#christian: idk what you're fighting about or with who but

[archivedsouls]

continued, featuring enjolras.

he is a man of many things,   but he is mostly a man of dreams.     there’s self-determination,  love,   and infinite prospects even when dreams appear comically and unreasonably out of reach.     people may suspect he’s a man that is out of touch with reality,   his father being one of them.   but his aspirations,   christian choosing to pursue his dreams and in all respects reject the simpler path most taken is what places him above those who brand him unrealistic.     he followed his dreams,   and now he lives them.     ❛     no!   no,   not apathy,   but magnanimity!     my friend,   you are so consumed by this hatred—   by the rage in your heart.     ❜     christian can all but feel the imprisoned tension boiling from @fraegiles,   releasing in governed quantities,   a pressure cooker awaiting eruption.     arms unhesitatingly soar skyward,   hands halting at the tops of enjolras’ shoulders and squeezing.      this is enjolras’ reality,   the writer presumes,   and he trusts that he can choose a more freeing path.     ❛     they refuse your words,    but what of action?     violence only begets violence.   won’t they simply fight back?     until all that is left is more destruction,   a war with no end.     ❜

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

In general, I think it's currently really important for progressive Christians to be very loud about being both progressive and deeply religious Christians, and for everyone else fighting for progressive values to be supportive of them doing just that. I know that's like, idk, counter-intuitive or cringe or whatever, but seriously folks, the alternative is that progressive Christians have to be quiet about their faith to be accepted within broader secular and interfaith progressive advocacy, which means that the regressive asshole Christians (a) sound that much louder and (b) dominate the USian religious landscape all the more. That's a problem, for all of us.

We need people pushing back within the faith as well as outside of it, because that destroys any edifice that this is about Christianity and religious freedom.

You can be a devout Christian and also:

Openly, proudly, and without being forced to remain celibate or otherwise limit your full expression of self, identify as LGBTQ+ or be a supportive ally.

Advocate for full reproductive autonomy and comprehensive sex education.

Love and support people of other religious groups, non-religious people and/or atheists, by choosing to believe that a truly loving God would not pursue anything less than universal salvation.

Stand against evangelism and proselytizing as they have thus far been interpreted and used, because there are ways to interpret the Great Commission that don't promote colonialism and cultural genocide.

A steward of the earth, protecting God's beautiful creation and lovingly tending to it as the unique and incredible gift that it is.

A believer in science, rationalism, and human progress as part of God's divine plan for humanity.

A believer in history and someone who understands that the Bible can be both divinely given and open to interpretation (no really)(if you're confused, please talk to a knowledgeable traditional Jew)

An ally to Jews, who stands against supercessionism and antisemitism in the church.

And in before regressive Christians come shouting at me that (1) what do I know, I'm a Jew and (2) no lol you can't because of ___ reason:

My source is that I've personally met and talked to Christians of great faith and integrity - people who embody the closest forms of kindness I've seen to what Jesus himself advocated - who are each of these things.

It is 100% possible; you just choose to believe otherwise.

[redbullgirly]

hi hi can i request a max verstappen x footballer smau but she plays for real madrid femenino and we know max is an fcb supporter (also for the sake of the smau, real madrid femenino can be just as good as barcelona femeni) and everyone going crazy when she just takes him to an award ceremony as her plus-one. no soft launch no hard launch and everyone including the grid and christian horner and madristas and everyone is shocked

MADRIDISTAS [MV1/33]

Max Verstappen x footballer!RealMadridFemenino!reader

Masterlist

Summary: Y/N is one of the biggest rising stars in women's football, playing for Real Madrid Femenino. When she's nominated by Women's Football Awards for the Player of the Year, the last thing anybody would expect is her plus one to the ceremony being Formula One driver, Max Verstappen. Not only is he the World Champion himself, but most importantly, Max is a known FC Barcelona fan. Talk about making friends with the enemy...

Warnings: I have very limited knowledge of football, so everything in this story is based on my quick research. If you're a fan, please don't come for me! Though any advice would be much appreciated, because I have more football requests in my inbox XD.

Author's Note: Hi Anon, thanks for the request! I have to say it was quite challenging for me at the start, because I don't know many things about football, but at the end it turned out fun and good. Hope you like what I did with this social media au! :)

yourusername posted on instagram

liked by fifawomensworldcup, alexiaputellas, maxverstappen1 and 239,022 others

tagged: realmadridfem

yourusername And it's a wrap!🥈⚽️ Thank you to the whole team for another amazing year, we fought hard and we will continue to fight for the Champions League title next year as 2023/24 runners-up. Hala Madrid!✨🇪🇸

view all 809 comments

user1 Love the way you play!

realmadridfem Hala Madrid!💪🏆

liked by the author

yourusername 💯

user2 💥💥💥

user3 Vamosssss

user4 GO GIRLLL🤩🤩🤩🤩

user5 you really deserved to win the finale, the referee was totally biased agains you!!!

user6 Yeah, even as a FC Barcelona fan I didn't think it was fair🙈

martagarcialopez19 amazing Y/N! 🫶

yourusername Thank youuu!💖

user7 wait does y/n know some people from motosport???

user8 No I think it's just girls supporting girls in sports dominated by men tbh ☺️

liked by the author and martagarcialopez19

user7 oh yeah that makes sense

user9 Buen trabajo que equipo tan bueno con todas y en lo personal muy guapa [Good job, what a great team with everyone and personally very pretty.]

marisabel_rguez The dream team 🙌

liked by the author

yourusername Yessss

user10 HALA MADRID 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

user11 literally the prettiest soccer player I ever saw😻

user12 you mean FOOTBALL?!😂🧐

user11 sry i'm american so i'm used to saying soccer

user12 well that's WRONG girly😂

user13 Princess

messages between Y/N and Max

yourusername posted on instagram

liked by maxverstappen1, realmadridfem, charlottesiine and 189,436 others

yourusername Short stop back home in Monaco before flying to London for Women's Football Awards and my nomination for Player of the Year 🤞🌷

view all 438 comments

user1 so pretty

maitetxuu_10 The nails Y/N 🤩

liked by the author

yourusername Not better than yours though 😚

user2 i don't watch football but maybe i should start bc of you

user3 Wow you're such a cutie 😍❤️

charlottesiine great work out together!

yourusername Agreed! We should definetly hit the gym together more often 😂

user4 omg wait how do they know each other?? didn't expect y/n y/l/n to be friends with ex-wags??

