#i didnt realize how big the discourse was

[mahoushoujotechsupport]

episode 1, start! ok trying this again because my original post was community flagged for reasons i don't understand

so, this little goober decided to ride inside aerial on her trip from mercury to asticassia instead of like wherever normal passengers ride??? lmao

she really is a little cinnamon roll huh? and i love the added light novel details that she just automatically thought miorine was beautiful the first time she saw her here lol

and that she did, miomio

wow is this that suit that one person had during that big ass match in episode 13?

leave suletta alone, you jerks

oh, miorine-san, if only you knew what that girl would become

gotta wonder how in the world miorine dealt with pretty much being bullied by all these rich fucks. like how many failed attempts to try to go to earth had she had at this point that felsi and petra use it to make fun of her

see, if guel had realized secelia wasn't sitting on the couch, then maybe he wouldnt have asked suletta to duel against him later on

yeah, yeah, i know he mostly redeemed himself and didnt even end up being a weapons manufacturer in the end like his daddy (assuming the new asticassia isnt basically the elite's military training grounds like it was at the beginning), but god guel was such a fucking asshole

in this moment, suletta's like "this is nothing like my fair use expired copyright mangas"

there's no such thing as an ethical capitalist, but sarius definitely didn't like the way delling was running things

prospera was at least a tragic figure, but we never really got to know what the hell made delling the way he is. like is he just some stupid war veteran with ptsd who lost his wife? either way, don't care. he was an asshole for everything he did to miorine and just irredeemable in my eyes lol

funny how suletta talking about her mom is what gets miorine to be a little bit kinder to her in this scene just because of her own mother. yeah prospera was manipulative with suletta and it was her idea for suletta to go to asticassia, so that makes it a little funny that talking about prospera here is really what in the end allows miorine to open up her heart to suletta. sorry, miorine, guess suletta was kind of right huh?

sorry, lauda's just another character that will never be likeable to me either. he's just an asshole on top of being a total moron

so glad guel got his comeuppance

yeah, i wasn't gonna skip the slapping (editing my word-use here because i think saying sp**k got my original post for this episode community labeled... which i know now is not why because it got labeled AGAIN!!! and i still don't get why) but dang look at miorine's reaction to that. i still haven't decided if this is the moment miorine takes romantic interest in suletta for standing up for miorine or at the end of the duel later on this episode when she actually makes good on her promise

get him, suletta lmao

*wild tanuki noises*

bob, you're so fucking stupid. glad he's just stuck listening to secelia and el0n now

really wish we could know more about these two lol like rouji's an anxious little mess around everyone else, but perfectly comfortable with secelia

i was really hoping for another scene of these two in the cockpit together, but miorine would've just died inside calibarn

aerial really is such a cool mobile suit

and there it is. the final scene to shock literally everyone ever on their first watch. it really makes me wish i had started watching live instead of just before the first cours was almost over, i can just imagine ~the discourse~

i started right around when the grassley fight episode had finally been subbed by gjm so around episode 10 real air time i believe? and like yeah, i had kept hearing it be referred to as gundam utena, but i wasn't prepared for this lmao

we didn't get a kiss and we didn't get the wedding on-screen, but i am so so happy these two ended up married in the end and that they're both so obviously in love with each other

[r4bidcherry]

had a shower thought that turned into a shower rant so

heres my explanation on why next season (if we get one) having even more queer rep wouldnt be "too much" (this is mostly for like td reddit and twitter cause i know the fandom here wouldnt complain about having more queer rep lol)

(also realized in the middle of writing i drop a lot of hot takes and controversial opinions so uh oopsies)

firstly, the main one we all know, mkulia. they have a lot of chemistry already, hell even more chemistry than most of the straight relationships have had ik terry has joked about it a lot but seriously. and not to talk about queer discourse here but theres this idea that lesbians somehow have it easier to get queer rep, which im pretty sure most of us agree that isnt true lol, and the fact that so many people already think that rajbow is enough and that lesbians just need to stop complaining is pretty gross to see and kinda proves that thats not true lmao, especially all the stuff that terry is saying on twitter and im glad to see that im not the only one that thinks thats weird as hell. honestly most of the time i wouldnt care if i ship i like was made canon or not, however mkulia being canon would be the thing that rajbow shippers love to brag about rajbow being which is a big step foward. ive already made it pretty clear how i dont think rajbow is some godsend that absolves freshtv of all of their homophobic wrongdoings, however my opinion could very well change if we got mkulia because it would actually show me that they actually care about queer rep and didnt just add it in for brownie points. ik ive been sucking mkulias dick but seriously it IS important

secondly, there are like a buttload of straight ships in total drama, like probably even more than the average tv show considering all the characters and the fact its focused on, yknow, drama, having like 3 queer relationships out of like the 40 straight relationships is farrrr from being "too much". weve had even more in the reboot too like chemma, ripaxel, priyleb, we could have some more variety to even it out a bit

thirdly, the reboot is set in the present day. queer relationships are way more common than they were back then and honestly having mkulia and hell even maybe another queer relationship wouldnt be so out there crazy

but also if we dont get mkulia and/or another queer relationship itll be disappointing but honestly it isnt anything to like attack anyone over lol trust me. however it will be my conformation that freshtv doesnt deserve as much praise as theyre getting for giving us the bare minimum lol

[cowboy-robooty]

show me a moment of how spain raised romano back then

i had a little autism moment and didnt realize you were referring to my tags in my latest post and was about to say that requests are closed right now brubble O_O but anyways here ill show you stuff from le manga since we can both agree that the manga is definitely canon material yeah?

