#also it baffles me that conservatives follow me

[incorrectbatfam]

That’s sucks about the nsfw thing but I have to say I hope Trump wins because Harris is for more gun control which doesn’t do crap except make it harder for legal guns to get out, gun control doesn’t do crap to stop criminals from getting them

I'd argue differently because it shouldn't have been so easy for me, a mentally ill alcoholic, to legally get a license and firearm myself

[dahliaslove]

⭑ HC’S OF SLASHERS WITH A BIMBO S/O

⭑ authors note: this was very fun to make so feel free to request any similar head canons also lmk if i should make a part two with more slashers :)

⭑ warnings: small mention of kidnapping, some of them immediately make your appearance sexual (sorry but they’re very mentally unstable), stalking, mention of panty stealing, corruption kink, aged up stu as if he got away with the killings and went on to college, small mention of fucking in a bathroom, basically they’re all perverts to some extent (sorry)

⭑ characters: thomas hewitt, michael myers, bo sinclair, lester sinclair, vincent sinclair, stu macher

no detailed smut, but minors don’t interact please!

THOMAS HEWITT

- living in the conservative and rural south, i doubt he’s seen many people decked out in as much pink as you while also simultaneously wearing as little clothing as possible

- luda mae will definitely judge you by the way you dress but once she gets to see how well you treat her tommy she’s letting it slide and excusing it by saying that it’s necessary to dress like that in the heat or something

- once you’re an established person in the hewitt residence i feel like they wouldn’t really have to hide their cannabalism from you too hard due to you being you know . . . oblivious

- hoyt would 100% make some sort of remark to you that has thomas fuming, like he knows you’re such a kind and gentle person and hoyt should not be trying to get with you like that, even if you don’t necessarily notice that he’s being sleazy toward you

- i know thomas would low key struggle to contain himself around you and is definitely ashamed about it because he should not be feeling this way when you’re not even doing anything necessarily sexual

- like he feels pathetic palming himself in secret while thinking about you in your short skirts and tight tops but after you find out about this he’ll absolutely let you help him out with it

- imagine trying to calm the creaking from his bed so his family doesn’t hear as you ride him silly with your skirt rolled up your thighs and his big hands holding onto your waist . . .

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

MICHAEL MYERS

- the amount of pink you’re wearing is what first catches michaels attention. he definitely stalks you at first and just watches you waltz around in your bright pink attire, oblivious to michael watching you, very obviously too.

- to be honest i think this would frustrate him at first, like why aren’t you noticing that there a dangerous man following you around?!

- oh my god and if you’re someone who constantly forgets to lock their doors? michael is literally taking that as an invitation to break into your place. he doesn’t even bother to hide whenever you come walking down stairs in your short and cutesy matching pajama top and bottoms, he just waits for you to notice.

- mans is absolutely baffled whenever you turn to him and instead of freaking out, you just smile and ask him if he’s hungry. i would like to say that he would take this invitation and take a container of whatever food you have and then just awkwardly leave and question his whole entire existence.

- he comes back though, because even murderers have to eat, right? he just keeps coming back to your house frequently until he’s practically living with you.

- i feel like one day you would probably see him on the news while looking for something to watch and be like oh my god my new roommate is a killer? well . . . he hasn’t hurt me so it’s whatever i guess . . . wait! that’s why he never pays rent?

- once you guys cross the line from roommates to a couple, he will honestly be a little concerned for your well-being, like how does someone as oblivious as you even make it through the day?

- don’t worry though, michael will absolutely stalk you to check in on you and will murder anyone who does anything to you :)

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

BO SINCLAIR

- to be honest, this mf is gonna sexualize you immediately. He’s turning his charm levels all the way to 11 and trying to win you over in his own manipulative and slightly hot way though.

- he definitely gets annoyed by you being clumsy, but he uses that as an opportunity to 100% be a pervert by letting his hands wander or just straight up staring down at your tits or ass.

- trust me, as soon as this man is in your vicinity he is rock hard because he literally has the dirtiest mind ever and has absolutely no chill. ( this makes the sex 1000% better though )

- he for sure has nude polaroids of you in his wallet, like imagine gifting them to him sealed with a bright lipstick stain on the back and a cutely drawn heart. he also jacks off to these in the back of his shop because he has no shame when it comes to you as i said earlier.

- he probably wouldn’t worry much about you leaving due to you being oblivious to the situation you’re in but he would definitely be more protective of you because of this when you get to know each other more.

- like if any tourist tries to do or say anything to you that he doesn’t like? he’s gonna try and keep his act together with clenched teeth and a strained smile before killing them off himself instead of sending them to vincent or something.

- definitely makes fun of you for being a naive klutz though. like he will manipulate you to the max to get you to comply for him, he’ll say things like “just please do it for me, okay sugar?” and have you wrapped right around his finger.

- the same kinda goes the other way, just to an extent. after a while of you laying some sweet loving on him he’ll definitely be asking lester to pick you up some pretty lipsticks and anything that he thinks you’ll find cute.

- over all, you’re bo’s walking wet dream and he literally can not get over you especially after you guys get in a relationship and to you he’s just your silly little mechanic boyfriend who lives in a weirdly empty town.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

LESTER SINCLAIR

- lives for the aesthetic and finds you so pretty but is a total pervert and he, like bo, uses your naivety to his advantage

- he gives panty stealer vibes to me, like i know he probably acts all innocent and puppy eyed around you but as soon as you look away for one second he’s going into your room and stealing your panties you know? (he still does it while you’re in a relationship too, because this man can not be stopped)

- say you work at a cute little diner he likes to frequent (because of you) he will go there every other day and butter you up only to leave the parking lot of the diner and jerk off into his hand on the side of some abandoned road . . .

- he will find a way to be with you whether it be literally stealing you away or finding you on the side of the road after your cars broken down and convincing you to stay with him. and with the second option being more likely (he will mess with your car and plan out the whole thing) you won’t even realize he’s got you tied in with him forever

- you’ll just think lester is the sweet southern man from the diner who’s turned into your boyfriend who takes care of you and let you move into his place really quickly

- He absolutely has a corruption kink, like he loves the idea of being with someone so perfect and just absolutely ruining them. he also definitely has you christen his truck for “good luck” by fucking you in there until you’re a sticky sobbing mess.

- but on the softer side of things, i know lester is so greatful for you and can’t believe that someone as sweet and pretty as you could love him. especially as someone who wasn’t loved properly as a child :(

- and he’s so protective over you too because he knows how mean the world can be and he doesn’t want anyone else to hurt you. so he’s definitely extra careful when he has you in the car and is picking up tourists. it’s low key funny because he’s over here worried they’re gonna say something mean to you and not that you’re gonna find out what he’s luring them into. if they do something though, he makes sure to tell his brothers to make their death slow and painful :)

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

VINCENT SINCLAIR

- he absolutely adores you, like he loves having a silly lil naive pink loving partner.

- anytime you’re having one of your airhead moments he will calmly explain to you in more detail until you understand what he’s talking about :(

- he loves drawing you, he does it so much it’s to the point where his pink colored pencils are getting shorter and are always dull from use. he hangs the drawings up all over his walls and stuff too, which literally has you leaving kisses all over him and drowning him in compliments (he gets very flustered)

- tries to keep you away from the fact he turns people into wax statues, but is glad that you don’t even seem to notice! imagine you complimenting him on how life like they look and he’s like :-|

- probably very protective over you, especially if you come into contact with bo . . . who has no shame in flirting with you but you’re just like no thanks i have a perfectly awesome and cool boyfriend :) (bo’s ego was very hurt that day)

- this immediately has him rolling all over the house and happily dancing because he loves you so much and you’re all his

- just because he feels like this doesn’t also mean he’s not a perv like the rest of them though (you thought you were safe muahaha) he probably has so many nude drawings of you, mans absolutely gets every detail in them too

- he hides them from you at first but if you find them . . . oh my lord he’s gonna be so embarrassed . . . and hard. seeing him depict you so beautifully, probably splayed out on pink sheets too, immediately has you on your knees for him.

- i don’t care i would suck this man dry to show my appreciation, like until he has tears in his eyes and he’s just uncontrollably bucking his hips into your mouth

- basically he loves you in pink and is your #1 supporter!!!

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

STU MACHER

- absolutely whipped for you and you have him following you around with heart eyes all over campus

- doesn’t tell you about his side hobby of killing people, because he honestly doesn’t feel the need too since you believe him anytime he says the red staining his shoes is paint.

- absolutely gives you the princess treatment since he has all that money from his rich parents, so he buys you new clothes, gives you mail money, money to get your hair done, ect, ect.

- but he also does it with his actions you know? like he absolutely opens the door for you with a dramatic bow and says something like “after you, m’lady”

- he’s the type of guy that will go out of his way to look up your skirt to fluster you though

- he’s still a pervert but he’s more jokey about it, for example, he makes all sorts of dirty jokes and giggles like a maniac when you don’t understand them. when you do though, you’ve got him down on his knees for you, if you respond back by flirting, just know he’s taking you off to some bathroom and absolutely fucking you dumb and when you’re done he’s flipping your skirt back down and leaving the bathroom with a spring in his step.

