#and i don't think that's inherently a problem. it's a neutral concept

[echthr0s]

coda to that ask response -- it's like when people are like "don't write for other people! write for yourself!" I.... don't need to write for myself, though. I don't need to read words in order to enjoy my stories. the whole point of me writing is for other people! I can enjoy my stories all by myself in full technicolour dolby digital 5.1 REAL3D smellovision with immersive knifestabs to the heart and guts whenever I feel like it. but you can't! if I want you to join me on this journey, I gotta do some writing! (sorry that my writing doesn't come with immersive knifestabs, though. that's a really good feature.)

[tenok]

.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

Sexual aromantic = a label for someone who wants to have sex without any emotional intimacy and has no problem sexually objectifying people

i don't even feel like entertaining this point with a response, but i will, just in case you're not as resistant to learning as you seem.

no, the aroallo identity does not inherently make you more likely to objectify people. objectifying people is wrong, no matter who's doing it, but simply having sex/sexual attraction without romance is not objectification.

your views seem to stem from the belief that romance is inherently morally righteous and the peak of human connection; this is not true. romance, just like sex, is an entirely morally neutral concept. romance has been used to harm me in the past. this does not mean i suddenly despise anyone who likes romance, because i'm capable of comprehending that the concept is seperate from the way in which it's used.

as for the emotional intimacy bit- again, you're proving that you think romance is the peak of human connection. i'm more emotionally intimate with my friends than i ever was with my past romantic partners. a lack of romance does not imply a lack of emotional intimacy.

both of these points are rooted in amatonormativity, arophobia, sex negativity, and the relationship hierarchy.

[drbased]

i am highly spiritual, and yet we have almost identical beliefs about humanity, religion and its organization, etc. save for the conclusions it brings us to. just found this really interesting, honeslty.

In the nicest possible way: no, I don't think we have almost identical beliefs. Or rather, I think we have one primary difference in perception that changes the entire nature of our beliefs.

One of the accidental problems with language is that it can make connections and associations between concepts that aren't really real. For example, we have tras claiming that aspects of your personality, mannerisms, hairstyle etc. are all an expression of an internal sense of gender, which is retroactively justified as real through the existence of those characteristics. It's a tautology, but it's a potent one, because those characteristics can add up to something deeply personal and individual, which isn't communicated easily. One person's 'qu**r identity' can be entirely different from another person's 'qu**r identity', but due to the simple existence of the term they can find a percieved similarity of experience that wouldn't exist without it.

This relates to spirituality because I think what's happening here is that the word 'spiritual' is being used like the word 'gender'; that is, an extra layer of meaning is added to the human experience that is retroactively justified by the existence of those human experiences. In this case, the nature of spirituality seemingly being discussed is a sense of profundity and awe.

The primary dispute is one of perspective: as an atheist, I say that actually, the concept of 'profound' is an entirely human construction. Things aren't built with a natural sense of 'awe-inspiringness' that we as humans simply tap into - but rather, the emotion is generated inside us in response to the neutral things that are already there. It's a seemingly minor shift in approach, and many would feel is a nitpick, but I think it's accidentally become the crux of this whole argument.

This is why many spiritual people think that atheists 'hate humanity' and 'are cold and unfeeling' - they percieve the world to be inherently spiritual; that is, consisting of an inexorable quality that humans should be able to experience, so anyone not claiming to recognise this quality is simply denying their own humanity, their own senses, as well as denying the profundity of being: the two are inexorably interlinked. I can see where this argument comes from - we, as humans, tend to naturally feel 'cleaner' after a wash, we tend to fell happier after having laughed etc. etc. and if we don't feel these things, either there's something supposedly 'wrong' with us, or we're denying those feelings so we get to feel superior in some way. And don't get me wrong, the classic 'reddit atheist' is like this - the kind of guy who says that your pet cat don't feel love when they nuzzle you in the morning. There are definitely people (men especially) who want to feel above any and all sensory-based human emotional response.

But.

My primary argument is that things external to us (and some internal) do not have any inherent emotional quality; any emotions I generate in response to them are my own personal, fallible and fragile appreciation for them, generated within my brain in response to stimuli. This may sound less magical, and that's the point: laughter generates happiness because it's an evolutionarily important pro-social tool. Washing makes you feel 'cleaner' because it's evolutionarily important to avoid disease. There's no intrinsic nature to these things that we tap into; the emotions and subsequent meaning are generated by us. If someone managed to figure out what 'love' is in humans and found out that animals don't show 'love' as we know it - well, regardless of how much of an asshole he is, that atheist above would be right. But it shouldn't be earth-shattering because 'love' does not need to be some quality inherent to nature to have meaning and value - our version of 'love' is purely human, and whatever our pets do may not be 'love' by our standards, but something speciifc to them.

This argument is ultimately immaterial unless we can demonstrate for faith-based thinking can result in harm. And unfortunately, this is how people end up getting manipulated by churches and cults. The sense of awe you feel in a crowd of thousands of people listening to music and services doesn't exist in the ether - it's deliberately manufactured explicitly to generate that feeling inside you. So this isn't just an argument about correctness; this is an argument about harm.