user5 Idk but they both live in Monaco so it's easy to know basically everyone who's your age there xdd

yourusername True user5, they don't tell you how small the country actually is 😭

user6 SHE IS MY ROLE MODEL EVERYBODY

user7 👏👏👏👏🔥🔥

lucybrozne Seems like the Monaco sun suits you 😁☀️

liked by the author

yourusername Oh thanks Lucy! 🫶

lucybrozne 🫶

user8 i love that despite fcb beating madrid they're still friends outside of the field🥺

user9 WOW you should be a model

user10 So sad your talents aren’t being fully appreciated in Madrid.

user11 oh c'mmon she probably wouldn't play for them if she felt unappreciated 🙄

user12 but tbh I think she should be the captain.... like she's literally the best player of them all BY FAR

user13 Nah I don't like her. Hope she'll never be a captain🤮

user12 then go away? lol

user13 damnn the 3rd picture did some unholy things to me 😩

user14 right?! I don't think I'm straight anymore🫣

user15 I have no idea who she is but let me tell you she's gorgeous

user16 ✨✨✨👑🎀🌹

twitter

messages between Max and Christian Horner & Max and Carlos Sainz

yourusername posted on instagram

liked by gerihalliwellhorner, maxverstappen1, alexmorgan13 and 621,983 others

tagged: maxverstappen1

yourusername Turning him into Madridista duh.

viewl all 3,084 comments

maxverstappen1 Y/N I love you... but that's never happening ❤️

yourusername Liar! You complained for a week straight about how that referee in the finals wasn't fair and we should have won agains Barcelona! 😘

carlossainz55 hahaaa mate she got you😂

maxverstappen1 😒

user1 OMGGG we converted him on our side!!!

user2 A sad day to be a FC Barcelona supporter and F1 fan😓

user3 A happy day for Madridistas!😍

user4 damn I may have to start watching football

martagarcialopez19 you're glowing! also thanks god now I don't have to keep the secret anymore xd

yourusername Love ya! 🫶

user5 The IT WAG

user6 can we take a moment to appreciate how cute maxie looks here?🥹

realmadridfem You go girl! Convert new fans!🤩💪

liked by the author

user7 I'm still shocked by this whole thing 😹

user8 you're not the only one lol

user9 the second picture????

user10 Max is so lucky man🥵

marisabel_rquez ¡La pareja poderosa!😍 [The power couple!😍]

liked by the author

user11 this post murdered me and dragged me all over slaycity with how much it served 🤭

user12 exactly! her and max are so hot and pretty

user13 🤍😍💯🥳 Hala Madrid!!!

maxverstappen1 posted on instagram

liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc, f1, realmadridfem and 1,109,332 others

tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1 My girl ❤️⚽️

comments on this post have been disabled

THE END

Author's Note: Thank you for reading the whole thing! I'll appreciate likes, reblogs, follows and comments, or any other way of support. Let me know what you think about this pairing and please tell me if there are any football errors, because I have another request about footballer!reader waiting for me. Have a great day! :)

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

--

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

[official212th]

ok so i just finished this book the eighth arrow and god knows nobody reads any of my posts so im just gonna put some thoughts here.

first of all: this book is so so so good yet such a fucking trip to read because it is written by a priest. and 90% of the time its a great take on greek legends and mythos and also has some truly ridiculous homoerotic subtext. but then every couple chapters you get a remind that wow. this was written by a priest. spoiler warning but odysseus legit converts to christianity at the end which is actually hilarious. and ok, the priest who wrote it works at a catholic school that is actually in the same city as i am and i will say i appreciated how he very clearly planned to use this book in either theology or english classes, because it was absolutely 100% a metaphor for redemption in catholicism and the idea of mercy and forgiveness. guys i know what im talking about i also go to catholic school. but the way he frames it as a story that's ostensibly not about christianity, but he sneaks in a few metaphors and buzzwords (the disclaimer at the beginning, in which odysseus says he actually made the whole story up, talks about how he was "judged worthy" and "redeemed" and talks about God's grace and providence. which is pretty standard fare for your average high school theology class.) specific to christianity and even catholicism (some of the beliefs regarding redemption in here are pretty unique to catholicism and i don't think some protestants would like this book very much)

second of all did i mention the homoerotic subtext? because wow. honestly it wasn't even subtext it was just text. the whole book is about odysseus and diomedes and their journey through dante's inferno. but it starts off talking about how the two of them are "imprisoned in a single flame" for 3,000 years (ok buddy not sounding too straight to me) and they kind of have a friends to enemies to friends thing happen but like the whole reason they become enemies is odysseus doesn't realize or acknowledge diomedes' love for him??? (GAY)

im going to back myself up with sources. proteus (weird old guy that's there like half the time) says to odysseus "that man really loves you. He loves you more than he loves his own father. More than he's ever loved anyone, I suspect. And that is a sacred thing, a love like that" and does the priest writing it maybe mean it in the way that God loves us? maybe but thats not how i'm interpreting it! anyways i really liked how (spoiler warning again although if you're avoiding spoilers for this book idk how you got this far) odysseus and diomedes are bffs but also fight. like really bad. like almost-killed-each-other bad. and then they have a really nice moment in which diomedes almost dies and odysseus is like "wait i love u youre my family pls dont die" and then they team up and save the day. its so sick. i love gay people.

[sillystappen]

HELLO

i was wondering if you can do max as a singer and not a driver

i wonder if he can be MARINA and he interested in f1 and goes there to watch the races

HIHI!!!

Singer!Max huh? Ok I see you.

And mother of god did figuring the logistics of this AU hurt my brain :')

Ofc Max would retain his interest in F1 heck I might even make him kart when he was a kid but drop out for angsty lore reasons. Naturally this would make his relationship with his father very strained and almost nonexistent if it weren't for the fact Max still hasn't blocked his number. He spent most of his kid/teenage life with his mum and sister in belgium and thrived in music classes, having a natural sense of rhythm and being able to hear the layers in a song. He still watches F1 on tv and becomes a Daniel fan after Spain 2014 - Daniel's first podium, though he also is team Rosberg when brocedes happens (no reason other than I like Nico Rosberg)

As for his music type honest to god I can see why you would say MARINA as those lyrics can definitely be Max coded but genre wise and looking at her performing idk if that fits the Max vibes bc I wanna keep him from going too OOC. But not in a total stray from the idea of MARINA, I propose... Conan Gray. Still kinda indie vibes (and I love indie) and there's a lot of desiderium songs as well as full on pop bops and hopeless romantic stuff which give people some good emotional rollercoaster concerts. However these songs and albums release date will be manipulated to it my narrative because trying to align a calendar with an interesting plot and those songs just was too much...

