#don’t blame me in and of itself is a religious experience

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

She’s so real for this.

[shirefantasies]

Why is Tolkien so charitable regarding Frodo's missteps? After all, Tolkien conveniently and entirely blames all of Frodo's missteps regarding his handling of the ring on the ring itself.  "I do not think Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum -- impossible, I should have said, for anyone to resist."- JRR Tolkien. One can't imagine him saying anything remotely like this about the others who tried to take the ring. It's only Frodo's actions that Tolkien excuses by saying that anyone in Frodo's position would have done the same thing.

Hi there! Not sure if this comes from dislike of the character or just Tolkien’s handling, but if it’s the former I know I have characters I wouldn’t want someone to push me to like so I for sure will be surprised but respectful if Frodo is a character you don’t enjoy. Having people try to change your mind can be exhausting and annoying lol, so this’ll focus on just how I take things in the story personally! I am by no means a huge Tolkien scholar, but here’s how I take that situation with the ring and some evidence for the points as I at least see them (with some general agreement from other fandom and analysis discussions and conventions with other LoTR fans as well!). Hope this is at least an interesting read and I’m pretty darn flattered you chose me to ask this to ☺️

1. The ring bears a heavy weight (literally) on everyone’s decisions interacting with it, but I’ve always taken the story and Tolkien’s words on it as a bit of commentary on the folly of man, and as a religious person the concept of original sin. I.E. that we as humans (men, hobbits, dwarves, and even elves included in this setting) are simply not perfect and cannot be. Part of that evidenced in quotes like that from Tolkien himself but also scenes where even characters seen as beacons of good, strength, wisdom, morals, etc. do show temptation by the ring or that it would turn good intentions to evil. Galadriel and Gandalf, for example, are some of the most powerful beings and they tell Frodo that they would become corrupt and misuse the power they already have and that of the ring. Boromir as a character shows this too, because he is held overall pretty blameless too despite doing a bad thing. I love Boromir personally but nearly every fan on here I interact with does too and many discussions are had around his desperation, his life experiences up to the point of the fellowship’s travels, and how we all believe him to be a good man that made bad decisions out of both the influence of the ring and the pressure put on him to be his people’s hero. So I hold Frodo and Boromir especially on an equal ground of people who are flawed and strained, people tired of fighting and who just want an escape, frankly, a solution they don’t feel is coming especially not through the dark lens of the ring and its temptation to trust the way it warps you.

2. I think part of why Frodo gets emphasized in what can seem like the ‘oh he did no wrong’ narrative comes from the simple fact that he’s one of the characters who holds/interacts with the ring the longest. Besides characters like Bilbo and Gollum, we don’t see as much detail on a long time spent with the ring- in fact, beyond the what the Smeagol flashbacks do Frodo is the main indicator of it all for readers/viewers. Most of the other characters only touch/hold/carry it briefly, not for months like he does. So the weight of it does not fall as heavily on them, but we do see that Sam, the chief hero of the story (Tolkien’s words!), even hesitates before giving the ring back to Frodo after carrying it for a fraction of the time. Would Sam have been driven that much further down by it if he had been the one to carry it? I believe so, though it would have manifested differently (Frodo is more a quiet, brooding type who spits venom on occasion where Sam is much more a man of action and outward anger, so the ring would have twisted that and I think he would have been more tough and explosive while Frodo got nasty if that makes sense). Bilbo and Gollum take on similar traits when they try to snatch the ring and I believe Frodo would have descended further into those, too, with even more time carrying the ring.

3. If we’re looking at LoTR also as a showing that absolute power corrupts, we have to have someone like Frodo fail. We have to show even a ‘little guy’, someone young and joyful at the beginning of the story, someone with innocent beauty, falling to it for that very idea that anyone would. It’s almost easier to believe that one of the aforementioned beacons of power and strength like, say, Gandalf, would fall because they already have power to go to their heads. We see this with Saruman, for example, and how he literally falls from grace and dies trying to dominate. But a hobbit and a young innocent one falling when he has nothing of the sort is more telling and tragic. He never wanted this, in fact though he is brave enough to take it on he also tries to give it up numerous times because of the pressure that ultimately threatens to crush him. It’s a cautionary tale that’s sad because it’s true- pressure and power get to us.

4. I totally agree that Frodo made some bad decisions on his own, too! Once again, nobody’s perfect so as an author I can see why it’s realistic to have him screw up, but for sure I would not blame the ring on every single bad thing Frodo has done! The ring definitely amplifies and warps things, but one of the biggest tells of that is Gollum. Sam doesn’t trust him and is right to do so, and while Gollum is very essential to the story, Frodo does let fear and a desire to do every single thing right (again, pressure, imo a big theme here lolol!) take over the decision to trust their shady guide and then the ring takes the stress of that and Gollum’s words and twists all his feelings of exhaustion and resentment against Sam.

5. We’ll never know for sure, but I’ll wrap this up by saying I do personally believe that Frodo is by far not the only person who would fall in this way. He isn’t a perfect character, either, but that is exactly why what happens happens. But then that logic can by applied to many others too, like not only more obvious targets like Boromir or Gollum but even Gandalf, who feared what he would do with ring in hand, would succumb. The concept of the folly of man is especially interesting to me outside of ‘man’, like in the case of Saruman who is supposed to be of great wisdom and purity as a white wizard, but even he falls short. Even the Valar can fall short. Tolkien to me exemplifies the idea shown biblically that anyone can fall, even angels like lucifer/Maia and Valar like Sauron and Morgoth, if they let greed follow their hearts or do not trust the guidance of others. In this case, for Frodo that was Sam. Distrusting Sam gets him in world of trouble, Tolkien lists Sam as the chief hero, and to me the other core of Lord of the Rings is that NO ONE in that story can do it alone. Frodo would have died and fallen all the way without Sam. Rohan had to come to Gondor’s aid. The Three Hunters would not have succeeded if just Legolas or only Aragorn set out and I firmly believe that. Friendship and trust are what keeps us afloat, and Frodo’s mistrust in that, greatly amplified by stress, exhaustion, and indeed the ring, is his undoing. Human nature and evil temptation are a heck of a combo, friends!

Again, hope you find this an interesting read and even if you still don’t personally enjoy Frodo as a character I understand! I hope this comes across as just an analysis, for I don’t like debating and want to be respectful. People with the ‘I’m right, you are wrong’ mentality are a huge turnoff for me so I try to avoid that type of thinking. Thanks again for giving me a lot of food for thought anon, feel free to stop by more if you want to talk so long as this blog can keep a tone of study, not debate 🫶🏻

[aronarchy]

(@/eviltothecore13 on 10/10/22 in the replies of this post):

Please, please, stop saying “the homeschooling movement” as if there’s one homeschooling movement across the whole world! this post is so US-centric… there are parts of the world where the majority of homeschoolers are not religious at all. I was homeschooled in the UK after my parents took me out of school because of the abuse I suffered there. We are not Christian or religious at all.

My best friend at my homeschool group was Jewish, taken out of school by his very left-wing mother after he experienced horrific antisemitism as well as bullying for being autistic. Most of the rest of us were not particularly religious, there were a couple of Muslims, and yes a handful of people who were to some extent Christian but that wasn’t their motivation for homeschooling. My parents never hit me. My teachers at school thought they should have done.

Was it ideal? not in every way, no. It costs money, it’s not accessible to poorer families or to families where both parents are out at work all day, and seeing different people every day at various groups and classes but never seeing any one person more regularly than once a week does make it harder to form close friendships (then again, it means you don’t end up inescapably trapped with the same bully every day.)

But we were a group of people who had tried the school system, public and private, been mistreated, been traumatised, had the schools try to blame it on us simply being “bad kids,” and found our parents were our only allies and the only people still willing to even TRY to give us an education. It was a rural county. If you got a bad reputation at one school it would follow you to the next because everyone knew each other and teachers gossiped about their students.

Whereas the homeschool group and the tutors there welcomed you whether you were autistic, ADHD, dyspraxic, dyslexic, dyscalculic, atheist, Jewish, Muslim, a POC, GNC (to my knowledge no-one was out as queer, but only because we were all young and figuring it out and we were in a homophobic area in general—the environment was certainly far less homophobic than school though, and definitely none of my friends who did go to school were out as queer at that age either)

It can be horrible. If the parents don’t have the child’s best interests at heart, if they’re authoritarian, then it can indeed put a terrible amount of power in their hands. If the parents are like mine, who listen to the child and respect them as a person, who consider it their JOB to listen to their child’s wishes and do their best to make them happy, then it gives far more power to the CHILD than the school system does.

If I disliked a tutor or a textbook or anything about my education, I could discuss it with my parents and we’d find a way to change it. It is MUCH harder to do that in the school system—believe me, as someone who tried to express my problems with teachers who abused me to the school system MULTIPLE times and NEVER got the school system to fire someone or even to put me in a different class.

And you say “the homeschooling movement” when you seem to only mean the American Christian one… I’d never heard of the HSLDA before this post, they’re NOT A THING over here, apparently they’re a “Christian organisation” which immediately makes me distrust them, but homeschooling here has NOTHING to do with that movement, please stop acting as if the American experience is universal!

I suffered infinitely more from the stigma around homeschooling (from other kids: “so, why can’t you go to school? is there something wrong with you? are you [r-slur]?” “oh you're homeschooled? I bet you don’t even know the alphabet, I bet you’re stupid”—I took the same GCSE exams as every schoolkid while I was homeschooled and got all A*s) and from feeling like I had to be perfect to prove that stigma wrong than from anything to do with homeschooling in itself.