Why do you think churches are built that way; it's easy to think of them as just inherently magnificent, but that is just the limitation of the way our language constructs adjectives - 'magnificent' is given the same linguistic weight as, say, 'squishy' or 'spiky'. But 'magnificent' is a value qualifier, not a neutral adjective; it's something that requires an internal sense of judgement - but due to the power of emotions it can feel real, perhaps more real than pricking your finger on a spiky thing. Religion has a tendency to place reality into a secondary level of importance; god/the universe is what's more 'real' than us. This is a hierachy; it places our subjective experiences and values as merely a conduit for something more real and meaningful than we could ever be, than we could ever imagine (and, if you think my argument is cold and male and misogynistic, then I like to remind you which of the sexes loves hierarchy). And this is hierarchy that is absolutely ripe for exploitation.

No, I do not think that spiritual/religious belief is a guarantee of exploitation, nor is it the only source of exploitation - but a tendency to see your emotions as merely a conduit for some universal truth means you will be much more easily persuaded to into believing things based on your emotional perception, and the kinds of people who want to persuade you are typical doing so to gain something; not always something sinister, but it certainly can be.

Too many spiritual people want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to skirt over arguments of correctness and harm and jump straight to accusing us of denying our senses - when what they actually mean is that by denying our senses we're denying reality. But when we claim that actually we're perfectly capable of listening to our senses, we just call these things 'awe' and 'profundity', they turn around and say 'that's just what spirituality is! you're just like us, just in denial!' When we say that our emotional experiences are not spiritual we mean it; this isn't 'agreeing on most things' - this is an entire shift in perception. My senses are mine, and the meaning I generate from them is mine. Those sense are a fallible product of evolution, and the meaning I generate from them is also a fallible product of evolution. But that also means that the profundity has a new origin, and this is ultimately less safe and comfortable than from some external source I can rely on; the profundity comes from the terrifying realisation that these things just are, with no invisible connective tissue outside the bare reality of cause-and-effect. That isn't inherently profound, but I make it so through my own human ability to generate meaning. And as that meaning is mine, therefore the responsibility for it is mine.

[fallingsatellive]

If we're doing misanthropy discourse my neutral zone take is that I think it's extremely frustrating to defend humans as a species and have the response from other nonhumans be to intentionally try to trigger your species dysphoria by forcing the human label on you just for saying you don't think either inherently evil or inherently good are real or possible concepts. I'm not a cicada or tick or mosquito either just because I think it's stupid to claim nature is better off without them and yet here we are. Is it not possible to say "humans are just an animal and they're supposed to be part of the ecosystem the problem is industrialization not your neighbor Mark who works at Target" without declaring yourself a hundred percent proud Homo sapiens

[utilitycaster]

I don't have anything smart to say about this as this is something I think I need to investigate and ruminate upon for a while, but I think most fandoms really do not handle stories about power - especially when protagonists are actively seeking it - well. It's a problem even in fandoms for stories that are explicitly about it (there are some fantastic Succession takes but also some deeply brain dead ones; I'm finding interesting discussion about The Ravening War to be drowned out by some truly idiotic shipping/blorbo-centric fanon; I am not in the GoT or ASoIaF fandoms but I've heard stories; it's an ongoing CR fandom issue). I think some of it is that a power struggle inherently rules out a lot of relationship headcanons and certainly kills fluff as a canon-compliant possibility. I think the other thing is, and I hate to bring this up constantly but it really is the most illustrative example, but the "Suvi without the imperialism" problem. I think people get so obsessed with narratives confirming their existing political/moral beliefs and latching on to the character who is Good and Correct that they forget that a lot of stories are about people who do complicated things and are tied into messy and problematic power structures, and how they respond. The story of the utopian commune is not actually a story unless it's secretly a dystopian commune. And that's not even getting to the idea of power as an abstract concept is neutral, and what you do with it is what's important. Anyway, as someone who loves stories about hierarchies and social structures and high fantasy chosen one narratives (which are, fundamentally, about being The Most Powerful) and the conflicts they engender this is very irritating because it just feels the fandom ignores 90% of the story as an unfortunate inconvenience.

[reachartwork]

So, I'm curious to hear your opinion on what the ethical problems of AI art actually are. Is it just an issue of the industry being dominated by capitalism and the issues inherent to that, or is there anything less obvious than that you consider to be an issue? (Since I imagine you get a lot of asks like this in bad faith, I want to be clear I'm genuinely interested, and I don't have any inherent problem with AI art.)

the issues with ai art from an ethical perspective are the same issues with any sort of automation in a world dominated by a capitalist mode. that is to say, i think further automation is an unequivocal good by itself but when combined with a world that requires people to perform labor to live, it becomes a bad thing. digression - i think intellectual property as a concept is bad, so anything that undermines it is good. you can't say "be gay do crimes" and be in favor of IP law, one of the most destructive anti-creative forces in human existence.

by itself, i consider ai art in specific (rather than automation as a concept) to be value neutral. it's a tool. you can use it for things. its as ethically correct as the person using it.

i do think there is also a problem in companies that want to paywall ai art or restrict what you can do with it. i think that's ethically bad. but that's the companies, not the program.

[wof-reworked]

dragon religion is an idea i think that is rlly awesome. i hope tui goes over it in the guide, anyway. if u have any specific religion ideas / hcs for dragons.. would they have jobs ?? like dragon priests orrrr idk tbh. sorry if this question is annoying im obsessed w the idea of dragons having religion and religion-based jobs

Originally I had like. a whole "series" of like. ideas for each tribe's religion and mythology, but in the interest of actually replying I'll do like. quick bullet points here and I'll try to fill in more later on ^^;;.

