#i don't know anything about christianity by the way. i'm just using my knowledge of biblical symbolism in art

[bestbonnist]

Chapters 172.1 and 172.2

172.1; 172.2.

Weirdly, the apartment where the bounty hunters live is an older, western style townhouse, even though everyone lives in a giant tree and there's no historical/cultural reason for their houses to look like that. For some reason, Ooima chose clearly dated architecture instead of something imagined for a future setting. Even the TV is an older model. Maybe it has something to do with the hunters having less stars? Does the technology go further back in time the lower you go?

Adey = the knife guy. I still have no clue why he's searching for the doll while everyone else is only looking for the immortals, but I guess that's just part of the mystery.

This bit freaked me the hell out. For the first time, we see Anton's new body in detail—up until this point, only his silhouette has loomed in the doorway—and it's a distorted ideal of what a human body should be. It's reminiscent of the way Mimori's knocker added muscles to Mimori's arms for greater force. Anton's head—the only part of him that's stayed the same—is cut off because he's so large he can't fit through the door. Only the outline of his features is visible through the glass. It's like he's just a body, if that makes sense? Like, the door separates the part of him that's "him" from the part that's just meat. Creeps me the fuck out.

I thought the bounty hunters were one-off characters but apparently not. I don't really see the point in dragging them along if they're not going to be given depth and/or development (otherwise why do we have to stick with these guys specifically), so fingers crossed we'll get some of that. The power dynamics with Anton alone should be interesting enough to work with.

At last we have an explanation for what the establishing shot of the wish era is supposed to be. Trees. Maybe that was obvious to some people, but it was not to me. And can I just say, this is fucking crazy. I really badly need to know how things ended up like this. I can't imagine Fushi creating huge trees for humanity to live inside unless something went really wrong. Kanitarou didn't touch on it, but there were broken buildings underneath the trees. Also the hole in the middle of each layer where things get passed down lower seems to be where the doll was cast down before it woke up, possibly from Kaibara itself.

In very abstract terms, the knockers have been trying to bring Paradise to earth. They succeeded, as both Paradise and Kaibara Cybernetics are described as the place where "all of your wishes come true." But Kaibara is more like Christian heaven than Paradise, in that you can get thrown out. The diagram even depicts five and three star humans as winged, and two or lower star humans having their wings taken away, like fallen angels.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

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

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

You can be a devout Christian and also:

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

Advocate for full reproductive autonomy and comprehensive sex education.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[adragonsfriend]

There are no trash takes on Jedi philosophy, there is contextual analysis.

As may be obvious from the title (humorous--I have gone through several common misinterpretations myself), this is about that infamous scrap of poetry,

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

And the other version,

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.

I've seen quite a few interpretations of these along the lines of "the second version is reasonable but the first version is crazy and stupid," so here's why I think both versions are actually communicating the same idea, and the wording doesn't really change the meaning much at all.

So just like I did in my post about "do or do not there is not try," let's start by asking some questions to establish context before we look at the text itself.

Is it THE Jedi Code or just a mantra? Legends says it's the Code, canon says it's a mantra. The fact of the matter is that no matter what, it's really a scrap of poetry which couldn't encompass the entire philosophical basis of a culture even if it was trying, so we'll consider it a mantra.

Does the fact that it's a mantra rather than THE Jedi Code mean that we can't get anything deep or meaningful out of it? Of course not. Just because it's not the whole of or a full explanation of Jedi philosophy doesn't mean it's just a nice sounding string of words.

Who is saying this to who? This mantra is often used to focus a meditation, with the first phrasing used by adults in the culture, while the second phrasing is more often used by children.

What were George Lucas' inspirations for Jedi culture that relate to this mantra? (borrowing from this post) A combination of christianity, buddhism, and his interpretations. I'm not an expert in any religion, and definitely not in buddhism, but I know enough to know I'm about to make some sweeping generalizations, so take this with a grain of salt. Disclaimers aside, this mantra, and the way it is phrased, indicate it is being inspired more by buddhism. The way christian texts, specifically the Bible, are written typically goes "here is a story about people doing something, and here is how big G god and/or Jesus reacted." There are metaphors sprinkled in, but they are mainly there to clarify for readers. Buddhist texts on the other hand (and lots of other eastern belief systems as well, like daoism, hinduism, etc. It's an important note that these belief systems don't necessarily conform to the western idea of what a religion is, and often their original languages don't even have a word which is equivalent in meaning to "religion") use metaphor in often deliberately contradictory ways, to make the reader think about things which are difficult to express in words alone. The ongoing struggle to reconcile contradictory descriptions is the point. This doesn't mean those texts can be interpreted however a reader would like. There may be multiple right interpretations, but there can also be wrong interpretations.

What the mantra does NOT mean:

"There is no ___ …" =/= "The experience of ___ is fake news."

"There is no ___ …" =/= "___ is not a useful concept."

"There is no ___ …" =/= "We should totally ignore ___ and pretend we've never heard that word before."

The mantra is not realy a set of advice on how to act. It's a set of statements about Existance. And I do mean capital E, philosophical, epistemological, weird, deep, think-y, Existence.

Temperature Metaphor

You know the first time someone tells you as a kid that cold isn't real, it's just the absence of heat and you're like… "but I'm touching something right now and it feels cold???" It sounds wild the first time you hear it, but as you think about it more, maybe learn about it a second time in science class, get some more context about how molecules work, etc. it begins to make more sense. It gets easier to grasp, until eventually the knowledge feels intuitive--especially if you're a STEM person who thinks about it a lot. We still talk about cold as a concept, because it's useful to us as well--lack of heat can have damaging effects on our bodies after all, and a cold drink is great on a hot day--and it's more efficient to say "cold" than it is to say "lack of heat." But there are some situations, like developing refrigeration or air conditioning, where it is not just useful but essential to think of temperature as it really is--heat exists, cold doesn't--and thinking of it colloquially can only hold us back (if this isn't actually intuitive to you, that's fine, it's just a metaphor--you could also think about dark being the absence of light, vacuum being the absence of mass, any number of things mirror this).

Probably the easiest like to get one's head around, imo at least, is "there is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

Taken hyper-literally it would mean "why seek out knowledge ever when everyone already knows everything?" But if we say knowledge is to heat as ignorance is to cold, then we can understand the real meaning--knowledge is real, where ignorance is only the name of an experience.

The Whole Mantra

This is the way the Jedi are understanding of emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, death, etc. They are introduced, as children, to the idea that whilst they may feel all of these things, what they are actually experiencing is the lack of the other things--peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony, the Force. That's why they start with the "___ yet ___" phrasing--it introduces them to the first steps of understanding:

They can feel emotions, yet peace is still real and out there to reach for no matter how overwhelming those emotions may be at the moment,

They can feel ignorant or unknowledgeable, yet knowledge is out there to find,

They can experience passion (meaning suffering or pain in this context), yet know that serenity will return to them,

They can find their surroundings chaotic, and yet look for the harmony in the noise,

They can understand that death happens, yet be comforted by the fact that the person dying is still as much a part of the Force as they ever were.