If I ever have children (which I don’t currently plan to) or ever find myself in a position of responsibility for a child, unless our school system and government has been radically reformed, I could not in good conscience send them to school to go through what I did when I was at school.

And even if under one government things improve… the next could fuck it up again… we used to have Section 28 banning schools from teaching kids that being queer was at all acceptable… imagine if that was brought back…

If an oppressive government comes into power, and the schools are suddenly teaching kids “people like you [your families, your friends, etc] don’t deserve human rights,” I think there needs to be a way for children to still get an education outside of the school system (though let’s face it, an oppressive government would quite possibly make homeschooling illegal anyway, the Nazis did).

Children should not be faced with a situation where their ONLY way to get the qualifications needed to go to university, get a job, etc is to go through an oppressive and abusive school system. They need to have the choice of whether to go to school or not, not be forced to go somewhere that abuses them with no alternative.

.

[tribade-veneration]

I’m that anon from the wwtichscum blog (I know it’s late because i only came across her very aggressive and empty response just now)

To answer your “where’s this lesbian utopia do you live in?” question, welp the question is the answer itself

I don’t live in an lesbian utopia and I don’t have to live in one to be… actually lesbian

My family *is* religious and extremely conservative, but even then they can’t change me so can you blame me for thinking a bihet woman who gets gangbanged on the daily then suddenly decides she’s a lesbian is not… in fact a lesbian? Is it that wrong to believe actual lesbians exist?

I can't prove you're the same anon, and I don't fully believe you are, but I'll act as if it's the case.

Firstly, speak about women in a less sexualized way than "gangbanged on the daily". Your brain is porn-rotten. That's gross and very embarrassing for you. It makes me not even want to continue answering this because what's the point if you're probably not even going to listen because you're dealing with internalized misogyny that makes you think women always enjoy the sex they seek out? But I'm going to try anyway.

When lesbians talk about lesbians who have sex with men before (or even after) realizing that they're lesbians... We aren't referring to women who are happily, enthusiastically having sex they enjoy with men they're attracted to, getting bored of it and saying "Well that shit's boring now, I'm a lesbian". Obviously that's not a lesbian. If you'd taken the time to recover your brain from all the horrible shit you've been taught by your conservative family before saying horrible shit yourself, you might be aware that women enthusiastically enjoying all the sex they have - even if deliberately sought out - is a patriarchal myth. Even straight women routinely force themselves through shitty sex. It's kind of a major part of rape culture.

Women are raised, from infancy, to believe that we are objects of service. I'm sure you know that, growing up in a conservative family. This extends to sexual service.

That mixed with heteronormativity can make it hard for women to even know they're lesbians. We grow up surrounded by women who force themselves through bad sex with gross men. We grow up surrounded by women who hate their husbands, who nervously laugh and fail to give a clear answer when asked what they find attractive about men. We grow up with mothers who say, when the father isn't around, that men are stupid and disgusting. And sure, there's also plenty of women who are very happy to say exactly what they find hot in a guy, but if those women who are just forcing themselves through it are straight, then as a young lesbian it's easy to not realize that *your* disgust towards men is different.

Some of us grow up raped, a lot, on a regular basis, starting as a baby, which can definitely impact perception of sexual orientation. Some of us go through corrective rape. Some of us are explicitly told while being assaulted by men that we need to learn to like men. I'm one of those lesbians. While I never ended up having sex with men by my own volition, I did think I was bisexual for a long time because of my experiences, and once or twice sought out sex from male friends (which they declined, thankfully). I sought this out as a form of self harm. I *thought* I was attracted to them but no, I was not. I was just confused about what attraction even was. And I wanted to experience the suffering I associated with sex with men and with watching porn, which I did a lot of at the time, because as any self harmer knows, pain can be very addictive.

Had those male friends of mine said yes, I'd be branded a fake lesbian by the likes of you... For retraumatizing myself? For not understanding what attraction even is and mistakening a response of arousal from thinking of rape (which is exceedingly common in rape victims) as being attraction to men? Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Enough of me, however. I like lists. Here's a list of reasons a lesbian might seek out sex with men. Some of these apply to me (I don't seek out sex with men but the feelings of wanting to do so sometimes remain), some don't.

- She doesn't know she's a lesbian yet and thinks it's normal to push yourself through unwanted sex with men (because it is, sadly, the norm).

- She's been through conversion therapy, corrective rape, etc. and is training herself to tolerate men as part of her conversion efforts.

- She lives in a culture where arranged marriage is common and, knowing she's likely going to be married off to a man soon, seeks out sex to train herself to tolerate it.

- She is prostituted and seeks out "normal" sexual experiences because she's upset by always having a price tag.

- She knows she hates it, she knows she's a lesbian, and she is specifically seeking out to be put through sex she hates as a severe form of self harm.

- She is aroused by rape due to sexual trauma and confuses that for sexual attraction.

- She knows she's a lesbian but is trying to learn to tolerate rape/sex she despises because she feels it's an inevitability she'll be raped again and hopes she can get used to it.

- She depends on the men she's having sex with; anything from small stuff such as occasional gifts consisting of things she can't afford, to relying on those men for food, housing, and transportation.

- She doesn't know homosexuality is a thing and thinks *every* woman is attracted to women and finds men unappealing, but certainly some day that that biological urge to reproduce will kick in, and she's just a late bloomer.

There's obviously more but these are a few examples.

Maybe you haven't dealt with any of this. But you're not every lesbian, are you?

Every lesbian has a different life. The only thing that makes a lesbian is sexual attraction to only other women. Actions - including sex with men - have nothing to do with it, or wouldn't that imply conversion therapy works?

I hope your brain gets well soon.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

can you talk about your thoughts on the Witch Trials podcast? I liked hearing JK’s interview but not much of the rest of it

short version is that it was way too both-sidesy about everything when the two sides did not warrant equal weight

like it kinda posed itself as a primer on “the debate” but it never really covered why the trans movement has a problem with jk rowling. you have contrapoints on saying things like “joanne’s words are very hurtful :c” without detailing what specifically he’s reacting to

and it felt like the producers didn’t really have a grasp of things going into the whole project. they started with a recap of how evangelicals lost their minds over harry potter in the 90s (which for the record i thought was really good reporting) and they had the correct takeaway message of “this group is not really reacting to the books but more leveraging their popularity to push their own agenda and interests”

and i figured they would obviously see the parallels between then and now but they don’t even make the connection, they just act like jk rowling was the center of two media kerfuffles by sheer coincidence

the parts where she actually got to talk were good, but megan phelps roper was kind of a softball interviewer. felt like someone with more journalistic experience would’ve gotten a better interview from her

when megan tried to tie in her own experiences was where the wheels really started to fall off. she doesn’t seem like she’s really grappled with or processed a lot of what happened to her, to the point where i don’t think she even realizes she was part of a cult. her framing of it was “i was raised in a religious family and they taught me hateful beliefs but i don’t agree with them anymore” which like, is ok if you’re a standard middle america christian kid, but you’ve got a bit more to go through if your grandpa is fred fucking phelps. i’m not blaming her for existing or anything, like i know everyone heals at their own rate, but maybe put the podcasting on hold until you get some perspective on cult dynamics

like her takeaway from the experience at this point seems to be “that group taught me to be mean to people, maybe i should be nice to everyone” which led her to give people like natalie wynn a bit more credit than they deserve here. the podcast briefly covers the forstater case and the june 2020 essay, but hardly gets into detail, especially against critics. megan takes everything they say at face value and never makes them explain or defend why they’re saying that jk rowling is a harmful bigot. like beyond whether or not you agree with the claim, it’s just basic journalism to get them to provide evidence

side note but the fact that she pretty much let contrapoints run the show and say whatever he wanted and portray himself as the victim and he still got eaten alive by pride flag pfp twitter users says way more than the podcast ever did

so yeah bottom line it felt like they didn’t really have a throughline for the whole podcast and they were just kinda figuring it out as they went. the recap of the 90s stuff was interesting bc i was like 8 when it all happened so i was kinda only peripherally aware of it and it was nice to have the hindsight perspective, but they just didn’t do anything to connect the dots

[thesouthernsuccubus]

Answering a frequently asked question…

Since I started writing more content related to heirophilia, it has gotten a little bit of attention, and I am so excited about it! I’m really glad that folks have taken a liking to it. If you have interacted with my content, thank you so much. I dream of being a real, published writer one day, so the idea that there are 100 people (may not seem like a lot, but it’s a lot to me) that like my content enough to follow my page is so lovely to me.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about my faith — if I’m actually religious, if I’m Catholic, if I’m a man of the cloth, etc., so in celebration of hitting my 100 follower mark, I’m going to be answering these questions.

Disclaimer: I know that some of my followers and readers really immerse themselves into the fantasy of my content, which is totally cool. If that happens to be you, and you have an idea of who I am in your mind that you don’t want ruined, you might want to stop reading.

So, I was born to a Catholic father and a Christian (but not Catholic) mother. My parents were religious my whole life. From preschool all the way up to 5th grade, I attended a Catholic school, and was expected to follow that faith. I fully embraced that philosophy and way of life. At around 5, I had decided that I wanted to become a priest or a monk, and spend my entire life serving and teaching about God.

Once I was around 13, though, things started to change. I started coming to terms with the fact that I was queer. Though I tried to make the two work alongside each other, I essentially abandoned my Catholic faith at that point. I also transferred about that time to a public school.

When my parents split, we moved closer to my mom’s parents, hours away. Her dad is a Baptist minister. Instead of following the Catholic traditions, my family switched to those practices. This transition happened at 14 or 15.