I have like. a lot of abstract feelings n concepts because I've always found it interesting how,,, little religion there is in wof at all. There's barely even really "magic", with only really animuses. wof's characters are occasionally superstitious, but all their superstition is based in like- historical events, like Darkstalker or Queen Oasis's murder, and not like. magic. so I want to keep some of that true because I think it's really fitting for a setting of dragons (who have historically usually *been* the gods, rather than the worshippers !!!) and it's also a rare opportunity to like. get into society without religion (this is a hostile zone for the great ice dragon, I'm sorry I Do Not Care About You and your One Off Mention, God Bless)

ANYWAY. Posting this under the cut bc it's kind of massive, read at ur own risk lol (cw for talk of death/funeral rites but that's really it)

Skywings:

Skywings for me have always been the clearest as like. focusing on historic figures as "saints" (though ik that's a pretty christian concept and word, just hang in there I prommy it goes places)

Point being- I've written about it before here, but for Skywings, the sky is alive and holy in its own right. They view it as the foundation of life and believe themselves (and all dragons, though the other tribes abandoned their way of living) as children of it, originally like birds.

It has some slight. monarchist overtures to it with how the sky itself is like an omnipresent parent, and its moods and shifting currents can be seen as a reflection of Skywing culture. When the sky is angry and casting out its children, there is a lesson that needs to be learned, and it is the collective punishment of all Skywings until the problem is fixed.

But past that, Skywings who achieve remarkable things can be recognized as local guardians and figures of protection- when Skywings die, they return to the sky in the form of clouds. Some Skywings also believe birds to be reincarnated Skywings, especially the spirits of those who rebuke the sky and strike off on their own (which is not an inherently bad thing, but a symbol of independence in its most neutral)

Some Skywing patrons I was thinking of were: the patron of duty- the first Skywing soldier, the patron of children/joy- the first kitemaker, the patron of guardians/parents- the lamplighter, and the patron of Skywing excellence/patriotism- the stormchaser.

Miners who die in Skywing tunnels also achieve something akin to a martyr status- spirits of those who bravely sacrificed their time in the sky to keep the caverns safe and protect those who would follow them. Not one patron, but the collective protection of spirits trapped underneath the ground

Sandwings

Sandwings are similar, but different: where Skywings have patrons who have been given a certain holy power, Sandwings have two kinds of spirits: the family spirits and folk heroes

I swear to god I wrote a Sandwing headcanon post, but I genuinely can't find it at all I don't know where it went. FOUND IT WHILE LOOKING FOR MY ICEWINGS POSTS. READ IT HERE. anyway tho starting with house/family spirits: Sandwings tend towards multigenerational homes, moreso than many other tribes, and remembering your family becomes increasingly important when there's so many of you

Most Sandwing houses keep a small shrine or altar for their dead relatives and their family history- some households have patron animals or spirits that they invoke for a little extra boost of fortune but these aren't like family crests as much as your family's,,, collective mythos

The Sandwing creation myth involves the First Sandwing tricking each animal into giving them a piece of themselves- the stinger and venom from scorpions, the quickness and wit of jackals, the resilience and scales of the lizards, and finally just snatching the wings and size from dragonbite vipers who used to rule the desert, who were reduced to their small snake status and have hated every Sandwing since. So if you want to pay special homage to your family being intelligent, the jackal might be your patron

This creation myth varies WILDLY- it can include many different animals or different exact retellings on what the original Sandwing tricked the animals into giving them, so patrons can vary and can be very house-specific

(I have a little draft, somewhere, of Thorn teaching Qibli her family history post-adoption/rescue and it being one of the moments that Qibli really starts to view her as family and not just the next Cobra)

Sandwing folk heroes are also super varied- I subscribe to Sandwings having a heavy oral storytelling tradition and general,,, art culture, so I'm not gonna write every single possible story you could tell with Sandwing folk heroes, but most of them embody those original Sandwing virtues- resilience, intelligence, and quick adaptability to come out on top

Mudwings

Mudwings already have their own dedicated post !!! yippeeeeee !!!! you can read it right over here :>

Mudwings are also big big oral storytellers but unlike Sandwings the gods are a more active part of these stories and the focus is rarely on individual Mudwings as much as the dynamics of the gods' dynamic as a sibling troupe.

Rarely,,, "worshipped" in the way Skywings will venerate their patrons or Sandwings will maintain their shrines, but passively appealed to and celebrated as like. the broadest encapsulation of what it is to be a Mudwing- the way they're moved by the seasons and their families moreso than anything else

Icewings

I wrote more lists originally about Icewing superstitions, which are right here, and I stand by basically all of that. I don't really know how to incorporate gods into that but I think a lot of Icewing superstition is just. vague cultural paranoia about Things Out There

Icewings have the strongest death beliefs/rituals out of any of the tribes imo- Icewing bodies need to be properly buried or the souls don't get to return to the soil, and become stuck on the ice.

Icewing funerals depend on if you live inland or on the coast- burials at sea are common for Icewings on the coast to allow the body to be taken by the water and allowed to disperse that way (though only when the ice isn't frozen over, as otherwise it may become trapped), and Icewings inland prefer open-air/sky burials that allow the body to decompose in nature.

Winter deaths are seen as bad luck, and are given extra caution and work (which also ties into Winter's role as a black sheep in the family- it's a bit of a dark name to give your child, especially as the youngest/least wanted heir of the family)

Great Ice Dragon,,,, I have no ideas for, I imagine just the source of all Icewings and their father who ensures that, despite it all, they can survive.