- basically you’re just his sweet lil bimbo partner who he spoils endlessly in kisses n’ nice stuff who thankfully never notices the blood staining random items in his apartment :)

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

[captainjonnitkessler]

As someone in their early twenties, at a relatively liberal liberal arts school, it has been horrifying to watch the amount of fliers around campus that talked about "Don't give biden your vote in the primaries, and don't give it to him in november until he's divested from death" AKA palestine. And it's like, I understand the sentiment, but also,wow...we as impressionable 20 year olds are in fact not immune to propaganda. Because the idea that somehow the whole of voting age gen-Zers have fallen for the "don't vote as a form of protest" is horrifying to witness because there are enough of us to sway the vote!

What are you talking about, you're not going to vote??? So playing into the hands of conservatives who've pushed to raise the voting age because they're afraid of us? Seriously? It is mind boggling.

I just want to sit down every single one of them, and make they watch this fantastic video (www.tiktok.com /@bellekurve/video/7345300384161860910?lang=en) because the reaction they are all having is so deeply childishly naive, and they are framing it as brave, and it is potentially going to hurt a lot of people if they follow through with it.

[Here's the linked tiktok]

It is baffling to me that people are still pushing the "not voting as a form of protest that will push the Democrats left" thing. Politicians are not going to court your vote if your demographic historically doesn't vote in large numbers, which young left-leaning people do not.

Refusing to vote is never, ever going to make politicians swing left to court your vote because they don't think you're going to show up anyway. They're going to swing even harder towards reliable voting blocs, and those lean heavily conservative. The 60+ age bracket leans heavily conservative and consistently votes at rates 20-30 points higher than the 18-29 bracket, and religiosity correlates with both higher turnout and conservatism. That's why so many politicians are courting them on both sides of the aisle.

Evangelicals got a lot of their power in this country by being a consistent, unified voting bloc that turns out for every election. I genuinely think that if young leftists voted in larger numbers they could do the same. Refusing to vote isn't a protest, it's an abdication of any power you could have had.

[bluecrocss]

Following up on the RACIST PJO Fan artist that likes to antagonize other Fan artists (Sevsalio)

So, I recently made this post detailing a racist interaction I had with this user.

Aka the person who made the following fanarts:

And despite other people reporting similar interactions, I have a lot of non-black people white-splaining how they're not anti-black or how what they said is fine.

Newsflash, my first post was for non-racist pjo fans to be aware, in case they interact with that user. For those of you that defend them, idrc, keep engaging with them, its so clear how normalised anti-blackness is in this fandom.

The user themselves had this to say:

That is called deflection. They're trying to make it seem as if the issue was that I disagreed with their opinion about mixed fanart between the book and the show.

First of all, their initial post that started all this was them accusing artists that draw Show!annabeth (black) with book!percy of being Racist. That is what they said. They have literally used the term "reverse-racism" in 2024.

They claimed that it was unfair that artists that draw Book!annabeth and Show!percy get "lynched" (more racist language btw), yet when asked, they couldn't give ONE example of that happening.

This user is not a victim being attacked for no reason. They hate seeing fanart of Show!annabeth with book!percy, and decided it was their place to call artists that did that racist. Then made up imaginary scenarios of the reverse to justify their statement.

The whole interaction can be read here, if they want to accuse me of hiding context or whatever.

They also specifically used the "Leah Sava Jeffires" tag (aka the black actress for show annabeth, who dealt with 2 years of relentless racist hate mobs & death threats), so that any fans of hers or the show would see the post.

I'm not just calling them racist for that though. Their response to my prodding had them revealing a lot of their blatant anti-black views (which they quickly deleted. wonder why?).

This is what they have to say about black people:

(Pretending to be black to deflect accountability. Nice).

And when confronted on their bigotry, this is how they like to respond to people:

Oh, and funfact, they're also transphobic (or atleast enjoy antagonizing other queer people. And no it doesn't matter if they're also gay):

Fyi, "I hate everyone equally" isn't an adequate response when people are telling you you're being bigoted :)

This person intentionally antagonizes other artists and has made it clear that they believe that there is too much representation for black people, racial minorities and queer people (all statistically under-represented groups).

I don't care if they said they're not racist, or transphobic or anything else. You think conservatives or homophobes openly think they're hateful? But if you enjoy antagonizing marginalized groups and multiple people within those groups have called out the shit you say... maybe it's not up to you to determine if you're a bigot.

The creator of the series himself, has literally made it clear even he doesn't appreciate people like you in the fandom, so your sense of entitlement is baffling.

Stop coming into my comments/messages to defend this person. IDC if you still wanna be friends with them, but y'all wont gaslight me into believing this rhetoric is okay. Good day 🩷

[ccuniculusmolestus]

so you know how richard literally worshipped henry and saw him as god (kinda) or at least this flawless being etc etc. this makes me curious in how do you think bunny saw henry? we know how he talked about henry rather positively during that lunch with richard. but did he also worship henry in the same level as richard's or do you think bunny had very different view of this man and could see him beyond his perfect surface??? love ur bunny posting btw :3

tank uuuu i love bunny posting also and i enjoy these asks os much so thank u for them :3

Did Bunny worship Henry like Richard did or not?

ok HUFF i have many Though.ts about this and theyve evolved ever since i read the book the first time. i wanna write a concise reply without yapping so i just cut like entire blocks of text.....sigh. let me try and gather my throughts for real

(irrelevant thoughts added with asterisk * at the end)

i think one of the biggest ways bunny differed from the others in the group-- and a big reason for henry's growing distaste for him-- was the fact that Bunny didn't worship henry like he SHOULD have.

Bunny, out of everyone (even richard), received the most amount of grace from Henry. Yes, Henry saved Richard from dying in that shithole in winter, and he 'saved' (debatable) Camilla from Charles, but how many times do you think, in the 3 years he knew Bun, did he pay for Bunny's food, clothes, and most likely medicine/inhalers etc. (thats another headcanon for another time i was just about to type a whole ahh paragraph). Considering everything he'd done for Bunny, Bunny should've been the one most devoted to him. And yet, he was ironically the least devoted. (but i'd argue he was somewhat of a devotee anyway)*

I say Bunny admired Henry enough to stick with him throughout the bachanal attempts. Given his conservative way of thinking and unserious attitude towards the practice, I was always baffled about WHY bunny even gave a shit about the bacchanal, why he didn't blow them all off. He surely didn't care enough to be involved in the practice for the sake of Francis (homosexual) or Camilla (woman, incest-er), or Charles (alabama) because by then he was disillusioned with them all. He gave a shit because Henry was doing it. He wanted to be involved because he wanted to stick by Henry.

Bunny's almost child-like dependence and clingy-ness (Read: How he drove Henry mad in Rome by following him EVERYWHERE. even to the BATH?) when it came to Henry was also baffling considering his brash and over-confident, 'masculine' character. He probs knew he was dependent on Henry, like a devotee is to a god. Or a son is to a father. (DONT. get me started on THAt. i have talked about it before i will no shutup ABOT it,)

So now we have established that Bunny did in fact worship Henry to some degree, but in the end he only saw him as another man (cough. A friend.) Because Bunny was not so detached from the rest of the world like Richard and the others were, he had a foot lodged in the door of reality and he only occasionally peeked into crazy lala cult land for the sake of Henry every now and then. He most likely assumed he'd be able to get away with it by just doing performative shit for his friends like wearing togas and singing in the forest lol.

Bunny's image of Henry's superiority or his godhood shattered in Rome, when he realized he was nothing more to Henry than...well, whatever Henry had called him in his journal. And also, that Henry was apparently crazy enough to kill a man with his bare hands. (MIND YOU, he read HENRY'S direct thoughts on the murder. Thus we can argue he knew about the murder more intimately than anyone else did. I just know Henry didn't really voice his true thoughts with any of the others (about how the murder probably felt exhilarating) but BUNNY read that shit. So thats when he realized just how fucked up Henry really was.)

Now, for richard and the others (particularly richard) the murder did nothing but lowkey solidify Henry's 'godhood' (and power) because these fucking morons were so detached from reality that they fr thought they were living in a greek myth or something. lame as hell. (me biggest greek class hater , hater #1)

Also I think its a bit karmic-ally satisfying how and why Henry meets his end lol. It IS through Bunny, and brought about by his OWN hand (Henry turned the letter, Henry pressed the trigger). But the reason Henry was really driven to it was because his own god was destroyed when he was shunned by him (Julian).

Henry's hand shoved Bunny off the cliff, but Bunny's hand wrote his ruin.

What does a scorned follower do when he loses his faith? He destroys his god. So Bunny's final act of prayer-- he destroyed Henry through Julian. Julian's godhood for Henry shattered when he abandoned him. An eye for an eye.

*Henry became extremely disillusioned with Bunny AFTER Bunny refused to observe the rites properly. Up until then, he was tolerating him despite everything, even the stupid stunt he pulled with richard LMAo. I guess the rites thing really showed Henry how little Bunny was willing to do for him, so he cut him out of the bacchanal entirely.

[qqueenofhades]

I have a question: what's up with the Terminally Online's weird hatred of Lin Manuel Miranda? I mean, I can understand not being into his style of music or whatever, but I see a bunch of Online Progressive people get really aggressive about his work on Hamilton especially. Even if you don't enjoy his work, why make up strange rumors about him and his family in Puerto Rico to make him look evil? It's absolutely baffling to me. He seems like a very kind and humble man.

I have no idea, because I don't follow the Terminally Online and try my best to ignore what they're saying. However, from the various icebergs of Discourse that have floated by on the edges, I think it’s because "the founding fathers were slaveholders and writing a musical about them with people of color is Dangerously Legitimizing them!!" Or something like that??? As if the founding fathers hadn't been slaveholders for 250 years and there are far more dangerous powerful, and systematic efforts going on to rewrite American history than by recasting it with artists of color (yet again, also why conservatives hated it, womp womp)?