Eventually they move onto the full mantra:

They will always feel emotions, but if they always reckon with those emotions and pass through them they can always return to a place of peace,

If they feel ignorant, they must seek out knowledge, rather than acting rashly. Also, their own knowledge is not the limit--others may hold knowledge in places they consider clouded,

They may experience suffering and pain--it may even feel like a good thing--but there is no wisdom in pain, it is the distraction from serenity, which is where truth can be found,

No matter how chaotic the world appears, it is actually a part of an underlying harmony that makes up all the patterns and the beauty in the world,

Death is not an ending, no matter how much it may look like one. It is a natural transition back into the Force, the place all life comes from.

A Jedi youngling is someone for whom this understanding is an essential part of the culture they are being brought up in.

A Jedi Padawan is someone who is beginning to learn to apply this understanding outside the confines of the Jedi temple, in a world where not everyone shares it.

A Jedi Knight is someone who has learned to apply this understanding on their own, without supervision.

A Jedi Master is someone for whom this understanding has become intuitive and automatic, no matter their surroundings.

All this is to say,

[tansyuduri]

Merlin Loregasm Rewatch S1E3

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my rewatch of Merlin focusing on the lore. I am a giant nerd so pretty excited about this. THE MARK OF NIMUEH!

Gaius saying that people must not see this and they would panic is likley NOT just because this looks magical as hell. See we know from later episodes that while Gaius has mastered herb lore for many ailments and injuries and anatomy as well (This is also important as it also hints that Christianity has not spread and thus it being forbidden to cut up human bodies to learn how they work is not a thing.) He and thus likly Camalot in general still base medicine on the Humors System.

This system attributed most illness to an imbalance of the four bodily fluids or humors. (Worth looking up if you wanna know more) NOW since in the system everyone has a diferant balance of humors it could explain individual illnesses A LOT BETTER than many plagues (Why would everyone suddenly have the same imbalance of the Humors) This would usually lead to the idea that an individual's chance to get or die from the plage was due to preestablished susceptibility to the plague (explained later) Or the heavens being angry. WHY PLAUGE HAPPENS usually was attributed to Miasma (explained later in post) or the heavens being angry. AND YOU DON'T WANT PEOPLE THINKING THE HEAVENS ARE ANGRY.

Gaius is VERY ahead of his time in medicine by thinking that illness could be spread though air, food, or water later on. It hints that despite the humors system being in use medical understanding is more advanced in Camalot then it was most of the medieval ages. This is very possibly due to the fact that despite killing sorcerers (Or perhaps Gaius being an exception because he learned pre purge.)

Old pagan knowledge of herbs had not been crushed. AND what's more no one was going around murdering regular herbalists ETC suspecting they were evil magic users, Mostly because they had REAL magic users to hunt. Still the spread by water air or food we see mentioned later is WAY Ahead of its time.

Okay Gwen giving her father smoked pigeon as a seeminly every day meal perhaps continues my conept of Gwens father being a HIGHLY skilled blacksmith that serves the knights.

Meat was a rarity for the medieval commoner (We see this a lot in what Gaius and Merlin eat reguarly. Meat is a treat for them.) Pigeons were likely not eaten widely as anything but wild meat until the Norman period. Which means someone had to hunt and kill that bird. Which means this meat was bought or traded for. Which means Gwens family had the money for treats beyond the bare essentials (If we ignore history due to the show's anachronism we still have to compare this to Giaus and Merlin's usual food. (I know they talk about dresses later when he gets a really good job but we'll talk about that then. I'm also assuming this is everyday fare for them based on how they act.)

Okay its time to talk about how Gaius and Merlin talk about disease spreading through water or contact or food is HUGELY Advanced for its time. See from the forth centery BCE to the early 1800s CE Disease was a result of the humors, The anger of the Heavens, or Miasma (bad air emitting from rotten organic matter or other things.) This means that despite humorism being the main theory there is SOME understanding in the Merlin world that disease can be spread many ways. I really don't think they have germ theory though so I think they are just more advanced.

"He's got a grave Mental disease" AHHHH OKAY! So this means the Merlin world has a concept of Mental illness and that it's different from regular body illnesses. And this knowlage is common. Again this is HUGLY advanced for the time. So Humorism is the main theory! BUT They have concepts like infection, Mental illness, and an understanding disease can come from many places. All I can think is that this comes from having Magic in the world. And being able to actually study Anatomy. The people of the Merlin world understand the world better than most because they have more tools to study the world.

Okay so I love how Merlin plays fast and loose with magical creatures. (Especially because I can too writing my Merlin fics) I think the Afanc might be based PARTLY on the folklore Afanc but also had a bit of the Jewish Gollum in it with the born of clay thing. ANYHOW The Afanc is a creature from Welsh Mythology Its a lake monster that most closely resembles a crocadile, beaver, dwarf. It prayed on swimmers mostly or people who fell in water. There is a lot more but it is interesting that some Legends say King Arthur killed it!

Okay! So! see this candle!? This was a historical early method of keeping time. Each mark would be about an hour and as the candle burned down one would know the hours had passed! OPnce gunpower showed up they would sometimes put a bit in each hour as an alarm of sorts! I don't think this is a Gunpowder version!

So yeah this came from greek philosophy and was a thing for most of european history. The elements Water, Fire, Earth, and Air. were viewed as the building blocks of the world. Originaly air was viewed as Aether and filled the world in the absence of the other three. But in the Merlin world it is definitely Air as it's is later called wind. (Aether later came to represent heaven or the spirit as a 5th element)

These also related to Humorism discused before

Saying The Afanc born of earth and water can be killed with fire and air is one of two times the four elements get brought up in relation to magic in the series. (The other refers to a healing charm.)

Most other sorcerer created creatures we see can just be killed with fire and are not specifically corresponded to any element. This leads to the idea that this is kinda a rare thing. WHAT I do find interesting is that we KNOW the four elements correspond to certain types of healing in the Merlin universe (like I said other mention refers to a healing charm) And the Afanc is spreading magical disease. THAT might be why the elements are mentioned only here when it comes to magic-created creatures.

I find the wording here realy interesting because it talks about mirroring the spirit of life, not creating it. I'll have to contrast it with later talk about the spirit of life and death but this kinda implies even anciant sorcerers on their own can only MIRROR life not create it. Its not real life they make. Even Merlin's spell to create a butterfly at the end of the show means "to work, shape, bring into being or form" according to @catsconflictscopicsandchamomile My old English studying friend! (it is also used in OE translations of Genisis to mean make a life so it could mean Merlin is creating life and mirroring god, but if he could do that why not just bring Arthur back) SO it is likely this holds fast to the rule life cannot just be created!

HOLD ON. Is he just referring to Arthur's birth? It could just be Arthur's birth and his efforts through the purge, or has Nimueh pulled evil magic on Camelot post purge before?