Seawings

least religious lets goooooooo

Seawings are just. straight up vibing. They're the most down to earth about being alive in the sense they're just animals like everything else (though they still have their own mixed feelings about dolphins from canon)

Seawings do put a lot of stock into destiny and fate though- almost as much as Nightwings, and they have a healthy stargazing culture and track the changing of seasons and time through the stars more than anything else.

Some Seawings think of themselves as fallen stars- scales still glowing from their core of starlight. Seawings who die return to the sky and come back in the form of comets, it's especially good luck to be born under a meteor shower.

Another common superstition is a Seawing's personal star- this can be as serious as knowing exactly where it is in the sky, or as lax as pointing to one and declaring it yours. This is the star that determins your destiny and is your personal guardian, you can look to it for good luck (plus if you pick right it can be a neat way to teach your children how to navigate).

Seawings LOVE tall-tales though. Almost everyone has a story of the time they 10000% saw A Sea Monster or a dolphin spoke to them in riddles, etc etc. Half the words out of a Seawing sailor's mouth are lies, and the other half are exagerrated beyond all reason (except of course,,, for the ones that are true)

This drives other tribes insane btw, especially the more devout ones like Skywings and Icewings. How are you going to make that shit up every time pls be serious for one moment (never)

Nightwings

The other least religious, but this time for complicated cultural reasons of. well. volcano.

Nightwings love science until they don't, essentially. Everything has a reason except the things we don't understand which are mysteries from beyond the pale that we just have to hope will one day become clear.

TL;DR: SO MANY GHOSTS. EVERYTHING IS HAUNTED.

Nightwings are like the closest to a lot of real world agnosticism- it could be real, but we just don't know yet. Lots of ghost sightings though and subtle signals from the universe. It's a bit of a collective coping mechanism for the loss of their powers + the amount of dragons, like Fatespeaker, who were born under the full moons but without a clear sky and thus only left with confusing powers.

(slaps the side of the canon Nightwing art) These bad boys can fit so much victorian ghost fear in them <3

Mastermind has and 100% would again drink absinthe to perform a seance to Nightwing seers of the past, prove me wrong

I think in older Nightwing mythology, there would have been lots of smaller gods and domains- complicated webs of connected esoteric spirits who each vied for power over the material world through their domains and contact with dragons.

The heart of it all is the Moons though- the three sisters of chance/luck, destiny/death, and soul. Something akin to the three fates but each in collaboration with each other over life.

In ye really olden days, some sects thought these spirits worked through scavengers. These guys are pretty broadly considered a strange cult though, and the history is scant at best.

Clearsight and Darkstalker would've grown up aware of these gods but given special privilege due to their powers- mostly as people exempt from the gods due to their connection to the moons as something surpassing the petty whims of spirits. Priests and priestesses would be preferred as powerless, as a clear head is needed to communicate with the gods fully.

Rainwings

Souls !! lots of souls !! Rainwings believe everything has a beating pulse and could be slash is alive in their own unique way.

The Rainwing gods are serpents- wingless but capable of moving through the trees as though they were flying, their scales a constant mass of brilliant colors. Names and identities are a WIP for me, bear with me as I flesh out these guys ;U;

Rainwings are big storytellers as well, and tend to create their own ideas and religions, in a sense. Being a puppeteer and performer especially is the closest to being a priest that a Rainwing can get- by embodying other things you are essentially changing your soul to align with them

Rainwings also aren't. super religious as much as just committed each to their own truth over a collective myth or story. Each Rainwing builds their own unique sense of mythology from the rainforest.

No gods no masters only fruit >:3c

I have some wips for each of these, some of them fics, some of them elaborations and continued myths, but I hope y'all enjoy them !!! All feedback welcome, as always.

[eridianfic]

꧁Late꧂

Take from me/what you want/what you need

Pairing: MC X Sen

Length: <1k

Tags: hurt/comfort, gender neutral reader, angst, general audience

a/n: there's so much angst inherent to Sen's concept! This is probably wildly ooc bc we know so little about her, but I couldn't help myself:) heavily inspired by two songs, embedded at the end.

You know she’s not in the bed besides you as soon as you wake. It’s not the temperature that alerts you. After all, her side is always cold as the grave, just like her. No- it’s the weight of the bed that’s different, the mattress pressing around you instead of shifting towards her, and the blankets pushed off to the side when she got out of bed.

You find Sen sitting on the window ledge in the kitchen, tiles cold under your feet. You’re cold too- the air is chilly on your skin now out from under the comfort of your blankets. It’s almost pitch black in the rkkm and you just faintly see her silhouette, a dark void in front of the moonlight outside. She’s nearly motionless but she acknowledges your approach with a slight turn of her head towards you. You breathe together, quietly. Her breath comes out slower, more labored. After a pause, she speaks.

“I don’t think I can stay here much longer.”

“You’ve made up your mind?”

She sighs, a deep, rattling thing. “You know I have. I can’t hold on longer for you. I’ve been trying. It’s not working.”

Her faint outline against the moonlight feels more akin to a ghost than a person sitting in front of you. You guess it’s only fitting.

“Sen, I know it feels hopeless, I know that. But listen, we haven’t been searching for that long. I think there’s a cure out there for you, something that will alleviate your suffering and bring you back to-“

She cuts you off. “Bring me back to you? Back to life? I wish I could be with you. You know that. I’ve been trying and trying. And when I tell you it isn’t possible, it feels like you don’t hear me. Like you’re choosing to not hear me. You need to let me go.”

Your breath catches a little as your throat tightens. "Sen. Sen, I'll give you whatever I can. Whatever you need from me. Stay here. Stay with me. We'll figure it out".