For Daniel and any race settings, I am thinking of using the 2021 season. Which I'm sure you all are thinking: Silly, what would be the 2021 season without Max in it? Wouldn't it just go to Lewis without a fight? And I thought long and hard about it, looking through the grid and reserves to see who if anyone should take the seat that Max originally had and... it's Daniel. You heard it here first folks this baby is a Daniel never left Red Bull fic too. Using this Mr V's Garage's video, I borrowed the simulated 2021 season between Norris and Sainz and made it Lewis and Daniel (who will ofc win) with 3rd place going to Checo (because i like checo) and 4th Bottas. As for Abu Dhabi... there's no way it won't be controversial come on.

I imagine a meeting between Daniel and Max would be him getting paddock passes after saving up and ends up being recognised by Daniel at the Belgian Grand Prix. At this point he has he has had Kid Krow out for nearly 2 years after saving a crap load of money from royalties and a birthday gift from his sister he finally had enough money for a paddock pass over a grandstand ticket (but holy fuck those things are expensive). He meets Daniel who is like "holy shit you're Max Verstappen! Wearing my DR3 hat?" and Max feels like holy shit is very much correct because Daniel knows who he is?!?! Queue both of them having a fanboy moment and Daniel admitting he cried when he heard heather for the first time. But Daniel has to be pulled away so he gives Max his number and invites him to the garage (much to christian's chagrin but hey, number one golden driver championship contender privileges). Max totally nerds and Daniel thinks its cute and the mechanics are surprised by Max's knowledge.

They go on "friend-dates" to get to know each other properly and surprisingly (to them not to us) they click really well. Daniel invites him to GPs and Max invites Daniel to music video sets (they sneak Daniel into an MV and if you look close enough you can see him in the background) and a lot of trips to the recording studio. The internet being the internet picks up on this and are like AIN'T NO WAY OMG WORLDS COLLIDING all dramatic like that. There's even TikTok edits and a small tumblr community (hi) about them.

Then one day Max goes on an interview and is asked about Daniel. "He's probably the best person in my life right now, outside of work and family. Gosh, I've been a fan since 2014, and my sister will tell you I yelled pretty loudly when he won in Canada that year. But the Daniel you guys see in media is only half the story. He's kind and considerate and generous and a really comfortable person to be around and I am glad I bumped into him in Spa. He's been my rock as I work on my newest album."

Hashtag maxiel starts popping off a lot more mainstream and Daniel calls Max after the interview to tell him how sweet and lovely he is and as he gushes Daniel has the 'oh I love him' moment, like actually in love and not just a how a fan would. He doesn't say it, of course, but the penny has dropped.

For Max, the 'oh I love him' would be when they're back in Daniel's hotel room post race (that Daniel won ofc) and they're sat on a sofa in front of a quiet TV playing some sort of movie when Daniel falls asleep on Max's shoulder. Max looks down at him and just knows 'i love him' then and there. It's a quiet realisation, and one he is content with.

As for how they get together, it's one of the times Daniel is in Max's recording studio listening as Max sings, completely entrapped. When Max finishes and sits down next to him, he asks what Daniel thinks Daniel doesn't hesitate to say he thinks Max is amazing and that the song will be a hit, but suggests a few tweaks to the instrumental. Max takes this seriously and appreciates the honesty, kissing Daniel's cheek as thanks. It was the way Max looked at him and gently held his face that has Daniel sitting there for a moment before going fuck it and properly kissing Max.

They don't announce their relationship until Daniel after wins his second championship in 2022 but spend the rest of 2021 and the entirety of 2022 soft launching it and teasing. Daniel posts photos of Max hugging him in Abu Dhabi 2021 and lots of photos of them hanging out in winter and summer break. The F1 media catches Max in the paddock and Red Bull garage a lot and Daniel at the Superache tour in late 2022 (what about the tour? what tour? the early 2022 world tour? yh that didnt happen I'm just adding a couple songs from there into the superache setlist). Max also posts a video of Daniel lipsyncing to Overdrive whilst holding a deodorant can and standing on a bed.

The actual announcement spooks the F1 world more than the music one and at first it's a lot for them, the questions and the prying, the demand to know it all and of course the homophobia but they get through it all fine and dandy.

Oh and Jimmy and Sassy? They give Daniel the seal of approval the moment he shows up offering pets. And that was the only outside opinion that ever mattered.

{I may flesh this into a full on fic, but I also might not but I liked your idea anyway and wanted to put the concept I created into the world! I hope you like it.}

[littlemoondarling]

A critical review of a Wendigoon video, pls read it all if you're interested and pls be civil♡♡

Uhm so we all know wendigoon right? Beloved horror youtuber, for good reasons too, his videos have such a comforting vibe that I rewatch them whenever I'm feeling depressed, but recently I got to thinking about a couple of things and they are making me.... slightly uncomfortable with his videos.

The first and biggest thing comes from this video which is about the game "Faith: the Unholy Trinity" which is a game about demons, possession, baby sacrifice, exorcism, etc. All told from a very Christian pov (as most media tends to be) which is no problem, the problems start when we delve a little deeper into the uncomfortable implications about the main possessed girl Amy and her story.

Tldr, she started volunteering at a what is clearly supposed to be an abortion or neonatal care clinic where a demonic cult uses it as a front to sacrifice babies for the evil causes... which idk if you can start picking up on the very concerning implications of that.

Now Wendigoon spoke with the creator of the game who explained that the (what I will call) corruption route that the mc goes through is to make it clear that someone doesn't just get possessed by demons, that they have to go out of their way to get to that point.

And we know that Amy was a good girl before she volunteered in the abortion clinic, which when u visit it (starts in the video at about 2 hours 12 mins) it is made clear immediately that it is not... great.

You first see a letter from the owner who tells the who I assume is the secretary to notify him before returning any calls from the health department because they don't want another "surprise inspection" (the owner is revealed to be a demon and a cult leader btw :))

When you walk further into the clinic, you are met with a disturbing and grotesque demon (which is usual for a horror game but please try to see how the underlying message is clear) where a cop (who is 100% a good guy and hasn't been indoctrinated into the cult) helps you int defeating it. There are also stretchers covered in the blood of the sacrificed corpses under them. It is also made clear that they are injecting the women who seek treatment there with a substance to make them hallucinate and so they don't wake up during the "procedure".