There was definitely some absolutely terrible Hamilton discourse back in the Dark Days, and tumblr was tumblr about it, and Hamilton was a niche thing that then became insanely, crazily, mainstream universal, so it was therefore Cringe and had to be rejected. So yeah, the Terminally Online had to then tear into the whole idea, make up Personal Reasons Why LMM Is Morally Bad, etc etc. As I said. Complete shitshow, totally unrelated to anything about a well-meaning if possibly rather naive musical that nonetheless transformed the art form and became so popular that it had to be destroyed by the Holier Than Thou. I think.

[folklauerate]

The styling discourse made me think about what kind of style queen kate would adopt. I am not English and I am always quite baffled by the amount of articles written about the Royal Family and dress codes and being boring or too audacious etc. So what’s her style? Especially compared with her style pre engagement/wedding. (And if you want what’s the style of the various family members?) Thank you!

Thank you SO MUCH for asking because I LOVE talking fashion and I’ve been a royal style watcher for most of my life lol! I actually have spent the better part of an hour and a half pulling things and making moodboards!

To address your question about royal protocol and style and stuff; I’m going to go with what I’ve learned in the Harry and Meg doc, which is that there’s no set rule book given to them, but there are expectations that come with being a member of the royal family and you must dress accordingly! Royals will often wear pieces from local designers if they’re on tour, giving a nod to the country/city they’re in, and otherwise usually develop relationships with certain fashion houses and designers that help inform the rest of their looks. Almost all of them have a team of stylists. Royal dressing is important and Kate is going to learn to be incredibly intentional about it because what she wears has the power to potentially change a designer’s life, given that it’ll usually sell out quickly, and because it can be a way to shed light on important causes sartorially.

Royals AU Kate’s on-duty style is going to be really informed by Queen Letizia of Spain and Meghan Markle when she was a working royal. Letizia is always impeccably tailored, as though her clothes are custom made for her, and has such an eye for detail. She’s always fashionable and on trend without being gauche, she’s a very classic but elevated style, and she isn’t afraid to have fun. I picked Meghan’s royal style too because, especially during their last few working royal engagements, she was hitting it out of the park constantly! Bold colors, capes, great tailoring! I enjoyed some of her earlier royal looks, too; plenty of pants, some menswear inspired pieces (that structured jacket/blazer over a feminine self portrait dress is everything to me), and hats. It’s funny that I picked Letizia and Meg for this, since they’re both so petite and short, and Kate is not, so we’re all going to have to imagine lol.

So really classic silhouettes with unexpected/royal nods (aka capes and caplets, plenty of hats), great blowouts or wavy hair, elevated fancy businesswoman workwear type of stuff!

When it comes to her off-duty style, I had a BLAST! I think Karlie Kloss’ street style is perfect for Queen Kate off duty looks. Karlie is really tall (a bit taller than Kate but similar heights) and wears a lot of flats, along with really great fitting denim, plain t’s or sweaters that are all impeccably tailored and very fashionable, and GREAT classic coats! I think Queen Kate would wear something more daring/low cut for date nights, because she’s a modern girl and former movie star—she’s Hollywood royalty! I think the thing to remember here is she’s going to be dressing conservative but still intensely fashionable. Even her off-duty looks are coming from a highly curated wardrobe and follow a set of principles; very very immaculately tailored, structured well fitting denim, and tops/coats that look like she just threw them on and walked out of the house looking fabulous. I threw in Karlie in that fendi jumpsuit pushing a stroller for fun, because imagine Queen Kate pushing Miles around in a pram wearing that lol!

I also made a moodboard for Daphne! I think Daphne would tend to lean more Kate Middleton style, but specifically Kate Middleton during the Meghan Markle years when she upped her style game lmfao. So nothing crazy, everything is very tailored, classic, nothing “out there,” lots of blowouts (there’s a line in the second chapter about Daphne having blowouts and it was indeed a nod to Kate lol), very classic and feminine, leaning a little militaristic-inspired as Kate does sometimes with her coats!

[disillusionedmonster]

I saw your rant on Haruhi from OHSHC and you slayed! I LOVE this character and what she represents, she's by far my favorite shoujo mc and she is still a relevant female character. But with all the queer popularity in the recent years, I have seen people turning her and other female characters that broke down the gender norms into trans or nb and they just help to enforce the idea of women being inferior. In fandom spaces, it's pretty common rants about how much mostly female characters suck, how boring and bland they are but in the moment a female character is well written she can't be actually a woman? The whole concept of the both transgederism and non-binarism is so fucking misogynistic, it baffles me how people not only refuse to see it but they also act like if opposing to this regressive logic actually enforce gender roles.

Sheila Jeffreys didn't lie when she said liberals and conservatives are the same side of the same coin and how interdependent they are.

Literally. I usually ignore it and don't bother but man I am so sick of being inundated with it. I follow the tags because I love the Ouran and want to see fan art, not piss poor takes that demonstrate l lack of media analysis and literacy. It always reminds me of that comic/infographic which goes something like: as more women identify out of being a woman the picture of womanhood gets less colourful. I think this can be applied to characters as well.

[postsforposting]

>Bafflingly, the student who complained didn't leave,

this isn't baffling, if you know why people believe these things in the first place. think about why people proselytize, and why they think it's required. they literally believe they're saving you from hell. they're making the world a better place. if they do not do that, under the literal belief that association with the murderer makes you just as bad as the murderer, then you've chosen to kill everyone you failed to convert. you damned them to hell. jesus doesn't do that to people, not even the people who murdered him.

obviously there are people who do these things in a nasty way, and that's the side mostly seen: you are dirty filthy nasty people, and we must teach you better lest you destroy the world with your satanic soul. "beat the heathen indian out of you" type of savior nonsense.

but the original idea was the same reason we have schools: people need to be taught what they don't know, and if you the missionary refuse, you're the one in the wrong there, not them. the missionary being in the wrong still applies even when it's done in nasty heathen way.

that's why the girl didn't leave the class. to leave would be a sin. i'm not saying she was religious, but because this mindset comes from fundamentalist religious ideas, that's where all the actions around it come from. people from all different religions all follow fundy christian patterns of belief with these purity culture censorship claims.

funny thing is, most of them also believe that christianity is the ultimate evil, especially conservative fundy christianity. when you point out where their politics and attitudes come from, and ask these "i'm a minority i'm a small jewish bean you need to shut up and listen to me because you're a vile evil oppressor" why they act like megachurch embezzling pastors, they get SO MAD. i haven't run into any ex islamic people doing this yet, perhaps because muslims have their own fundamentalists and know what that looks like, but not many people realize any religion can be fundamentalist. you don't need religion at all to be authoritarian and hateful, it's just a useful vehicle of control and power. same as it gets used here on tumblr, as every other demographic variable gets used.

>Basically, what I'm getting at is 'what's old is new again.'

it was never "old", not in the sense it ever went away. maybe it did over in the eu, but it's the norm in the usa. always has been.

when internet people are like “i love gothic literature but i hate anything that discusses incest, sexual violence, oppression, misogyny, abuse, torture, gore, murder, or death”

[jjr1971]

Argument with an older white atheist on Facebook.

Apologies for this tangent away from cool anime discussion but if you've followed this Tumblr long enough you know I do sometimes dive into US politics, etc. because besides being an anime fan I'm also a news junkie, a librarian, and also an unabashed lefty. I'm also a secular humanist and an atheist and moreover lean towards anti-theism, e.g. the philosophical view that in the main religion does more harm than good in society. That said, I'm not always in agreement with some of my fellow atheists, especially other older white guys (and especially those of a more libertarian-ish bent of which there are far too goddamn many online ready to mansplain themselves to anyone in virtual earshot and who look at a civil servant like me as some kind of wannabe Jack Booted Government Thug {JBGT (tm) } . Anyway, I'm Facebook friends with one of these old codgers who uses an alias on Facebook and I think his main online identity is that of the "Atheist Camel", and he was having a moral panic attack over the singing of the so-called "Black National Anthem" and going right into a slippery slope argument (an assertion without evidence) of "oh god what next, the Jewish National Anthem? The Chicano National Anthem? The AAPI National Anthem?" Meanwhile I'm like DUDE....back the fuck up and calm down. The name of the song is "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery that evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land." {per Wikipedia} {also per Wikipedia} After its first recitation in 1900, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was communally sung within Black communities, while the NAACP began to promote the hymn as a "Negro national anthem" in 1917 (with the term "Black national anthem" similarly used in the present day) AND: {per Wikipedia} The use of the term "the Black national anthem" in reference to "Lift Every Voice and Sing" has been criticized. Timothy Askew, an associate professor at the historically Black Clark Atlanta University, argued that the use of the term "Black national anthem" could incorrectly implicate a desire of separatism by Black communities, that the lyrics of the hymn do not overtly refer to any specific race (which has inspired people to perform it outside African American communities), and "identity should be developed by the individual himself, not by a group of people who think they know what is best for you."[11] Some Conservative commentators have similarly criticized performances and references to "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as the "Black national anthem" as separatist and diminishing to "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem of the United States.[12][13]

SIDEBAR: Francis Scott Key owned slaves and his own views on the institution of slavery were nuanced but he ultimately wound up opposing abolition and felt black slaves should be returned to Africa instead. {again per Wikipedia} In response to Askew's remarks, the NAACP's then-senior vice president of advocacy and policy Hilary O. Shelton told CNN that the hymn "was adopted and welcomed by a very interracial group, and it speaks of hope in being full first-class citizens in our society", used in conjunction with the U.S. national anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance during public events, "It is evident in our actions as an organization and here in America it is evidence that we are about inclusion, not exclusion. To claim that we as African-Americans want to form a confederation or separate ourselves from white people because of one song is baffling to me."[11] I posted a link to this full article referenced above on Atheist Camel's Facebook post's comment section and told him to go read it before going off half-cocked like that. He berated me as an idiot with nothing useful to say. I replied that if he refused to actually read the article and have a rational discussion then I had to reluctantly agree (that I had nothing useful to say). He didn't care about truth, he cared about being mad and being "right", in his own mind. He got defensive and said he wasn't a right-winger or a FOX News Viewer...which immediately brought this little scene to my mind as a reply.... You will be. YOU WILL BE.