see I understand that romano never directly calls spain his dad and lots of hetalia characters call eachother big brother all the time, but the reason I see this as spain raising him is cuz he definately acts as a caretaker for romano while he was growing up. He follows romano secretly when he goes off to return home by himself just like how a parent would follow their kid secretly the first time they go to the store themselves. he takes care of babie romano and is shown to simply spend time with him in a non instructional way, making their relationship feel more personal than a boss and servant/disciple and shizun if you will. he lets romano hang out while he works the same way a work from home parent lets their own kid have little chit chat with them while they toil away, before making sure romano gets his afternoon nap. and also he never actually gives romano corporal punishments for not finishing his chores. He scolds him the way a parent does rather than locking him in a room as punishment, as it seems whats more important to him is that romano respects him and understands responsibility rather than actually getting shit done.

Also theres this part where he admits that he was the one who determined how romano grew up (spoiled or not). I personally read and watched hetalia and saw this as a bonafide spain raising romano moment, because i saw everything pointing to spain acting as the role of a caretaker for romano as he grew up, and a very personal one at that (seeing as he treats romano with a significant amount of yeilding and understanding, making it feel less like he treats romano as a servant and more like he treats romano as a kid he needs to take care of and give chores to to make sure he can develop a sense of responsibility).

But also it should be known that i dont want to engage in any sort of discourse about hetalia shippings and relationships and all that jazz because i think its stupid and i couldnt give less of a shit. if youre spamano nations strongest soldier then go ahead idc your blog your house dude, i aint going to barge in and spit directly in your soup lol. no hard feelings for this ask! i think itd be rude of me to not give you any explanation for why i think the way i do, since theres nothing wrong with asking about that!! but just know that past me explaining why i interpret these guys the way i do, i dont wanna discuss this subject further

[yellowbluemoonshine]

Discourse; Dabi & Endeavour

Writing this again because i just saw a comment about ‘people who are not okay with Dabi’s forgiving his father is somehow disrespecting abuse victims’s feelings’ which is one of the most stupid things i read in this fandom. I am sorry but you guys have no right to say something like this, wtf do you even know....people have valid reasons for not wanting this ending. And no, people are NOT missing point for thinking this is bad writing. Not just because he is horrible person, skip the fact that he hardly get punished for what he did, not to mention he is NOT even that hard to work better the way people make it out to be, Dabi is literally the only character who give a sht about what Endeavour did at this point in story.

Imagine, thinking Touya’s ending be like ‘Okay but he can give his father a new chance’, as if he didnt give many times. He idolized him too much and that what broke him mentally and turned him into Dabi. Yes, he loved his father but sometimes, trauma really can make you UNLOVE people, trust me. Endeavour doesnt deserve that chance and honestly, there is nothing he can do for Dabi at this point. He barely know how to be father, we can see this his current relationship with Shouto which literally changed nothing in Shouto’s life, oooof. Even if he does, Dabi is not Shouto.They never had father-son relationship, Dabi LITERALLY THINKS TRAINING IS RAISING A CHILD.

Edit; Touya wasnt just neglected, he was abused through training. Do you all think little Touya thinking his little burnt isnt a big deal is normal? Kid thinks self harm is okay because his father was pushing his limits which is literally abuse.

The reason this bothers me because people fail to understand that Endeavour groomed him, him training Touya / connecting through training with Touya is abuse and the main reason why Touya end up obsessed with training because kid has existence crisis for right reasons.

Not to mention Dabi doesnt need him. Look at Natsuo who stayed away from father but turn out amazing person and have happy life. Dabi already have two families. League and Todoroki’s. And yes, sometimes damaged abuse victims easiely forgive their abusers but yknow, even in real life, most people dont know what best for them to get heal. This is not disrespecting their feelings, we just want best for them and, yeah sometimes, other poeple can know what best for you. Touya as child wasnt right about everything he said and did, he was broken and him trying to please Endeavour was toxic. Just like Harley’s love for Joker or other many examples. He desperately needs a perception out of Endeavour, it is not about his love for his father, this is NOT about Endeavour. He is only asking this froım Endeavour because his father is the BOSS of the house. Endeavour is nothing special here. Its not about him. Its about his desperate needs for acceptance, unconditional love (just like any child), reason for existence, just like league of members.

Edit; I know Touya still wants to be seen and honestly, being seen by Endeavour would make him feel a little relief since every abandonded child desire to be looked by their parents but Touya is still Dabi and Dabi is still Touya so even if he feel relief by this, i dont think it would be enough to have relationships with him again. Yeah, everyone know opposite of love is indifference, not hatred but its not that simple. And the way Dabi written as the symbole of damaged victim, Touya moving on is better. Its better writing.

It is completely okay and valid for people to not wanting Dabi to forgive Endeavour and sometimes, fandoms become really toxic and they say foolish things. Thank you for making me realize why people hate redemption arcs because of fandoms and characters like Endeavour who gets away. His redemption arc is terribly written and now, we get this. I could talk more about this but for now, thats it.

Dabi/Touya deserves better.

[thelastsaiyanprincess]

And I only realized after that I should clarify: that Bulma and Yamcha one isn’t necessarily a ‘do you ship it’ one. People have just been arguing on Twitter over who was the reason the relationship failed. Personally, they each have faults.