Now, I am a practicing pagan witch — I do not work with or worship any deities, besides The Earth Herself. I have left the church altogether, along with my Christian beliefs and followings. I still attend some religious services and events with family, but do not subscribe to the beliefs themselves anymore. I largely blame this on religious traumas, but it’s also partly due to the way my queer identity is treated by organized religion. I have also developed ideas about institutionalized religion and the Church itself that would make it very difficult for me continue to be a Christian. I firmly believe that this trauma and experience with the church has fed into my draw to religion-related kink.

TL;DR — I’m an ex-Catholic and ex-Christian, currently practicing non-theological paganism. I also got some pretty nasty religious trauma that I happened to get a cool kink out of.

Thanks so much for reading! <3

[grillinghamsposts]

A letter to my Dad on my relationship to Christianity.

It’s not that I’m not religious… but I don’t know if I necessarily consider myself a Christian anymore. I feel in my soul that there is something beyond this existence, something beyond my understanding. And it’s because of that truth I feel that I can’t ascertain truth, from feeble attempts at making sense of life’s big questions. It started when I was young. It started when I began to question my sexuality. I warred with myself for a long time because of the feelings I was discovering within myself. I felt so much hurt knowing and listening to those around me who would tell me that loving someone the same gender as me was wrong. I couldn’t understand why I was feeling the way I did. I couldn’t understand why loving someone in that way was wrong enough to damn me to hell. It brought up many questions inside my heart. I came out to Miss Huebner, she was the first adult in my life that I trusted with this information of my own will and consent. I felt that she would be able to help me understand my struggle with my heart and faith in mind. I was once again told how wrong my heart was. To “hate the sin, and love the sinner.” But I was still a sinner. I was still the problem. And this belief perpetuated such blame, such unrelenting anger at myself that I wondered why I was alive at all. I blamed myself for Dani losing herself in her drinking. If I was a better, perfect daughter, then maybe she wouldn’t hate me. Maybe she wouldn’t treat me the way that she did. If I was a better Christian, I wouldn’t “struggle” with feelings of homosexuality. I questioned why God would make me in his image, only to stain that reflection. I asked myself why there was something so inherently wrong with me, that He had to make me clean. That I couldn’t save myself. I was broken. Beyond any repair outside of His hands.

It was when I slowly began to nurture those wounds, where I found love. And kindness.

I found love for the way I was made. I found understanding in the way that all things in the universe have a purpose. The way that humanity has such a gift, to access the array of the human existence. Love. Pain. Joy. Anger. The ability to make art. The way that we look up at the sky and wonder. I do believe in something. I don’t know what will happen to me when I die, because there is no possible way for me to certainly ascertain which of the many teachings of this world is “right” or “wrong,” but I do know they share many similarities. I do know that in many ways, we are all connected. I believe in that connection. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in the invisible threads that tie this universe and the next together, and keep it from ripping at the seams. I believe in being kind, and understanding that I will never fully understand.

The Bible, while being “the Word of God,” was written by human hands. Each church erected in his name is created by human hands. And each type of Christianity twists these words. They create narratives each for their own reasons and purposes. Some in good faith, others not so much. The same can be said of many other religions, though probably none nearly as widespread as Christianity in this country. The Bible contradicts itself countless times. It’s not a resource I can wholly trust.

I remember the fear I felt in my heart as a child, the guilt that I felt when I couldn’t convert my brother to being a Christian. I feared his fate. I cried myself to sleep many nights because of his choice. Such is the experience of many children whose efforts fall short. We are inherently not enough. Broken. Only to be repaired by His “loving” hands.

I’m sorry I’m not who you wanted me to be. But I’m me. I’m on my own path, one where I’m happy. And I hope that’s enough.

[anony-man]

I forgot to post this add-on yesterday, but I’ve got some specific heat/rut character/aid headcanons that I wanted to share. Fair warning, I’m not editing it at all LMAO forgive any issues please:

So, uh…. So, from what the post said, yes I definitely agree he’d a pretty good handle on his heat cycle. Aid being one of the only ones who actually tracks his heat and is responsible enough to take time off for it? HELL FUCKING YES, GO KING.

But anyway, I can imagine heat cycles probably still aren’t all that pleasant to work through by yourself. It’s possible, don’t get me wrong, but like… I can see Aid as someone who would debate on texting someone he knows a sort of “u up” type message, datapad in one hand typing while the other one casually strokes his cock, and who’s to say someone wouldn’t get a little curious? I’m going in a specific direction with this by the way.

On one hand, you’ve got the texaid ship that I am super fond of. Maybe Aid texts Vortex, maybe Vortex is already sneaking over because Aid’s not the only one who tracks Aid’s heat cycle lol, Vortex is a little freak like that. Anyway, super casual sex: a desperate, sweaty, eager Aid grinding against Tex’s thighs, bouncing on his spike, squirming and whimpering against the berth while Tex eats him out, followed by sleepy snuggles and then hey let’s do it all over again!

Vortex wouldn’t necessarily be entering his own heat/rut cycle, but the dude’s a suuuuper hypersexual mech by nature so he’ll take what he can get… also, Aid is addictive. Can you blame him (no, the answer is no)?

On the OTHER hand (I’m gonna have three hands here), you’ve maybe got Ambulon. Now, give me that super sexual tension scenario with this one. Ambulon has made like one move out of the twenty moves Aid has made, and don’t get him wrong, he DOES share those feelings too… maybe? He thinks? It’s dangerous, affection. It’s complicated. He’s confused, don’t push him. But like… maybe after discreetly putting two and two together like Tex (not like *like Tex* bc he isn’t fucking obsessed lmao), he starts to notice a pattern. He himself probably takes heat suppressants religiously, but… well, his libido is pretty low, but it’s not *nonexistent*. Maybe he slips a message in, maybe he stops by Aid’s quarters. Aid is pretty low key, he’s huddled beneath the covers and happy for Ambulon’s company, but he definitely seems a little…. Hmm, a little needy. It’s between them to meet in the middle, to break down the walls, and it’s a little hard at first, but they do it.

Ambulon is more focused on “helping” rather than the sex itself, and he’s relieved to find that while Aid is pretty strung out right now, he’s still gentle and slow and careful—like always, precious Aid… always making sure Ambulon is comfortable, and that he feels safe. Ambulon doesn’t stick around long afterwards, and their goodbyes are a little awkward, as he ends up leaving Aid in the same place and position (huddled against the sheets, hand gently working beneath the covers, looking dazed and a little out of it), but it’s… hm. It’s nice. A nice experience. Maybe—maybe he’ll do this again sometime. Under different circumstances, maybe, or… or not. He doesn’t know yet.

Super short and cracky but I can also see Aid texting someone at 3am (please be one of the wreckers please please) talking about all the things he wants them to do to him and how he wants to feel up their frame and grind against them and hejdjdjdjjdd. Falls asleep, wakes up to 3+ bots standing in the doorway ready to fuck him silly. Could be a good setting for that Aid/wreckers orgy fic I never finished, who knows. Will probably keep this around for future reference.

But yeah! Just some thoughts I’d put together after seeing this post again and finally reblogging.

Okay okay now that I’ve seen rut/heat Drift I have to know who else is the softest/the worst on the lost light when in rut/heat also are they nesting? I need to know all the good little details ~

THIS IS A GREAT ASK THANK YOU!

First of all, I LOVE the idea of nesting for them. Since there arent typically many soft things on cybertron, i feel like its pretty rare to nest with blankets, so I think rather than nest, I think cybertronians would more likely retreat to a safe territory, hiding under berths or in somewhere safe and dark, like a cave or dimmed hab suite to hide.

as for softest/the worst---

Okay so, i can't give my takes on all of them, but i can give you my hcs for best and worst!!

BEST: FIRST AID!

I mean, he's a doctor right? He understands self care is important, he understands that his work can't stop for most things, but he also recognizes that nobody is immune to their instincts when they crop up, so he'd be VERY responsible with his heats. I think he'd be the most likely to have a heat tracker of all of the crew, probably would get the first warnings, book time off, and go into his quarters to handle himself until it rides out.

BEST: NAUTICA

I think nautica's heats would make her less feral and more sleepy. I feel like she would be sort of stumbling around, lightheaded, a little loopy, and one of the like thousand amicas/partners she has would notice and bring her home to take care of her. I think in the polar opposite way to first aid, Nautica's strength is in her support system, people willing to notice for her if she's too absorbed in work to notice her own heat drives kick on. I also think she'd be very cuddly during heats, so enter her hab at your own risk if you don't want to be dragged into the cuddle puddle.

WORST: TAILGATE & WHIRL

I'm lumping these two together because in my head they are in a polycue with each other, I think that cyclonus has surrounded himself with a perfect storm of absolute sex pests when they go in heat.

For Tailgate- I'm going to give you the facts here. 2 weeks of existance. and then. 6 million years in and out of a coma. THATS. 6 MILLION YEARS. OF POTENTIAL FUCKENERGY TRAPPED IN THE SMALLEST GUY EVER. Add on the fact he is SUPERNATURALLY STRONG. There is no way to contain Tailgate in a rutt, you have to pray he nests himself because if he gets even a little bit loopy from the heat and decides to go looking for his boyfriends, you cANNOT STOP HIM. I also think tailgate is absolutely fucking hung for a minibot, but thats neither here nor there.

For Whirl- a similar boat to Tailgate, to a lesser degree. I think whirl can absolutely get it, and has gotten it, but on the lost light, its a bit harder of a sell. and for a guy who's already a bit crazy and has no hands to jerk himself off? Whirl definitely goes more feral than Tailgate does, I think he'd also be the type to hunt down one of his partners, though he wouldn't feel even a bit of shame about it.

Sometimes, i fear, their heat/rutt cycles overlap. and. well.

sorry cyclonus, youre in for a long night.