[beautifulblhell]

Christmas Presents

Pairing: Hogwarts Slytherin!Ran x Gryffindor!Reader

Summary: when you try to break your ‘promise’ with Ran

A/N: My friend sent me this fanart of Ran in Slytherin uniform and I had to get it out of my system 😭🤣

Also to me this feels really rushed and messy so I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to work on this before Christmas, and it’s just not working for me right now (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`)I might come back some time next year and re-write it properly for myself but who knows... 💀 my whole writing quality has been slipping downhill lately... much like my life 💀😭🤣 Part of: @hanayanetwork

Tags: fluff, humour, light swearing

WC: 3103

He had flipped your world upside down.

Figuratively and literally.

“Put. Me. DOWN!” Your loud yells ricocheted off the stone walls. Every word was punctuated by your fist striking his back, but to no avail. He completely ignored you, and continued talking with Rindou.

“-is still in hospital,” Rindou was saying at the side, as if his brother wasn’t carrying a screaming and kicking human on his shoulders.

“Such a shame~” Ran mused, though there wasn’t a single ounce of pity in his voice.

It was Christmas morning, and the great hall, which was usually abuzz with the chatterings of the students who had stayed behind, was silent as the snowfall outside. The only sound that could be perceived were the voices of your two kidnappers. Barely audible underneath your angry screams.

They sauntered down between the tables, conversing as if they weren't abducting someone from their breakfast.

“Ran Haita-!”

Yet before the last syllable of his name had fallen out of a furious Professor McGonagall’s mouth, both brothers had already crossed the hall and disappeared from her sight, leaving only a stunned silence in their wake.

“Did you see McGonagall’s face?” Rindou was cackling uproariously as they descended down the stairs to who-knows-where.

At this point you had stopped struggling. It was futile anyway. Might as well conserve your energy for later.

“Sure did, never seen her so angry before.” Ran breezed through the stairs with you still on his shoulders.

You were pretty sure that Professor McGonagall’s wrinkles deepened every time she saw them.

Not that you could blame her.

Ran Haitani, the captain and beater of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and his younger brother by one year, Rindou Haitani, the other beater on the team.

There wasn’t a soul, nor ghost, who didn’t know that the Haitani brothers were trouble.

It was one of the school’s biggest mysteries as to why they were never expelled.

A lifetime subscription with no cancellation, Ran had replied when you had asked if you could excuse yourself from their ‘friendship’ after receiving a month of detention when Argus Filch found you, just you, in one of the forbidden areas. And they had the audacity to ask what was wrong the following day, as if they weren’t the ones that forced you to go along with them on their ‘explorations’ in the middle of the night, then abandoned you behind.

The only thing that stopped you from snipping off Ran’s braids that night was that you didn’t have access to the Slytherin Dungeons.

A wintry gale bit into your skin. Rindou had pushed a groaning door open. After taking a few more steps, Ran finally hauled you off his shoulders and placed you on the ground. The thick snow crunched underneath your boots.

You looked up at the grey sky. Snowflakes fluttered onto your face. You were internally counting backwards from ten to stop yourself from committing homicide, when Rindou cut in your thoughts just as you reached nine.

“Why do you look so miserable?” He sounded genuinely baffled.

You regarded him in disbelief, wondering who and how many times he was dropped on the head when he was a small. “Miserable? Miserable?! What should I look like then, after what you’ve just pulled?!”

You could almost hear the buzzing of the gossip circulating in the great hall right now, and you knew the news would disseminate even to those who were at home. Never underestimate the speed that gossip can travel.

Rindou held up both of his palms in an attempt to reflect your anger, and pointed at his brother. “It was his idea.”

You knew that already. You blew your messy hair away from your face in an angry gust of breath, but the wind rushing past whipped them back into your face.

So even dear mother nature was against you today.

A hand reached out and tucked a strand behind your ear, his warm fingertips brushing the shell of your ear.

“Who’s fault do you think my hair is like this?” The struggle had made your hair look like a bird's nest.

“And a merry Christmas to you,” Ran replied cheerfully.

You exhaled sharply through your nose, your energy had already started to deplete with the few words you’ve exchanged with them.

“I’m going back.” You spun on your heel, and started to stalk towards the entrance. A scarf lassoed around your neck and jerked you to a halt.

“Hey lemme go!” You struggled to try and pull free.

“If you don’t comply, I’ll carry you on my shoulders again.” The sing-song voice came closer to you.

Your eyes flickered to the entrance, wondering if you could sprint back-

A hand was placed on your shoulders, and a voice by your ear whispered threateningly, “You can’t outrun me.”

His face was so close to yours that you could see each individual eyelash framing his eyes. Your heart did a flip. “I wasn’t planning to.” You took a step away from him, and folded your arms defensively.

“Sure you weren’t,” Rindou snorted, to which you gave him a flat stare.

“And are you sure you want to go back right now?” Ran asked with a grin.

Hearing it brought forth the vivid image of your shocked classmates’ faces into your mind. You clutched your head in your hands and let out a groan of anguish. It was a scene that you would relive every time you closed your eyes.

“Fine then.” You stomped towards the forest.

“Where are you going?” Rindou asked sceptically. He kicked up a cloud of snow into the air. It foamed a white mist as it descended slowly back onto the ground.

“To a secluded forest so I can live the rest of my pitiful existence as a hermit.” You snapped.

“I’ll come with you.” Ran strolled up to you, almost as if he was doing you a favour, and not because he was the cause of your current headache.

You narrowed your eyes. “Last time I checked, hermits lived alone.”

“In what? The book of Rules Of Living As A Hermit? Rules are meant to be broken anyway.”

“I-“ you threw your hands up in the air in frustration. It was either that or around his neck. “Why are you so annoying?”

Ran cocked his head to the side. “No one has ever told me that.”

“No one has ever told you that in your face.” Because most students would rather dance on Professor Snape’s desk in a pink tutu than to cross either of the Haitani brothers.

That earned a snigger from Rindou.

At this point you were shivering. The sweater you had on offered not much of a protection against the coldness.

“Look, if you are planning to drag me somewhere, at least let me go back and get my jacket.” And I’ll hide in the Gryffindor common room for the rest of the day, as per your original plan.

However, Ran saw through you immediately. “We know the password to the Gryffindor Tower,” he said smugly.

You weren’t surprised. Your shoulders sagged.

“You cheated,” you said in a last effort to try and bail yourself out of this. But you knew you were fighting a losing battle.

It all started a few weeks ago, when you accidentally let it slip that you were going to be staying for the holidays. Ran had pestered you to agree to go on a date with him on Christmas if they won against Gryffindor in the Quidditch match. You had finally relented, half because you wanted him to shut up, and half because you thought you could be smug and rub it into his face when he loses, since the team you had this year was the best in decades.

Ran only blinked at you in confusion at your words.

“Don’t pull the selective amnesia card on me! How many players did you injure?!”

He shrugged nonchalantly, and brushed off a layer of snow that had accumulated on his braids. “It was an accident.”

“Accidentally on purpose.” Your lips were pressed in a grim line as you recalled the match. Or if you call it more appropriately: the slaughter.

It wasn’t simply because of how many chasers both of them had managed to injure with the bludger, Rindou had shielding him from the referee and teachers stand while Ran knocked the Gryffindor seeker off his broomstick with his bat.

Only the students saw, but no one was willing to risk being on either Ran or Rindou’s bad side. That was equivalent to boarding the express train to doom.

“A win is a win. Not our fault if your team members are as fragile as your emotions,” Rindou rubbed his hands together and blew on them. “Shit, it’s cold.”

“Well, thank you for noticing I’ve got fragile emotions,” your acerbic voice stabbed through the air. “Could have put that in consideration before what you did earlier, no?”

“Wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t try to hide from me, would it?” Ran grinned knowingly at you.

You scowled, but averted your gaze. It was true, your plan was to inhale your breakfast at light speed, then spend the rest of the day hiding in the Gryffindor Common room. But your plan had been foiled. Amidst the sea of students, Ran had spotted you instantly and carried you away.

“Anyway, I gotta go, it’s freezing and I want to go back to sleep.” Rindou yawned to prove his point.

“It's only nine o’clock,” you said incredulously.

Rindou threw a snowball at Ran. The latter caught it without even looking at him. “Yeah, but we were up all night.”