She laughs at that, sharp and jagged. It cuts into you. "What I need from you is your blessing. Your acceptance that the person you know is already gone." She softens a little, and you can hear the rustle of her against the windowsill as she shifts towards you. "You've fallen in love with a ghost. It wasn't meant to be."

You stumble towards her in the dark, kneeling in front of her.

"God, Sen. You told me we shouldn't get to know each other when we met. But aren't you glad we've had this time together? Don't you want more of it? There's so much we haven't done together, so much I don't know... If it's about hope? I'll have enough hope for the both of us." You scoff dryly. "All the sins in the world and the one I got was greed. I want you. I want more time with you, more memories, more opportunities to find out how to fix this". Your hand reaches out to hold her cold hand in yours, fingers running over the delicate line of stitches.

What you don't say is that she's the only one you have. That if she leaves, you'll be alone. Alone again, always betrayed, always left behind, never worthy of being fought for. With her, there's something that you've never felt before. Serenity frozen, isolated from the world. Insulated from each of your problems. A place, deep in the earth where you can hibernate, together. A grave, perhaps. Away from time.

Her hand slips out of yours. "Don't do this to me," she whispers. "I've been brought here against my will. When is it going to be about what I want, for myself? I can't. I can't sacrifice myself for them, for you. I don't want to. Help me find a way to end this. To let me rest in peace like I want to. Don't you know? I've experienced it. Peace, at the end of it all. The stillness and richness of soil, of stone. That's what I want."

You hate yourself for saying it, but you say it anyways. Mutter it, in spite of yourself. "My peace is you, Sen. How can I have that without you?

There's a note of finality to her voice. "I guess you just can't understand. It's not something for you to know. It's my journey to go on, and you can choose to accompany me or not."

You've known that she felt this way. Couldn't stop yourself from trying to convince her one last time. You nod. "Whatever you'll give me. Whatever time we have left together."

You rest at her feet for a moment, leaning against her knee. She places her hand at the nape of your neck, gently carding through the strands of hair. You sit there together, quietly.

Your head nodding sleepily and resting heavily against her leg causes her to pause. "Come back to bed. We'll start looking again in the morning."

You follow her upstairs. You'll follow her until you can't any more. Until she goes to a place you can't reach.

[sanctity-in-sexuality]

I'm a little confused about the teaching that it's ok for a couple to use a perforated condom to collect a sperm sample for medical testing (as stated in USCCB's 2020 "Reproductive Technology Evaluation and Treatment of Infertility Guidelines for Catholic Couples"). I assume that even a punctured condom must still reduce the chance of a pregnancy by a little, otherwise it wouldn't collect a sample very well? Isn't reducing the chance of fertilization through the use of a tool like this kinda partially being closed to life? Regular condoms don't have a 100% prevention rate and yet we still condemn them for reducing the chance. I'm also assuming that a couple who does the same behavior but without the intent of keeping a sample for medical testing is doing something faulty. But don't we say that a faulty act cannot be made permissible even with a good intent, like with it still being unacceptable to masturbate to obtain a sperm sample? And I guess I'm confused about the theology handles nitpicks like, how small can the holes be before it's no longer permissible. This isn't like a pressing relevant issue in my life by any means but I'm trying to better understand the logical thinking behind topics in sexual morality! Thanks

The reduced chance of conception in this scenario is so negligible that it is practically non-existent. You honestly need very little sperm to get a woman pregnant; that's why the pull-out method doesn't work as birth control, because even the sperm in the pre-ejaculate is enough to cause conception. To say the amount of sperm a man ejaculates during sex is overkill is an understatement.

Intent doesn't necessarily excuse faulty action, but intent is nonetheless important in determining whether an action was faulty in the first place. Some actions are inherently sinful; others are sinful based on circumstance, means, and intention. Avoidance of conception during sex falls in the latter category. Masturbation falls in the former. (I'm happy to explain why, if you'd like).

I think the problem here is that you assume the issue with condoms are that they reduce conception rates. Which is true, but the moral issue is not the thing itself, but the purpose of its use. The tools themselves are neutral. Using it to collect samples for health evaluations wherein its property for potential barrier to conception has, in all practicality, been rendered harmless, is a licit use of a neutral tool.

FYI, a couple could actually licitly use a condom during sex regularly -- i.e., such a textured one for assisting the wife's pleasure -- if they were to cut the tip off. I don't really see any reason why a couple would regularly use a perforated condom except with the hope of potentially mitigating conception, in which case the intent is clearly sinful (even though it wouldn't work lol).

[aortaobservatory]

im VERY interested to hear your thoughts on the blood aspect... its one that i think is taken very much at face value, and is somewhat limited in the traits often ascribed to it (responsibility, heritage, friendship).

Though we have canonical explanations for the Aspects, you're correct in that they often get reduced down to face-value. It was a problem I encountered myself in my early analyses; human beings are multi-faceted, and thus, so are these aspects which are meant to represent many concepts within humanity as a whole. That was something I had to learn to ascribe to my classpect analyses.

My analyses now use four keywords I whittled down from the canonical descriptions as well as the wider concept I understood it to convey. This is an attempt to portray these aspects as multi-faceted as opposed to what is commonly done in flattening them down into only one concept. (IE, "Blood = Friendships, Breath = Independent, Light = Smart, Mind = Logic, Hope = Religious, Rage = Anger", and so on. These words aren't necessarily wrong, but they're definitely not right either, and they definitely don't fit everyone within those aspects. They do not encapsulate the full scope of the aspect as a whole, which means they do not encapsulate the full scope of whatever classpect they are applied to, which then provides a flat, confusing, or biased classpect analysis.)