[deservedgrace]

part of what makes explaining evangelical cult stuff so difficult for me is that a lot of tactics are only as effective as they are because they work in tandem with other tactics, and it requires a lot of explaining and context that's hard to talk about in a way that's coherent lol

example: i'm going through a transcript of a sermon from the church i used to go to and one of the things they did was talk about confirmation bias. thing is, they gave the webster dictionary definition and went "that's super confusing so let me break it down for you" and gave other definitions and examples and ended up with an example that wasn't really of confirmation bias, it was basically just having positive associations with certain things. and then they talked about using "confirmation bias" to have positive association with things throughout your day to remind you of christ

and i think a lot of things are pretty obvious surface level issues, like landing at an insufficient definition and understanding of confirmation bias, not engaging with the term as its meant to be used, treating it like something you have to lean into in order to further your relationship with christ

but the preacher also made an effort to make it seem like this incomprehensible and convoluted concept, both in language ("you guys are like 'confirmation bias? what does that mean?'", "that didn't make sense either lol, okay let me try to give you an example") and intentionally giving confusing definitions and using examples that don't really fit what confirmation bias is

and i can't help but think that's not a coincidence when a frequent argument i see against evangelical christianity is pointing out the confirmation bias that's kind of embedded in the culture. i can't help but wonder if making it sound like a really difficult concept to grasp makes it easier for people to dismiss those arguments because "it's super complicated so they probably don't understand it." i can't help but wonder if equating confirmation bias with Positive Associations and Thing You Should Be Doing to Help Your Relationship with Christ will only make members think outsiders' criticisms of it is an attack from Satan trying to tempt them. i can't help but wonder if making it seem like something that's impossible to understand deters people from looking into it on their own. i can't help but wonder if the pastor was trying to send a message (even subconsciously) that "you couldn't possibly understand these things on your own, you need the church to do it for you"

but like, all of these things are only effective because outside/alternative beliefs are demonized. you're taught "worldly" people are evil and satanic. you're taught you're supposed to be dependent and obedient to god/the church. you're told not to "fall victim to worldly thinking". you're taught non-believers think they're smart and knowledgeable, but they're actually foolish and don't know anything

and those things are only effective because you're told the church has the absolute truth. you're told you can't question doctrine. you're taught that doubting is sinful and you falling into your human nature and risks your salvation. you're told outsiders are empty and broken and incapable of real happiness or peace or goodness or love. you're told that you're like that too, by nature, and the only reason you're not is because you're here

and these things maintain effectiveness by using music, prayer, meditation, speaking in tongues, etc to alter your mental state. encouraging fasting and sleep deprivation and otherwise denying your needs to induce emotional states. using hypnotic methods. claiming brain chemistry is the holy spirit

and like, in my case of growing up in it, it's as effective as it is because the church is shaping your morality, your reality, your thought process, your beliefs, your common sense, your critical thinking skills, all of it. because you're not allowed access to outside perspectives. because you're constantly emotionally dangled just above the flames of hell. because you have to listen to and trust the adults around you or else they'll drop you in. because even if they do that, you only have yourself to blame for being sinful

like, how do you explain all that? that it's never just that one thing?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Charlie Rose: Listen to this, I hate to read too much, but this is, it's almost like they've been reading your book. This is from the New York Times for Friday May 24. "Americans flunk science, a study finds."

"Less than half of American adults understand that the Earth orbits the Sun yearly, according to a basic science survey. Nevertheless, there is enthusiasm for research, except in some fields like genetic engineering and nuclear power that are viewed with suspicion.

Only about 25 percent of American adults got passing grades in a National Science Foundation survey of what people know about basic science and economics."

I mean, this is singing your song isn't it?

Carl Sagan: Well, it's certainly what I'm talking about in "Demon-Haunted World." My feeling, Charlie, is that it's not that pseudoscience and superstition and new-age so-called beliefs and fundamentalist zealotry are something new. They've been with us for as long as we've been human. But we live in an age based on science and technology with formidable technological powers.

Rose: Science and technology are propelling us forward at accelerating rates.

Sagan: That's right, and if we don't understand it - and by we, I mean the general public - if it's something that, oh I'm not good at that, I don't know anything about it, then who is making all the decisions about science and technology that are gonna determine what kind of future our children live in? Just some members of Congress? But there's no more than a handful of members of Congress with any background in science at all. And the Republican Congress has just abolished its own office of Technology Assessment, the organization that gave them bipartisan competent advice on science and technology. They say, we don't want to know don't tell us about science and technology.

Rose: Surprising because Gingrich is genuinely interested, I think.

Sagan: He is, no question.

Rose: ... you know out of his own intellectual curiosity. Does the President still have a science adviser, at the White House?

Sagan: He does, he does, John Given. And the Vice President is scientifically literate, yes.

Rose: He's well known for being scientifically-- a science maven. I mean, you blast them all. Creationists, Christian Scientists who you say would rather allow their children to suffer than give them insulin or antibiotics. Astrologers come in for particular scorn on your part.

Sagan: Well, I wouldn't say scorn, just derision.

Rose: A more generous version of scorn. But what's the danger of all this? I mean, you know, this is not the thing--

Sagan: There's two kinds of dangers. One is what I just talked about, that we've arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is gonna blow up in our faces. I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy, if the people don't know anything about it.

And the second reason that I'm worried about this is that science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along. It's a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a constitution or a bill of rights. The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise, we don't run the government, the government runs us.

[devildevotee]

hello! we hope this is ok to ask, it's totally fine if you don't answer- but we've recently become interested in satanism and demon work, but we know exactly nothing about it or where to start. we did some basic research with academic sources like wikipedia but have no idea where to go from there. we're hesitant to just dive in on our own because we know there are a lot of bad sources and groups to avoid but don't actually know what those things are.

anyways, we trust your opinion and recommendations so we wanted to ask if you had any suggestions on how to go about researching and learning about theistic satanism for an absolute beginner! recommended books or articles, groups to avoid, red flags, anything like that would be very appreciated 💚 thank you so much!

okay so, this may be a controversial opinion but in my opinion (KEY WORD OPINION) you actually shouldn't only stick to unproblematic and valid uwu authors, because i'll be honest (in terms of satanism and demonolatry), there ARE no pure and good authors out there. every author out there, especially if you're reading a text from a long time ago, is going to have something you disagree with. you need to practice some form of critical engagement, additionally, because engaging with a text critically and understanding why it is wrong is way more important than just shutting out the information altogether. you will not learn anything if you pretend that problematic texts do not exist. i'm not saying this to be harsh, but there is a reason we research a variety of texts and perspectives in high school english class. you need to continue that kind of method when researching anything.

now that is covered, i'll tell you what i have read personally. taking the above into consideration, there are no authors here that don't have something deeply wrong about their texts. i did read their works, and i came to my own conclusions on whether i'm going to dub them an authority on satanism, and i suggest you do the same. satanism is about knowledge and drawing your own, unique conclusions. just make sure what you do adopt doesn't throw any groups of people under the bus, because we're not here to read books and thoughtlessly believe whatever the book says, especially when the book can have misinformation, or offensive content. this is very common in satanism; as much as people love to treat it like it's revolutionary and all-accepting, it can be just as, or even more, discriminatory or outright hateful as christianity, especially in the texts.