And if you want to get a secret ending, you have to go back and fight a demonic lady who unleashes demonic babies at you who look a whole lot like fetuses but that is just my opinion.

The whole game revolves around a demon cult leader who made an abortion clinic to use the 'babies' as sacrifices and to experiment on the women. If that isn't the most right-wing reactionary Christian pro-life talking points, idk what is.

The issue is that Wendigoon doesn't address the blatant demonising of neonatal care/abortion clinics and the disgusting pro-life implications that are baked deep into the game's DNA, he just keeps praising it and it's creator without batting an eye at any of this. And the comments don't even acknowledge it!

This isn't to cancel wendigoon or anything, I've just been thinking about this specific video for a while and I want to get my thoughts somewhere bc I personally didn't see much talk ab this.

[nezz-cringe-crib]

teru mikami analysis bc i love him

hi i'm just here to rant about how much i love teru mikami's character because he's genuinely such a well written character. this is probably gonna be unorganized and just rambly. i might rewrite it later but for now i just need another reason to procrastinate and focus on my silly emos.

(oh yeah also spoilers if that isn't obvious)

-------------------------------------------------------------

mikami is probably one of the best representations of religious trauma (at least imo and from what i've seen). i haven't read the manga yet and a lot of this might just be me projecting, but either way he's still the top in my books. there's SO many scenes and details about him that remind me so much of myself when i was still heavily involved with christianity (and to be clear, this is my own interpretation, not me tryna shit on any religions. that's a big wompwomp no-no. respect ppl hoes). so here's some random bits about mikami that make me go "OH SHIT ME-CORE ALERT!!!!":

the entire thing with his mom. i know that when he reflects back on his mom's death, he talks about how he's happy the whole thing happened because "she's evil and god killed the evil for me thanks god" but i completely believe the whole thing is just him brainwashing himself. like think about it for a second. his mom just died in the same car crash that involved his main tormentors, and this was also right after he was holding a slight grudge against his mom for defending said tormentors (she obviously didn't do that. she was just trying to help mikami view the world from a more realistic point of view to keep him out of trouble, but when you're that young and that passionate about justice, to him it'll seem like she's defending the same evil he's trying to fight). when you combine these things together, this is just gonna lead to a WHOLE lot of conflicted and lost feelings, and we see that in mikami. he had just been through a rough conversation with his mom, and she died before he could even get a chance to really think about said convo. all he is left with is a mixed feeling of loss, resentment, and fear. however, on the other hand, her death meant that the tormentors she was defending had also died. so to him, it has to mean something, doesn't it? the group of bastards that had been ruining his and others' lives and had finally been rid of. and if this had happened right after his mother had been defending them, it has to be a sign, right? there has to be a reason for all this hurt, right? when mikami is viewing the world through these lenses, it makes sense that'd he'd suddenly want a reason to justify his mom's death, even though it feels unbelievably cruel. so he finds a reason, and he finds that reasoning through god. this is honestly something that i used to do a lot when i was still heavily invested in my church, and i'm sure there are others who have been in the same situation. when the world is unjustifiably cruel, people will make up justification for it. it's a fear tactic that many people fall prey to in religious environments, and if not treated, it can fester into much more toxic environments for the people around them.

^^^ tldr: mikami copes with his mom's death by telling himself "it's okay that my mom died!! she was working for satan and god had to kill her!! thanks god!!" and if that's not the most religious-trauma-core shit out there then idk what is.

ALSO LITERALLY JUST EVERYTHING WITH LIGHT'S DEATH???? YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THAT SHIT HURT MAN. the realization that your god is not the god you thought you had been following used to be some of the scariest shit out there to me and mikami had it thrown right at his face when light died. not only was his god gone, but his god was never a god to begin with. he was just some guy. some pathetic guy who was now bleeding out and screaming on the ground. he had dedicated his life to this thing, and it was never real to begin with. and so he dies with it. because when the god revolving your life is gone, what other life do you really have? mikami was the perfect fucking example of that and i need it to be talked about more fucking please guys he's literally just like me fr i swear.

that's all i can think of right now tbh. if there's any typos in here no there isn't you're wrong nuhuh. anyways i fucking love mikami's character. he might be an antisocial autistic boyloser edgelord but he's MY antisocial autistic boyloser edgelord and i will defend him with my life. that hoe did EVERY wrong thing but your honor he is just a silly guy.

[kintatsujo]

something I've been thinking about on and off with regards to Legend of Zelda is the ways in which it gets fantasy religion very right, despite the fact that it kind of started as "we don't understand Christianity" and careened into "let's throw in what we're familiar with and make it something of its own"

in fact, perhaps it gets its fantasy religion right in the ways that it does BECAUSE this is how it started

and the core root of what Zelda gets right about it is...

Hylia and the Three Goddesses don't have fixed character designs.

Think about it. Your average jrpg, you're almost certainly fighting God at some point, and he almost certainly has a specific character design because of course he does, and a LOT of fantasy settings just use that same basic character design throughout all the iconography

but how do you always know it's Jesus in Christian art? He's every skintone a man can have, and while most White Jesuses (Jesii??) look like Cesare Borgia I don't have to be told when a picture of a Black man is meant to be Christ.

Or how do you know it's a particular polytheistic god, or a character from a folk tale, or whatever?

How do you always know it's Hatsune Miku?

And the answer is pretty easy, right?

It's because of their symbols.

So in Zelda, we see a winged woman with her hands clasped, perhaps holding a sword, perhaps wearing a winged crown or headdress or a crown of light, we know that's meant to be Hylia.

And when the Three Goddesses show up, the Triforce symbol is usually involved, or we see spheres or indistinct figures of gold rising upward, light trailing behind them, or we see three feminine figures dancing together, or we see their individual sigils, that sort of thing.

And then there's even the Heroines from botw/totk, who are all depicted with the same form and figure but who each have their own symbol.

And another thing is that MUSIC is very important to the way the goddesses come up; Zelda has her own song and Hylia's song is based on it. The dragonsong of botw and the way it distorts when one of the holy dragons is hurt. The songs Link has to play for puzzles, the holy songs that are the whole key to things.

Zelda as a franchise in general just really understands how much music is part of people, and it especially shines when gods enter the picture.

And idk, all things considered, the Hylian/Hyrulean religions are sort of scant, they're not usually heavily gone into, but what the games give us, I think they get right, and it's just kind of interesting to me from a worldbuilding perspective.