From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Blood Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.

TEZ Blood Keywords: Bonds, trust, camaraderie, groups, inspirational, relationships, friends and allies, charismatic, uplifting, magnetic, (sullen, unkind, set-in-their-ways)

None of the above traits are inherently good or inherently bad. The Blood Aspect, like all the other aspects, is inherently neutral; it is neither good nor bad, but merely a representation of a concept we experience as human beings.

I will say that responsibility is definitely a core trait of the Blood Aspect, but the aspect should not just be limited to that trait and its synonyms. Responsibilities, promises, relationships, camaraderie, community, bonds, connections; these things are what Blood is about. The ties that bind and the blood of the covenant are strong themes for the Blood Aspect.

I would personally say that Blood is what drives humanity, community, and many cultures. That is not to then say that Breath, its inverse, has no place in humanity either; too much of anything is never a good thing, and these aspects have inverses to balance them out accordingly. This is also part of why I so strongly believe inverse classpecting is important to consider as well, as you must be aware of how you should balance to be able to balance, but I digress.

Blood does not just value the relationships they have. They can also be the core of their friend groups, the thing keeping their family members together or in touch, so on and so forth. I believe that particular concept is termed "Unity". They bring people together, which is very powerful.

This is why Karkat, as a Knight of Blood (Active Utilizer), was able to bring twelve extremely different and difficult people (including himself) together long enough to succeed at an extremely convoluted, long game session. Kankri on the other hand, as a Seer of Blood (Passive Knower), was not experienced in his aspect and wasn't able to bring his friend group together a long while before they decided to scratch, but that did not mean he wasn't trying; as inane as Kankri's rants were, they were founded from his understanding of Blood as someone who only understood it from the point of view of the Breath aspect. Had Kankri reached godtier as a Seer of Blood and fully properly understood the Blood aspect, I believe he could have succeeded in the same fashion Karkat was able to.

This got quite long, my apologies. I did not think I would have this much to say! I hope it was intriguing for you.

[deservedgrace]

the more I become a leftist as well as being ex-evangelical is really, really making me think how xtianity is basically a perfect tool of manipulation for imperialism.

and how much it has damaged the world into thinking humans are inherently evil. contributing to people feeling hopeless about humanity in the belief that we are inherently cruel. as xtianity spread that idea of original sin to everyone

a lot of other cultures viewed humanity in a more neutral light. some neutral to good

how would someone feel like they can make actual change in the world for the better if we were taught humans are inherently damned?

through this and many other aspects of xtianity… it is no wonder many conservatives who fight against progress are evangelical. and no surprise that christofascism would evolve as a concept and is a significant threat in the US

you're so right. there are so many things that contribute to xtianity being so effective as a manipulation tool but enforcing the idea that something is inherently wrong with you in order to sell the "cure" (xitanity) is particularly insidious

there's this weird dichotomy in evangelical xtianity where you're this horrible, depraved sinner without any hope of being better because you're a human and it takes away responsibility and accountability for your actions, and yet you're better than all the other sinners because you have ~the cure~, and because you have ~the cure~ and you're better than everyone else, you don't need to look at the harm you're doing. it's really similar to the issues in like, over-identifying with being a "good person" or "bad person" imo. if you're a "bad person" there's no point in examining your behavior because everything you do is bad, and if you're a "good person" you don't have to examine your behavior because everything you do is good. and in so many of these people we get this weird yet inevitable mix of "i can't help that i'm a horrible evil sinner" and "i'm always doing the right thing" that leads to this inability to self-reflect or take accountability even when people explicitly say they're being hurt. and then it's magnified by this belief in an all-knowing, all-loving god that you cannot question without consequences and couldn't possibly ever understand with your mere human knowledge that demands your full trust and faith anyway or burn in hell for all eternity

and then by claiming that everyone else is horrible and evil and that you have the ~one true fix~, you get these people who desperately want to "help" others but simultaneously view them as inherently evil and worthy of destruction, and that combination is catastrophic because then you have people who are not only willing to do whatever it takes to "fix" them, they view it as a loving activity

and all of that ties into the problem of heaven, where people are like "why should we make things better for people when the good, deserving xtains will be rewarded in heaven anyway and this life won't matter, and the evil, undeserving non-xtians are lucky that earth isn't as bad as hell will be"

i can only speak for where i'm at (the us) but the idea that humans are inherently evil is prevalent even outside of xtian circles, and it's so unfortunate because that's a very xtian idea that stems from the idea of original sin... which is the reason xtians think xtianity is necessary in the first place

i'm gonna stop there but i have A Lot of Thoughts about xtainity and why it's manifested the way it has

[thegapbetweenmoments]

New Muse Ideas!

So here is my consistent conundrum: I like writing things with what I like to refer to as notable supernatural elements. This could be a vampire character (Alicia), a necromancer (Diana and kind of Belle), a time mage (Tom), etc.

The problem with this is twofold. One issue is simply that many people aren't super interested in fantasy based things, which is 100% fair and fine, and why most of the time I just write without the supernatural bits unless otherwise specified.

The other is that even when people do want to write supernatural-ish things, sometimes the vibes don't line up with whatever it is that I made for my characters, which is why it takes a while for new characters to be made even at times like this when I'm relatively active.

SO!

