#i feel like maybe they had one token queer in their midst
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you know the PW games had to be EXCLUSIVELY written by straight people bc it was so homoerotic without them trying and when they DID try their boss was like no wait it was better when you were doing it by accident
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I lost the friend circle I had for the longest time, despite the fact that these are ironically the same people that got me into Hetalia in the first place, because I found out too late that theyâve been judging me for still liking it 10 years later. Itâs one thing to be polite, but it broke my spirit that it they judged me for it, regardless of how polite theyâve been. All that despite the fact that I have publicly (and loudly so, because God knows how tired I am of people reducing me into an apologist) shut down fellow fans for the fascist undertones in their cosplays and fanart. I was in the Hetalia Day cosplay panel the year a young one from the audience asked the GAP trio (Germany, Austria, Prussia) their thoughts on Hitler â we circumvented the question our own ways if that helped.
Youâd think that would be laudable for a veteran fan to achieve, but no, instead weâre made laughable for it. And at the end of it all, none of that apparently meant any inch of goodness in me to my longest friends. Until now, I still struggle to admit that they aged into bad friends. Some of the happiest times of my life had been with them, after all. One of them was that token academic overachiever of the squad, an avid bookworm, and an incredible writer, whom, despite all their brilliance, was proud that weâre no longer friends just because I âdefendedâ Hetalia.
One of the most painful things I was told â not by the same friends â was that I had to accept that not everyoneâs gonna accept me. On the one hand, we could give the benefit of the doubt that it was the common mistake of âacceptance = approvalâ when it wasnât. On the other hand, if we were to believe they meant what they said with full understanding, then Iâd dare say that said more than enough about what kind of terrible company I was with. As I told a moot, acceptance is not a feeling, itâs an act. You just do it.
If I might play devilâs advocate, try making that advice to someone who was BIPOC/queer/disabled/etc., and understand that that kind of statement was what fuels the fire of racism, queerphobia, ableism, etc. (I had really bad friendsâŚ)
Iâm sorry for the trauma dumping, if only to get around to how I am making peace with being a Hetalia fan. Even with the more historical flavor of fanworks, thereâs still so much lingering double standards, and until now I resented it all so much, on top of the never-ending and annoyingly reductive accusations that Hetalia (by itself) makes fascists out of people. We donât win, and Iâve accepted that maybe we just wonât ever win. And thatâs fine, because Iâm not out here to win, Iâm here to have goddamn fun. And if people refuse to celebrate that because of their opinions â regardless of their media literacy proficiency â thatâs their loss, not mine. Sorry also for the Catholic moment HAHA, but when the Nazarenes rose up and intended to kill one of their own, Jesus walked straight through their midst and simply left. As painful as it is when it happens, why stay where we will never be accepted? And maybe thatâs why Iâve stuck around in this circus for so long, because at least I found that here, gfdi.
If weâre all gonna be losers, letâs at least have fun being losers, no matter how senseless the world gets.
being a hetalia fan sucks actually because youâre at the bottom of the food chain . Bottom of the social hierarchy for nerds n socially tone deaf. You have 0 leverage, youâre in the minus leverage. You complain about one thing n all that person needs to do is âok hetalia fanâ n ur k.oed
#op again im so sorry i got long and personal HAHLKASHGLLAGHAKJGLHGAKJ#u just sparked smth in me and TBH I DONT BLAME U AT ALLLKASDHGLKAH#this is the product of so much shit bottled up for too damn long#sibuyas
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To Light A Magic Fart
We have been made aware that our latest commentary has elicited a rant.
https://web.archive.org/save/https://smarmykemeticpagan.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/liminality-divine-intervention-and-other-heresies/
We would like begin by saying the first half of this rant is not only a misdirect but a lot of personal stuff that is outside our targeted topics of commentary so we shall be skipping that.
âAs I type all this, I feel a strange sense of bewilderment. Iâve read very little on liminal spaces, magical theory, mythic time, or Dionysus; and yet Iâm sitting here, trying to tell my own story and no one elseâs, and finding myself describing something that I somehow, recognize as being intimately connected to all of these things at once. â
We must inform you this is very doubtful. As someone who has crusaded against actual knowledge and those who teach it, study it, and understand it, you suddenly valuing any knowledge you are adamant against giving any sense of importance, this is a contradiction. We would like to remind you, you have spent years demonizing those who are academically minded, who would possess the best supply of these topics of information. We need to remind you, you have chased, and guided newcomers away from these very informed and academic individuals with a very glib and dismissive expressions that they are somehow morally and emotionally defective.
We need to remind you, you have spent more posts declaring how unimportant and meaningless academic resources, information, and knowledgeable people who covet such information, that it boggles the mind how you can sit here now and suddenly have an appreciation for information and knowledge. We must say that is highly convenient, almost like you are a bag of contradictions and hyperbole.