Especially since for my own fandom shit I'm perfectly happy to throw the whole ass thing into a blender with the concept of schisms and regional faiths and hit puree, lmao

[regular-theodore]

PLEASE WHAT IS COMMUNITY WHO IS DANIEL PUDI 😭😭😭😭

BLASPHEMY.

anyway I forgive you because I love talking about community and Daniel Pudi

be prepared.

community is a 2009-2015 sitcom featuring a study group with a found family dynamic at a community college. the found family includes (in order of how much I like them)

ABED my bisexual autistic babygirl who likes tv, movies and buttered noodles. he is amazing and wonderful and PLAYED BY DANNY PUDI

TROY abeds low key boyfriend he's dumb he's cute he's a recovering jock he's amazing

ANNIE starts off as nerd character but becomes way cooler and fun and she once chloroformed someone

JEFF idk he's Jeff he's like an asshole but not

BRITTA stupid fake activist girl who is low key the worst

SHIRLEY I feel nothing for her she's a bit badass but mostly Christian

PIERCE token old white racist homophobic guy. yay.

yeah so the show is amazing I love it for a taste of what you're in for, there is a zombie episode, a claymation episode, two paintball episodes, two pillow fight episodes, a glee episodes, and a multiple realities episode (the most episode of anything ever). everyone should watch it.

MOVING ON TO MY HUSBAND DANNY PUDI

this is Danny Pudi. 44 yr old American actor. he also plays Brad from Mythic Quest (that's a whole other ask) and he is just the best. I can't form coherent sentences about him so idk Google him if you want more than crazy fangirlling.

if you don't like community or Danny Pudi, you'll hate my blog!! (has been described as a "Danny Pudi thirst account")

also thank you so so much for the ask i love talking about my babies

do you regret asking?

[distinguisheddwarffriend]

TH fic idea No. 2 (yes I have a weakness for MGiME sue me):

OFC used to pray to the Valar during her life (not believing in them at all but using them like a kind of spoken diary, reasoning that everyone is allowed to pick their own gods & they are just as likely to be real as the Christian one for example).

Then she dies.

And wakes up in Valinor meeting those of the Valar She has prayed to the most.

And they're like "well no idea what to do with you tbh guess you're one of ours now do you want cookies or sth?"

And she is like "bro are you for real this is brilliant I want to learn this and that and also..... "

And she hangs out with Yavannah and Oröme and Vana but mainly Aulë cus, yk, dwarves.

And he is like "sooo do you wanna join the halls of waiting?"

And she's like "idk lemme take a look" and there is Fili/Kili/Thorin whoever you prefer, hammering away at an anvil, and she's like NOOOOO fuck they already ded? Boooooh!"

And Mahal's like "yeah he's got trouble settling, feeling like he did not accomplish what he was supposed to" and she's like "well MAYBE that's because thats the TRUTH?!?!"

And the dwarves cannot really see her, she's more like a spectre with a distorted face merging with her background and a voice, but Fili/Kili/Thorin noticed her when she at one point breaks something in his forge while arguing with Mahal about how they deserve a second chance and while Fili/Kili/Thorin listen to how Mahal goes on about "we cannot disturb the music" she shouts "this music sucks anyway atm! Wouldn't hurt to change it! It's CLEAR some tunes are missing!"

And Mahal's like"wdym you HEAR the music?"

And she's like "well, yeah? And lemme tell you it can give ya a real headache at times."

Then she leaves saying that she's gonna bully Eru to give the Durins a second chance and Fili/Kili/Thorin, Who has been listening to that conversation, are like "ehem, Mahal, dear creator, am I high?" And he shortly explains about who the other voice was.

Well after some time OFC gets Eru to agree, and they take weeks to argue about the particularities and Option A is they end up with Fili/Kili/Thorin, Who has listened and therefor knows about what she's up to, to keep his memories of the quest while being sent back, but CANNOT disclose what he knows or how. Or something something bad will happen.

And OFC is like on the one hand "nice, hot dwarves and heroics" but then there are also orcs, the ring, no plumbing.... But whatever she'll make the best out of it.

So OFC argues that that's kinda harsh and convinces Dru to let her join them.

Option B and Eru's growing tired of her and is like "you know what? You can hear if the music starts to fuck up. You go down there as well! Be their personal Gandalf or whatever!" And the chosen Durin remembers os doesn't, or maybe just some vague stuff in dreams, I don't really care. But with this option there is nothing stopping them from sharing their knowledge.

She arrives quite literally at Gandalf's feet, explains stuff to him, and their first order of business is meeting up with Galadriel, Elrond and Glorfindel (she refuses to explain yet while she does NOT want Saruman involved, unsure if he ends up joining anyway no matter what she wants) and insists on freeing Thrain from Dol Goldur ASAP (using mostly book canon for this fic obv) so she has someone that can prove her story and give her some connections & shit.

OFC, with her fighting experience being drunk arm wrestling and nothing more, remains behind in Eryn Lasgalen while Legolas joins the aforementioned group in driving out Sauron.

Thrain is first treated in the Woodland Realm for the worst injuries, and during that time talks Some Shit through with Thranduil because, yk, they'll need him and his army later on.

Then they move to Rivendell, where Thrain heals and OFC gets SOME training (no, NOT Mary-Sue-ish, it takes YEARS to become properly adept at fighting, she has a few WEEKS, meaning she manages not to drop her sword any longer and shoot in the planned direction but THAT'S IT), then she has some kind of fight with Someone and leaves with some rangers for Ered Luin, Gandalf promising to deliver Thrain to his family as soon as he's fully healed.

OFC has been turned into a dwarf btw, INCLUDING the beard! In Ered Luin she finds a job at a tavern for starters and waits for either Thrain's arrival or Fili/Kili/Thorin to 'remember' (meaning his consciousness being sent back in time), because OFC herself arrived about a year before the start of the quest.

At one point, Fili/Kili/Thorin being regulars at her tavern, she recognises a change in their demeanor and introduces herself as *****(whatever name she had in Valinor) and they get to talking, F/K/T being SO glad to FINALLY having someone to talk about what happened.

They start hashing out the beginnings of a plan, but have to be careful for now so as to no one else picks up on their knowledge. OFC promises that *someone* (she totally is mysterious on purpose) will soon show up and help in that department.

One night, Gandalf arrives with Thrain, Thorin cries, Dìs faints, Fili & Kili get drinks ( and someone of course gets OFC) and joined by Balin & Dwalin the family celebrates and learns about Thrain & OFC's knowledge and they begin to form A Plan TM.

And then, there is plot I have no idea for.