BIG agree, i finished writing my essay on your other ask about this LOL but tl;dr: they were dumb kids who didnt know how the fuck to be in a relationship and things simply didn't work out for them.

also Twitter needs to stop rehashing discourse from the fucking 90s lmao its getting old hearing the same damn arguments over and over 😆

[scottland-manor]

ex-evangelical turned hard pagan, but i still think about trans jesus a fair amount

i think a lot about how harsh backlash against this trans man-esque depiction of jesus is whenever historical precedence is highlighted, and i think about how people assault and abuse trans men into silence.

i think a lot about how often the historical precedent for trans jesus been overlook and ignored, and i think about how many people ive met who didnt even know that a man could also be trans.

i think a lot about how trans jesus has largely been erased through centuries of retranslations, and i think about how people vehemently deny any possibility of trans man identity to historical figures because the "right words" were never used.

i think about how when trans men act out in anger other people react with more fear than they would if a cis man acted out, and i think of jesus at the temple flipping tables.

i think about jesus showing other men you can be a better human being, and then i think about jesus being deemed dangerous and a threat to those in power.

im not christian anymore, i dont believe i ever really was, but i do know that i relate heavily to the story of a boy born to a family that wasnt expecting one. i relate heavily to the way he purposefully skirted following what was expected of him culturally to pursue a higher purpose. i relate heavily to the way he tried to make the people around him think more deeply about the society they live in and the social rules they think theyre bound to by being his most authentic self, and i relate to how he was then was seen as a threat big enough to eliminate.

folks can have debates or discourse or whatever on the ethics of deeming a historical figure transgender, but regardless of a past reality we cannot confirm, there are current realities we can and SHOULD affirm using the documented lives of historical figures. look, ive noticed a fair amount of "we cant know x was queer!" disproportionately applied to potential trans men in comparison to other identities, and i get it. its easier to tell when someone loves someone else than it is to tell how they feel about themselves without them saying it.

but ALSO im fucking tired of pretending that we cant infer deeper meanings unless the exact modern day vocabulary is used for the person in question. do yall realize how fucked that is for trans men? the group most commonly understood to be invisible outside of queer spaces?

much like jesus, im willing to die on this hill

Gender Nonconforming Jesus: A look at art history. CW: religion, transphobia, artistic nudity, depictions of open wounds (Long post)

[thepowerisyouth]

Humanity, since the dawn of abstract thinking-- has been stuck in a search for 'why?'

Most famously it is: "what is the meaning of life?"

I think that we can liken this search for 'why' to a DND party who is stuck in a dungeon. The party is all of humanity, and the dungeon is Earth

The DM (theologically called God) is very adamant to not give any help at all, despite all the players asking why. No one hears the DM ever actually say a word.

Okay it makes sense to think of the DM as someone outside the room who we cant even see, and that nobody has met, but that we believe is controlling our game of DND.

The party determines that they aren't going to get out of this dungeon by asking the DM for help anymore, and must work together to even figure out what the hell the room even looks like

The players look around (makes no sense without an actual DM, I know, but bear with me we're talking metaphors) and realize that they are in a large, dark room. Big enough to hold the entire party of 100,000 humans. There is only 1 exit to this room, and it a tremendously grand, locked gate

Now I should say that I don't actually know how humanity figured out how to open the first gate-- because I was not there. I was born in this dungeon, (yes we are still in the dungeon) in fact, I was born thousands of years after that first door was opened. In a room thousands of miles past the very first one. Impossible to go back and actually see what is looks like

However, considering the evidence I have now, I can safely assume that people worked together to figure out how to open each & every door. They did not work together all the time, no they did not.

But there are stories told by the people in the dungeon. These stories say that every time humanity reached a door, and people started fighting in front of it, that the fighting became a big distraction, and often resulted in full clashes between opposing 'factions' of people who believed they have the right key to the door.

The stories tell me that yes, very sadly, every so often a violent dungeon faction would manage to successfully open the door, but only because they killed the person holding the correct key and took it off their corpse, then opened the door and started lying to everyone that they didnt do this

And the story goes as well in my dungeon family that every person who did this ended up being hunted down by another member of the victims faction, and ended up dying in battle as well.

Humanity has not reached the end of this dungeon, but we have unlocked more doors and gotten further than ever before.

This is nothing new to add really at all to public discourse.. I just like framing problems like its playing dnd

[emperorsegg]

as much as i love edelgard, i cant be exposed to any public discussion of fe3h for long periods of time bc i feel very anxious and unwell afterwards. i think they just remind me of how unusually mean-spirited the fe fandom is lol

like idk. it always felt very… paranoia-inducing.

(big rant about fe3h fandom incoming so im putting it under the cut)

like… the sheer amount of “transformative lens/critical discussion” stuff i saw about the game’s writing never felt like it came from a place of “i love this and i want to analyze it from a place of love” - and more “i hate this and i want to whittle it to my own perception of how things should be written”.

not that there wasn’t anything to critique (there absolutely was wrt the questionable racism plotlines, etc.) but… there was this sense of underlying bitterness in these discussions that made me feel extremely uneasy and unconfident wrt talking about my own stances - which usually came from the former position. like i was more naïve from approaching my critiques/analyses with a constructive lens versus a destructive one.

or the constantly moving goalposts of which supports were deemed “problematic” and which ones “weren’t”.

like, with my own otp (edeleth) - it was initially very well-received bc it was a prominent and extremely plot-relevant f/f couple; something that didnt have precedence in fire emblem.