THANK YOU FOR ENABLING MY RAMBLINGS!!! heres a taster of all my takes :D

[Feeling nosy? send me an ask in my inbox!!]

[lanci53]

Hey, get a job!

O.K. I don’t mean to be rude, but I need my couch, thanks.

If you just graduated, you’re Gen Z and being blamed for killing industries that millennials already killed, unemployed or like me underemployed, then you’ve come to the right place-- a little corner of the Internet that’s not LinkedIn and doesn’t take itself seriously.

First, I must tell you about this cool other website to spend half your day on whenever you’re not on Tumblr:

http://www.wtfshouldidowithmylife.com/

You got that? It’s going to help you in your journey from being a recent grad, (Tim Robinson voice) a piece of shit or just a normal human being experiencing the ebbs and flows of life as it unfolds with or without a job already-- ready to throw caution to the wind and begin something new.

As such, I’ve already hit the button 25 times and will now humor you in whether or not you or I could succeed in our new roles.

First up...

Fashion blogger? Are you kidding me? Have you seen my closet? It’s just a bunch of hockey jerseys, which I mean, I guess is cool for a certain demographic but I do not know the rules of fashion beyond what’s in and what’s out among home, road, alternate and throwback jerseys.

I have some experience in a way since I once attended a “take your kid to work day” and got to play the role of an advisor in some sort of The Price is Right/Deal or No Deal mashup that they had us kids play. I told them to take the money and run, limit their risk or whatever. What’d they do? They probably didn’t listen to me. I don’t remember. I hope their business failed (the kid’s, not the company that was nice enough to have us skip school for the day).

I am not Eminem. Nor am I Post Malone. I’m sorry.

Is this what they mean when they say “Meta is hiring”? Does this mean Mark Zuckerberg needs a friend in the Metaverse? Am I going to be paid to be his friend?

Sounds expensive and like more school would be required.

Seems unrealistic. Don’t even get me started.

Also sounds expensive, but if we could ultimately be half as good as A24 then we’re onto something. In that case, we might try our hands out at being a distributor first and go from there. Oh it’s just for commercials? Commercials are cinema too!

Insert “bisexual barista meme” here. A little too on the nose don’t you think?

And for my next trick, I’ll move to Maine! That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.

I have no idea what this is, yet I’m intrigued as someone who likes a good road trip minus a cracked windshield and all the other things that could go wrong. Have you seen how people drive on highways these days?

Jamie Tartt do do do do do doo

Sounds like a lot of liabilities and paperwork involved.

Would be great until I inevitably write about Coldplay too many times for everyone’s liking. If anyone knows Chris Martin, though, please let him know I’d like to be friends.

I discovered a beekeeper on a Live TikTok one time while scrolling through my “For You” page and sat there for the next 30 minutes just watching him go about his job. I would 100% be down for this. Also I’ve never been stung by a bee, so I’d have no fear going into it.

I have actually done this before and you should hire me for it (for real).

I play guitar, so... ...I’m looking for a drummer myself.

That’d mean I’d have to acquire a bike first, which if we’re looking to keep this at a minimum upfront cost, well, I have some news for you. It’s not happening.

This would be a lot of fun, but again the whole cost of moving, you know...

Don’t think that I haven’t already thought about doing this. Life could be so much simpler. You’d also live in a desert, but simpler nonetheless. Plus Salvation Mountain is right around the corner and normally I rag on folk art, but this is the one folk art I am willing to accept (not, like, as a religious thing-- just from an art perspective).

Seems like you’d have a hard time getting any Federal job after this, though.

I already am. I perform concerts daily in the shower. Tickets are hard to come by however.

I would absolutely do this for the free food and shit, but I need some lines so I’ll get paid and residuals.

I could maybe do this. Would request one log cabin with great Internet access to make it work.

Watch me turn $0 into $0!

When in doubt, you can always just go home and do less of the things you’d really like to do for fun because your parents are around, but on the rare occasion that they’re away for the weekend you can call all your friends who, by now, have moved far, far away and get them together for one last party if any of them show up. On the plus side, you’d have access to all your favorite streaming platforms or whatever and you probably wouldn’t have to pay for your Internet access to keep reading Tumblr (though you could always just steal Dunkin’s WiFi for that).

Remember, nothing matters. Everything is made up. Eat Arby’s. Eventually someone will hire you and you’ll prove people wrong, which is always a great feeling (not that anyone was doubting you). Now hand me the remote, please.

[googledocsdyke]

Do you have any thoughts/recommended texts for Cas analysis? I genuinely love the dean gender studies and I just wanna know what people might apply to Cas.

yes absolutely!! while dean studies is my first love i also deeply love cas analysis (casnalysis?) and wanna strive to do more of it. here’s some stuff off the top of my head:

1. gender, sexuality, heavenly embodiment

this is much more theological and less psychological than dean’s whole Deal because there’s so much fascinating stuff around how the angels in general experience express and conceptualise gender (@autisticandroids has a good post about angel gender & lily sunder has some regrets) but for cas in particular there’s this fascinating kind of collective fandom agreement (which i DO also agree with) that cas’ own gender kind of is gay man, that he actively chose gay manhood, but also that he’s kind of..... lacking the Insane Genderishness that dean exhibits at all times, even though he actively chose to engage in male gendering and became so comfortable housed Within Jimmy that he, as some post i saw the other day that i can’t find anymore said, “became his own body” when jimmy died. 

like on the one hand there’s an almost-canonical transness to the whole process but it also never feels fully written-into because 1) the supernatural writers for all their insanity are sometimes very boring and *most* of the time only feel interested in narratively expressing angels As Their Vessels anyways and just like leaving convenient spaces around these questions (boldest thing they ever did was hot girl cas which i WISH i had the range to unpack) 2) there’s a vague inevitabilist shrug to the whole thing since they obviously weren’t gonna recast misha collins (though they HAVE tried to get rid of him) and 3) something amorphous about cas’ entire..... personhood? makes him Empty Of Gender as a contrast to dean’s Full Of Gender (i believe it was @deanwinchestergender who said this) and like is it just the juxtaposition to dean/jensen’s whole insane Deal? or something else? 

like he actively chooses the terms of his own embodiment and yet narratively it feels like a shrug. and we’re all like “well obviously even though he’s a celestial being he was always a gay man” and like WHY. i love it idk idk much to think about! and yeah just in general the theological questions of possession and cas genuinely Becoming a man as he iterates himself consciously towards humanity it almost feels like. by doing the most boring things possible with his gender they made it interesting? idk if that makes sense.

2. discipline, free will, metanarratives

cas is like a tool (“i am not a hammer, as you say”) held in constant discipline and surveillance by the system that enmeshes him and it’s really, really fascinating to watch the way the angels hold each other to conformity. especially pre-god they kind of produce each other as foucauldian disciplinary subjects (which i posted about here) in perpetual visibility through angel radio, generating their own and each other’s conformity rather than being directly ruled through like a single centralised source of power. only the spectre of a god. and obviously cas’ whole thing is that he has ALWAYS disobeyed and the narrative affords him this psychological interiority never given to the foucauldian subject, an internal will and desire for freedom in a way that fits more with the liberal subject (super roughly and not with the same pro-capitalist implications but he has this internal drive for self-liberation. 

and that’s also where the metanarrative comes in ofc! i think it was @dykecas who said that cas is a real person written by people who hate him, and there’s this crack in the narrative (mirroring the crack in his chassis) where cas gets in, over and over, despite all the order imposed by the show’s authorfathergod. like we’ve all seen the analysis about how it was Never supposed to be this way they DID try to fire misha collins in 2012 and yet this gay man literally cannot be stopped! i think actually his appearance in scoobynatural is a neat little distillation of this — he drops into this animated world originally with a singular purpose (Save Sam And Dean) the same way he dropped into lazarus rising with a single 3-episode arc (Save Dean). huge hammer behaviour. his “utility” diminishes within the narrative (he finds that he can’t fly in the scooby doo universe) and so he is no longer a tool/means to an end that salvation moves Through. and in the process (and huge creds to @lesbianyuugi for this) he does something ENTIRELY unrelated to his original cas-as-tool aim, and learns, like, the meaning of laughter from shaggy and scooby. WHICH brings me onto the third point

3. love, queer kinship, family-making

HE’S GAY AND HE’S A DAD! i feel like a lot of tumblr throws around the term “found family” in a very flat and tropey way (which is fine it’s cute and fun no matter what!) but like . GOD there’s so much specific stuff going on here. like the way that cas (unintentionally) obliterates the midwestern white christian nuclear family (made incarnate in the novaks) which like could be uniformly portrayed as an act of deep malice and villainy but instead grows to serve as a surrogate (if imperfect/complex, but DEEPLY loving) father figure for the gay daughter who has now escaped that nuclear family/seen it destroyed depending on how you read it? like he remasters the entire concept of fatherhood and it’s a very interesting (if DEEPLY) unintentional subversion of the homewrecking non-nuclear gay trope. cas is so good because his character arc doesn’t say “look, gay people can be normal and have perfect settled families just like you” it says “gay people DON’T have normal settled families actually and they are full of love anyways! or Because of the abnormalcy itself!) 

to cite ziz lesbianyuugi again he DOES queer fatherhood in his parenting of jack particularly because it really is one of the ONLY parent-child relationships in the show that breaks the incessant cycle of abuse and control and cold indifference perpetuated by the authorfathergod (a cycle reified in 15x20 lol). like god’s treatment of cas and his siblings mirrors john’s treatment of sam and dean (particularly dean) mirrors victor’s treatment of krissy and her crew mirrors dean’s later treatment of jack. there is a CONSTANT reiteration of the story of authorfathergod (often a father tightly entwined in biological kinship) treating a child as a mechanism or a tool or a means to an end. and cas looks at ALL that he has suffered and all that he is ever known and chooses constantly to reject it with every piece of love he expresses for his child. and not to sound like the kind of academic people make fun of on twitter but there is an INHERENT queerness to that. gay love will pierce through [the veil of death/the thick silence of abuse/the mechanism of godly control/hegemonic american masculinity] and save the day

anyways here are some very haphazard recs on everything above for further reading:

angels in america (tony kushner)

histrionics of the pulpit: trans tonalities of religious enthusiasm

the public universal friend: religious enthusiasm in revolutionary america

discipline and punish (michel foucault)

friendship as a way of life (michel foucault)

the genesis of blame (recommended by @pietacastiel who has GREAT theology content in general

all about love (bell hooks)

the chapter “when hated characters talk back” in anti-fandom: dislike and hate in the digital age (is actually explicitly about cas)

also cannot recommend enough following the ppl i tagged above!! most of the unlinked stuff is available through http://libgen.li/ and bookshop is a good alternative to amazon if ur american and want physical copies

[tervacious]

THE SEXUAL FREEDOM EXPERIMENT HAS FAILED

No it hasn’t.  There was never any sexual freedom experiment.  That’s the actual problem.  You can’t have sexual freedom when there’s no other freedom to go with it, you have to have a total systemic change for that to happen.