[comparativelysuperlative]

What was the book? With the Definitely Real Banishment

Spoilers (obviously) but it's the Lightbringer series. That villain was pretty good! The word-by-word writing is fine! The plot is, for several books' worth, aimed at being Very Generic Fantasy (for reasons that will make sense later). Incoming long post about its philosophy, with even more spoilers.

It's not often that I read a book and immediately go "I can tell you what kind of middle school this author went to." In this case, it was drawing on the author's experience of exactly the theology I grew up with, which was almost eerie.

(I read book one years and years ago, and didn't retain much other than "cool magic system." Probably everything in this post is true about book one as well, but I wouldn't know.)

Google will tell you that the series gets gradually very Christian, to the point where the climax of the last book contains a sermon. But it's more specific than that. These books scream "Protestant, American, classically educated, does not travel internationally very often, male, straight, probably white, the kind of person who would vote straight-ticket Republican until that meant Trump at which point all bets are off." I did not bother confirming most of those. They're just obvious.

The loudest part--to me at least--was the "classically educated." (If you're not familiar, it's this thing.) The series would mention quotes from fantasy medieval Catholics or fantasy ancient Greeks or whatever, and I'd recognize the quotes or the names because they'd be real people I ran across in school. Sure enough, author went to Hillsdale.

Lightbringer is interesting for having an actual vision of a conservative society, not just about hating the right/wrong people. Not being on that team anymore I don't actually like this vision very much, but compared to current conservatives, credit for having one at all.

Differences between people obviously don't affect your value as a person, they just might make it easier or harder or mean you have to specialize differently to accomplish as much For The Group.

(That opinion makes perfect sense for characters in an elite military unit/training for that unit. But that context is mostly specific to book two, and the philosophy really isn't.)

This applies to everything. Physical condition, including strength/weight/gender. Color-blindness. Superpowers. Being straight. (I'm genuinely not sure if that part was intentional. Characters kept getting distracted at terrible times, and the narration outside their head sounded exactly the same as when someone can't run a mile without Trying Very Hard.)

It does not matter whether your mental illness turns out to be literally demons in your head. Either way you've still got to either work through it or specialize around it.

Tradition matters, even when we don't understand the reason behind it.

If you happen to be in a fantasy book and have access to magic, consorting with demons is evil but fancy physics is fine. You can just BET this author got into fights with other Christians about whether Harry Potter was anti-Jesus.

"Irredeemably bad" isn't really a thing. "Not in fact going to be redeemed" is, but it's worth trying to show mercy if you have the chance. If you don't have the chance, kill 'em. Don't enjoy it, though.

Forgiving people for actually-bad things is hard, can't just go "idk, they're good guys now," but it's also important. (I do think this is underrepresented in secular fiction, where it's either depicted as "how could you work with THEM" or "come on, get over it already and team up against the whatever.")

One of the big reveals at the end is "the Christian God is real." The answer to the problem of evil is indeed the popular answer in the denominations I grew up with. Human choices something something mumble free will.

Very incrementalist. You do as much good as you can as fast as you can, but obviously without overthrowing the entire order or anything. Only evil opportunists would want to do that. Yes, even if the existing order is corrupt all the way through.

Speaking of which, you know that organization/political entity claiming to represent God? Corrupt all the way through. God is more personal than that. Protestantism!

Personal morality matters. Your leaders absolutely must be good people, or at least trying to be, or you're screwed.

Personal morality matters. It is safe to assume you'll end up as exactly what your peers expect of you, so pick good peers.

A man should be faithful to one (1) wife. Viewpoint characters speedrun figuring out the philosophy behind this.

(IMO monogamy was a legitimate human rights win by early Christianity, relative to what came before, and I think something similar applies in this setting. But since the real-life alternatives today are so much better than women being property, giving this a lot of screen time sounded like the book is fishing very hard for things historical Christianity did right.)

Also, once you are married you Are Married. It's not that changing that would be unthinkable, just that if you do treat it as an option you're obviously doing it wrong.

Gay people don't exist. Any variety of non-straight, really. Nobody says that it should be that way. It just doesn't come up. Characters are written in enough detail that I can tell you how they'd react if you asked them, and it's mostly the "not my business" + "prefer not to think about it" kind of low-grade homophobia. A few would be explicitly okay with it. But it does not come up. If there were a gay relationship depicted, I'd expect it to be "coincidentally" problematic in some other way.

(I guess there's that one slaver-antagonist whose sexuality is just "sadist." Yeah, one might call that problematic.)

Practically dripping with Great Man Theory of History. There's a scene where the protagonist has a self-affirming/emotional moment about not relying on his family name and meritoriously earning his first kingdom. This is played completely straight.

Don't worry, he uses it for good. At least as much good as he can without overthrowing the existing order etc.

If there are end times prophecies, they might well be true but you can't trust any specific interpretation so it's wiser to just do your best without reference to the prophecy. (This is an interesting take! And not heresy but also not common! I bet the author's reacting against some interesting strains of fundamentalism there.)

A cool idea where angels and demons can be anywhere in any world at any time in history, but are very reluctant to actually do that because they can't pick the same time twice. You can just tell it's the author's Christianity headcanon.

You win by doing your best and having faith in God. The villains are very much a sideshow.

(I think if everyone followed this book's philosophy more it would be a mostly bad thing. Let's not do that.)

(But wow, I wish modern conservatives were only this bad.)

It probably sounds like I didn't like this series. But I did read five doorstoppers' worth. This post is just about the opinions, and the opinions sucked.

Anyway. This has to be on purpose, right, and 10 or 15 years ago I was pretty much the target audience for this. Guess I'm old.

I used to explicitly think "I'm Christian, but atheist fiction is more interesting," and this book is the kind of thing that...tries...to counter that. Fails, because resolving major conflicts with divine intervention is tricky to make interesting. But you'll see why it's going for Every Other Book, But Christian. (Also, the amount of sex in these books is much higher than you might think, given everything. I wish I knew less about what body types the author is attracted to.)

Anyway, I can't really say I would recommend it. But if you're interested in what would happen if Card or Sanderson tried to be Evangelical Lewis for adults, Lightbringer isn't bad.