but then as the months rolled by more and more people wrote it off as problematic - whether it was bc “it romanticized teacher/student grooming (ignoring them having only a 3 year age gap and not being teacher/student when they do become romantic)” or “it destroyed edelgard’s powerful, confident personality in her own route for waifubait”.

the shipping goalpost moving got so bad that i lost several friends and mutuals over it; including a friend that i had for 7 years.

a lot of people just acted plain mean in the community too. just. saying the most awful stuff without considering the weight of what they were saying. (eg. i saw someone gleefully say that the release of the fe3h warriors spinoff would be like the collapse of the twin towers for edeleth and dimileth fans - which is. a hell of a phrase to say lol).

and there was a lot of other stuff too. zine drama, fallouts over the most innocuous of shit (i fell out with another friend bc i had the audacity to… politely agree with a legimate criticism of their fan project?), as well as some bullshit of my own making (i did not set my own boundaries w/ this fandom - and it hurt me and many others in the end).

i dunno. i guess what i wanted to say was like… the release of fe engage is making me remember all of this shit again and i feel the need to vent again lol. esp since there’s stupid discourse about the new game and ppl making the absolute worst assumptions abt each other again.

im tired. i hate fire emblem. i wish these idiots would consume more adult works and realize that pissing and moaning over the latest mildly sexy FEH alt or someone pairing their corrin with xander or w/e is stupid and waste of fucking time. its fucking fire emblem, my guy.

90% of the time its a stupid medieval fantasy video game filled with cheesy anime tropes.

do something more productive with your life.

[cheapqueer69]

civil war on the tumblr dot com

i am fish lesbians vs anti i am fish lesbians

[bring-us-back-light]

as a former anti, fwiw, its really really hard to stop. for me at least, unlearning this stuff wasnt just flicking a switch. i was raised evangelical, so the same sort of purity contest and desperate attempt at perfection has been a constant for me literally since before i can remember.

when i had 'bad' thoughts. or liked 'bad' things. rather than a catalyst for realizing how fiction and reality r actually separate and my interest in something conceptually or in fiction didnt equate to wanting something irl, it was a point of intense shame that i couldnt ever allude to or let anyonr know lest i lose my entire social circle.

another interesting thing is that like... i thought all of my friends were antis? bc its not like everyone is engaging with discourse. so u have ur actual anti friends who engage w discourse reminding you what would happen if they actually knew you. and then you have everyone else who agrees that pedophilia is bad, because of course they do, and its a pretty easy jump to make that that means theyre also antis. at least it was for me. the point here being anticipated social fall out can be bigger than the actual still plenty big social fall out.

sorry Im a bit rambly. and im not trying to defend anyone. just thought id share a bit of my testimony

I wonder how antis who get harassed by other antis for whatever reason manage to keep being antis.

Like isn't it enough of a proof that antis are a cruel and violent group?

An ex-mutual of mine was a victim of this because they selfshipped with a villain who's fairly awful in canon, and they were still an anti after that.

I'm curious about the mental gymnastics made there. Genuinely.

yeah I’ve seen antis who were harassed to the point of attempting suicide by other antis still support the anti movement. I don’t understand it at all

[a-romantic--aromantic]

tell me more about your experiences in real life aro spaces please *big pleading eyes*

okay so i am notoriously bad at answering asks because i’m on mobile, but i figured i can take a crack at this one

so i actually wasn’t in explicitly aro spaces, but due to the culture in my area, most lgbt individuals didn’t feel that they needed to use the pride spaces to have the ability to express themselves or feel safe. this very quickly led to queer spaces and clubs being full of aspecs. due to luck, i found my queer club was about 30% aro at the start, and about 50% aro halfway through. the more discussions we had about romanticism and amatonormativity and trying unpack and discover what romantic attraction meant, the more and more people in the club realized that romanticism didnt apply to them in the stereotypical or normative sense, and more and more people came out as aro. there were lots of conversations that included us just pointing out “that sounds like demiromantic” or “is that romantic attraction?” when people said something that sounded like a very aro perspective.

i also didnt join the aspec club at the university nearby because im not a student, but im always really tempted. im curious what a space intended for aspecs is like.

within my experiences, our aro circle was pretty large, and being open about queer identity and connection with our aro identity and community led to me knowing more aros, because you get excited if you overhear it in public, and the more people know about it the more people come out.

my aro circle did have a lot of dating in it, still, but that was because they were all aro4aro if that makes sense? a lot of people realized they were demi. and a close knit aro circle opens up nicely for aro identity being respected And developing romo attraction.

i’ve mentioned before that ive dealt with an exclusionist/aphobe irl, and that im annoyed their “romo aro” flag shows up in google. this person was actively a “chronically online” and “discourse” kind of a person. they held a lot of colonial ideals, were fairly ableist, and pushed a lot of people’s boundaries. this person was one of like 3 that were openly aphobic on campus, and all three of them gave off the sense that they were there to start arguments, not to engage in having a community of any kind. they were ultimately ignored by all the other allospec queer members. by and large, everyone accepted us in their queer spaces, and our “pride alliance” never once suggested that we didnt belong. we spent a lot of time talking about what mattered to us and how our queer identities impacted eachother, and how our communities intersected in various ways.

when the aros broke off to interact independently, our aromanticism was rarely brought up, it just was something that was a fact. we could talk about our struggles with our aro identity, they watched my blog grow, and we always chose activities that were friendly to the folks who didnt want to see romo stuff. ultimately it performed more as a tight friend group than as any sort of overarching activity to participate in. ive found virtual aro communities are pretty similar.