You can’t have sex positivity under patriarchy, you can’t have sexual freedom under patriarchy, you can’t have free love under patriarchy, for anyone, even those who want to have those things and would benefit from them.  Because you can’t remove a single issue from patriarchy and “fix” it and have it benefit anything but the patriarchy.

Oh, you think gender isn’t the same as biological sex because no one is hardwired to naturally be abused and to like the color pink?  You’re right, sex and gender are different from each other, obviously, now, how can we make this so it benefits men and then blame you for it and say well, I mean, it was FEMINISTS who said there was a difference, why do you bitch about transwomen in women’s sports, YOU said women and men were EXACTLY THE SAME.  Oh, you didn’t say that?  We’re pretty sure you said that.  We read that in Quillette one time.  Now suddenly you’re changing your mind?  Transphobe.  Also aren’t women just the dumbest?  You just hate finding out how inferior you are, don’t you?  It’s really the truth though, look, you’re just not competitive physically, babe, it’s okay, just learn your place and we’ll get along again.  Daddy Jordan Peterson will rescue you.  Pick your fights, big manly Matt Walsh will speak for you now.  There there pumpkin.

Oh, you think women should be able to sleep with whoever they want without shame and enjoy themselves?  Good, okay, let’s pretend we’re going to do that but make it so nothing else is up for discussion-- I mean, you’re not really asking MEN to make a change of some kind?  Society itself, change?  No, that’s not how things work, the beneficiaries can’t change, ever, and certainly can never be you.  And then when this “experiment” “fails” let’s make it about feminism and the fact you want sexual freedom.  Let’s find as many women as possible to mansplain to you that you can’t have what you want, you little slut.  That’s all this ever was, right, women wanting to be dumb sluts?  Women just being stupid, as usual, thinking freedom is for them.  Let’s make it so you learn, little girl, that sexual freedom just isn’t something you can ever have, it’s impossible, you’re inferior, learn to live with it, and then when that pendulum swings to a point men get tired of it let’s have this conversation again and laugh at you as you scramble, again, to reinvent the wheel because you never, ever build on what your foremothers built for you, because we make sure you forget about that and sneer at them along with us.

Oh, you think women who don’t want to have kids and want to work instead should be able to do that?  Okay, sure, let’s hyperfocus on this, to the exclusion of the things women really want, like acknowledgment women have ALWAYS WORKED and now would like to be recompensed?  Or maybe some women want to work and then have kids and maybe go back to work without being penalized?  You fool, how dare you aspire to something totally... normal?  Or you don’t want to work outside the home, you lazy and probably religious bitch, now you have to work or your family can’t afford decent housing unless you’re out in the middle of nowhere.  You want equal pay for the same job?  You’ll never work the EXACT same job in the EXACT same way as men, silly girl.  It was those MOMMYs who did this to you.  It was those FEMINISTS who hate CHILDREN, wanting the freedom to work and get paid and not be dependent on marriage and men, it’s THEIR fault, it’s always another WOMANs fault, never a man’s fault or capitalism’s fault or the totally non-existent patriarchy’s fault, there’s no such thing, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich  har har no really, you’ll be happier that way, remember your place.  You’re inferior.  That’s why you can’t have anything you want.  Learn to live with it.  LEAN IN.

We can do this with any topic.  With sports, with violence, with rape, with divorce, with marriage, with prison, with guns, with fashion, with makeup, with babies, with abortion, with birth control, with gender nonconformity, with the arts, with literally anything.  If you, as a feminist, take the stance that women should be able to do what we want, well alrighty, little lady, here’s a version of that thing you want with nothing else altered to give you what you really want and deserve, so keep on working towards the real thing but meanwhile here’s some leftovers, satisfy yourself with these and then fight like hell to keep those little scraps when we threaten them and then we get to laugh at you when it all goes down in flames and make you feel like the dummy.

This newish “Sexual Freedom is BAD ACTUALLY” narrative, which I think is absolutely advocating for women to return to “our” male-assigned sphere, is obnoxious.  It isn’t pinpointing a deep truth radical feminists haven’t already pointed out, it’s manipulating things to control women and benefit men, yet again.  It’s always the exact same fight, over and over again.  Quit falling for it, gyns.  Freedom is always good.  The problem is we have not had any freedom yet, sexual or otherwise.  That’s the actual problem.

[notalostcausejustyet]

Imma hop in this debate train. :) Because I have the trauma(tm) trauma AND I am *little miss religious trauma”! It’s late and I was at work at 0600 and school till 2000 so forgive me haha.

Let’s start with the trauma, neat. This can look like a lot of things. Physical, which we see with literal physical violence against Aziraphale. (Sandalphon you absolute fucker, the *attempted* execution) and implied/threatened violence. The flood, the plagues, Job, the crucifixion, Sodom and so on. Emotional violence, the constant belittling, shaming, guilt. Mental violence, hello gaslighting, my old friend. All of these things leave real and lasting marks. I grew up experiencing all of them, I’ve had adult relationships where they played out as well. Az’s behaviors very much echo those of someone dealing with abuse trauma. His fight/flight/freeze/fawn that almost always falls on the fawn side of things? His attempts to always excuse Heaven’s behaviors by placing blame back on himself? His extreme aversion to physical violence or even raising his voice? Losing his temper? Bingo.

Religious trauma. While the belief system is a large part of the trauma religion causes, it is, imo, not the biggest factor. The thing that fucks you up with religion is the constant and unrelenting reinforcement of impossible standards. You are told and shown time and again that you are inherently flawed and unworthy. The entire message is literally “you don’t deserve love or acceptance but God does it anyway so be grateful or be punished” . There are worship songs that say that damn near verbatim. A LOT of them. That message is then turned on you as both a threat and an expectation. “Be perfect you pathetic creature or have this miserly affection you don’t deserve ripped away from you”. I’m sure we can all see the parallels with the subplot of Falling here. I also know from personal experience that, that the combination of an abusive household, coupled with being told by the church that I wasn’t worth loving outside of the context of it being some sort of conditional pity gift, that was revocable at any time should I put so much as a pinky out of line, was a total mindfuck. I’m 40 now and still struggle enormously with self worth issues and the belief that I’m worthy of acceptance and love. And while just the DV alone would have done it, the church in and of itself would have also. But you put the two together and it’s a lethal combination. Az also exemplifies the hallmarks of religious trauma. The pathological need to try and be nice to everyone all the time. His desperation for praise and to be told that he’s good. That whole “please show me I’m worth saving by literally saving me” thing he has going with Crowley. The stalwart conviction that a higher power MUST be good, otherwise what’s it all for? Those are all religious trauma traits, big time. And that’s without going into them making the metaphoricals of being “damned” in religion, literal with the whole Falling thing.

TLDR, I think our celestial cinnamon roll suffers from both standard trauma and gilded trauma.

Thanks for the lively discussion friends!

Hold on hold on

...I was gonna make a whole post about how what Aziraphale has doesn't qualify as *religious* trauma and also how it's wildly inappropriate to accuse someone of using their trauma as an 'excuse', and that's without even getting into whether Aziraphale means the things he says about Crowley or whether he's just saying them to keep them both safe and it's not fair to assume ab*se victims mean the things they say when their ab*sers essentially have a gun to their head, but ya know what?

Screw it.

Cause 'Little Miss Religious Trauma' is my literally new favorite phrase. That's all I can think about. Absolute POETRY. Like, hats off to whoever wrote this.

I want that on a freaking T-SHIRT right now. With pink sparkles.

Who's interested?

[freddiekluger]

Why Cap Being Internally Closeted Is Not Only Possible, But Valid Representation 

i wrote this to a lot of mitski and onsind, so you can’t blame me for any feelings that bleed through

now i don’t know if it actually exists, but i’ve heard of there being a lot of discourse surrounding the captains story arc regarding his sexuality- i believe the general gist is that having a queer character that remains closeted to themselves is either unrealistic or ‘bad’ representation, and as someone who really treasures the captain and relates to his story so far a lot, i thought i might break this down a bit. 

i’ve divded up every complaint i’ve heard about this into four main questions which i’ll be covering below the ‘keep reading’, because this is gonna be pretty comprehensive. full disclaimer i reference my experiences as an ex-evangelical non binary butch lesbian a couple times, and i spent a year studying repression and the psychological impacts of high demand sexual ethics for my graduating sociology paper, so this is coming with some background to it i swear

the big questions:

can you EVEN be gay and not know it????

but isn't this just ANOTHER coming out arc, and aren't we supposed to be moving beyond those?

but if cap can't have a relationship with a man because he's a ghost, what's the point?

since cap's dead, isn't this technically bury your gays, and isn't that bad? 