[hjemne]

Thinking about my queer telenovela Trigun WIP again, and I'm still not sure about to what extent it's a good idea to write Wolfwood as recently having left the church after coming to terms with the fact he's gay, and so has little experience with the queer community. Currently in my plan, Wolfwood starts off not really knowing anything about what it means to be trans and he is still working to unpack the homophobic Christian teachings he's internalised. He ends his years-long relationship with Milly and then meets Vash & it's his confirmation that yes okay he is definitely gay. Wolfwood doesn't know Vash is trans for a while, and Meryl is stressing out during that time because she's worried about how this recently Christian man with a limited understanding of transness might react to the guy he's been crushing on not being cis (Vash, her friend, who's been through enough already and who she wants to look out for). Meryl doesn't really know Wolfwood, and the worry is partly coming out of her habit of catastrophising, and Milly knows Wolfwood very very well and has full faith that he wouldn't be a dick about Vash being trans. But idk if I should cut these scenes because they're Too Much. For plot reasons the girls can't properly communicate with either Wolfwood or vash btw. My point is to show that Meryl is also unlearning stereotypes and her immediate assumptions about people, but I'm not sure if that justifies bringing up the fear of transphobia in a fanfic

Wolfwood finds out when he and Vash are finally about to hook up, and it takes him a moment to work through the initial surprise and confusion before going 'you're literally a man and I'm so attracted to you I think my dick might explode but also I have zero concept of what a trans man is so you might have to gimme some pointers on how this all works.' So basically there's a moment where Wolfwood is processing Vash being trans, and Vash is a little wary of him & how he'll react, but that moment almost immediately passes and then it's a case of Wolfwood being uninformed but very enthusiastic to learn.

I think it's important for me to show a character deconverting and the fact that when you deconvert you have to unlearn and relearn so many different things, but also I'm not sure whether it's a good idea for a plot point to be 'is Wolfwood going to hatecrime Vash?'.

I'd love to get some more perspectives on this. The fic setting and tone is (at the moment) fairly realistic so I don't think this would be a super weird tonal shift. In the fic the world is unfair and harsh but can be beautiful when people love and care for one another. Theres big plot points about how social and economic inequalities impact people & how people react & survive when pushed to the margins of society etc.

More things I'd like to discuss under the cut <33

Id also appreciate advice on how to write about Vash & Knives' transition. In my current plan, they were adopted by Rem and were both fairly erratic as kids bc they had trauma around something relating to Tesla (can't decide what exactly without bringing the tone massively down). Rem fully backs them when they transition (although she & knives get into a fight over him giving himself knives as his legal name) and I want to emphasise how positive the process of transitioning was for them. V+K get closer through it and knives gets a supportive group of friends which is particularly important because he's the more unstable one. But then there's tension between knives and rem because rem isn't the no 1 fan of some of his new friends (legato + elendira) and knives gets increasingly volatile as he refuses to process his trauma and his worst habits are enabled.

I think I want to say that Knives then causes an accident which kills Rem and injures Vash, but idk whether he does this deliberately, fully accidentally, or because he's experiencing a mental health crisis. Any thoughts about how to handle this would be super useful 🙏 Otherwise I might say that there was a car crash / other random accident, and that this was the tipping point because Knives can't handle being the only one to walk away without a scratch. Either way, Knives then disappears and Vash is trying to track him down and help him when Vash & Wolfwood meet in the main plot timeline.

The main plot is around Wolfwood trying to find Livio despite him having been declared dead after he ran away from their orphanage a few days after Wolfwood was kicked out and was never seen again (&so WW blames himself for Livios disappearance). WW eventually finds LR, who has been living under the name Razlo and avoided being found BC they actually ran away because their birth parent was released from prison and they FREAKED at being forced to go live with them again. LR has been forced into incredibly shit and precarious work because they have no legal identity or protection which is being taken advantage of by chapel. WW and LR bond and WW convinces and helps them to get away from chapel & get themselves un-declared dead. LR has met both Vash and Knives at various points (helped Vash w his t shot in a diner bathroom. this is also how he and Meryl met) and eventually Vash bumps back into WW, and they find Knives with LR's help, and everyone's happy. Milly and Meryl have gotten together during all this, and all 6/7(?) of them move in together because I make the rules and want them to be happy. Knives (& razlo tbh) gets the support and stability he's needed and is doing much better. Wolfwood gets to live with his bff Milly but can be out and proud. He probably proposes to Vash within the year. Vash & Wolfwood both have their brothers back and a family again. LR get official legal status again and change their last name to Razlo to separate them fully from their birth family. Milly and Meryl are the sweetest couple known to mankind and Meryl is welcomed into Milly's big Christian family. Will knives and LR get together? Haven't decided. But I think they would get on super well. And probably hook up. Also it's very important that you know that Wolfwood used to be a youth pastor in a church while with miss Melanie (who raised him in a Christian orphanage). Melanie cries when she sees LR again, and gives Wolfwood away when he and Vash get married.

[kaiasky]

lots of people in my local sphere are praising bushwell's self immolation as a brave thing to do and it does kinda fuck me up. In my worst moments there is no greater comfort than the fact that if I killed myself in a specific way at a specific time then I could turn all my suffering and pain into something commendable and people would love me for my death in a way they never could in life. I think that's a little incoherent but you get what I'm saying right? I don't want to live in a world where that is an "necessary" or "beautiful" or "brave" sacrifice to make but when people refer to it as that- I'm forced to confront the fact that I do live in a world that thinks like that. That I live in a world where I really would be of more use dead. Again I'm being a bit incoherent but I felt the need to say something and get it off my chest I understand it's a complicated and touchy topic for everyone.

(re this) yeah.

idk, it's... i think we valorize lots of people for dying as a part of broader culture. war heroes, people who were assassinated, every martyred christian saint. including Jesus Fucking Christ. And so in that sense i think it's hard to blame someone for seeing somebody who killed themself and go, this is martyrdom, this is heroic, reblog reblog reblog. it hits you on a gut level.

But then like you said, you think about it and you go, oh yeah, valorizing killing yourself is a terrible thing (both morally, in that it encourages other people to consider killing themself, and politically, in that if all the most devoted fucking adherents to your movement kill themselves who will be around to fucking fight for change??)

I hope and suspect that the people who reblog this kind of stuff are simply unaware of this logic and that through having it gently pointed out to them they'll also come to see what's wrong with valorizing suicides.

Ultimately like, I think the choice to continue existing or stop existing is a decision everybody (gets/has) to make for themself, but we should do as much as possible to tip the calculus in favor of "keep existing" as possible.

It goes without saying and sounds sappy, but to all of you, you wouldn't be of use dead. if you were gone, regardless of how or why, it would be nothing other than a tragedy and a huge, irreplaceable loss.