i dont know if this helps at all, but i do want to say you’re not alone in your aro identity, and you’re probably not even the only aro in your area.

for stats, i know:

7 arospecs in highschool , 2 aplspecs

10 arospecs in my close friend group in college , 2 (different) aplspecs

8 arospecs from my pride alliance (not in my friend group), 1 aplspec not in my group

4 arospecs in passing in college

an honestly unknowable number of arospecs from my old job, where ive been recognized from this blog before. these were mostly arospec and queer teenagers that were in awe of seeing a queer and arospec adult.

ive also made multiple online friends in fandom spaces who were not arospec or questioning arospec who recognized me from my blog, and, including both irl and online dating, have dated 9 aros/arospecs, and had qprs with 3 (tho ive had qprs with non arospecs too).

we aren’t an insignificant percent of the population. there’s honestly quite a lot of us and you shouldnt feel alone in this community. because theres so many of us, every aro community you join or create irl will be a little bit different. i live close to an aro organization that is in the nearest major city, and im thinking about volunteering and getting involved there, too. if you want to try making an irl aro community, honestly the easiest way to do it is just to be out and proud. they’ll come to you or you’ll help them realize it.

anyways i dont know if thats what you were asking, but thats everything i have in my brain for now. hope this helps.

💚💚🤍🖤🖤

-ghost

[ars0nism]

okay, final post on this. my thing with terfs isnt the terfs. im 18, ive been through a lot, i can handle a couple of terfs on my page. what bothers me is the young people, especially young girls & transmascs, that fall into the terf rabbithole on accident.

SO.

heres my quick & easy guide on how i personally check for terfs. PLEASE check for these signs. to protect yourself. ofc not all things immediately mean terf, but this is my personal checklist

rad and or fem in the url (IMMEDIATE red flag)

labrys lesbian flag (somewhat of a red flag, could be innocent young lesbian roped into it. if theyre an adult its a red flag)

if you click on the search icon it will show a bunch of commonly used tags. look at the tags. common tags wpuld be radfem, radical feminism, terfism, gender critical etc

look at where they reblog from. who theyre following if its public. what posts they like if thats public. look at the bios of these. if the terf doesnt have a bio and is trying to be stealthy, oftentimes the people they agree with are open about it. block both while youre at it

queer slur discourse (also done outside of terf circles but far more common among terfs, especially coupled with the "not queer, im lesbian" stuff (though thats understandable and not inherently terfy) and in combination with other red flags)

exclusionism (not inherently terfy but still a good point to look out for)

fixation on wombs and vulvas (immediate red flag no one but terfs is that obsessed with their reproductive organs)

the "LGB" community, or even the "remove the L" because they dont want to associate with gay & bi people

really big hatred of the concept of "genital preference". sexuality is only about genitals to them.

intense man hatred. they hate men so much. (also not an immediate red flag because yeah some of it is warranted but you can tell the difference between joking about trauma/standing up against the patriarchy and straight up... being a terf)

the term "ssa". stands for same sex attraction. (pretty big one i think. i personally have only heard it from terfs.)

febfem. bisexuals who only date women. (also one i didnt know about until like half an hour ago. also a big one)

this is one specific to the current time and might be obsolete soon but if theyre vocal amber heard supporters. those are ALL terfs.

terfs are also often swerfs. hating on sex workers (not the system, the system is fucked and we should recognize it) is terfy !

they like to refer to us (trans people) as a cult. which, to be honest, after this experience, im more likely to call them a cult. (if a terf disagrees with you, get ready for closing anon & gross bullshit in your notes. we have mutual circles, they have them too)

and of course green flags for trans people & trans allies, if they have these the odds of it being a terf are. a lot smaller

pronouns in bio

some variation of lgbtq+

following trans blogs

inclusive

mature fucking human being

and if you're in doubt whether or not its a terf, its better to block an innocent person than to interact with a terf, id say. odds are the innocent person doesnt care.

BUT!

let's say you said something they didn't like and now your post is circling in their shitty little group chat. what then? my suggestion would be to

CLOSE ANON ASKS. once their cult has found your page and realizes you post about trans things, or worse, are trans, they will harass you. anon gives a lot of confidence to send death threats. dont let them.

Block all of them. No, it's not gonna stop new ones from harassing you in their place, but it does make for a pretty nice blocklist.

If you need to, don't hesitate to step away from tumblr for a while. Not everyone can handle harassment, and it's okay to step away if it's too much.

Remember you're worth so much more than any of these terfs. Remember being trans is something to be proud of, remember you are loved, and most importantly, remember they're just terfs on the internet. laugh at them. make fun of them. they may say shitty things, but they can't actually hurt you. (anything that can hurt you, like doxxing, is illegal. get law enforcement if possible if you think you're in actual physical danger)

Best of all is to ignore it. Don't keep talking about it ("take your own advice" im working on it). it's not fun to harass someone who just ignores you.

If you really can't cope, it's okay to close your blog. You don't have to stay. Make a new blog. Only tell your mutuals.

(also, side note, i have a blocklist filled with terfs. i am absolutely down to share this blocklist with you, if you want somewhere to get started)

[rynzii-419]

I’ve been reading about this study on psychology and it talked about this thing, “positive sentiment override” vs “negative sentiment override” and so, of course, I connected it to apologist discourse.