the most easy-to-find material:

ars goetia > pretty basic info, but very handy and simple to read

the infernal gospel > probably my favourite book on this list

the complete book of demonolatry > i don't agree with the author, but i got this one in my early days before i knew anything about said author. it's got some useful information, but there's a lot of misinfo

book of the fallen > useful rituals if i remember correctly, i sold this book so i can't recheck

at satan's altar > also an interesting book

the goetia devils > has a lot of what i assume is upg... seems to conflict with what i've seen from other practitioners

the goetic hymns > second favourite book

the satanic philosopher > i found this one hard to read personally

esoterica > youtube channel with amazing information on demonolatry and its history, i suggest getting into this before doing anything else.

all of these websites.

and lastly, i also got like 50+ older texts i got as a bundle off etsy that i can't remember the names of. i wish i could give them to you, but i genuinely have lost every single text i got in the bundle due to me changing computers. i suggest looking on etsy for similar bundles on satanism and demonolatry if you want to get into the historical meat of things.

that being said, my actual last thing i want to say is not to get too entrenched into the theory. the texts are handy, sure! but the one thing i have found the most useful is by engaging with the community. most of my wealth of knowledge did NOT come from texts or media, it came from those around me talking about their experiences. if you want to learn, and i mean REALLY learn about demons and satan, get into the community hardcore and you will learn something new every day. talk to people, make friends, don't do this alone.

edit: okay one more thing. this does go against what i was saying to some degree but i do have a limit to that logic. avoid joy of satan. they're n/eonazis and come on this website regularly. avoid them, avoid them, avoid them.

[thegodwhocums]

Will get to yours tomorrow promise but! 14, also 29, 32

no hurry on my account! take your time.

14. How different do you think your gods are from other religion's gods? What work have you done to deconstruct that?

there are overlaps in attributes of the gods I encounter/honor and gods from other pantheons, but obviously all are distinct.

the Christian god is an authoritarian and I don't honor gods like that. my Jewish partner is a pantheist so I prob can't extrapolate a ton from their descriptions of the divine in Judaism, but that is a pretty different arrangement, if occasionally similar vibe. I don't know Allah's vibe well enough to make a comparison (my closest Muslim friends are non-practicing). note that while it is pretty common to collapse them into one "abrahamic" (or worse, "judeo-christian") entity, I do see those three aspects of divinity as distinct.

I'm familiar with the Orishas, who are stricter than my gods; the Hindu gods, who are quite similar broadly though obviously connected to a living and thus far more robust tradition; and the Shinto kami who are so land-tied that I cannot imagine trying to honor them away from their original homes. they are a different kind of entity. Catholic saints are closer to how I consider heroes than gods, and vibe-wise very different. the indigenous gods of the place where I live are not entities that I have access to, so I can't compare.

the second question doesn't make much sense to me, sorry. not sure what I'm supposed to be deconstructing. my evaluations are based on experience and on observing the rituals around these different gods. others' experiences with the same deities may differ from mine.

29. Why are you a witch? What need does it serve?

I am a participant in the life force of the universe. I am not spectating. I'm an animist in conversation with the world around me, and within those relationships I can both listen and make my own suggestions. being a witch means learning the languages of other kinds of life, and being in relationship with them. for me it means gratitude, respect, and strong boundaries with spirits of all kinds. it means asking firmly for what I need and getting results when they count.

it's not exactly about serving a need. it's a true thing about me that I knew was true the same way some people know that they're trans. (for me the gender stuff came much later.) not because I have any kind of innate power that others don't, just because of how I relate to the world.

32. What's your hottest take in the witchcraft space?

ok. learning ONLY through instruction, from books and videos, without an experiential element from some sort of mentor, makes it much more difficult to train up witches who actually do anything that works. (which sucks bc that's all most people have - this isn't a dig at them.)

state transmission through text or video is possible, but it is difficult to precisely control the state. reading about a psychedelic trip or an orgasm cannot really prepare you for what it feels like to experience those things yourself - and energy work is similar. with sex and drugs the response is more automatic - in trance and energy work, you have to guide yourself to a state that isn't necessarily obvious if you've never experienced it before. and ideally I think novices would be able to have an experienced guide or mentor explain, this is how the energy should feel, and be able to supervise while the novice figures it out. but most people don't have access to a mentor or instructor, and people presenting themselves in those positions of knowledgeability are pretty often manipulative power-hungry shitbags not actually concerned with the nurturing of new practitioners. this sucks for us all and makes for a lot of people who are following the right steps without seeing results. which is totally avoidable!

when you learn to make sauerkraut, you need somebody to sniff the crock and tell you if it's still food. that's something that is super difficult to figure out without a knowledgeable guide. ideally we're not getting botulism AND when people decide to get into witchcraft they're learning in a way that actually enables them to do magic that works. so I guess my take is: mentorship is good, actually.

[the-light-of-stars]

ok but now I need to know your thoughts on the taylor swift lyrics. what songs did you analyze and what were your thoughts on them????

Alright so first of all for context:

this was a lecture about the literary era of romanticism, so for most of that lecture we had been talking about the literary and philosophical concepts and ideas present in that era.

And then the professor went "ok so I am not a swiftie - I haven't even listened to her newest album yet - but I believe Swift's music greatly encapsulates a - simplified , pop-cultural - continuation of the ideas of romanticism in the modern day....so let's analyse some of her song lyrics-"

So he had us quickly look at a few song lyrics from different songs of hers, but the ones he stayed on longest - and the ones he had us do proper academic analysis of - were these from "My tears ricochet" from her Folklore album:

I have to note that these aren't my personal thoughts, I'm just recounting what happened in the lecture, and I'm putting this under a cut so that it isn't super long :

So multiple students (it was a very tightly filled classroom, had to be at least 100-150 students there) had participated in analysing these lyrics and I gotta be honest I don't remember most of the exact details of their analysis because I had a lot of classes today and had been awake since 6am but I'll try to summarize as best I can.

Essentially the main point was the comparison of these lyrics with philosophical concepts by Schelling and especially a comparison in context of this aphorism by german romanticist poet Novalis:

"Wir suchen überall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dinge"

["Everywhere we look for the Absolute yet we can only ever find things." (in the original german it is a wordplay)]

So one angle of analysis was that these two verses of Swift's lyrics follow this philosophical concept as posited by Hardenberg/Novalis - such as "home" here, as the only defined location, representing the Absolute , the object of Longing as it is conceptualised in romanticism, this that is desired innately but cannot be reached in ways humanly possible, as humans can only ever find "Things": abstractions, objects and concepts limited in their scope and at most a reflection of the Absolute, something that can at best be asymptotically approximated but not be directly perceived or grasped physically or intellectually. Thus here the idea that the lyrical "I" can go "anywhere" and , following that, observe anything, and yet will always be unable to reach the defined and Absolute of "home."

Home then, as defined by other students in the lecture, would be the innate idea of some sort of absolute security in the self, a place of comfort and belonging and a place of certainty. Home, thus, as not just a location but as a concept: a kind of pre-conscious knowledge of being ('Being' here possibly in the hegelian sense), an experience of pure existence. Suppose an analysis also referencing Spinoza's concept of the Substance, the natura naturans, which singular modi are necessarily extensions of and ultimately 'return' to ( 'return' here used simplifying, as modi constituate extensions or aspects of the indivisible infinite Substance under the attributes of Thought and Extension, which thus cannot really be divided and, following, cannot 'return' to it since they were never truly separated.)