1. "but is it really possible to not know? Isn't that bad representation?"

short answer: no and no.

before i get into the validity of the captain's ignorance about his own orientation as 21st century rep, let's break down how the hell the captain can be so clearly attracted to men and still not even consider the possibility that he might be gay, as brought to you by someone who literally experienced this shit.

the captain's particular situation is both a direct result of the lack of information around human sexuality he would have had (aka clear messaging that it's actually possible for him to be attracted to men. i don't mean acceptable or allowed, i mean physically capable of happening- the idea that orientations other than heterosexual exist and are available to him, a man), and a subconscious survival mechanism. the environment in which he lives is outright hostile to gay people, while the military man identity he has constructed for himself doesn't allow for any form of deviation from societal norms, let alone one so base level and major. as a result of this killer combo of information and environment, instincts take over and the mind does it's best to repress the ‘deviant’ feelings until a. one of these two things changes, or b. the act of repression becomes so destructive and/or exhuasting that it becomes impossible to maintain. the key to maintaining a long-term state of repression of desire is diverting that energy elsewhere, and a high-demand group such as the military is the perfect place for the captain to do this (this technqiue is frequented by religions and extremist ideologies worldwide, but that’s not really what we’re here to focus on). 

while the brain is actively repressing ‘deviant’ feelings (aka gay shit), this doesn't mean you don't experience the feelings at all. when performed as a subconscious act of survival, the aim of repression is to minimise/transform the feelings into a state where they can no longer cause immediate danger, and something as big as sexual/romantic orientation is going to keep popping up, but as long as the individual in question never understands what they’re feeling, they’ll be able to continue relatively undisturbed. you know how in heist movies, the leader of the group will only tell each team member part of the plan so they can’t screw things up for everyone else if they get caught? it’s kind of like that.

this is how the captain appears to have operated in life AND in death, and it’s a relatively common experience for lgbtq people who’ve grown up in similar circumstances (aka with a lack of information and in an unfriendly-to-hostile environment), and accounts for how some people can even go on to get married and have children before realising that they’re gay and/or trans. 

personally, while i can now identify what were strong homo crushes all the way back to childhood, at the time i genuinely had no idea. there was the underlying sense that i probably shouldn't tell people how attached i was to these girls because i would seem weird, and that my feelings were stronger than the ones other people used to describe friendships, but like-like them in the way that other girls like-liked boys? no way! actually scratch that, it wasn't even a no way, because i had no idea that i even could. i even had my own havers, at least in terms of the emotional hold and devotion she got from me, except she treated me way less well than cap’s beau. snatches of the existence of lgbt people made it through the cone of silence, i definitely heard the words gay and lesbian, but my levels of informations mirrored those that the captain would have had: virtually none, beyond the idea that these words exist, some people are them, and that's not something that we support or think is okay, so let's just not speak about it. despite only attending religious schools for the first couple years of primary, until i got my own technology and social media accounts to explore lgbtq content on my own- option a out of the two catalysts for change- the possibility of me being gay was not at all on my radar. don’t even get me started on how long it took me to explore butchness and my overall gender, two things which now feel glaringly obvious. 

when shit starts to break down, you can also make the conscious choice to repress which can delay the eventual smashing down of the mental closet door for a time (essentially when the closet door starts to open, you just say ‘no thanks’ and shut it again by pointedly Not Thinking About It). in the abscence of identifying yourself by your attractions, it becomes quite common to identify with a lack- in my case, this meant becoming proud of how sensible and not boy crazy i was, and in the captain’s case, this means becoming proud of how sensible and not sensuous/wild (aka woman crazy) he was, identifying with his LACK of desire for women and partying (which, even in the 40s, involved the expectation of opposite sex romances and hook ups). i’m not saying that’s the only reason he’s a rule follower, but i think the contrast between About Last Night and Perfect Day pretty much support this. (the captain getting on his high horse about general party antics that he inherently felt excluded from because of underlying awareness of his difference & his tendency to project his regimented expectations of himself onto others, vs. joining in the reception party, awareness of how the environment supports difference in the form of clare and sam, and relaxing his own rules by dancing with men- the captain doesn’t mind a party when feels like he has a place there.)

so the captain was operating in a high demand, highly regulated environment (primarily the military, but also early 20th century England itself), with regimented roles, rules, and expectations. working on the assumption that he wouldn't have had out/disclosing lgbt friends, he would have had little to no exposure to lgbt identities, and what information he did receive would have been hushed and negatively geared. while my world started to open up when i started high school was allowed to have my own phone + instagram account, resulting in me realising something wasn't quite 'right' within a few years (making me a relatively early realiser compared to those who don't come out to themselves until adulthood), in life the captain never had that experience. he didn't receive the information he needed, his environment didn't grow less hostile. with the near-exception of havers related heartbreak, his well disciplined and lifelong method of repression never became destructive/exhaustive enough to permanently override the danger signals in his mind and allow him to put his feelings into words. neither of the most common catalysts for change happened for him, so he continued as usual, even after his death.

BUT, and here’s where we come to why this is actually great representation, arrival of mike and Alison represents the opening up of new world. for the first time, the captain is actively made aware of the fact that his environment is no longer hostile, and better than that, it’s affirming. he’s also getting access to positively geared information about lgbtq people and identities, so option a of the two catalysts for change is absolutely present, and resoundingly positive. 

the captain’s arc is also relatively unique as it acknowledges the oppressive nature of his environment, but actually focuses on the internal consequences, and the way that systems like those that the captain lived in succeed because they turn us into our own oppressors. for whatever reason, we repress ourseslves, and often can’t help it, and i find that the significance of the journey to overcome that is often overlooked in more mainstream queer media. perhaps it’s just not very cinematic, or it remains too confronting for cishet audiences, but ghosts manages to touch on it with a lovely amount of humour and hope. Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader is another favourite piece of queer media for the same reasons.

not only does it show this, but as the captain continues to get gayer and lean into some of his less conventional traits (like an interest in fashion and the wedding planning), it shows lgbt people who have been or are going through this that there CAN be a positive outcome. it takes a lot to unlearn all the things that have painted you as wrong, especially when a massive institution is desperate to continue doing so, but you can do it, you can be happy, and it's never too late. (i've been meaning to say that last point for ages for ages, but a mutual beat me to it here)

2. not just another coming out arc

i absolutely support the demand for queer stories that don’t center around coming out (it’s like shrodinger’s queer: if you’re not coming out on screen, do you really even exist?), but i don’t align with the criticisms that the captain should already be out. for the reasons mentioned above, the captain’s particular story is fairly different to the ‘young white teenager who mostly knows gay is fine, it’s just everyone else that’s got the problem, but have a unremarkably straight sounding soundtrack, a trauma porn romance, and a cishet saviour’ that we keep seeing. the captain’s ongoing journey with his sexuality emphasises the overaching theme of the show: recovering from trauma and humanity’s endless capacity for growth, and i think that’s worth showing over and over again until it stops being true.

additionally, while the captain’s journey regarding his gayness is a big part of his character and story, ghosts makes it clear that it’s not the ONLY part, and being gay is far from his ONLY characteristic or dramatic/comedic engine. the fact that i’m even having to congratulate ghosts for doing that really shows how much film and television is struggling huh.

while all queer media is, and should be, subject to criticism, i think if it helps even one person then it absolutely deserves to exist, and i can say i’ve found the captain’s journey to be the lgbt story i’ve found that’s closest to my own, which says a lot considering he’s a dead world war 2 soldier who hangs out with other ghosts including a slutty Tory, a georgian noblewoman, and a literal caveman. 

3. if captain gay, why he no have boyfriend???? 

another complaint that’s been circulating is that since the captain doesn’t, and likely won’t, have a boyfriend, that makes him Bad Representation because it follows the sad single gay trope. i kind of get the logic from this one, and a lot of it is up to personal interpretation, but part of me really enjoys the fact that the captain’s journey towards accepting himself is separated from having a relationship.

coming out is often paired with having romantic/sexual relationships (either as the reason or reward for doing so). my own struggle with repression didn't end the second that came out, and i still struggle with letting myself develop & acknowledge romantic feelings as a result of actively shutting them (and most other feelings in general) down for years, and statistics show that lgbtq youth in particular tend not to live out their 'teen years' until their twenties. by not giving cap a relationship straight away, ghosts separates the act of claiming identity and sexual orientation from finding a partner (two things which are, more often than not, separate), and also provides some very nice validation to folks who have yet to have the relationship they want, especially when lots of mainstream queer media is now jumping on the cishet media bandwagon of acting as if every person loses their virginity and has a life defining relationship at sixteen. it’s essentially a continuation of the earlier theme of “it’s never too late”, and who’s to say the captain won’t get a gay bear ghost boyfriend to go haunt nazis with??? people die all the time, it could happen.

(also, i think him and julian will have definitely shagged at least once. it was a low moment for both of them and they refuse to speak of it.)

lots of asexual/ace spectrum fans have come out to say how much they’ve loved being able to headcanon cap as ace, and while that’s not a headcanon i personally have, i think it’s brilliant that ace fans feel seen by his character- we’re all in this soup together babey (and sorry for cursing everyone still reading this with that cap/julian headcanon. i’m just a vessel)

4. “okay, but cap’s a GHOST- doesn’t that make this Bury Your Gays?”

this is a bit of a complex one, but i’m going to say no as a result of the following break down.