Bit of warning; this is going to talk about Dream in a negative light, and I’m going to reference Tommy and Wilbur in a positive light. The point of this is to show why I think common interpretations of Wilbur and Dream are exaggerated, and I try to talk about Wil critically too even though normally thats a bit harder for me, which is actually related to the psychology thing I’m gonna talk about here. So yeah, please read this if apologist discourse something you’re interested in! I try to make this readable and unbiased as best as I can. (I say this but the point here is to talk about misconceptions and exaggerations about Wilbur and Dream, meaning I say why I think Dream isn’t as deserving of forgiveness as the fandom treats him and Wilbur isn’t as deserving of the hate he gets, but I really feel like this one isn’t biased.)

Alright, first I want to explain positive sentiment override (im gonna abbreviate it to “pso”). Pso is something I see used on Dream a lot, where people will see someone do something negative and think “oh well they probably had a reasonable explanation for that”.

Negative sentiment override (nso) is what I see used on Wilbur (like all the time). This is where someone will do something even positive and people will look on with skepticism and think “that was manipulation.” (ex. The reaction to every conversation he’s had with ranboo)

While its great to look for reasoning behind a character’s actions, and great to have skepticism about a darker character’s motives, its also taken too far in these cases very often.

Okay here’s where I get a little critical of Dream. The reason that I believe he isn’t very deserving of this “benefit of the doubt” he gets so often is because:

He isn’t apologetic for any of his actions. Now, we could go back and forth all day on whether his treatment of L’manburg was right or not, but we all know that his behavior with Tommy in exile was wrong. The thing is that Dream doesn’t agree. He even says in the prison when Tommy got trapped in there, “this is gonna be so much fun, just like exile” (paraphrasing, im sorry </3). When a character shows no remorse for actions that are inherently evil (like theres no getting around that Dream in exile was evil), it makes me feel as if they cant be treated as if they’re redeemable. Of course, he could be redeemed, but i can’t see that happening to him until he apologizes to Tommy and Tubbo and distances himself from them entirely. The problem is that i don’t see that happening at this point.

He showed signs of being a bad person/friend before exile. Again, I’m actually not even going to address L’manburg because that’s something that people disagree on often, so here I’d rather talk about Sapnap and Dream’s relationship and why I believe that was very unhealthy. After Dream’s speech about Spirit and how he doesn’t care about anything other than the discs (and its implied that he really meant tommy but thats besides the point), Sapnap instantly took that as meaning Dream didn’t care about him. Now some people hear that as “Sapnap is such a bad friend, he immediately assumed the worst out of Dream, how could be be so rude?” What i see that as is a sign that Dream probably wasn’t a very good friend himself. I also had a situation similar to this, where i had a friend who was really trashy (but i didn’t realize at the time) and I was always scared that they would ditch me. A lot like Sapnap, I would ask “do you think they’ll leave me?” then go back and say “haha, no, thats irrational, isnt it”. The problem is, those kinds of fears often aren’t based off of nothing. They come from an understanding of how that friend treats others, and the fear that they feel the same way for you. I think Sapnap saw how Dream treated others and didnt care much for his relationships and that made him scared for his own friendship, and rightfully so, as we saw later.

Dream was unapologetically manipulative and abusive continuously. A few spur of the moment actions would be an unhealthy mental state, but continued and premeditated abuse without remorse is a… really bad sign.

WILBUR TIME!! At long last aha. Now, this is where i speak POSITIVELY about Wilbur. I’ll throw in some crit dont worry <3. So here’s why I dont believe that Wilbur is deserving of the amount of hate he gets:

Wilbur has shown at least an attempt to apologize to people, which goes against his usual mentality. He’s a very prideful character, and he hasn’t apologized much in the past i believe. While he’s nowhere near better mentally than he was on Nov 16, he’s shown that he’s trying.

While he has manipulated people since his revival, it’s all been spur of the moment reactions. No continuous decisions, like I mentioned with Dream. Its likely that they come from his delusions/paranoia (which he still suffers from, isolation does not heal mental illness).

I believe that the times that we see him being most genuine are when he’s with Ranboo, since Ranboo is a nonjudgmental person who Wilbur has related to and feels is a blank slate for him to talk to. We’ve heard him open up about his motives a lot, such as feeling as if everyone is scared of him. That’s further pushed by the fact that cc!Wilbur confirmed that when he said that Quackity is the only one that makes him feel human since he’s not scared to question Wilbur.

I think this is the big one: Wilbur recognizes that he was in the wrong in Pogtopia. He sees that he hurt Tommy and regrets it, which I think is really important to remember. Simple as that. He said he sees Tommy look at him with the same eyes as he did in Pogtopia, which makes me believe he would want to be better. I would talk about what i believe Wilbur’s motives throughout Pogtopia was here but I think that’s a post for another dayz

Alright uh thats it i think, sorry this was so long i was just havin a lotta thoughts about it, ya know? This is open to discussion i think, i just really enjoyed writing this out :D

[charcubed]

Ok so i just finished watching sherlock in complete after watching it like wayyyy back when in 2014 tumblr era with the reichenbach fall and everything. So after finishing it i had some thoughts about the general fandom discourse and i thought who better to ask than char! Ofc ur not obligated to answer this!!