Below is a list of character ideas I've come up with that I'm currently considering. If you see any on the list and go "Ooh! That sounds cool!", please let me know, because that kind of input is super helpful for this process. Doesn't matter if you're a mutual, nonmutual, never interacted before, etc (though more weight will be given to mutuals/people who've interacted before). Just drop a little response and that will give more weight to the idea. Once one or two have been figured out, I'm going to make a new post about FCs, because tbh I suck at picking those, but that is a thought for later!

The list of thoughts (under read more so that I don't take up the whole dash):

Half-devil lawyer (Honestly, this is a character I actually did use for one thread and I enjoyed a lot. I may make this one even if people don't want him, but weight and priority will likely be given to things people actually want. I've always enjoyed devil contracts as plot devices, and he might be just a smidge lawful evil)

Freed djinn nurse (General concept is that she has pretty significant powers that only work if she uses them in response to a wish. She wouldn't have to respond to every wish, and like more nefarious djinn she'd probably try to use the wording of wishes in order to bend things to work how she wants, even though she as a person is not trying to harm anyone. Job as a nurse is essentially so that she can hear wishes that are inherently more benevolent and grant or bend those to do good things)

Rune mage tattoo artist (Essentially, the thought behind this is a guy who can write a long, complicated series of glyphs as a sort of magical sentence on something and activate it to give whatever it's written on an effect. Take this to its logical conclusion and with enough time, this can be used to give magical tattoos to people that give them some type of ability or effect)

Air mage pilot (I mean the usefulness of the power is kind of obvious, but also I think she'd likely own a smaller plane of her own and generally be a bit more chaotic/daring than most of my girls on here, which is a lot of the fun behind this idea for me personally)

Blood Mage Butcher (I like when characters have these powers with crazy amounts of evil potential, who then use them for completely mundane, neutral-to-good aligned things. I think this guy is just passionate about meat and grilling. Probably early to mid thirties with wholesome dad vibes. Maybe not the route most people would go for characters they want to write with, but certainly one I find amusing)

Lightning Mage Art Thief (I'm thinking she shorts out cameras and security fixtures, then just walks up to an expensive piece art and swaps it with a replica, possibly with a nearly invisible hidden signature. Some real heist movie bullshit. Then, she goes back to some incredibly mundane or wholesome day job. Maybe an elementary school art teacher who steals to buy art supplies for class)

[doctordragon]

you do know that by transitioning to a masc aligned gender identity you don’t have to hate women or be radically pro-sex to the point of supporting harmful things. like those two things don’t have to go hand in hand. you do know that

also, your arguments are just asinine. yes, all work is degrading, but it is no way comparable to the shame and violation which comes with raped all day for money that you dont get. no one is trafficked and forced to become a chiropractor/masseuse/etc. also, you are against capitalist society, and yet you are somehow still pro sex work? you cannot agree that all work is degrading and yet delegate one type that is particularly degrading and harmful as okay or even good.

also, you cant compare hierarchical society in the workplace (as bad as it may be) to actual, real world forced sex. no one is forcing you to have an office job

consent can’t be bought for the right price. if all work is non consensual what do you call non consensual sex. i think you know

First of all, you have absolutely no right to call me a woman hater you projecting motherfucker. You literally told me you think all men should die and that I should kill myself for being a man. If that's not you, stop being a fucking coward and prove it and talk to me off anon. Meanwhile I have been nothing but supportive towards women and women's issues, especially because almost all of them still affect me as a trans man.

I am radically pro sex. Our culture's views on sex are incredibly toxic and unhealthy. Your puritanical bullshit is only contributing to this toxicity. Sex is a neutral act. You can use all sorts of provocative language to describe it, but ultimately it's not that much different than any other activity people can do together. Your attitude towards sex as inherently violating, intimate, and shameful comes from the fact that you are a 17 year old asexual teenager. Not everyone views sex the way you do.

And how many times do I have to tell you, you are minimizing workplace abuse. My friend had her legs PERMANENTLY FUCKING DESTROYED from working at Starbucks out of the managers convenience. She literally told you that she would rather be "forced" (because you don't believe sex workers can give consent) into sex with strangers than have to live with her shitty legs. Amazon warehouse workers literally died because they weren't allowed to leave the warehouses during a deadly tornado. And that's just in North America. The electronics you are typing this ask out were made with slavery. The lengths you go to dismiss workplace abuse are astounding.

Anyway, you have yet to provide an argument against SEX WORK ITSELF. You're just arguing against trafficking and rape, and of fucking course those are bad. But, trafficking and rape are not inherit to sex work just like forcing people to stay in a building during a tornado isn't inherit to warehouse work. The problem isn't sex work itself, it's the abusive practices in the sw industry and societal factors that force people into sex work. If people were being trafficked into office jobs, would you be against any job sitting in front of a computer? If being a non trafficked masseuse is fine, what's wrong with being a non trafficked sex worker?

And yes, all work is degrading because we live in a capitalist society. The problem is the capitalism, not the work itself. In a perfect socialist utopia, people would still do work because we have a society that needs running. And there would still be sex work because there will ALWAYS be sex work.

I still have no idea what your actual policy positions are, unless they're just coming online, complaining about the concept of sex work, and misgendering trans men, which is very ineffective. There will always be sex work, so what measures do you want to take to ensure sex worker protections? I have realistic goals and policies that would tangibly make the lives of real sex workers better. All you have is a shoddy argument that sex workers are too stupid to know what's best for them or give consent.