Of course, romanticism and general philosophy of the era being concerned with theological questions as well, one student pointed out another angle to view Swift's lyrics under in regards to romanticist theoreticism, that being the theological one: "Home" as the Absolute and the Absolute as God or a christian-mysticist interpretation of it either way, "Anywhere" as the world of human perception and "Home" as the world of god that life springs from, in relation to an article the professor had mentioned about a Times (iirc) journalist visiting a Taylor Swift concert and calling it a "religious experience" to sing specifically the quoted line with and within a crowd of tens of thousands of people.

In regards to this last point the professor also specified that "religious experience" here is not necessarily limited to the scope of (protestant) christianity but rather is to be seen as some sort of pre- or post-religious understanding of a form of ontological transcendence that escapes the boundaries of rational describability.

Following that we also analysed the album title and its cover art:

The romanticist connection in the title being fairly obvious as "Folklore" as a literary category is something romanticist authors in their nature-mysticism and attempt at distinction from Enlightenment era concepts of pure reason loved to discuss, recreate and include in their works.

Furthermore then the connection of the cover art , which students compared to works of famous romanticist painter Caspar David Friedrich (here the painting "Easter Morning"):

The composition of a lone human figure among the trees during a foggy morning or evening is a very popular motif in (german) romanticism as the fog represents the Unknown and - as mentioned above - the always out of reach and never truly perceptible (by human means) Absolute as well as the everlasting Longing towards it. The trees and forests as well a popular romanticist theme as part of its nature-mysticism and above mentioned contrast to the Enlightenment rationalism as practiced in the cities and structured human society.

Apparently on either this or the Evermore album (I don't know on which as I don't listen to Swift's songs and can't remember which song exactly the professor quoted there) there is a lyric saying "we are the new romanticists" as well.

All this to say that after probably twenty minutes of analysing Taylor Swift lyrics in an academic framework of literary theory and ontological philosophy- as well as repeated promises by the professor that he "is not a swiftie" - the prof stated that "Taylor Swift probably didn't put nearly as much thought into this as we did just now but she is an international phenomenon and does - wether intentional or not - make use of concepts and ideas used in romanticist writing and philosophy so analysing her lyrics seemed apt."

[the-idiot-17]

ok Ima say something a little controversial

why do people look at evolution as If it is steadfast knowledge? I mean evolution does have ground, yes, but to say evolution is 100% proven to be true would be false.

I could make the same argument for creationism btw, "Oh but look at all this evidence toward a creator" yes yes evidence exists for both cases but that's not my point

My point is that people blindly put faith in a system of science that is a THEORY, evolution is a theoretical possibility for how the world came to be just as creationism is a theoretical possibility.

As I just pointed out yes there us evidence but evidence is nothing without the big picture. We have no clue how the world actually came to be and we shouldn't be fighting eachother over it.

A true scientist would go out of their way learn everything they can about the known universe and pick up all the little clues before deciding whether or not to support evolution theory or creation theory, it's basic math. (The dyscalcular person says)

All I'm saying is that I believe we let our views of the world get mixed too much into science, of course a Christian is more likely to study creationism and of course an atheist is more likely to study evolution. I'm not saying people don't do otherwise I'm just saying that's the most likely to be true.

Also as people who are not of science, we need to stop blindly trusting the world when it says the earth was made this way or that.

For hundreds of years people believed the sun circled the earth, they even has false evidence to prove themselves correct.

Im not saying that the sun circles the earth, I'm just saying that I believe everything and anything has the chance to be wrong, any if our world views could be shattered at any point in time.

Any thanks for listening to my Ted talk, I'm not a scientist, I'm a 15 year old sitting in my room ranting about shut I don't know.

Dont come after me.

[gryficowa]

We'll laugh, he tries to push me, but it fails

My grandmother was born a few years after the end of the war, and the second one wasn't even Polish, but French, so yes, I'm trying to push, but it doesn't work very well

Plus I'm Kashubian, so even better

The Kashubian griffin is waiting to show off his knowledge of Poland

Yes, yes, because being pro-Israel and saying that Palestinians are not called terrorists, and yet insisting that Israel should stay, even though the country was created in such a way that the US put people of Jewish origin in this place, and they started attacking Palestinians and gradually depriving them of any rights because they are Jews and they can, because if you criticize, you are an anti-Semite

I'll probably be an anti-Semite because I criticize a Jew, it's a pity that he showed his xenophobic side, because I'm sorry, but your origin doesn't change anything, if you're trash, you're trash, isn't that what equality should look like? On not justifying evil just because of its origin? And yes, we have reached such absurdity, that if Israel or the Christian church commits genocides, should we seriously accept it because they are discriminated against? Well, this is no longer a fight against discrimination, it is a fight to ensure that those discriminated against can go unpunished in such situations

Do you know who is from the discriminated group? Me, I have ASD, I'm aroace (Queer) and I'm a fucking national minority in my country because I'm fucking Kashubian

In addition, I have fucking social anxiety, but I have to endure a lot, in 2020 my country created a campaign against queer people, and on top of that, the church took part in signing the "Stop-LGBT" petition and pro-life people with vans were driving and tearing all kinds of disgusting things on the topic of queer people (Fuck, I mentioned that my country did this, but no, I'm probably too privileged because yes)

I live with my mother, my sister and her daughter, because they don't want to hire me, because fuck "They don't have accommodations for people like me", but I still hear them calling me a freeloader on the Internet

And now the Palestinians, who don't even have anything to survive because Israel is fucking taking it from them, and are victims of terrorist attacks (But they're Jews, so don't say anything, or you'll be an anti-Semite, classic, right?), they don't even have work, because Israel loves to take away their freedom to move, because there has never been fucking segregation in history, and if they rebel, they are terrorists, a lot of people there are fucking starving because Israel is stingy

People from Palestine are treated like shit, but go on and say that they persecute Jews because they support Palestine and despise what fucking Israel is, and then write that Hitler would be proud that you criticize Jews for what they write (And yes, a lot I have mentioned many times that there are a lot of Jews behind Palestine and I will say one thing: You are fucking great, you have courage and you stand on the side of the weaker, unfortunately, I see how other Jews laugh at you in the comments, which is sad, but don't give up, because remember, there is strength in the masses)

(Mabel for those who fight for Palestine despite being attacked in the comments by other Jews)

Unfortunately, many such wonderful people are lost among Israelis who are happy about the deaths of children and attack everyone for anti-Semitism

So yes, I could write mainly about myself, but I can't think only about myself (Unfortunately, communication problems are difficult, especially when you try to describe your thoughts), but I have to add this, simply one Jew being pro-Israel will not hide other Jews who are for Palestine, one xenophobe Jew will not cover those who have a lot of empathy, if we criticize Jews, it is those from Israel, people outside Israel are not to blame for all this, all we can hope is that somewhere in Israel there is an Israeli who is not happy with what his country is doing and is fed up with other Israelis using anti-Semitism as a defensive shield every time someone talks about Israel's crimes, Unfortunately, I haven't met such a person yet and I'm starting to doubt whether this hope is false, because none of us wants to believe that the world is black and white, that there are no people in a specific place who are the only ones who don't like what they do. their country