Bury Your Gays (BYG), aka the trope where lgbtq characters are consistently killed off (and often with a heavy dose of trauma, while cishet characters survive) is probably one of my least favourite lgbt media tropes. BYG has two main points:

1. the lgbt character is killed, thus removing them from story entirely- hence the use of the phrase ‘killed OFF’ (killed off of the show/film)

2. the character’s death reinforces the perception that lgbtq people’s lives must end in tragedy, instead of being long and fulfilling, or are inherently less valuable. bonus points if the character is killed in a hate crime or confesses same-gender love right before they die (that one implies that queer love genuinely has no future!)

not every death of an lgbtq character is bury your gays, and i personally feel that the captain is an example of an lgbt death that isn’t. 

first of all, while the captain is dead, so are the vast majority of characters in ghosts. the premise of the show means that death is not the end of the line for its characters- for most of them, it’s the only reason we get to see them on screen at all. as such, the captain being dead doesn’t remove him from the story, so point one is irrelevant.

at the time of posting, we don’t know how or why the captain died, but we've had nothing to suggest his death was in any way related to his latent sexuality, so his mysterious death doesn’t actively play into the supposedly inherent tragedy of queer lives, nor the supposedly lesser value. that’s as of right now- since we don’t know the circumstances of his death it’s a little tough to analyse properly. while the captain’s life absolutely features missed opportunities and it’s fair share of tragedy, hope and growth (which seems to be the theme of this post) abounds in equal measure. the captain may not be alive, but we DO get to see him growing and having a relatively happy existence, that for the most part seems to be getting even better as he learns to open up and be himself unapologetically- that doesn’t feel like BYG to me.

while writng this, it’s just occured to me that death really is a second chance for most of the ghosts, especially with the introduction of alison. from mary learning to read, to thomas finding modern music, they’ve all been given the chance explore things they never could have while they were alive, and hopefully grow enough to one day be sucked off move on.

in conclusion,

i love the captain very much and i hope his arc lives up to the standards it’s set so far. i don’t know where to put this in this post, but i’d alo like to say i LOVE how in Perfect Day, the captain wasn’t used as an educational experienced for fanny at all. i am very tired of people expecting me to be the walking talking homophobe educator and rehabilitator, so the fact that it’s alison and the other ghosts that call fanny out while the captain just gets to have fun with the wedding organisation made me very happy.

here’s a few other cap posts that i’ve done:

the captain’s arc if adam and the film crew stayed

a possible cap coming out 

the captain backstory headcanon

if you’ve read this far,

thank you!

also check out @alex-ghosts-corner , this post inspired me very much to write this

[dreamsatdusk]

Analysis:  Baghra and the Apparat

I received an Anon ask a while back and accidentally published it before it was done a while back.  Privated the post but decided to have the final product as a new post just in case; I don’t want it buried in tags from way back.

The Ask:

Hello! Can you do a breakdown on Baghra's character and the Apparat's? I'm interested in reading your thoughts about them

Thank you for the ask!  And apologies for the delay in response.

Baghra

One of the first Grisha meta posts I wrote years ago was about how the way Baghra and her hut are portrayed evoke the impression of Baba Yaga.  Her appearance, hut in the woods (likely amidst birch trees), and something of her attitude all lend themselves to it.  Since then, I’ve also come to think there might be a bit of tie in to the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, who was forced to go and bargain with Baba Yaga for a light against the darkness.  

Looking past that surface, in the trilogy we are presented with Baghra as a figure both ascetic and penitential, as well as bitter and unkind.  The latter traits are well explained by what we learn of her history:  she has had a long life filled with a great deal of loss, with countless threats to Grisha and particularly to she and her son, different as they are even from other Grisha.  Her childhood was a sad one brimming with trauma and what she recalls of her parents to Alina causes me to think that she did not feel truly loved by either one of them.  I think their treatment of her and behavior toward each other shaped her perspective on life in profound ways, ones she never got past.

But the former traits don’t have so obvious a cause on page if you look more deeply.  Her lifestyle is very austere despite the fact there is no need for it - she is not on the run and in hiding any longer as she was in the Darkling’s youth.  Her conversations with Alina in regards to her son are couched in religious terms:  she is worried about his being beyond redemption, she speaks of merzost as abomination, and so forth. In R&R, she has Misha read religious parables to her to pass the time.

This clashes with what we know of contemporary Grisha.  It is said at one point in S&B that Grisha don’t put much stock in religion and we see the Darkling does not seem to either.  Not to mention the fact that he and his mother knew at least several Grisha who later became considered saints.  I find it likely they suspected other saints could also have been Grisha - Grisha and martyred for it, their true identities obscured so later people could pray to them and not have to consider the ‘unnatural’ people they were.  It makes a lot of sense that neither Baghra nor the Darkling would invest much consideration in Ravkan religion as it is presented on page.  In fact, it seems like they’d find it more infuriating than anything.  And yet.

The Second Army has no need to lead lives of deprivation.  Yes, they eat ‘peasant-style breakfast’ and such, but their rooms are gorgeous, they have beautiful clothing, sugar for their tea and so forth.  Baghra surely wouldn’t be living in a tiny dark hut in the trees unless that is what she wanted.

There’s also the fact that she shows signs of not using her summoning powers.   Even before S&S, she’s apparently quite chilly a lot.  It makes sense she wouldn’t show she could summon shadows where other Grisha could see.  But the indication is she isn’t using her powers at all.   That is another way she seems to have chosen to deprive herself, to the point of impacting her health.  Perhaps she even hoped that it would lead to her death, but apparently it has not been enough to override the impact of her amplification talent.

Looking back at the woman seen in Demon in the Wood and was glimpsed in the tale she tells Alina of her past, it very much seems to be something happened to turn who Baghra was into who we see in the trilogy.  

I suspect much of the true reason is that she is pretty much a plot device in the story.  She needs to spook and horrify Alina into running.  Her talk of ‘redemption’ and ‘abomination’ are peculiar in terms of many other elements we see in the books.  I’m writing a meta on the amplifiers and merzost and such that goes into this further, but I’ve also written some in the past about how there’s no real reason to believe merzost is inherently bad. Baghra has clearly decided it is though and speaks of it and her son’s actions in absolutist terms.  Because she needs to in order to have the narrative run how it does, more than once.

And again, what reason would this character really have to put so much faith in Ravkan religion?  

What’s a possible in-universe explanation for this?  I think the creation of the Shadow Fold works well for that.  We find out that what the Black Heretic was actually trying to do was recreate Morozova’s amplifier experiments and something went wrong.  (This is the focus of the upcoming meta I mentioned above.). The Fold happened and all of the people within its bounds were transformed into volcra. All in all, a horrific situation, however much an accident.  This could have functioned as such a systemic shock to Baghra’s worldview that she sought solace and perhaps forgiveness in religion.  I suspect she felt guilt, which is pointed to in things she says in the trilogy.  Also, she’s the reason the Darkling even had Morozova’s journals - she went back to the village she was born in and found them, per R&R.

I still think her being invested in the Ravkan religion itself is a weak point, but could be generously explained by just how traumatized she was by the Shadow Fold situation.  She may have desperately wanted something to believe in.  That said, the lack of any sign in the books of what more lies behind Ravkan religion than Saints and the fact that Baghra knows that at least several of those Saints were actually Grisha, doesn’t make this the strongest argument to me.

I also wrote some weeks back on how Baghra was portrayed as emotionally and physically abusive to Alina and according to their own accountings in R&R, other Grisha as well.  In the early days of the fandom, I never really saw that acknowledged, though it has gotten far more recognition this year with new people reading the books since the release of the tv show.

Overall, she is a very bitter person and I think a lot of what we see of her is driven OOC by her being largely a plot device and IC by guilt.  She feels guilty about the Fold’s creation and so forth and lashes out at others in misdirected anger.

I think this also relates somewhat to her treatment of Alina in S&S and R&R.  She blames Alina for not ‘adequately’ running away (went after the stag instead), blames her for the Darkling putting himself beyond redemption (in Baghra’s mind - like too many people IRL, she seems to not understand what redemption actually is), blames her for the sea whip, for wanting to find the third amplifier.  She blames Alina for these things, but it is likely a mask for further personal guilt. Of all people, Baghra is likely the one who would have been most successful in stopping the Darkling before things took the path they did.  He trusted her.

But her nasty treatment of others obscures that Baghra is largely a passive character in the trilogy. Whether out of love or some variety of religious concern, she doesn’t try to kill her son.  She doesn’t remove Alina from the situation in a more final way, only tells her to run.  And in the end, she commits suicide rather than more directly confront the Darkling.

The Apparat

Okay, after all that, I don’t have near as much about the Apparat. *L*

If Baghra’s surface details are meant to evoke Baba Yaga, then I think the Apparat’s point to Rasputin.  His physical description was practically a caricature (if you’ve only seen the show, he looked far less revolting in that than he was described in the books) and he starts out as a trusted advisor to the Ravkan royal family.

One of the big questions about the Apparat is about what he truly believes.  He was in cahoots with the Darkling around the coup against the Lantsov dynasty in S&B, but he later swung his support behind the Sun Summoner.  I think it would be a believable reading of the text to suspect he may have planned to do so since learning of Alina’s existence.  There’s no real reason to think he truly supported the Darkling’s cause or cared much for Grisha themselves; on the latter point, I think the greater support is for the idea that he does not care about the Grisha and just used them to get what he wanted.  