And again, you can't easily sort things into "consensual" and "non consensual" with a hard line. Of course work in our society isn't fully consensual. The problem here isn't the presence of sex - sex is completely neutral - it's the coercive factors. If you can acknowledge the difference between working a minimum wage job and slavery, you can acknowledge the difference between a sex slave and a sex worker.

[molsno]

I can actually see why some transmascs may talk about "hatred of masculinity" in a good faith (and still be wrong).

Before realizing that they were men they were probably identifying as women heavily dissatisfied with being women and probably also heavily gender non-conforming. Neither of those are considered fully acceptable by wider society, but totally accepted by feminist movement, at least here where I live. And the most prominent feminist organisations here are radfem-adjacent.

Now, saying that those organisations at large are "anti-men" or even "against masculinity in men" is wrong, considering how they tried to portray their enemies as effeminate as some kind of own. And, though I have never witnessed it myself, how straight girls who use radfem rhetoric are willing to invent new definitions of lesbianism to call their cishet boyfriends "lesbians", men for them have higher priority than lesbians at least.

Still, running into people there who did just hate men was a daily occurrence, and many more were parroting their rhetoric ("feminine energy" as some kind of fix for civilisation and so on). If some transmascs allied more with people like this, discovering that they are what they considered to be some ontological evil might have been traumatic.

Still, posing misandry as big societal problem and not fringe worldview that they internalized is silly at best (I am using misandry here as personal attitude, not system, hence no quotes). And I always assume that people who talk about it as something important are either doing it in bad faith or repeating someone's bad faith arguments without analysing it.

(Now it's up to question how many transmascs actually joined those organisations in any way, considering how for unrealised trans girl that I was any idea about how good men or masculinity are even (in not ridiculous form) was an instant "no" on all levels, but who knows)

yeah, that's pretty much my understanding of it, too. basically all transmascs who believe in transandrophobia display at least some level of internalized gender essentialism underlying their entire ideology.

and like, I get it. the feminist wave of the 2010s was so deeply entangled with radical feminism that for a good while, anyone heavily involved in the movement was exposed to the biological essentialist worldview central to radical feminism that declares that men are ontologically evil, and I have no doubt that many young, repressed trans people at the time internalized that idea to an extent. I certainly did, and it only amplified my dysphoria as a teenager. it was traumatizing to me, and I can completely understand why it would be traumatizing to transmascs to come to terms with the fact that they were something they had always believed was inherently bad.

it's just like you said though, it's a mistake to frame misandry as a society wide issue when really it's a very small minority of people. but a lot of trans men never question or challenge the worldview they developed in their youth, so when they start getting read as men when they're adults and inevitably face transphobia, they start attributing it to a societal hatred of masculinity instead of recognizing that the actual cause of their oppression is a society that seeks to protect the concept of the immutable gender binary that enables the patriarchal hierarchy of power at all costs.

I don't really have any sympathy for them, though. like yeah, it sucks to be made to feel like you should hate yourself just for existing, but like, that isn't unique to them. the gender essentialism so many of them have internalized is a big reason a lot of transandrophobia truthers start aligning themselves with terfs, and I don't think I need to tell you how I feel about that. 😑 they have an alternative, they can just reevaluate their beliefs until they come to realize that man and woman are completely neutral categories entirely devoid of value judgment and don't say anything meaningful about any given person other than what they like to be called. I'll admit from experience that accepting that truth can be difficult but it's not impossible, and challenging your worldview is something you're going to have to do a lot in life if you actually want to meaningfully change how you interact with people and the world around you.

but why do that when they can demand trans women bend over backwards to appease them? it must feel good to get a taste of that male privilege when a few trans women are actually self-hating enough to listen to them. that is, at least until they get too much backlash from the rest of us who have enough self esteem to stand up for ourselves and they recede into the open arms of terfs for comfort from the mean trannies.

[lightandfellowship]

I'm nosey but also curious on what your opinion is on whether or not the khdr should come back in some way into the main plot. Like if they were in quad or something. Personally I would love to see them come back but idk if that would weaken khdr's tragedy or not. Its the days dilemma

(Major KH3/MOM/KHDR spoilers)

The KHDR fan in me would be thrilled to see KHDR breach the confines of its game. It's an excellently written story with a compelling and likeable cast of characters, even if many of them are underdeveloped/underutilized. I think there's a lot of fun and interesting things you could do with them to make their potential shine more, if you were to bring them back. And in a way it would almost seem fitting to bring them back precisely because of this aforementioned lost potential.

And even speaking more neutrally, I don't really have too big of a problem with characters from KHDR "coming back to life" in some shape or form. That's just kinda normal for this series, even before Roxas and Xion were brought back in KH3 (see: the entire Organization coming back to life because they got recompleted. AFAIK this plot point was discussed in interviews long before it finally made its debut in DDD, so the concept of KH bringing back dead characters is pretty old, actually). And of course everyone has different opinions on these once-dead characters returning, but I'm of the mind that coming back to life doesn't necessarily erase a prior tragedy, at least not in all cases.

I'd say the only problem I see with bringing them back is the fact that Xehanort and Eraqus are now canonically passed on in the present timeline. With no one around left to make these characters' "revivals" emotionally relevant within the story, their inclusion in the main plot might feel kinda strange and unncessary. Unless, like you say, this is a Quadratum scenario where Xehanort and/or Eraqus are running around alive as well.

Of course characters have inherent narrative worth outside of their relationships to other characters, but I'm just saying it'd be a bit of a wasted opportunity to, for example, bring Vor back but then not have Eraqus around to emotionally react to it, you know? Their return, ideally, should have a strong impact on the characters, not just the audience.