Seriously, I saw Jews who are for Palestine, but many of them were from outside Israel, so I'm afraid this hope is false

[mlobsters]

supernatural s14e1 stranger in a strange land (w. andrew dabb)

pre-ep recap being ac/dc shot down in flames much better fit than metallica's nothing else matters from 13x01 vibe-wise and matching the pace of the clips. good job, guys. and smooth segue to it being on in the car

s14e1 / the matrix

wtf jackles, what is this speaking voice/cadence. reminds me of keanu reeves?? usually when i make really out there sound associations, i'm a little high. but that is not the case today. he's acting more like an agent than neo, but getting the keanu vibes :p i can't think of what movie specifically i'm thinking of. the devil's advocate and constantine are the other two keanu movies i've seen a bunch, but i dunno

never good when i'm pulling a clip in the first few minutes 🥴 gonna be a 2-3 day watch i'm guessing.

also don't really understand the styling choices. i get that it helps make a big visual difference between michael and dean, but like. dude wasn't dressing like this old timey fancy man with a flat cap in the au world. is this 20s-ish? never seen peaky blinders but this seems kinda similar? reading about collar pins and bars now. lol

is this the grief beard i've heard about. well maintained, if so

MARY Sam, we’re gonna find him. Ketch is working that thing in London. Castiel is in Detroit. I know it’s been three weeks since Dean… Something will break. It has to. SAM Yeah. Yeah, you keep saying that.

so like why does sam need to be in charge and involved in this vampire thing with this bunker full of people? they were fully self organized and fighting before they came here. even if sam is de facto leader for whatever reason; delegate, my guy. no help to anyone if you're not sleeping. call jody in, i bet she could talk some sense into him. also vaguely funny that we're all Team Family Go! but the family i connect with the most for them is jody and her girls

CASTIEL Does any demon know where Dean Winchester is? KIPLING I’m sorry, did you just say you lost a Winchester? Because, one -- that’s… interesting. And, two, how is that you lost Dean? I thought the two of you were joined at the… [Kipling glances down in a suggestive way.] …you know, everything.

in a way i wish i could have watched this without any knowledge of fandom because my knee jerk response is, ew. because i just don't see anything between dean and cas, i have a hard time grasping they're even close, i've just tried to accept it because the show tells us all the time. but maybe i could have come around to it more if i didn't know about the screaming zeitgeist that is destiel. or maybe i'd have the same reaction, i don't know. but anyway perpetually disgruntled knowing that my reaction is always colored somewhat due to fandom. i try to watch objectively but i know my feelings on things outside the show color my feelings of stuff inside the show

oh, cas. what have you gotten yourself into this time.

mmmk

SISTER JO Why would he say “yes” to you? MICHAEL Love.

short and sweet

man i know jackles is trying to do something different but i do not enjoy the way he's speaking as michael. ok now i'm getting umm. brad pitt in interview with the vampire?? like when he's talking to what's his face. for the interview. lol. christian slater! kind of slow, flat fairly emotionless narration.

um. how in the world is nick's soul in his vessel? didn't crowley remake it or whatever? or did he not die at any point in the ... 7 years intervening between lucifer dumping him in s5 and getting popped back in during s12

from 12x13 CROWLEY I managed to pervert that spell. So your essence wasn't sent back to the cage, but instead, we found your discarded vessel a few years ago… repaired it, improved it, making it a fitting final home for the real you.

whatever, man. nothing makes sense to me anymore. also thinking about jimmy novak called being possessed by castiel like "being chained to a comet" - for all those years

NICK Ow. I don't get it. I don't understand how Lucifer could die and I could live. SAM Yeah, um… I think that maybe it's because the archangel blades were made to kill the archangel inside a-and not the person they, uh -- NICK Possesses and uses to almost end the world twice?

sure. SURE. that makes sense. not at all how anything else ever works on this show, but sure! i mean, i love mark pellegrino too but come on, guys.

SAM Stop saying that, please. MARY What? SAM “It's gonna be fine,” that everything's gonna be fine, we're gonna find Dean, and -- MARY We are. SAM You don't know that. Dean's gone, and we have no idea where he is or -- or if he's even still alive. You know, Michael could have… burned him out or… worse, and… MARY I know. I know he's out there, scared and alone. I know. I know he might never come back. Never think I don't know that. But -- I can't -- I have to think about the good, Sam, because, if I don't, I will drown in the bad. For Dean's sake, I can't do that. We can't do that.

that's fine and reasonable but it's also reasonable that sam doesn't want to hear a baseless placation.

jack getting a grandpa bobby now too apparently

completely zoning out on this demon monologuing. why did they bring the girl along who isn't a hunter. what happened to the devil's trap bullets? and couldn't they make the bullets made out of the angel blades they had on the au world? because with all the dead angels they surely must have a stockpile. wouldn't get this several minute action sequence with fake tension though so

SAM Enough! There will be no new King of Hell. Not today. Not ever. And if anybody wants the job, you can come through me. Understood? (breathing heavily) So, what's it gonna be?

lol okay

SAM It's the -- It's the magic egg that kicked Lucifer out of the President. I thought we could use it on Michael, but -- Ketch can't find it. So, that's another dead end, which is just awesome.

i'm glad the show remembered because i completely forgot about that thing. thanks for preemptively ruling it out

CASTIEL Sam, are you all right? SAM Yeah, I've been better. I've been worse. You? CASTIEL I'm -- I'm just sorry. I should never have gone to those demons. SAM Cass, I -- No, I-I-I don't blame you. I… Honestly, I-I wish I'd have thought of it first. If it meant finding Dean, I-I'd work with -- I'd do anything.

❤️ take what i can get. (still need to sleep, sammy)

MICHAEL Now, you -- you know exactly what you want. You don't pretend to want to help people or save the world. Your want is pure and simple and clean. And that's why you are worth saving. That's why we are going to work so well together. Because you -- you just want to eat.

LOL what. michael loves vampires!

!! omg lol i just reread my 13x23 with my whole "can't kill michael now that he's wearing dean" is that the whole reason we get pellegrino back as nick, so we can find out that archangel blades don't kill the vessel?? 😂

[eldritch-queern-magicat]

Actually, no, I haven't really changed at all since middle school. I'm still the same deeply creative weirdo with ever-growing eclectic interests. A happily blooming nerd. If I learned about something in school, I wanted to explore it at home, on my own. That's really how the electronics disaster happened. I'm actually incredibly grateful Mom and Dad monitored my Internet use. I am way too curious sometimes. And I have to see shit for myself extremely often.

I wasn't let back out properly as a specific part until sometime in the sixth grade. It was partially the cats, but also realizing Nanny probably wouldn't be around much longer. So when she did die, I was more relieved than anything else. I used to feel bad that I hadn't cried for her.

But she was stifling me and trying to tell me what to be. She didn't like me being curious about makeup? I was low-key kinda thrilled when I got makeup for Christmas in my senior year of high school. I like color. A lot. I used to constantly change my favorite color. Now I just say I love the entire rainbow.