His presentation is a mix of True Believer and power-seeker and a great deal of the questions around him relate to where one thinks he falls most strongly on that spectrum.  Alina’s interactions with him in S&B have the hallmarks of a fanatic, but then, these signs are also seen through Alina’s eyes and you have to consider whether she is seeing reality or a careful act.  I think the case could be made for either.   But either way, I also think he wanted power.  I suppose you could argue he wanted power on behalf of Sankta Alina, but I think his actions in R&R show that an Alina who wasn’t going to comply with his wishes was deemed more trouble than she was worth. If she had died, I don’t think he fundamentally would have cared.  She had established enough of a reputation, was known to enough people, that he could have exploited her as a martyr without having to deal with the reality.

The Apparat was the sort of character I tend to really dislike (religious manipulation, etc.).  Something that struck me in all the books is how more than one character was strangely...tolerant of him. He backstabbed people more than once and yet nothing was every truly done about it.

[lizzy-frizzle]

I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

[aviya932]

I’ve been thinking whether to write it or not. On one hand this is super important, on the other hand people don’t really care and I’ll probably get hate for it. But this has to be said and I’m gonna do it. This is really long but if you really want to understand what is happening in Israel right now- this is it

I live in Israel, and for the last 48 hours we have been under rapid missile attack. Hamas, which is a terror organization, have been shooting constantly at civilian cities and houses, while at the same time there have been various riots in mixed cities- by which i mean cities that have both Jewish and Islamic population- that in normal days live in co-existence. You have to understand a couple things right now before you come at me:

I don’t talk about high tension cities such as Jerusalem. This is Lod, Ramle, Jaffa and Haifa among others. Those are cities that truly are peaceful 90% of the time and I will talk about Jerusalem and Gaza so just stick with me.

THIS IS NOT A POST ABOUT WHOSE LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT OR VALUABLE!! Living in Gaza sucks under normal circumstances but living in Sderot is not much better. There is no competition on misery and trust me as a person that actually live in Israel and knows what it’s like here on the day to day that we are well aware on how it’s like in Gaza.

this site REALLY likes to talk about experiences and how when you live through a unique event no one can talk for you about that because they don’t really know what its like. so right here right now it is my experience. You are welcome to ask follow up questions, you may send me a message to learn more or to disagree with a certain point. But if you don’t live here, even if you are from a neighbor country, then you don’t know what’s it like and i wish to god you will never know.

I don’t have all the articles right here with me, because most of the are in Hebrew and I’m writing this really quickly. So if there is interest I’ll give references and I’m really sorry for any typos here. 

Here is a brief timeline of Monday, April 10. I’ll try to stick to as many events without being partial, and for contest there have been two major events on that day:

It is still Ramadan- which means that religious Muslims were on temple mount.

It was also Jerusalem day- which I have no idea how to translate but  celebrates the liberation of the Jewish people and the old city from the Jordan army, and is an Israeli holiday in which it is custom to go to Jerusalem so there were a lot of Jewish people at the Kotel.

There’s a neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem called Sheikh Jarrah, in which there is an ongoing legal fight over ownership and governance. On April 10 there wad supposed to be a sitting in court about evicting Arab familiars. It was decided to postpone because of the tension but there has been many rallys over the topic.

During the Ramadan there has been a lot of tension, so the Israeli police have declared that no Jewish person will get on temple mount at that day. it made people mad, since it is a sacred location for us as well, and some groups have threatened to climb anyway. As far as I know no Jew have managed to get there, since things escalated quickly. Like i said, this month was very tensed, and when the cops hears that the Muslims in Al-Aqsa Mosque were hoarding stones they have decided to go inside. this was at about 08:30-09:00 AM. Since the mosque is right above the kotel this was very worrying but during the chaos there have been injuries- 21 cops and dozens of Palestinians. Stun grenades and stones.   Hamas have given an ultimatum- either the cops get off the mountain by 18:00 or they shoot rockets at Jerusalem, which at the time is filled with as much Muslims as Jews. During the day there have been terror attacks against Jews that came to the city for celebrations and for the flag parade that was planned to start at 16:00 and to end at the kotel. there was a lynch against 3 Jews at sha’ar ha’ariot (lion gate. a lynch that was depicted by the media as the drivers’ fault and as a running over. the truth is that the driver tried to escape the stoning, hit a cement half wall and continued to be hit until a cop came to his rescue) and a 7 month old girl was hit at the head by stones.

by 18:00 Hamas fired 3 barrages toward Jerusalem. And this is the part when i can tell you first-hand. because I was there, because I could not believe that they will shoot at their own people. There were SO MANY PEOPLE at the time from BOTH SIDES. this is a precedent- until then every single shooting was aimed at Jewish city and never at Muslims.

HAMAS SHOOT AT CIVILIANS IN JERUSALEM, A CITY THAT IS CONSIDERS HOLY FOR EVERYONE, DURING THEIR OWN HOLIDAY. THEY SHOT MISSILES AT A CITY IN WHICH MUSLIM ARABS LIVE. THEY SHOT BECAUSE THE POLICE WERE TRYING TO STOP MUSLIMS FROM THROWING ROCKS AT JEWISH PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO GET ON TEMPLE MOUNT. AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE WORST THING IS? THE FACT THAT INTERNATIONAL NEWS IMMEDIATELY STARTED BLAMING THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND POLICE AND COMPLETELY REMOVED ANY RESPONSIBILITY FROM HAMAS AND THE GOVERNMENT IN GAZA. It’s so so easy to blame Israel because Israel is more organized, because our government, while being mostly useless in the last year since we had 5 elections, is built by the peoples’ choice and not by fear, because Gaza is an underdog and we feel for the underdog- and for good reasons. Do not think for a moment that we don’t feel sorry for the people in Gaza. They live under a terrible government that cares more for the Palestinian agenda than their civilians, most Shekels that the Israeli government is transferring won’t reach the people and instead will be taken by Hamas to build bombs, guns, and tunnels. Hamas needs the people to stay underdogs. They will use them as human shields for as long as it gets them sympathy, they will take every opportunity they have to blame Israel and the media is giving them exactly what they want every single time- even Israeli media will twist facts and stories to sound more progressive and ‘woke’ and politically correct. so here are facts for all of you

while it makes me sound like a five year old it’s still true that this time Hamas shot first and unsolicited.

every country that has missiles shot at will, and has the right, to defend itself.

is it okay for civilian casualty? NO. Absolutely no. But don’t any of you dare to use that as a reason for Israeli cruelty. Hamas have sot over 1,000 rockets in the last 48 hours. IDF has attacked about a 150 locations. Hamas is shooting wildly at cities and homes without care who they hit. IDF is targeting senior Hamas figures only. Hamas is shooting from homes and streets. every IDF base that has weapons in will be located outside of civilian location.

IDF is using the “Roof knocking“ technique, and has been using for years. for those who don’t know it- IAF is dropping a non-explosive bomb- a smoke bomb that makes some noise- on top of any location they will hit to inform every single person inside that they need to get out. Only after a few minutes’ waiting will they hit for real. When Hamas is telling us when they will shoot it’s nothing like that. They don’t warn-they threat.

6 Israeli people have died so far. 2 of them were Muslim Arab-Israeli. They do not care who they hit.

the people in mixed cities have been rioting nearly nonstop for 48 hours now while attacking their neighbors, while burning synagogues, cars, homes and restaurants. One of my best friends lives in Lod. they have curfew from 20:00 today until 04:00 tomorrow. Her situations terrifies me more than any bomb because those are people who lived there for years.

not every Muslim and Arab is to blame, and blaming everyone is wrong. BUT ignoring what is happening right now is naive. Do not be blind and do not believe every single thing the media tells you. There are countless videos were Arabs fake death. where they dress as soldiers to fake scenes, where they openly teach their children hate and where their leaders openly lie on live television and get caught.

most of the time people lie because they really believe it, but that only serves the disinformation. Sometimes good intentions only cause more pain and hate.

Israel is not without blame. no one is without blame because life is not a book- there are no 100% good people and a 100% bad people. Life is complicated and so are people and political situations. You have to criticize your sources, and if they paint one side as good and one as bad then you should stop reading them. there are Israeli extremists as well, and far-right movements scare me as much as any Arab riots but no one is working in a vacuum.

the numbers are very different for many reasons. The death and casualties in Gaza is larger for many reasons, but I’ll focus on the most important ones. first, the IDF is more organized and so their bombs are stronger and more advanced. Second, Hamas is intentionally stationed in neighborhoods, schools and hospitals for human shields. third, Israel is using everything they can to protect its’ citizens and pays fortune on Iron Domes. Hamas does nothing to protect the people, and they have the money for that if they wanted since the receive money from Israel, the UN, and various different NGOs. If you don’t bother to protect your own how can you blame others? when people in Israel get hurt because they don’t have shelter they blame our own government.

right now everything here is a mess, and people from outside do not help when they only spread rumors and hate. You don’t live here? you have no clue what is happening. pray for all of us, but first educate your self and read more than one source of news for god sake. If you want the full picture you must read right-side news AND left-side news. Try to understand what is true, try to understand what is an exaggeration, try to understand what both sides are experiencing and don’t just assume that you are the smartest, most educated person just because you support the ‘right’ side. There is no right side. Only A side. So try to stand with us. Stand with Israel and have as much compassion for us as you have for Gaza. We are heading toward a civil war that will not hurt only one side, we have been living like that for years so trust me when i tell you that everyone is tired of how things are. We want peace but we don’t really see it happening anytime soon.

and for the love of god, don’t just send hate. I care about opinions, i want to think about stuff that i haven’t mentioned and to learn from others. Hate comments will not help either of us and will only keep us where we are now, and you trying to hurt me will honestly achieve nothing and will be kinda boring. Sorry for being so blunt but it’s the truth.