(Tangentially related, but the only advice I've ever found that like, worked for me (ymmv) for dealing with suicidal thoughts is a post like, "alright, if you're seriously contemplating suicide, then you can do that whenever, there's no rush, it's be a waste to not fuck around before ending it, so you should 1. quit your job and become one of those cool ski bum guys who couch-surfs in the summer and works as a ski instructor in the winter, and try a year or two of that out first." And so whenever I'm doing bad, I think alright, is today the day I pull the trigger on the ski bum lifestyle? And for whatever reason that feels more extreme than suicide and so it snaps me back to "hm, maybe there are less-extreme solutions than those two")

[empressofthelibrary]

I was venting about my morning to one of my friends at work, and mentioned losing a chunk of Takeoff. She followed up later:

"so what's this book you're writing about? Is it a children's story?"

And I froze for a second because how do I explain this?

"Uh, no," I replied. "I mean, it's definitely not a children's story. It's also a fanwork, meaning I'm using someone else's characters."

She seemed confused on this part, but let me go on.

"It's about this girl... She moves to a new city and then... Well, she finds out she's half space-alien" -- my coworker laughed in surprise at this -- "and then she gets stabbed, cursed by a ghost, the museum she works at burns down..." -- coworker's eyes are getting bigger and bigger with every new situation I am putting this character in -- "...and then the suit of armor the ghost lives in gets stolen, so she has to track it down to break the curse. This girl is just having a horrible week."

At this point my coworker looks absolutely bewildered. I guess I give the impression of someone who writes, like, coffeeshop AU syrupy fluff and literally nothing else, idk. I didn't even get to the fight with Weather Wizard or the giant robot laser dinosaur mecha Bailey's currently fighting, because those would take too much context to explain, and this coworker has nothing but like, some cultural osmosis for a baseline here. It's like the xkcd comic, you know the one.

And then the inevitable question: "...so are you gonna publish it? Make some money?"

I considered telling her I'm putting it up for free on the Internet. But then I realized she might want the link. And I remembered all the cussing. And Bailey having a small conniption over being rescued by an illegally gorgeous stranger who rides a motorcycle. And getting mad at herself for being kind of into it. And the fact that there is probably a lot about my psyche on display here. And that I was talking to a very traditional, very Christian, older lady. And ALL THE SHIT that happens later on.

"Nnnnnno," I half-lied. "It's a fanwork, so I can't monetize it. But I think I like keeping my writing as a hobby anyway! There's no pressure, and I can make stuff that's just for me!"

She seemed surprised by this answer, but satisfied, which was a relief. I do not need my Work Mom to see my secrets bleeding through onto the page, holy shit

[writing-and-rebloging]

Do you also believe that the are fallen angels in WHB?

(yes this the same person ,who keeps asking every blog about the game ,it’s fun knowing people opinion while we wait for the game ,don’t know if it’s seen as annoying though)

Lucifer regions name is called Paradise Lost ,which is very interesting for me a,and that most of his underlings are covered in bandages.

And I think Gabriel knows more than he lets on ,but idk ,maybe he has no knowledge about Gods whereabouts.

It's not annoying at all! It's lovely that you do that, keeps all of us hyped and all, plus, it really is fun seeing the different responses and opinions. So, ask away whatever and whenever you want!

This is, again, long, and... Uh, cw for biblical stuff, too? Ig? Now!

As for the fallen angels... I have conflicted thoughts about it. On one hand, we know that God created angels, and made them love only him, blindly, to the point of them being hardcore yanderes. Very poor decision making there, give them a hobbie or something, otherwise they'll get overwhelming, you know? Point being, angels suffocated him, so he went and created devils, or demons dealers choice for words. Which is the first (and probably bigger) departure from biblical mythos as far as I'm aware.

Now, do keep in mind that while I know a lot of the common knowledge, grew-up-surrounded-by-catholicism things, I have never actually read the Bible past some audio cassettes I had when I was... In kindergarten or so, and thus might have some things wildly off, however... Demons were originally just sort of there, the bad and evil, the shadows and temptations every good christian fought against, and were opposing God, his teachings and love. Angels fell from grace and turned into demons themselves, dedicated to corrupting humankind and stealing their souls. Right? God didn't create them, he was actively seeking to banish them from existance in the eternal fight of good and evil. But, in WHB, they are created by God himself, who seeked less obsessive company. I suppose they're still opposed, freely going about life vs obsessively reaching for the target of their affection, an interesting parallel shown in how angels dealt with God's disappearance vs how demons dealt with Solomon's, but there's no longer an element of falling from grace, so I'd say that fundamentally and going from that train of thought... No, there aren't fallen angels? At least, not in the traditional sense I would understand it.

On the other hand, we do see there's a seed that can force a demon to turn into an angel (how, or what changes it creates, I have no idea), so the opposite should also be true, angels should be able to turn into demons, thus making the statement that fallen angels do exist true. We'll probably see some of this early on thanks to Gabriel getting caught and apparently ending up siding with us one way or another (unless he's one of the makes no sense but you can buy his card and use him on your battlefield type), be it from his doubt, actually "falling" and/or some impressive mental gymnastics.

Breaking free from their blind devotion could mean no longer being angels, though, since that's their most prominent racial (ish?) trait. It's like taking a cat and giving it the ability to bark instead of meow? If it makes sense? And could make them no longer worthy of being angels, creatures that exist only to fawn over their creator.

Conclusion: i have no fucking idea. Or rather, it depends on how you see it? Are they truly falling, as seen on, idk, Obey me or other media? No. Would they change from one to the other in a way that is easily explained as falling? Well, yes. Way I understand it, personally and until further info, it's like changing on a fundamental level, as if you're playing an rpg and change race from elf to orc, to chose two well known "opposites", rather than getting demoted and branded as no longer welcome. It does give some interesting xeno potential, as a side note.

Hope it made sense! Now, onto the second part of the question!

It is interesting, and suggest that he, and probably some other buggers from the Ars Goetia that were angels became devils from one reason or the other, and one way or another. Either that or he's edgy. He does seem to fancy himself all the fucked up healers so far, for whatever that means in his character and status.

As for Gabriel... Well, as I said, I think we'll get some insight from him on the fallen subject, and on how angel society works in general, since the other two don't show up much so far. But from what we can gather of his character, I think he's not the sharpest tool on the shed, and rather a delusional, overbearing yan who wants his daddy back rather than a cunning mastermind who knows Details and Info of the plot. If he knew where God is, he would have already fled to be with him or get him back somehow, I'd say. He's fun, though, can't wait to bully him.