And I had to hide that I absolutely loved Pokémon. I think she thought it was glorifying violence, but it's more like competitive high-contact sports. Either that, or it was the racism. Frankly, probably both. It's probably the one thing she might have been worse than foster care about. But honestly, watching all the stuff that had to do with entirely different cultures was so good for me. It still exposed me to to new ideas and lessons when I actually needed it. Among them, I started passively absorbing any little bit when Taoism or Buddhism were significant themes. Paired with Bible study on Saturday morning, I guess I managed better than I thought.

She was surprisingly ok with when I was really into western fantasy like Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I think she was also ok with Power Rangers and ThunderCats (the original). At least she validated my love of learning new things and legit gave me old text books (that I don't know where she even got) to look at science subjects at home.

I think that really started in the seventh grade when I got so obsessed with astronomy and in particular, black holes. It just amazed me how unfathomably massive the universe is. How far it goes, how long even light takes to travel through it. I couldn't help but find the divine in the actual, physical cosmos. And it was there with every part of it. I would think, ‘How can everything in this physical reality be bad if God had said it was good in the beginning? Surely we haven't corrupted everything. Cats and dogs know about compassion, in a sense. That's good and beautiful.’

It wasn't hard at all to be better than foster care, but she actually was. She did encourage me to ask questions if I was confused. She clarified a lot of the literalist theology so I could start to understand it. I think I asked to study the bible with her, with that very hope. According to Dad, she could keep up with devout Catholics. I had two different children's bibles at her trailer, plus she bought me my own standard bible when I was ten, for my birthday. She and Mom took me to the book store at the mall, and had them print my casual first name with my last name at the bottom right corner of the front in silver letters.

Fun fact, someone actually jokingly asked if I'd grown up Catholic because of my apparently deep knowledge of Christianity. That was during the summer last year. The irony of my current proximity to the nearest Catholic church is not lost on me.

What fucked me back up was how I was treated during high school a lot by peers and family, and largely I just got angrier more than anything else. I was trying my best to do better when it all started going downhill fast again. But apparently I was still not good enough. My cousins suddenly became spoiled brats because of my needs frequently not being met entirely, but they seemed so much better adjusted. They didn't understand, and I didn't know how to break my silence. So I started lashing out because i really didn't have the social skills I needed. So yeah, I was definitely an asshole at times. The bullshit from foster care got a refresh, and I was forced to submit to their training again.

Never had any serious issues with Grandma, though in typical moody teenager fashion, I was sometimes a brat.

There's a reason I didn't really come out of my shell again until my junior year of high school. I decided to try to be more brave the year before, since I knew I'd graduate in Ohio. I got better at my art and creative writing, and it seemed to give me a way to connect with others. I decided to go for the culinary class at the career center because hey--good food--and the only thing that was in question was my literal birth date and legal age restrictions with the student restaurant. I got in. Mom and Dad made absolutely sure it was paid for. So I decided to do another nuts thing and go try out for the spring musical. I met one of my closest friends that way. Truly a charismatic character (gonna tag you, @themerrymutants I miss you). I felt accepted and encouraged, like family is supposed to make you feel.

Memories are really just flooding in now, it's a just lot to process. Maybe it's because while answering the person on anon, I opened up a lot of my own psychological cupboards. I never really said a lot of that at once, let alone even explained my logic behind it all. It put a lot of things into perspective for me.

And I just can't help but think, oh, shit, I actually am competent. But I was constantly second-guessing myself because so many of the people around me were hellbent on judging everything I did. Now I understand that in those cases, they most likely feared how authentic I am. Some people, more or less depending on where I was at any given time, thought I was pretty cool because I was so authentic.

I stopped fronting almost entirely when Mom died. I still hadn't recovered at all from literally anything, and didn't know how to handle that. It took cycling through different roles to find something productive for me. I shattered, and ended up pushing most of my remaining idealism into the then-evolving Lilitu.

But I was always at my best when I was true to myself. There were still plenty of people who loved me for who I really was. And that was just enough to keep going. That is precisely what fueled my spite against others who didn't like me. And Mom sure as fuck never quit going.

-Era 🍎😺

[daturamagic]

Below is a reflection on a friend I have, it is not an insult to my friend or to Catholicism. (Text in Spanish and below in English)

Desde hace unos meses soy amiga de la persona más simple e ingenua que conocí, pero está bien!! Me cae bien pero a veces es molesto el nivel de conformidad que maneja. No por generalizar pero es... Demasiado cristiana, en términos de lavado de cerebro y sumisión, solo para que entiendan de lo que hablo.

Me intriga mucho la manera en la que su cabeza funciona, porque no se cuestiona NADA. Podés hacerle la pregunta más fácil, incluso sobre ella misma, y no va a saber dar una respuesta concreta, solo va a decir "No sé, no pienso en esas cosas".

No me malinterpreten, amo a mi amiga, es buena conmigo y nos llevamos bien pero su forma de pensar (o de no pensar) no solo genera curiosidad en mí, si no también despierta conflictos entre nostros. A veces su ignorancia respecto a ciertos temas hace que se dé una idea equivocada d como realmente son las cosas, pero tampoco acepta ninguna corrección que le intentes hacer. No es que yo sea la verdad absoluta pero si alguien tiene un punto de vista diferente o una corrección para hacerme, BIENVENIDO SEA EL CONOCIMIENTO. Esa es la diferencia entre nosotros, cuando quiero aportar algo ella solo se exalta y se enoja, así que estoy constantemente cuidando lo que digo porque no hay forma de abrirle la cabeza.

ENGLISH (translation may be wrong)

For a few months I've been friends with the simplest and most naive person I've ever met, but that's okay!! I like her but sometimes it's annoying how much she conforms. Not to generalize but she's... Too Christian, in terms of brainwashing and submission, just so you understand what I'm talking about.

I'm very intrigued by the way her head works, because she doesn't question ANYTHING. You can ask her the easiest question, even about herself, and she won't be able to give a concrete answer, she'll just say "I don't know, I don't think about those things."

Don't get me wrong, I love my friend, she's good to me and we get along but her way of thinking (or not thinking) not only generates curiosity in me, but also sparks conflicts between us. Sometimes her ignorance regarding certain subjects makes her get the wrong idea of how things really are, but she also doesn't accept any correction you try to make. It's not that I'm the absolute truth, but if someone has a different point of view or a correction to make, KNOWLEDGE IS WELCOME. That's the difference between us, when I want to contribute something she just gets excited and angry, so I'm constantly watching what I say because there's no way to crack her head.

[creature-wizard]

I wish more people who talked about Michelle Remembers (the book that started the satanic ritual abuse panic) would quit merely just saying "there's no evidence that any of this happened" and start talking about the really obvious bullshit in it. Like if you want to discredit this book, talk about how damn absurd it gets.