So as i finished it i thought john and sherlock’s story ended in THE most canon way possible? Watching i was honest to god going holy shit they didnt— they did that holy shitt?? Like they killed john’s wife, gave them a kid and basically ended it by saying yea john and sherlock lived together happily with a child forever and like also solve cases together this is their life now. And i was genuinely pleased with the outcome i felt it was the best way to handle that while giving the fandom everything it wanted! Then… i came online and found out that sentiment was NOT shared at all and i was baffled to say the least! So i was just wondering why that is? I feel like im not in the sherlock loop enough to deduce this on my own.

Anyway thanks for reading this if youve made it this far lmaoo hope u have a great day!

Hi anon! Sorry for the late response. I'm slowly going through asks on here after not having been on Tumblr super actively for a hot minute.

This is a bit of a complicated question (as most things are with Sherlock). But I will do my level best to answer is as comprehensively as I can.

I think there are a lot of elements at play in terms of how people perceived series 4 in general.

1. S4 breaks a lot of the rules that all the previous series set in place for the worldbuilding of Sherlock, and the way it's grounded in reality. It also has moments that feel out of character, too. (All of this is for a reason, but I will get to that.) Even things down to the cinematography have changed in a subtle ways, and feel off because they're meant to. But that means that in small and large ways, it upset many viewers. Sherlock's deductive reasoning skills are almost exaggerated in a superhuman fashion which makes things more unrealistic; John treats Sherlock overly poorly at times in ways that can feel out of character; Mary dies in a way that is physically impossible, and that physically impossible death is even mentioned in a previous episode as being unrealistic; everything about The Final Problem is absurdism to the extreme, with Eurus practically being from the X-Men; etc. etc. There's tons to point out. It doesn't feel like BBC Sherlock in quite a few fundamental ways, which a lot of people picked up on either consciously or subconsciously, and thus were upset by.

2. With the caveat that I did not feel this way personally: a lot of queer fans felt disrespected because they expected/wanted Johnlock to become canon, and then it wasn't, and then in the end Mary's voiceover added insult to injury by saying "Well, you listen to me: who you really are, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures." Many queer fans took that very personally, as if the narrative was telling them that it doesn't matter who you are and it doesn't matter who these characters are, or something. I will fully admit to you I don't fully understand why people took that to heart so strongly, and I don't think that was the intent at all, but that was a big part of the backlash as well. Combine that with how the end felt like ~the end of the show,~ and yet so much about S4 felt dissatisfactory, and it was just a clusterfuck of emotions for many people.

All that being said...

You saying it ended in "the most canon way possible" is very interesting to me, because you've hit the nail on the head, perhaps without fully realizing it.

The whole show–and series 4 in particular–exists as commentary on Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, the Johnlock hidden between its lines, and Watson's unreliable narration. I talked a bit about that in this thread here. To make my point in this post, I'll post an excerpt below:

People read ACD Watson's stories and go "Why are all these details wrong? Did he just not care?" People watch s4 and say the same. But what comes next will expose the answer: false narratives were necessary for their safety because they're in love. For canon era, what threatens their safety is homophobia/heteronormativity in society at large. For the show, Moriarty and Mary are the personification of those things and force Johnlock apart; defeating them will lead to accepting and being open about the truth of their relationship. This is why the writers say they thought everyone else was "getting it wrong" & it's about the relationship between 2 men. BBC Sherlock a standalone story, but in wider context... it's commentary on Holmes and Watson in general, and illuminating hidden depths in ACD's canon.

To explain a bit further... basically, for a century, people have been pointing to ACD's stories and trying to make sense of the inconsistencies in Watson's writings to little avail. Details contradict each other, or salient points seem to be left out; this is also the case of series 4 and is part of the point. The prime theory about series 4 that I agree with / that aligns with my reading of it is that series 4 is unreliably narrated by or told by John Watson. It's often referred to as "blog theory" as shorthand, because the idea is that the show has become the blog. (I have reblogged some relevant posts tagged "blog theory" here)

Series 4 acts as commentary on John and Sherlock as characters, and as crucial commentary on Watson's unreliable narration in the original ACD stories. Why would Watson (or in our case, John) have had to hide or meddle with details? Well, maybe for the sake of their safety, as queer men in a time that would not look upon that kindly. This is what the show (seemingly, if we're correct) intends to convey and highlight by bringing these elements to the forefront, and by making Johnlock explicitly canon.

So when you say that series 4 ended in a way akin to the canon of the original stories, with John's wife dead and them solving cases forever (together with a kid)... you're correct. But part of the point is that there is more to their story, and for many, that feels insufficient whether they realize it or not. Sherlock series 4 show us a world where it's about the "adventures," where John and Mary are in love but Sherlock and John are at odds and in the end leave much unspoken, where the Holmes intellect is unrealistic, etc. to have people instinctively sense all of this is wrong and ultimately crave correction via re-centering Johnlock as the core of the story.

As Moffat said in 2014,

"I think we've always favored the characters, because that's the vivid thing in Sherlock Holmes stories. At the beginning of every Sherlock Holmes story, there are two or three pages of just Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson having a chat by the fireside. That's what people fell in love with. So we've always favored that. As we keep proclaiming to anyone who's not completely bored of it by now, it's not a detective show; it's a show about a detective. That's why it's a hit. That's why it's exciting." (x)

In the end of series 4, Mary says "It's about the legend, the stories, the adventures." But that's not what the creators think Sherlock Holmes canon has truly ever been about at its heart! So, why do this? They have given the general audience something that is, in many ways, unexpected but contains the elements that they would naturally assume they'd want... Mary dead, the Holmes siblings being soooo brilliant, it's only about the cases, etc... and they have done that to make viewers realize maybe that is not what they want, and thus make them understand the thing they DO want instead: Sherlock Holmes to be "the most human, human being," and for Sherlock and John to reach emotional catharsis together in a queer outcome.