You turned towards Ran with a smile, a tiny flicker of hope was in sight. “So you must be tired too, why don’t you go back to sleep as well-”

A cloak wrapped around you and pulled you towards him. The distinct smell of the cologne Ran wore filled your nose. Rindou rolled his eyes at the sight, and then turned to leave with a wave.

“Have fun!” He called out. Mostly to his brother.

“Hey wait wait wait! We can’t walk around like this!” You spluttered.

Ran had covered you both with his cloak, which was surprisingly big enough for both of you.

“Who gives a shit what other people think?” He reached out and wrapped the scarf properly around your neck this time.

And before you could protest further, he had dragged you off towards Hogsmeade.

With no other choice, you walked alongside him. But because of the small proximity, you had to huddle against him. Your fingers brushed against his.

“Woah, your hands are freezing!” He exclaimed.

“And I wonder who dragged me out here in the first place.” You grumbled, ready to shove your hands in your pocket, but his long fingers reached out and laced with yours. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Taking responsibility until your hand warms up.” He threw you a wink. The heat from his hand travelled up to your cheeks, and you turned away in a huff so he couldn’t see your blushing face.

And it was afternoon when you finally sat down to have a break. Ran was humming under his breath, his grin never faded. You never thought shopping was going to be this tiring.

He had brought you to a boutique first, and had asked you to try on dresses and coats one after another. Then, finally, just when you thought he had settled on one, he purchased them all.

“You look pretty in all of them,” he had said when you tried to protest. Somehow, it equally flattered and vexed you whenever he called you ‘pretty’, because you had no idea if he was serious or not.  

So here you were, at The Three Broomsticks. It was packed to the brim, and the atmosphere was convivial. Ran had managed to grab a corner table. By ‘grabbed’ you meant he sauntered up to the table, and the occupiers had hurriedly scrambled up and left when they saw him.

He had wanted to take you to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, but you had pointed at your boots, and said, “Go there and I’ll throw these at your head, Ran Haitani.”

You knew that Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop was filled with couples spending Christmas together today. No way were you going there with Ran.

Ran returned to the table, carrying your drinks. He placed a cherry syrup and soda with ice in front of you.

“Because a certain weirdo likes to drink cold drinks in the winter,” he said as he placed a cherry syrup and soda with ice in front of you.

“What’s wrong with drinking cold drinks in the winter?” You pulled your glass towards you as Ran sat down opposite you.

You regarded Ran over the rim of your glass. In the light, his lilac eyes twinkled, and his beauty was captivating. But you’ve been with him long enough that whenever he opened his mouth you were ready to sigh.

Ran caught you looking at him, and he smirked.

“Falling for me?” He teased.

“Falling in despair, yes,” you took a gulp of your drink. The cold liquid hit your throat, making you shiver.

“So what’s the reason you are staying behind this year?” Ran asked.

“Inheritance dispute. My grandfather just passed away, and all my aunts and uncles are fighting over it. I offered to stay here away from the bloodbath that’s gonna ensure, and mum agreed.”

“Wasn’t he super rich? Didn’t he leave a will or something?”

“Rich from all his hoarding, yes. He died suddenly, but knowing him, he probably didn’t leave a will on purpose.”

“Do you think he’ll turn into a ghost just to watch the drama?” His eyes twinkled with mirth.

“Knowing him, he might come back to life after they finally reached an agreement, going ‘haha, you thought’.”

Ran laughed, and you felt your mouth following the sound of his laughter and curved upwards too.

Time always seemed to wind faster whenever you were with him.

By the time you were trudging through the snow on your way back, all the lights had flickered on.

“Look,” you said. You were both still huddling underneath one cloak with your hands entwined. Ran had refused with that perfect smile of his when you asked if you could wear one of your new coats. You gestured towards all the bags he was holding for you. “You got me so many things, isn’t there something you want as a christmas present? Because I’m gonna feel bad if I just accept all of them.”

Ran came to a halt. Out here, there was no one in your vicinity. Only you and him. The snow fell quietly. He turned towards you. “What if I said I want a kiss as a present?”

Your breath halted. Because while he still had the same carefree look on his face, his purple eyes were gazing at you steadily. He stepped closer. You didn’t know what to do. You always liked Ran, but to you it was only a one-sided crush, and it wasn’t something you were willingly to risk your friendship for. Because as much as he annoyed you, somehow, he became a vital part of your life. Which was why you wanted to avoid the ‘date’ today, as you didn’t want your feelings to develop.

You dropped your gaze. “If this is a joke it’s not funny,” you huffed, turning away. But your foot hit a fallen branch hidden underneath the thick snow, and you tumbled onto the ground.

Luckily, the thick layers of snow cushioned your fall. However, when you opened your eyes, Ran was hovering above you. His arms caged your smaller frame.

“What if I’m not joking?” His voice lost its usual playfulness. One of his hands brushed against your cheeks softly, as if you were something fragile, something that he shouldn’t be touching. The white puffs of clouds from your breaths coalesced as he leaned closer. Your heart was thumping three thousand miles a second, so loud that you were sure he could hear it, yet you couldn’t look away from him. Not when the only one reflecting in his clear purple eyes was you, swimming in an emotion you didn’t dare to name.

He leaned even closer, his braids brushed against your temples. You closed your eyes. The world was silent.

Then-

“Cold!” You screamed.

Cold snow had been stuffed down your collar, and Ran was laughing so hard he almost couldn't hold himself up.

“You-” A storm of expletives exploded through your mind, but none of it came out of your mouth. What you did next surprised even yourself.

Perhaps fuelled by your annoyance, and at all the time Ran had teased you, you jerked him down by his braids, and slammed your lips together. It only lasted for a second, yet you knew you would never forget the soft feeling of his lips on yours. You pulled back, at first enjoying his shocked expression, then, as the reality of what you did sank in, your grin faltered. You could feel your cheeks burning up, and you hurrendly tried to push him off you and run away.

He didn’t give you a chance.

His mouth was instantly on yours again. He held the back of your head, so you couldn't pull away as he pushed you back into the snow.

“Mn-!”

You shoved against his chest, trying to push him away and stop yourself drowning in him before it’s too late, but his hand found their way to yours, fingers slipping in between yours and held it on the snow covered ground.

Your heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird. You opened your mouth to gasp for breath. He took the chance and slipped his tongue inside you. The kiss was urgent, desperate, with none of the fineness that he usually showed, almost as if he was devouring you whole.

You weren’t sure how the snow around you wasn't melting, because you felt like you were burning up inside out. Your mind was white. Nothing mattered, except the sweet taste of him, and how right it felt. As if two stars finally aligned in the heavens.

When he finally let you up, your chest was heaving, and your panting could be heard in the small space between you.

He brushed his thumb over your lip, a smirk came back on his face, but his features were softer.

“Not a bad present at all.”

You grabbed a handful of snow and shoved it down his collar.

Side note: Okay when I tell you how devastated I was when I didn’t get a Hogwarts letter when I was a kid LMFAOOO😭😭 I was checking the mail ✨religiously✨but nope, no owl came to deliver it *sobs*

Masterlist | Support | 2021.12.11

[animews]

“wolfwalkers (2020) is a beautiful piece of queer cinema that delicately reflects on the coming out of queer youth in this essay i will- except that i actually write the essay”

sorry in advance for the weird way this is structured i wrote it as a literature assignment to copy the writing style of virginia woolf. which. made the writing a little weird and overly formal so!!! just ignore that lmao

also to anyone who says “wolfwalkers isnt an anime why ru writing about it on an anime blog” HUSH. maybe it’s a cartoon to you, but it is like an anime to ME.

-o-

Wolfwalkers (2020) should, all things considered, be a typical coming-of-age story. But I think it’s not about coming-of-age, but instead coming out. A girl emerging from the closet, rather than from childhood. Wolfwalkers’ queer themes kept me up for a while, joining my late-night musings about stem cell ethics and the Lovecraftian horror of the Bee Movie. So here’s my thoughts. Make of them what you will.

First, let’s talk about werewolves. Werewolves are known to be general personification of “other”, so they’re a common metaphor for queerness. The separation of “wolf” and “man”, the monstrous coming to light and destroying the normal. They’re savage beasts that spend some time in human form, outcasts from society feared by the surrounding population. Whether they’re mindless and beastly or intelligent and misunderstood is up to interpretation, as Wolfwalker illustrates.

With that out of the way, let’s get started. Here’s our protagonist, Robyn Goodfellowe. Her father, Bill, has been summoned by the Lord Protector to hunt wolves. Said wolves are preventing the destruction of their forest home, which, as I am sure you agree, is truly baffling and without reason. For safety reasons, Robyn remains confined to her new home, as Bill informs her that it is “for her own good”. This will come up again later.

Of course, we would not have a story if Robyn stayed indoors, so we follow her as she sneaks into the woods. Her innocence is clearly shown here: she displays no signs of fear of death, confident that the world revolves around her. Therefore, the Robyn who accidentally shoots her precious bird is one at the beginning of her journey: a flower not yet bloomed, eyes closed to the harsh truths of the world. As she watches her bird fall from the sky, a mysterious, wild-looking girl scoops it up and runs off.

Here we take a break from Robyn’s dilemma to meet our antagonist, the religious leader of the town. It must be said that the title of Lord Protector fits him better than a simple name, unyielding and high-minded as he is. Here we see another staple of the queer narrative: religion. The Lord Protector is single-minded in his hatred of wolves: he wants them gone, and believes firmly that such action is God’s will. I don’t believe I must describe the long-held hatred of the Homosexuals by the Christian Church, but if that is something with which you are unfamiliar, feel free to visit your nearby conservative old-timey church and ask. Inherent in many religious folk is the “righteous anger”, the certainty that there is a holy mantel placed upon them to rid the world of the vermin gays, and this is certainly what the Lord Protector represents in this story.

The Lord Protector, angered at the presence of A Female, assigns Robyn to scullery duty, an appropriately womanly task. Robyn gets no support from her father, who believes it will do her good to act more like a woman should. If she conforms to the standards given to her, she won’t have any need to worry. Robyn, unswayed, escapes yet again into the forest to find her bird.

Robyn, not a particularly nimble individual, quickly gets herself caught in one of her own father’s traps after finding her bird (in the distance, a voice yells something about symbolism). Along comes a young wolf, and a scuffle ensues. After a stray bite on the arm, Robyn is set free from the trap, and follows the wolf into its secret cave, wherein it reveals its true form: the wild girl from before, named Mebh.

Mebh is a wolfwalker: she turns into a wolf when asleep. She quickly heals Robyn’s bite, and after a few mishaps, the two quickly make friends. Robyn’s preconceived notions of wolves go out the window: the wolves mean no harm. They’ve been planning to leave the forest to find safer lands, and are waiting for Mebh’s mother to return: she’s been asleep, her wolf-form missing.

There’s a particular scene here, in the middle of the movie, that really got to me. Robyn takes a brush and combs out Mebh’s hair, gently removing the forest debris; she then tucks a saved flower behind her ear. The vulnerability of letting someone touch your hair is not one to be taken lightly. Such a gesture is intimate, offered between close friends, family (or pack, rather). And to slip a flower behind one’s ear? What other indicator of blooming love might there be? This marks Robyn’s progression, as she begins the next step of her journey. As children, Mebh and Robyn believably reach this place in their relationship quickly, beginning their childhood friends to lovers (slowburn, 200k, last updated 2020) love story. They say goodbye, and Robyn runs off into the sunset, eager to tell her father her discoveries.

Predictably, Bill is furious at her breaking the rules, as well as disobeying the Lord Protector. He refuses to listen to Robyn’s pleas, dismissing her claims as “childish stories”. Such language is incredibly similar to those that a queer child’s parents would say under a situation where they are questioning their identity. They’re punished for breaking society’s rules, occasionally for fear of mistreatment by society, or because they disobey the religious conventions. Their exploration of their identity is dismissed as stories, false and made-up. Queer people don’t exist, and if they do, they’re evil and you’re not one of them, they say. You’re just tired, or hallucinating, they swear.

The next morning, Robyn goes to the scullery, as previously instructed. Bill yet again informs his daughter that this is for her own good, before leaving her to slave the day away. Exhausted and hearing mysterious voices, she escapes yet again to see Mebh in the forest (paralleling classic love story format), and ends up promising her to help find Moll, her mother.

You may observe yet another deviation from the typical girl’s coming-of-age path that Robyn has declined to follow: the absence of a male lead. Men instead appear as antagonists, through the Lord Protector, and to an extent, Bill. Thus, the movie further establishes itself as a less male-focused story, focusing instead on the girls (one might refer to the Korean word for girl: 어린애- female child: not a teenager but a child, innocent in their understanding and exploration of gender, as Robyn is here, on the cusp of discovery, still androgynous in the conduction of herself, unaware of who she is). As a fellow wolf (or is it Woolfe?) once mentioned, a problem in fiction is the absence of women and their inter-relationships: in this work, we are exposed to girls at their core, wild and genderless, before society attempts to corral them into their proper gender roles.

Robyn returns home to sleep and is shocked to awaken in wolf form. At this moment her father discovers her: a wolf perched atop the sleeping body of his daughter. Another aspect of queer adolescence emerges: fear of discovery. When one has watched their family openly condemn their kind, can they trust their promised unconditional love? If one’s family recognized them as “the enemy”, would they be accepted? Robyn wrestles with this as she stares her father in the eyes and runs into the streets for fear that he will kill her, runs haunted by the fear that he would raise his sword even if he knew it was her. With this, she finds Mebh in the forest and demands answers.

Mebh, confused, insists that she healed the transforming bite, but is distracted by the prospect of teaching Robyn the joys of wolfing (as children do), and so I shoulder the burden of explanation in her place. While the reason for Robyn’s wolfification could be the failure of Mebh to properly heal the bite, I would urge you to consider that Robyn, unconsciously recognizing the bond that she held with Mebh, created the wolf within her even after healing. Rather than getting “infected” by Mebh (as so many believe queer people do), the wolfwalker was within her all along, merely brought to the light.

While trying to sneak back through the gates, wolf-Robyn is discovered and a hunt ensues. To hide, she sneaks into a secret passage in the castle, and stumbles upon Mebh’s missing mother, Moll (alliteration abounds), trapped in a cage. Moll begs her to tell Mebh to flee the forest and stay safe, unknowingly paralleling Robyn’s father. Robyn, out of time, fails to free Moll, and rushes home to ‘wake up’ and turn back from wolf to human, refusing to sleep for the rest of the night.

After another day of grueling work in the scullery, Robyn has lost hope. Her safety hinges even more on her compliance, as her father has been demoted for failing to kill the wolves. Mebh, worried that Robyn hasn’t yet returned, sneaks into town to check on her. Appalled, Robyn begs her to return to the forest and leave without her mother, breaking her promise to help free Moll. Robyn, broken, has forced herself to grow into the role that the world assigned her, becoming exactly what her father and the Lord Protector wanted her to be. In this, she reflects the queer youth forced to stifle their identity to reflect their family’s and society’s expectations, simply to maintain a normal life.

Just then, the Lord Protector holds an announcement. He reveals a chained Moll, restraining her with the help of several soldiers. Seeing her, Mebh is enraged, and after an emotional scuffle with Robyn, who desperately tries to stop her, she jumps onstage. Moll bites Robyn’s father to stop him from catching Mebh, Mebh runs to gather her wolf pack, swearing revenge, and an enraged Lord Protector shouts for all troops to set the forest on fire and drive out the wolves (much like homophobic religious folk attempt to invade the safe spaces of queer people in an attempt to “eradicate” them). Robyn, stunned, can do nothing but watch her friend fight against her father.

Finally, Robyn chooses to side with the wolves (embracing her inner girlboss, etc.), standing against her father and freeing Moll. After a tearful reunion with Mebh and her now moll-ified pack (do you get it? do you????), tragedy strikes: Bill shoots Moll, who collapses. This is not dissimilar to the actions of many parents of queer children, who hurt people not only because of preconcieved notions of danger, but because they fear their children’s “corruption”. Robyn, heartbroken, shifts into wolf-form and runs off, in a twisted coming-out of sorts. Finally, Bill chooses to accept Robyn as both his daughter and a wolfwalker, at which point his own bite takes effect, helping him defeat the raging Lord Protector.

Moll is healed, the pack moves, and the story ends with Robyn and Mebh falling asleep, then running ahead in wolf form. The ending expresses Robyn’s final transformation and acceptance of her wolf-self not as an alter ego but merely as another part of herself, just as queer youth learn to accept their queerness as a intrinsic, unchangeable quality.

The movie isn’t groundbreaking in the way that most people crave queer films to be. The queerness isn’t explicit, and there could be arguments made for a “friendship movie”. But this movie isn’t about that, to me. For someone who has seen so few movies where queerness as an exploration isn’t punished, where the “bury your gays” trope isn’t implemented, where the main characters are children without themes of inherent corruption… I won’t lie, it made me cry. 

It’s just. Isn’t it beautiful to see such a simple movie about love between girls? Isn’t it lovely to know that cinema is allowed to be like this? Wolfwalkers (2020) is many things, a stepping stone and a soft touch, a children’s movie and a mature film, a work of art and a labor of love. all that, and most of all, it is deeply, intrinsically, queer.

[rin7713]

Speaking as someone that trusts people too easily and was subscribed and patroned to James Sommerton, I have some unfortunate insight into this.

So in the afterglow of the Sommerton expose I feel a bit icky honestly. I have realized I have not been paying enough attention to the media I have been engaging with, that I put things on sometimes just to have on in the background, even if there is something more thoughtful being said.

I ignored the red flags of someone looking kind of bored while delivering their video because I thought, "maybe that's just how he is", I know I don't always deliver words with the passion people expect from me. I trust and give grace to people without a lot of thought sometimes, it's something I'm working on to protect myself.

What was appealing about Sommerton's work, to me, was I wanted to engage with more queer content because queer anything was missing or hidden (there's a lot of tangents my ADHD brain wants to make here but honestly my Dad's taste in music was pretty heckin queer and it baffles me to this day that I grew up with such queer music but had no idea the history it represented) from my childhood growing up in a conservative Christian household. So in adulthood I've sought out queer content, sought out content from people with very different life experiences from my own so I can see another perspective and learn from it. Princess Weekes, Lindsey Ellis, Kat Blaque, Jessie Gender, and Khadija Mbowe were some of the first queer content creators I came across. And then there were others that they were in community with like FD Signifier, Foreign Man in a Foreign Land, VerilyBitchie others that I found I enjoyed too. And also I was around for the early days of TBSkyen, this is a funny tangent I just cannot help but add but I remember the very cute announcement Skyen made when they were talking about updating their channel page because people were starting to actually follow the channel and they wanted to have the effort of how their channel page look reflect that the professionalism mattered. Actually I think this tangent will prove a point later, hold onto it.

So I trusted Sommerton, and I even supported him on Patreon because I am a sucker for marketing, and I thought he might be a good cause to stand behind because he seemed to be doing a lot to illustrate a queer history I never knew, and I didn't think to do much work to look further than what was being presented on the surface. But things were starting to feel weird. Like it was weird when he had Mother's Basement quoted for his anime episode but didn't have like a cameo of him or something, just a mention of him. And it was weird how he kept saying straight white women were deniers of the gayness in Yuri on Ice, when that contradicted my own experiences with other women, and despite not being straight or strictly a woman myself, it kind of contradicted me who . It was also becoming really weird how he didn't seem to be getting in community with other creators I knew of (I'm not on Twitter or whatever it's called now so I had no idea about the previous Nebula creator drama he had). It was weird so I did start engaging with his content less, kind of by accident and I probably missed the re-uploaded content that would have been a red flag and I know I missed the live streams because it just seemed to be a bunch of AMAs instead of "Let's talk about X thing" I say all of this to illustrate, I do have taste, I do have some critical thinking skills and I also have a lot of trust in people, and I am probably an example of the average person that watched Sommerton's content.

Funny story I watched Todd In the Shadows' video before I watched Hbomberguy's video and I was appalled at myself that I had missed so much, thought so little beyond the surface of what was being presented, that I had just let my brain just absorb things so uncritically, that I didn't question much even when things felt off, that I had perpetuated the him getting away with it all by being this way. I blamed myself first.

But to others that have been fooled whether it's by Sommerton or other people in your life, it was not your fault that you trusted someone, that you believed them, that you took what they said at face value. The only thing you should do instead of blaming yourself is to reflect and learn from this experience. The power of hindsight can empower you to trust again but to trust with more boundaries in place for yourself.

In hindsight Sommerton's lack of passion should have been a red flag. In hindsight I have not adored his content or his brand the way I adore other content creators I engage with, there is not an adorable memory I can recall with fondness like I can with early TBSkyen giving his channel a facelift for the sake of telling their viewers "you matter and deserve professionalism". In hindsight my own lack of passion for Sommerton's content should have been a red flag. In hindsight there were some big red flags that I ignored just because I go to YouTube just to enjoy myself, because I have the privilege of being perceived a certain way that makes most of the queer history within Sommerton's mountain of plagiarism something I don't have to think about on a daily basis.

Should we have to be this vigilant just to enjoy content on a platform? Well look I'm not going to tell you what to do but I certainly suggest you should if you don't want to feel bamboozled again. I know I don't want to feel bamboozled again. It sucks but just like "Who Watches the Watchmen" was spray painted on the streets in Alan Moore's Watchmen, Hbomberguy's video posed the same question but for YouTubers. And the answer is it's other YouTubers and it's us as viewers. The consequences of not holding people accountable to their actions is, that they keep getting away with it and keep getting to spread their harm. And we should all do better.

re: Somerton

Not for nothing, but I think we should remember that James Somerton's fans and subscribers are normal people, just like you. They are people who received his output in good faith, and extended to him a normal amount of grace and benefit of the doubt, which he took advantage of.

I don't think it's helpful to respond to the exposé on Somerton with sentiments along the lines of "wow, how could anyone ever think THIS GUY'S videos were any good, ha ha ha, how did he ever get subscribers?" because 1) you have the substantial benefit of hindsight and a disengaged outsider perspective, and 2) it's a rhetoric that creates a divide between you (refined, savvy, smart, sophisticated) and Somerton's audience (gullible, unrefined, easily taken advantage of, terrible taste), which is a false divide, with a false sense of security.

Somerton's success happened because he stole good writing. He found interesting, insightful, in-depth work done by other people, applied the one skill he actually has which is marketing, and re-packaged it as his own. He targeted a market which is starving for the exact kind of writing he was stealing, and pushed his audience to disengage from sources that conflicted with him.

Hbomberguy makes this point in his exposé video: good queer writing is hard to find and incredibly easy to lose. The writers Somerton stole from were often poor or precarious, writing freelance work for small circles under shitty conditions, without the means or the reach or the privileges necessary to find bigger markets. And, as Hbomb demonstrated, when people did discover Somerton's plagiarism, he used his substantial audience to hound them away and dissuade anyone else from trying to hold him accountable.

He stole queer writing by marginalized people, about experiences and perspectives that people are desperate to hear more about, and even if his delivery and aesthetics were naff, his words resonated with people because the original writers who actually wrote them poured their goddamn hearts and souls into it.

Somerton also maintained a consistent narrative of persecution and marginalization about himself. He took the plain truth, which is that queer people and perspectives are discriminated against, and worked that into a story about himself as a lone, brave truth-teller, daring to voice an authentic queer perspective, constantly beset by bigots and adversaries who sought to tear him down. As @aranock, who works with some of the people he targeted, writes in this post, Somerton weaponized whatever casual bias and bigotry he could find in his audience to reinforce his me vs them narrative (usually misogyny and various forms of transphobia), which is what grifters do. They find a vulnerable thread in a community and pull on it. And while you may not have the particular vulnerability that he exploited, you do have vulnerabilities, and they can be exploited too.

People felt compelled to support him, even if his work was sometimes shoddy, because he presented himself as a vulnerable, marginalized person in need of help, he pulled on that vulnerable thread.

Again, he has a degree in marketing, and just like propaganda, nobody is immune to marketing.

YouTube as a system is set up to push for more, constantly more. More content, more videos, more output, more more more more, and part of Somerton and Illuminaughty's success was their ability to push out large amounts of content to the hungry algorithm, even if it was of inferior quality. The algorithm rewarded their volume of output with more eyeballs and attention, and therefore more opportunities to find people who were vulnerable to their grift.

It is a system which quite literally rewards the exact kind of plagiarism that they do, because watch-time and engagement are easily measurable metrics for a corporation, and academic rigor is not. There is pressure to deliver, and a lot of rewards to gain from cutting corners to do it.

Somerton and Illuminaughty and Internet Historian are extreme and very obvious cases, so blatant that you can make a four hour video essay exposing what they've done, but the vast majority of this kind of plagiarism isn't going to be obvious - sometimes it might not even be obvious to the people who are doing it. Casual plagiarism is endemic to the modern internet, and most people don't get educated on what the exact boundaries are between proper sourcing and quoting vs plagiarizing. We had an entire course module at my university aimed at teaching students the exact differences and definitions, and people still made good faith mistakes in their essays and papers that they had to learn to correct during their education.

All of this to say: it is extremely easy in hindsight to call Somerton's work shitty and shoddy, his aesthetics flat and uninspired, and to imagine that as a sophisticated person with good taste and critical faculties, you would never be taken in by this kind of grifter. It is extremely easy to distance yourself from the people he preyed on, and imagine that you will never have to worry about your fave doing your dirty like that.

But part of the point of Hbomberguy's video is that plagiarism is extremely easy to get away with, and often difficult for the average person to spot and call out, and with the rise of AI tools blurring the lines even further, it is not going to get any easier.

So I think we should resist the temptation to think of Somerton's audience as people with bad taste and poor faculties. We should resist the temptation to distance ourselves from the perfectly normal people he preyed on. Many times in your life, a modestly clever man with a marketing degree has fooled you too.

On a personal note, by the same token, I am resisting the temptation to assume that I am too good to be vulnerable to the systemic pressures that produced Somerton and Illuminaughty. No, I've never made a video by word-for-word reciting someone else's work, but I know for a fact that I could do a better job of double-checking my work and citing my sources. I feel the exact same pressure to get a video out as fast as possible, I have the exact same rewards dangled in front of me by YouTube as a platform, and I can't pretend it doesn't affect my work. To me, Hbomb's video felt like a wake-up call to do better.

[elbiotipo]

Sometimes I get reblogged or followed by some of those "TRUE PATRIOT CONSERVATIVE" US blogs... and it's so funny that always, no joke, ALL THE TIME, half of their posts are complaining about facemasks and half of their posts are praising the police/military

Which is crazy to me because, believe it or not, I don't hate the USA on itself. How could I hate the country that gave us Rock n' Roll and comic books? People from the USA have contributed a lot to science, technology and culture worldwide and I do appreciate that a lot. I do hate and wish for the end of the imperialist system that is perpetuated by the USA and this is why I am constantly railing against it because it's pervasive from outright military domination to cultural influence, but I really don't hate Usamericans and I think people from the US have done great and cool things they should rightfully be proud of.

But returning to those blogs, that's the funny thing I'm talking about. They are never proud of those things. I don't ever see a "TRUE PATRIOT AMERICAN" be proud of the Moon Landing, or old Americana architecture, or even cars (don't you guys even like cars I thought you did?) They're always proud of the military, of the police, of their own imperial wars (when they remember other countries exist) and lately and overwhelmingly, about not vaccinating and using masks. Is that really what those guys see their nation as? The mark of a true US patriot is... not to use facemasks (seriously it's HALF of their blogs, always, all the time, and it's the same on the rest of the internet). This is why it baffles me. The pride on war and violence.

In a way it reminds me of the Argentine "nationalists" that instead of remembering and taking pride on people like Favaloro, Milstein, Houssay who have furthered the cause of science and changed the lives of millions for the better, or our great artists, our culture, our diverse history and society, etc. they are all like QUE VUELVAN LOS MILITARES XDXDFDXDXD EPIC or praising absolute shitstains like Julio A. Roca (who led the genocides against native peoples in Patagonia). Why are you proud of the worst people that this country has seen? Why do you consider strenght, murder and hatred as good qualities?

I think one big part of maturity is to appreciate and love the land you were born in as well as to acknowledge the horrible things that happened (and are still happening) so that they won't get repeated and you can build a better future. Patriotism, when it's healthy, gives you love for your fellow man and the will to better the place you live in. And so and more important is also learning about other places and appreciating and soaking up in other cultures, it's something amazing that our interconnected world allows us, it's something I think everyone should engage in, I think everyone should be aware of the world around them and how other people live and think and do (and it's very fun too!). The fact that there are so many people stuck into such hateful, even outright stupid mindsets, is amazing to me and not in a good way.

[fueselwe]

I already said what I‘m doing

Human metabolism

After a sudden and unexpected acquaintance, the Quorn leaders are to meet with human ambassadors in the first in-person meeting to discuss first contact.

The meeting room was carefully prepared to be comfortable for Quorn, with the room temperature being exactly 10 quans, which is the optimal temperature for a Quorn.

The human ambassador and some guards enter, wearing formal clothing, looking stern and having what seemed to be a scientist with them. They sit down and try to initiate the conversation;

"So, we understand that we haven't met under the best of terms, but we want to assure you that we see this as a mistake and that we pursue only t-" the human suddenly stops, breathing in what could be only approximated as exhaustion, "I'm sorry. I know this is a formal meeting, but can I please take my jacket off?". The ambassador starts waving his hand into his direction.

The Qorn are confused at first, but politely answer "We- uhhh, don't mind". "Phew, thanks" says the human as he removes the upper part of his uniform, revealing a quite muscular upper body covered by a white tank top which looked weirdly damp. After that the other humans followed suit, only the scientist keeping their white coat.

"So with that out of the way," he continues, still waving his hand, "We assure you that we only wish for a peaceful coexistance, and that our first encounter was a misunderstanding. I want to personally apologise for any damage or injuries sustained", he said, now panting and fanning himself with the papers they brought.

The Quorn leaders were relieved to hear their commitment to non-aggression. They were about to start discussing the details when the human interrupted them again. "*Huff* I'm so sorry *huff*, but could you please *puff* turn down the heat in here? *pant*, Man, it's scorching in here... "

The Quorn leaders were stunted; "B- but we made sure that the room was in optimal condition, it's 10 quans, that should be perfect...", the human squints his eyes, "10 quans? How much is that?", he looks at the scientist, who looked like they were waiting for this. "So I've done a little research and measured some things and 10 quans is about 45°C".

The ambassador looks baffled. "Forty five?! that's- oh damn, is there a fan around here?", the scientist, who came prepared, takes one out of their case and puts it on the table. Switching it on caused the ambassador as well his guards to crowd around it, sighing in relief.

The Quorn ask, "May we ask about your need to cool yourself down? How did you survive like that? And why do you petrude this liquid from your bodies?". "It's a thing called sweating" says the ambassador, gesturing at the scientist again who, by now, has also taken off their coat and dropped the formal tone out of necessity.

"So... most life on our planet has a coat of fur on their skin to preserve warmth, but over time and through evolution humans lost that fur coat and gained access to sweat glands, which excrete liquid when the body heats up that allows for easier temperature exchange with it's surroundings, cooling the body down".

The Quorn leader only looks more baffled. "But why would you want to lose heat? It's precious and must be conserved, please elaborate". The scientist continues: "It's hard to explain without diving ludicrously deep into biology, but in short it's that human metabolism produces a lot of energy in the form of heat, to a point where it becomes uncormfortable"

The Quorn still asks, "But such a system would require hundreds of doons of food per day, are you saying that- oh god don't tell me...". The scientist preemptively whispers to the ambassador: "100 doons are less than a gram" and the ambassador starts laughing.

The Quorn leader has another question. "But with all that, why do you coat yourself in these uniforms, shouldn't those make it worse? I don't understand". "Me neither, bud" replies the ambassador, "but could you please turn down the heat? Here: I'll bring you the emergency thermal blankets from our ship"

The Quorn set the room temperature to 5 quans (approximatley 20 degrees celsius) and wait for the human, shivering until he tugs them into the blanket while precognitively answering the Quorn's next question: "And before you ask, it gets cold on our world, too... Huh, guess we're just from a more harsh planet..."

They finish the peace talks and end the meeting, with the Quorns shock having delevoped into wonder as they can't wait to further research the humans anatomy.

(For anyone wondering about how the human ambassador looks for some reason; just know I was picturing Scott Bacula (Captain Archer) while writing this)

Edit: Apparently I am a pansy, so I adjusted the temperatures

[queersatanic]

Now, that second one in Matthew 19 is a lot more interesting, and it is surprisingly ambiguous, just not in the way Christians think.

Again, non sequitur from what came before but this time the lead is important thematically rather than narratively.

Jesus Blesses Little Children 13 Then children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” 15 And he laid his hands on them and went on his way. The Rich Young Man 16 Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. 19 Honor your father and mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, “Then who can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” 27 Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” 28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

If you follow the link to the whole chapter, you see that this section has a ton of small variants connected to it of a missing or replaced words, which definitely gives the impression people were tinkering with this one a lot.

It's extremely provocative, hence conservative Christians saying, "Well yeah, but there was a certain gate in Jerusalem called needle, and you see a camel could only just fit through there" or the idea that there was some kind of misunderstanding, and Jesus said the word for "a thick cable of rope", which in Greek (kamilon) sounds sort of like the word for "camel" (kamelon).

This is bullshit.

There is no good evidence that, “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle” was anything but a hyperbole referencing a very large animal and a teeny-tiny space, and there’s quite a bit of evidence that it meant exactly that.

First, we have the plain reading of the text and its context, which is fundamentally the same in every version (except that Luke turns the man into a "ruler".

Mark

Luke

Matthew

The people who hear the phrase don’t shrug and go, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” They’re baffled, and they’re baffled because, in the context of the time, rich people are supposed to be most blessed. If that’s what a teacher is saying about the most blessed people in society, what does it mean for the rest of us? Hence the punchline, “Through God, all things are possible.”

2. But if that’s not convincing, we have other examples from further east where a similar phrase is used that would be appropriate there: an elephant through the eye of a needle.

So within the Babylonian Talmud, you have these references

Rabbi Yonatan said...How will you know the thoughts of your heart? By their being revealed to you in a dream. Rava said: Know that this is the case, for one is neither shown a golden palm tree nor an elephant going through the eye of a needle in a dream. In other words, dreams only contain images that enter a person’s mind. Rav Sheshet said mockingly to him, employing a similar style: Perhaps you are from Pumbedita, where people pass an elephant through the eye of a needle, i.e., they engage in specious reasoning.

If you’re someone in Judea, probably the biggest animal you’ll have seen will have been a camel, thus the literal image of an impossibility is still what you’re supposed to have in your mind. That’s why it’s a big deal that Jesus is saying, “That’s how hard it is for rich people to get to heaven.”

3. Maybe the best evidence comes from one of the non-canonical books, “The Acts of Peter and Andrew”. In Christian “Expanded Universe” text, everything gets dialed up a bit more.

Here, Peter uses magic or a literal miracle to make the eye of the needle big enough to fit a camel through:

13 There was a rich man named Onesiphorus who said: If I believe, shall I be able to do wonders Andrew said: Yes, if you forsake your wife and all your possessions. He was angry and put his garment about Andrew’s neck and began to beat him, saying: You are a wizard, why should I do so. 14 Peter saw it and told him to leave off. He said: I see you are wiser than he. What do you say? Peter said: I tell you this: it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

... [The rich dude gets mad, so Peter needs to prove it]. ...

There was a huckster in the town who had been converted by Philip; and he heard of it, and looked for a needle with a large eye, but Peter said: Nothing is impossible with God rather bring a needle with a small eye. 17 When it was brought, Peter saw a camel coming and stuck the needle in the ground and cried: In the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate I command thee, camel, to go through the eye of the needle. The eye opened like a gate and the camel passed through; and yet again, at Peter’s bidding.

That telling seems to be a fair bit later, but very clearly, that’s how the statement was received by the people reading the gospels originally: something necessitating fucking magic to resolve.

So it's not debatable that "it's a "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to pass through heaven" is supposed to be an impossible.

What is debatable is whether the meaning is that rich people are worse than regular people and this is an example of "the last will be first and the first will be last" sort of talk or if it’s playing on the idea that the rich are indeed especially blessed — and not even they can manage it, which is why people need God.

Now, to the original point: every biblical literalist is going to make exceptions because they are certainly not ripping their eye out when it caused them to sin, they aren't calling for society to follow the Hebrew Bible when it talks about things like debt cancellation, and they aren't living like the original Christians when it comes to selling all they own to share in common and take care of the poor. The original tweet is not off base with that.

However, the original example is hurt deeply by ignoring that sex workers are placed in the exact same category as imperial tax farmers, and by doing the liberal/leftist Christian thing of reading the Bible as if it is secretly always radical and supportive of human liberty rather than a confusing centuries-spanning argument between dozens or hundreds of minds, all with completely different ways of looking at the world and different agendas for readers, with authors and copyists who edited and struck things from the traditions and writings as they went creating contradictions everywhere among the texts what we have in front of us now.

Thee bad news is that these contradictions are not easily or finally resolvable by anyone, but the good news is that that's what makes it interesting, and the best news is that there is no one to resolve these things but us.