Like for example, this demonically possessed woman who morphs her face and spins her head around:

She was just trying to make friends when she first came. Like one minute she's talking to me like I'm a nice little kid, and the next minute she's this ugly thing. She just turned her head around and looked back at me and changed her face. It was the same face saw in the car that night. Its eyes looked like they go way back and stick way out at the same time. Everything about it's unclean. Its nostrils are much bigger than they should be, and it has an ugly mouth. She has this long tongue that can go way out, like a snake's tongue. She's saying really disgusting things but they're all in a different language. She drools a lot and her head starts to go all funny and spins around.

This dude getting his Doctor Frankenstein on:

Michelle was strapped to a stretcher. The doctor came over and looked down at her expressionlessly. Then he went to a table, picked up some metal things—knives, it seemed—and went to one of the bodies.

God help me! Oh, God! He cut off its feet! Oh, no, I don't want to hear. I can hear him cutting its legs. I can hear him cutting the bones up. Oh, no! How can I live with it? Can people live with it? I'm sure I'm going to die. Oh, God, that's what they're going to do to me next.

…

When the doctor had finished with one body, he went to the next and proceeded in exactly the same fashion, until the floor was running with blood and red-stumped members were littered everywhere. And then, just as matter-of-factly, he reversed the process. He picked up a thigh segment from a woman's body and, with fine wire and a needle, began to stitch it onto the torso of one of the males. Then, from still another of the bodies, a lower leg. On he went, limb by limb, assembling a macabre composite, until one body was complete. Finally he attached thick black wires to its limbs. And suddenly, to the child's absolute horror, the body came alive.

Satan physically manifesting and hamming it up in verses and rhyme:

Satan laughed again.

People will do anything for a child. They will kill and steal and run wild. Fall into my pit.

He slammed his tail on the ground. It was like a thunderclap. The hole closed up.

In his Master Plan, Satan had spoken of All Saints' Day:

You'll know the day the march is begun. It's the day they say all saints are one. You'll know and feel it in the air. You'll know and feel the despair.

Satan's oh-so-powerful tail:

The fire at Satan's back as he stood at the rough altar threw his shadow against the ceiling of the round room. Michelle stood next to him, held captive by his burning tail.

Satanic arithmetic:

For ten days Michelle conveyed Satan's counting rhymes, word by word, line by line. At the end, she and Dr. Pazder and Father Guy analyzed the rhymes. They consulted scholarly works on the subject and telephoned certain churchmen with special knowledge. They discovered that, for Satan, numbers have power in themselves, and his counting is a way of controlling that power spiritually. And they arrived at tentative explanations for some of those rhymes.

One and one equal two. These are bones that once were new. Add them up, you'll think it's right. Add them my way, it makes a fight!

The way "you'll think it's right" is the way people normally add one plus one equal two. But done Satan's way, an X is used instead of a plus sign—since the plus sign is also the symbol he hates, the Christian cross. The X between the ones makes them "fight."

One times three Equal me.

Three, for Satan, is the sign of the Trinity. He himself is the one. The times sign, an X, symbolizes his primal fight with the Trinity, a fight he expects to win.

Twenty-eight Is the gate. Divide by four And you'll reach the core.

Twenty-eight is the "gate"—the opening to the Satanic future because it is every twenty-eight years that Satan returns to earth, and because twenty-eight is traditionally Satan's number. He divides it by four because four has always been a spiritually powerful number: There are four seasons, four directions, four elements, four Gospels. The quotient is seven, which is the largest nondivisible integer.

Like, the early parts of the books are like... kind of almost believable, but the further on it goes sillier it gets. We really, really need to talk about what an extraordinarily silly book Michelle Remembers actually is.

[isekai-crow]

Doctor Elise Ep 2

So much for trying to do individual episode posts every week! We gonna do them in clumps and queue-away instead because life gets in the way some times! Trying to still break them up by episode though~

If episode 1 was the introduction to how the reincarnation stuff works and her previous life, episode 2 is the introduction to Fantasy Britannia/Germany/Russia before the Fantasy Crimean War, and setting up the premise of the show. The royal family are the de Romanoffs but they're blond haired and blue eyed, and the world feels more German than British, so FANTASY EUROPE IT IS YALL.

BY THE WAY Elise is from the de Clorance family which is hiLARIous play of FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE!!!

Also. We get a character that WAS NOT IN THE MANHWA and LOOKS LIKE HAKU FROM SPIRITED AWAY. I didn't completely forget this man from the manhwa did I???? It's been a year or two since I read it but I wouldn't forget a long haired man.

Spoilers and Pictures below the cut

HELLO WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU??? THE SNARKY KING'S GUARD??? (IS THIS GOING TO BE A RARE PAIR SHIP because I'm here for it. A guard who demands that everyone respects the king but keeps interrupting the man himself??? yes, hello, thank you lmfao)

MAN I wish I had hair as gorgeous as this king. (Who is voiced by Inoue, Kazuhiko who plays Kakashi (Naruto), Madara(Natsume), and fricken YUKI FROM GRAVITATION BTW LMFAO)

and HERE he is.. Prince Sparkly Himself!!! Prince Linden de Romanoff.

He looks like he's going to be your typical Ice Prince, but this man blushes SO DAMN MUCH ITS REALLY CUTE.

I was trying to figure out why he has two voice actors and... Well. His main voice actor is Azakami, Youhei who plays a ton of supporting characters, including a dozen of small roles in Aggretsukko which is hilarious to think about.

Anyways, we get a lot of set-up about who Elise was before she died in her first life, and a declaration that she no longer wants to marry the crown prince and instead wants to be a doctor, setting up the stakes for the story, and gives us some fun Doctor flavored power fantasy tidbits, with a fairly accurate(?) diabetes diagnosis!

She's not trying to hide her knowledge at all, including knowledge about what's to come like war tactics, but the hand waving of (OH, I read about it in a book! Oh, I was just thinking about the topic very hard!) is very powerful magic in this world it seems.

Elise makes a wager with the King that if she can pass the medical exam, she gets to call of the engagement. Everyone thinks she's craycray, but this girl has a one track mind that has jumped of the rails of PrincePrincePrince and on to ScalpelScalpelScalpel.

But also. This girl legit smiles at him while thinking about surgery and doctor stuff, and has him blushing. This man has zero interest or experience with women up until now, and it shows, or will show in later episodes.

ELISE is also oblivious to this as she apologizes for everything she's done up until now, and everything she hasn't dont yet in this time line. And is like.. "I know you don't want this engagement, so sorry for forcing you and always stepping over your boundaries."

YOU DID BRUH. IN YOUR PAST LIFE.

It feels like your typical self sacrificing female protag in a shojo. BUT. She's self-sacrificing for the selfish (positive) sake of CUTTING PEOPLE OPEN!!! It's cute to know the romance will have a base to build off of though, and hopefully be realistic.

My favorite take from this episode, and in the series so far though is...

Capybara: THERE IS NO CULTURAL TOUCH STONE IN THIS WORLD FOR MOTHER TERESA!!! Crow: YOU DON'T KNOW THAT. Capybara: ...I don't know that. But there's no Christianity in this world!!! Crow: You don't know that. Capybara: ...I don't know that. NO CHRISTIANITY IN MY ISEKAI PLEASE!!!

Moral of the story: Anything goes in an Isekai. Just don't look to closely or you'll break it. lolol