Of course, you're valid Anon for liking the ending and not understanding everyone's dissatisfaction! I am genuinely happy you enjoyed it on its own merits in a surface level way!! And as I said, you're correct in saying that it aligns with canon in many aspects.

But a lot of people (consciously or unconsciously) expected/wanted this show to go beyond the (heteronormative) veneer original canon maintained for Holmes and Watson... partially because the show has been setting that up for years. And if they didn't want it before, after the weirdness of series 4, they especially will want it now. So–if we're correct–that is the very deliberate intention, and it's been set up to be subverted in series 5. Series 4 will be explained / have reasons for its existence, and in series 5 the true story will be told.

(The final words of Arthur Conan Doyle's original canon, in the order in which they were first presented, were "Someday the true story may be told.")

I hope that clears things up a bit, even though this explanation is fairly long and probably went in directions you didn't expect lol. And if you want to read some series 4 meta, "Poetry or Truth" by @garkgatiss is some of the best there is. At some point, I'm going to try to put together a solid masterlist of series 4 meta too for anyone who may be interested in diving in fresh!

Thank you for the question, and I'm really glad you got back into Sherlock, as it is (obviously) one of my favorite things! <333

[kayla360]

Uncle Ricks rocks when it comes to representation

Ok so here me out! I love this man so much and let me explain why ;

So obviously this post is about represention in his books and how i just realised how much this man fucking listen to his readers like holy shit. You can literaly see his improvement in every single books about representation and how much research and cared he took to make sure the representation was accurate.

Yeah in his first couple books it was eafy but since the begining this man had only one goal so that kids who never saw themself could for once have a story about them. Like it litteraly started with his son who had dislexia and adhd but what I admire about him is that he didnt stop there. He could of easily just talked about the subject and people would of still praised him for how woke he was at the time but no. The first serie was all about getting out of abusif relation and how bad parenting is not always about beating the kid. He talked about emotional trauma in so many different ways that i'm certain some kids out there saw that and got the confirmation it was not ok and seeked help. For a kid book this was revolutionary.

In his next serie when fan of the Percy Jackson serie where complaining his lack of diversity (witch true there was a big lack of it). What did he do instead of ignoring it or giving a token character like so many author did in the past he fucking write 4 out of the 7 has POC. All with their own origine and backstory all well written and often not even related solely on their ethnicity like so many POC character are normaly in other book. Like yes their ethnicity and culture were mention but thats has important for writting a POC character then adding other personality trait and fuck he nailed it. A lot of the younger reader werent there when we had the ackward period of time between the book and werent witness of the sheer hapiness of the POC comunity when that happen. Then the LGBT who got more and more outgoing on the internet at that time talked about how nice it would be to have a queer charachter and often headcanon Nico as Gay since he was so relatable to so many people. Then what did uncle Rick do ! he fucking made it happen thats what happen. But so many people were hesitant after all he seemed such like a token character. Witch i agree he kinda was and Uncle Rick realized that as well.

So in his next serie he made it happen the Canon Solangelo who shooked the entire fandom and put everyone feeds covered of fanon for a full month. Omg the discourse and how much people accused him of given inn and accusing him of a fake ally ? Ignoring or maybe not realising that this was not fake allyship but the total inverse. This man listen to his reader and he always had. Wrote about POC character when ask change stuff when he did something he didnt know was wrong. Listen again and again because this man he wrote those books yes for the story but before anything else for the chance of the kids to be able to see themselfs in those character. So yes his story are very driven by the headcanons of fan but thats because thats what his books are all about. To show that these headcanon can be real, to educate people about the struggle of those comunities while simultinusly give to those comunitie a message stronger then i ever saw by an author.

I see you and i will make sure others see you as well

Before concluding this i also want to point out another of my favourite serie he wrote Magnus Chase. This was honeslty my first ever interaction with the Muslim world and the trans world in a normal setting. From a small town where islamophobia and homophobie was very real and very present. These character showed me how normal they are. I was raised open minded and my parent thought me about them but it always in a more educational setting like here they existe dont be racist or homophobic. But as a 14 year old raised in a a white town where other culture resume of who spoke french and who spoke english i was so scared of being disrespectul without wanting to be. This helped me a lot learning the difference between whats accpetable and what not. Because i knew micro-aggressions existed but i didnt know what was a micro-aggression. Like i knew to not be straight up hateful, but could i asked question about their culture? what can I ask without being disrespectful? Do I do stuff that I didn’t realize are hateful etc. Now I'm 20 live in a big city made so many friends from so many places and i can say without any fear Thank you Uncle Rick you are the one who thaught me what genderfluids mean and led me to be less apprehensive of searching and asking more about it, litteraly 3 month after I read the book I met my first trans person and we bonded over Alex in Magnus chase. It also helped me understand more about the Muslim religion and how deep their fate can be but also why it’s so important to them explaining to me what Ramadan was and making me less shy around them and not be afraid to ask question on how I can be a better ally. He also thought me its ok to make mistake while trying to be an ally as long as i make sure i correct it and learn from it. Because no road to allyship is perfect after all we all need to learn. I want people to know that there is no perfect ally from the start and if you are gonna judge someone for their pass instead of their present action are you really searching for ally ?

[bogkeep]

hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on...  there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s  not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !