

Nazism in Germany worked because there was a defined ethnic national identity, there was a thing where it was claimed to be under attack. Modern America does not have that. Sure! White Americans are the minority and a problem! But there's a multitude of other factors! Regionalism,income, gender, family history, all stratify the white people.

You have to try to reach out to conservative Muslims and Zionists and conservative women and treacherous gays because you're trying too hard!

But your base hates that! Your base wants some sort of protestant white nationalist bullshit that is set up to lose. People don't want that, but your base is too dumb to get it. So you put a woman up, and she's a whore or secretly trans. You put a conservative Muslim up and they're a terrorist. You put a Zionist up and they control the banks. You put a Catholic up and they're a pedophile. Put a gay up and they should be hanged for degeneracy

If the civil war these people have wet dreams about DID happen, they'd kill each other before a single victory. You can never have a right wing front when the conservatives and fascists are suddenly diverse!! But you can't not be diverse! Because what do you have?

The south? The people who historically cannot win?

You don't have shit! The core of American white nationalism is massive cope, so much fear that they are on a path of natural autocannibalism

[earl-grey-love]

[CW: Politics, current world events, body image, segregation, all that icky stuff]

I've been on the internet for nearly 20 years. While it wasn't the very first era of the internet, it was when it started its massive boom into popularity. But back then, even when I was a teenager, when you turned off your pc, you no longer had access to the internet. Most "smart" phones of that time could barely open a browser. They were good for texting and calling mostly.

But nowadays you're plugged into the internet literally 24/7. Even TVs and "smart" fridges/speakers/lights/all kinds of shit do. Even the youngest and oldest of people have smart phones/ipads practically glued to their hands or sides all day every day. The effects this has had on society literally fill tens of thousands of research documents and articles, and counting. We are lonelier and yet more connected than we have ever been in human history, and it's only getting worse.

Now, I'm not here to vilify phones and the internet, and people who use them. Nuh-uh. That'd not only be incorrect, but also weird and hypocrital. It's not our fault we're addicted to this stuff. It's DESIGNED that way. It always has been. But back when I was a teenager, this shit wasn't this bad because we could turn it off. Now we're expected to be at available at the click of a button to anyone who wants us 24/7. This affects relationships, work life balance, and directly the mental health of everybody. Especially when we naturally cope with these negative experiences and emotions by using addictive software like apps we can endlessly scroll on and post to get validation.

Now I've never been a huge fan of social media, but back in the day it was far easier to make meaningful connections. Nowadays, I see so many hate comments on literally anything and everything on the internet that it genuinely makes me ill. People cannot use social media for what it was designed for. If you post something mildly embarrassing or cringe or anything remotely "socially unacceptable", you'll be subjected to literal medieval torture in the form of mass public humiliation. Every single week theres new "discourse" about some poor fucker who dared to be a little cringe, a little controversial, a little human, on the internet.

And it's no surprise 99% of those victims are queer, bipoc, fem presenting, transgender, non-christian, children/teens, and/or anyone that's considered a minority or otherwise shunned. People without power. Like good fucking god, I thought cancel culture was about giving people with power social consequences for the fucked up shit they do, because legal systems are pay to win, yet I rarely see the actual bad people targetted. Cancel culture these days is 90% of the time little more than cyberbullying en mass. It's disgusting.

I blame the cringe culture epidemic of 2016. It changed the internet forever and irreparably so. Everyone who got cringe cultured back then were exactly the minority groups I just named. Godforbid you become a minority person who gets just a little bit of fame and fortune, your own community will put you back in your place. And it's not even community's fault either, it's corporations.

Corporations have, in modern times, always decided what we do. What we think. What we eat. What we wear. What we dream of. Now it's shoved down our throats 24/7 because we can't unplug from it. Everything you see when you scroll these days is an advertisement for something. Nothing is sacred any more. Even the anti-capitalist or rebellious movements of by-gone eras are now co-opted for cash, or are even outright exclusionary these days (see, cottagecore, goth/punk, etc). It's nearly impossible for anything to exist without immediate being churned out of a fast market fuelled by modern day slavery, just so the already rich can get a few more bucks for their fifth home.

Meanwhile, we've never been poorer and more overworked. Why the fuck do people have to work multiple jobs and have multi-income households just so people CAN EAT. That's fucking dystopian. People cannot afford basic living necessities like food, water, shelter and healthcare. All of this shit should be fucking free and yet people have to sell their souls for it??? Their bodies their lives their happiness their health, just for some fucking paper and that paper is NEVER enough.

All while we can barely survive, we get ad after ad shoved in our face of all the things we need to buy to be "cool" or "happy" or "worthy of love". We gotta be thin, we gotta be sexy, we gotta have a sleek car and a perfectly tasteful and organised wardrobe, and don't you dare eat animal products or buy fast fashion!! You have to be perfect all of the time. Go to work, do your job, have a perfect home, never be disabled, never have a thought you weren't programmed to have. Keep giving us more money by the way!

Meanwhile all the rights generations have worked hard for are stripped away. Bit by bit, as we're now too overworked and worn down to even notice. Media outlets don't cover it anymore because someone posted something cringe on tiktok and that's obviously more important than gen0cide. And see that? I had to censor it because we're not even allowed to openly talk on the internet any more. Sure, we're allowed to buy billions of tonnes of platic per year, but godforbid we talk about human rights. Or s*x or "unaliving" or schmental schmelth or grape.

Are we even allowed to be human? Because we're being denied the right to even be alive.

I'm both terrified of and terrified for the people younger than me. I see the way they live and talk to each other and now that Oz.empic Chic is in style, I'm more terrified than ever. Please be kind to each other. Don't fall for the divisive, hateful, violence perpetuating culture that social media has become. Love yourself and love each other, because our communities are all we have. If that's taken from us, then we have nothing left.

[sparkylurkdragon]

Finished reading The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers by Joanna Bourke today. My review is here, (tl;dr I liked it - would've liked a wider net but I see why the author narrowed her study area down) but, it got me to thinking...

Okay, so, live-and-let atheist disclaimer, don't let me tell you how to religion, but the sense I got from some of the history here was that the Christian conception of What Pain Was For was that it was a message of some kind. Often the message was "you are being Bad, stop it" - whether that was by sinning and making God unhappy or, uh, just ticking off your betters by, say, offering your left hand to shake when your right one just underwent major surgery. (Real example from the book. The doctor flipped the fuck out and the patient really did just go 'ah well it was justified that he wrenched me up by the injured arm because I was after all a pauper and he was A Gentleman'.)

Or it could be a more generalized divine message about Something. What that Something was tended to vary depending on time, place, race, class, and so on, but it was often seen as a positive thing. A thing that brings one closer to the divine. Which was why painkillers were seen as A Problem when they were first invented, because people were (a) not being Punished and/or (b) weren't experiencing The Message.

And from where I'm standing it sounds a hell of a lot like a coping strategy that made sense for the time it arose but became maladaptive as the world changed. You know, like when you become a people pleaser or highly aggressive to avoid or ward off the wrath of abusive parents but it turns out that can fuck up your relationships very badly as an adult.

Before painkillers, shit, man, you might as well take it as a divine message and maybe even a positive one because what else are you going to do?

But, like. We do have painkillers now. We're not living with our abusive parents anymore.

...Maladaptive coping strategy.

[skaruresonic]

@beevean Out of morbid curiosity, I watched episode one of Netflixavania following a video explaining games lore (disclaimer: just the Classic era. There seems to be A Lot covered in this franchise). My first impressions are: = Despite being almost comically edgy, I really wasn't emotionally impacted by the writing. It almost felt like it was just going through the motions. We begin the show with the start of Dracula and Lisa's relationship, and yet we're told it was this great transformative love instead of being shown that. One minute she's convinced him to let her stay, the next she's being burned at the stake. Wow. The tragedy. Break out the tissues. Dracula says he loved her, ofc, but since we don't get to see their relationship in action, the show might as well shrug and be like "just trust me dood"

= It's really ironic that a show paying lip service to science conveniently forgets that burn stake victims were likely to die or fall unconscious from smoke inhalation before the actual burning. Meaning Lisa wouldn't have had the time to scream and plead for as long as she had.

= ...Is this another one of those "all religion is bad and I am smart for shitting on it" works? Because I had enough of that with Mists of Avalon lmao. Not that I'm the biggest fan of Christianity, but anti-Christianity tracts like these tend to be equally fucking obnoxious because they're always so one-note, disingenuous, and boring with how they constantly beat you over the head with "religion bad" and don't really add anything else to that particular thought

= Wallachia is portrayed as like, cartoonishly backwater. Women doctors existed in the Middle Ages. They were not all automatically burned at the stake because hurr durr technology is evil.

Some of them even treated kings; I recall reading about a medieval Jewish doctor who cured a young king's eye condition. somehow I get the feeling the writer of this show has not read A History Book

= I also found it funny how the priest named "strange weeds" in the list of Lisa's possessions, as if the people of medieval Wallachia were so backwards that they didn't know what fucking herbs were.

The absolute lmao. = I don't really know anything about Dracula other than he decided to oppose God due to the death of his first wife in the games, but even then, despite my sheer lack of knowledge, I still sensed something off about his characterization here. Given how the show practically has Dracula spell it out for us that He Really Loved Lisa More Than These Stinky Humans, I Swear Just Trust Me Dood at the episode's climax, I had the feeling that if someone like him had been told his wife was dying, he'd fly like the wind to go try and rescue her. Or, failing that, unleashing unholy wrath upon her killers. But no, he just broods to the old woman just to be Dramatique. no talk him, he angy >:c = crying blood. CRAAAAAWLING IN MY CRAAAAAWL, THESE CRAWL THEY WILL NOT CRAAAAAAAAWL = Alucard tells Dracula to go after the one who killed Lisa instead of condemning all of humanity to death, but he already fucking saw who did it so like lmao what kind of logic is this = The people of Wallachia were too dumb to live actually. And kinda had it coming tbh. Imagine you don't think Satan exists but one day he shows up out of nowhere in a cloud of hellfire and tells you to gtfo before he kills you all. And instead of getting the fuck out of Dodge that very night because holy crap Satan is real after all and worse, he's pissed off, you decide to stay. Like dumbasses. = oh is this just Hunchback of Notre Dame without the sexual repression? k cool. = I'll bet the animators really liked drawing all that gore. ow the edge = Why did we spend five minutes on a not-funny, prolonged bestiality joke? It did nothing but waste time. Is this what passes for humor on this show?

= Well. That just happened. Thought it'd be more interesting than that but nah

[callmearcturus]

I grew up in Rural Missouri in a town of 10,000 people and 12 churches. The first person I came out to was the military recruiter who worked in our town. He SOMEHOW got the phone numbers for people's home landlines and would call in that nebulous time between 3:30pm and 5pm, the optimal Latchkey Hours when he would probably get the kid on the phone without parental supervision.

He'd call me all the time, so eventually I told him I was gay, so I couldn't be in the military. He got real quiet then asked if that was something I could keep quiet. I told him no sir I'm quite a flaming and planned to move to one of them states where I could get married someday. He said, "A'right, thank you for your time."

He stopped bothering me in the front yard after school, but I spent weeks fucking terrified that somehow that secret I used to ward him off would come back to ruin my life, that my favorite teachers would start treating me differently (my favorite science teacher was part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, my AP American History teacher referred to Missouri as "God's country").

The fear got put in me by my best friend at the time, the one gay boy in school. I used to come over to his house and we'd hang out in his room with the door closed, which is parents didn't approve of, but that was the point. Letting them think he was getting with the girl from the trailer park down the road would get him scolding. Be found out as a faggot would get him thrown out onto the fucking street and locked out of his house.

It wasn't a joke or an outdated character flaw. It was daily life. And I say this because maybe it sounds dated and weird to some of y'all, but there are places in the US where all of this shit is still true.

Except you can't use DADT to get military recruiters off your back anymore.

It’s very strange to me, as someone who came of age pre-Obergefell, how many (especially young) people now seem to view homophobia as an almost-juvenile form of individual peer pressure, that you can then choose to either rebuke or give into, rather than systemic oppression that materially affects people’s lives on both a personal and societal scale. Which seems to be why so many people view suffering from internalized homophobia as a personal moral failing rather than a very normal response to hostile conditions.

[here-there-were-dragons]

my mother is absolutely convinced of some nonsense conspiracy theory that (in her words) "originally humanity lived in peaceful all-woman societies of goddess worshippers who took care of eachother and lived in harmony, while males were roving loners that had no society and never cooperated. that changed when the men banded together and overthrew the peaceful woman-dominated societies, and enslaved us all." and, according to her, this is proof that a woman-dominated world would be innately more peaceful, and that men are innately violent and evil and should be either barred from holding any legal power or leadership roles or at least should be (again in her words) "gelded like bulls" to remove their testosterone before even being considered for such a thing.

she also evidently believes that the problem with all religions today is primarily that they aren't "goddess worshippers", because she seems to think goddess religions are inherently peaceful and pure too and seems to be especially obsessed with "Isis" in particular. the very very few times she's openly considered it unambiguously bad for some population or another to have been exterminated (she's got a bad case of devil's advocating genocide brain), she's gone out of her way to make up some crap about how said people were a peaceful society of goddess-worshippers, almost always of isis. delusions of isis-worship seem to be the only thing that ever causes her to consider any arab or middle-eastern culture, society, or ethnicity to be relatively uncomplicatedly undeserving of extermination, in fact, because every fucking time she doesn't immediately start devils-advocating it and making remarks about how "the rest of the world should box them in and let them blow eachother up" it's when she's whinging on about how whatever specific micro-ethnicity she's thinking about are or were traditional persecuted isis-worshippers.

the sole major exception to her weird fixation on isis worship justifying worthiness of life is the whole israel thing going on, in which she has consistently made very obvious that literally the only reason she's against the genocide of palestine is because it gives her an excuse to even more openly hate jewish people than she already did. and honestly i'm not sure even that's true because i think she's made some offhand remarks about palestinians having probably been peaceful isis worshipers before the jews infected them with christianity or something anyway.

so for the last, however fucking long it's been i've been constantly having to listen to her go off about how this behavior is in the jew's blood or whatever and that they literally invented all genocide because somehow the concept didn't exist before them and wouldn't have ever been invented by the rest of humanity without those jewish aliens dropping it in i fucking guess apparently and she furthermore goes on about how every single genocide and mass-oppression movement in history is directly inspired by them, ESPECIALLY the nazis, and THEN i have to listen to her rant about how, basically, wwii was something they entirely brought on themselves by "dominating the economy and treating everyone not them like shit" and the nazis were just "using their own tactics back at them". and then she goes on a rant about how the people the original jews exterminated back in the day (aka the first ever genocide, which they invented, because jews invented genocide and hate according to her) in the middle east region were peaceful matriarchal isis-worshipers.

and then she starts making comments about arabs being backwards and palestinians either being mysogynist muslims that should be boxed in to blow eachother up with everyone else or secret peaceful isis worshippers corrupted by men's cruel hand, sometimes in the same sentence, entirely dependent on which group she's more in the mood to hate at the time.

it's exhausting. beyond exhausting. her sole purpose in existence seems to be to have the singularly most exhausting set of politics physically possible to fit into one person.

just, sometimes i think, if there really is anything at all to the incredibly stupid and inexplicably popular idea that anyone or anything has a Purpose tm to exist for, i feel like my mother's purpose is to be walking proof to me of a Type Of Guy That Is Real, cause i sure as fuck would have trouble inventing this mess if it wasn't standing right in front of me spewing confusingly bipartisan hate. all of her thoughts and opinions are these long winding nonsense chains that feel like if that man carrying thing sketch about the friend with confusing politics was a person. on meth.