â I donât know. Maybe I canât know. Maybe knowing how and why this is happening isnât the point. â
We would like to mention that in every occurrence that knowledge is passed on from a deity it is made obvious that it is given by them. We would like to remind you, this would be conferred as a minor miracle and the god that granted it would not do so with a cloak and dagger delivery.
âMaybe no matter how strange and fantastic my real life is...â
We can not believe you, as you complain constantly about how you are incredibly oppressed and put-upon by the evil capitalist misogynistic patriarchy, holding you in a death grip of poverty...strange and fantastic is not the picture you spent years painting. If youâd like to recant those lies and give a more accurate depiction of your life, feel free, no need to keep up the pretense.
â... there will always be some way that I and everyone else can convince ourselves that there must be a perfectly mundane, scientific explanation for everything, that nothing truly magical could ever possibly happen in our actual, physical lives. â
We would like to say this is a gross generalization that disturbs us greatly. We would like to mention that, something can be scientific and still be magical. Magical events do not have to be beyond scientific involvement or divorced from the world in a separate sphere. They are part of the same world, they occupy the same space. Magic is everywhere, and science just helps us understand how that natural magic works. We understand the gist of what you are attempting to say but itâs so mushmouth muddled with it loses cohesion. We would like to simplify, youâre wrong. --Memphis
Not familiar with the idea that magic is only science we donât understand yet, are you? The world is as magical as you make it. --Cairo
âIn fact, if I had done what nigh on every single Hellenic polytheist told me, 3 years ago, that I absolutely must do before I was allowed to even talk to any of the Theoi; i.e., devote far more time, money, and energy than I even had... â
Youâd have a functional well structured and meaningful religious practice that you can easily make a habit to exercise, in order to have an actual religious practice and not just invent it on a whim while screeching âmuh poverty lack of resourcesâ, in a religious practice that has its ancient methodologies of worship and practice well outlined with a knowledgeable community that could inform you of them and help you? We can see how dreadful that would have been! Better you avoided any of that ACTUAL respecting the gods with their own religious practices which are time tested and just dump a can of wine on the ground, belch and in tone âamen, broâ.--Memphis
If every single practitioner of a religion is telling you that you do something, perhaps thatâs how the religion is actually practiced? Just saying.--Cairo
âI would still be refusing to accept the very possibility that the Theoi are real, and trying to communicate with me, and werenât just trying to kick the shit out of me because I âm not âhumbleâ enough to be allowed to even casually worship them, or even think about wanting to worship them. That is the extent to which I have been gaslighted by an ableist, sexist, queerphobic world...â
We must inform you this is not gaslighting, and none of this is true. Youâre so buried helplessly in the twisted murky interior of your own ideology that you have bought into all the lies and fables it has generated. Snap out of it!
âItâs because polytheists are, for the most part, every bit as closed-minded and self-righteous as the Southern Baptists who told me I was an abomination and a Devil worshipper and a degenerate for being a queer witch who talked back to pastors and smoked weed.â
We must inform you, you are confused. These are your actions which you committed upon every community you attempted to infect like herpes. Anyone who didnât bow down to every word of your vapid ideology was to be summarily purged. You created an entire callout blog (which we parody), to bully, harrass and purge people you deem morally corrupt and a heretic to your divinely sanctioned and holy edicts of social justice that must be obeyed to the letter. You terrorized this community for years with it, dividing it, polarizing it and demonizing our gods, twisting them into these token puppets you can make spit out any words you want to give yourself the squishy feels.Â
The only ones who act like southern Baptists or medieval catholic inquisitors, are you and your friends. Donât try to backpedal that YOU are the victim here, you are the bully, the aggressor, the one causing harm.Â
Some sects of polytheism have actual ancient records detailing proper practices to how their religion is followed. While following them in personal practice is largely voluntary, they are the methods espoused to have been prescribed by the gods of their own religion. Itâs just respectful to those gods to follow such practices.
âBecause of all this, polytheists are perfectly willing to bully, threaten, gaslight, and otherwise abuse young, vulnerable people in their midst who even for one minute threaten their perceived ârespectabilityâ in the eyes of the mainstream and of their favorite Big Name Pagans. They are perfectly willing to ignore the real problems in our community -bullying, toxic groupthink, overwhelming authoritarianism, rape culture and misogyny, TERFS and other assorted trans/homophobes, bigots of every kind, ableism to the point that the first thing anyone says to discredit me is that Iâm âobviously hallucinatingâ when I talk about astral stuff or magic (thatâs not how hallucinations fucking work you fucking morons! Read a book every now and then, for chrissake), and goddamn actual Nazis- in favor of whining about how Pop Culture Pagans or âfluffyâ people or âloudmouthed bratsâ are OMG THE REASON NO ONE TAKES US SERIOUSLY!1!!11!!! They do all of these things, and simultaneously fancy themselves particularly enlightened, superior to followers of ââAbrahamic religionsââ, by virtue of simply âfollowing the old godsâ and âbeing connected to natureâ, or whatever.â
We are touched, this is clear vagueblogging about us. Â What was it you said...
Seriously though, you left this on our post as if you donât care, and then wrote this thesis of how much it bothers you and you do care. Youâre pathetic.
âBecause of this shallow, petty, and toxic paradigm that permeates basically every single official pagan and polytheist space, it is almost impossible for most of us to really, meaningfully connect and communicate with our gods. â
We must inform you, this is fundamentally untrue. Youâre reaching again.--Memphis
Citation needed. This mod has actually heard more complaints that name you, Devo, and your friends specifically as making it difficult to practice, than heard such complaints about other online spaces.--Cairo
âBecause of this shallow, petty, and toxic paradigm that permeates basically every single official pagan and polytheist space, it is almost impossible for most of us to really, meaningfully connect and communicate with our gods. Human beings are intimately social creatures; we are constantly, consciously and subconsciously, affected by the social environment that we are in, whether we like it or not and whether we know it or not. Itâs basically impossible not to be drawn in by the assumptions everyone around you makes and operates on, even if weâre ignoring thoughtforms and energies and other woo stuff. Polytheists have convinced ourselves that anything we experience thatâs in any way out of the ordinary; in any way not exactly what the historical record we currently have portraysâŚin other words, anything that might realistically be a part of interacting with actual deities and doing actual magic, absolutely will be called a delusion, an attention-seeking stunt, an idiotic act of hubris, an attempt to ��start a cultâ or gain coercive power over others, an evil and sacrilegious act, or all of the above, by anyone and everyone in our community who wants to discredit whatever it is weâre saying. No wonder even people who have fantastic experiences doubt themselves, or refuse to go public with it; Iâm not a particularly sensitive person by a long shot, and I often have to steel myself to be honest online because of the (attempted) bullying and public shaming that I know for a fact will result from it.â
More about us. You must love us dearly. We must inform you, again you are entirely wrong. You literally told Set in that interview post, you would start a cult. You adhere to a collectivist ideology that operates on the concept of original sin and so everyone of that group must atone for the sins of the group for every instance in history. You follow an ideology that abhors individual worth and thought over the group opinion and the groupâs collective thought, in which any dissent and the individual will be sacrificed to ensure purity of the group. You operate like a wanna-be cult leader who wants a cult.
You have done alot of evil in this community and you called it righteous because your ideology decrees it must be. Your every action is dictated by it, your every thought is shaped by it to the point you declared that a god who historically always supported a theocratic monarchy...suddenly fell in love with socialism/communism...an inherently destructive and genocidal form of government and philosophy. One that has claimed over 100 million lives, and more?! That is alot ot buy, smarmy, a LOT to buy. We didnât even mention how he just outright confirms all your political points, thoughts, beliefs, and heralds them as divinely sanctioned?! We donât have to know how the stove top makes the coil red hot to understand touching it will burn.--Memphis Â
Others have said it, and this mod will say it again: It is not that you are sharing your personal experiences that is the problem; it is that you are stating them as being as factually true as peer reviewed historical sources. You can believe what you want, but it is absolutely dishonest and disgusting to expect and insist that the rest of the community treat it as fucking holy scripture.--CairoÂ
âIâm not a particularly sensitive person by a long shot...â
We would like to say, considering you felt the need to write this dissertation of drivel, you most certainly are sensitive.
âIf you say you worship Set, but then spit in the face of his ideals in almost every mundane action you take -from the way you treat people traditionally associated with him to the way you think and talk about mundane, real-world chaos, riots, criminals, and political violence- are you actually worshipping Set, or are you just worshipping your own assumptions about Set?â
We are amazed at how unironic you write this and yet, itâs like you wrote this looking in a mirror.
âAnd if the very fact that someone online who you donât like has posted UPG about Set condemning your actions and behaviorâŚcauses you to post frantic, histrionic paragraphs about how the person in question is an evil, power-hungry, lunatic aspiring cult leader who is âevidentlyâ crazy and lying and trying to manipulate the entire kemetic community and also is in league with the Sn/ake that wants to destroy existence itself, are you really prioritizing your devotion to Set? Or are you prioritizing your own ego, because you refuse to even entertain the possibility that you could be wrong and ought to change your behavior in some way in order to better honor him? â
Wow again, you gazed in the mirror. None of our commentaries, nor those of any of your critics, are frantic, nor histrionic, but it is apparent that you are and you do. They are not the ones fueled by such deep seething hatred and rage for anything outside your own myopic and narrow minded views. They arenât the ones demanding slavish devotion to an ideology that history has proven is murderous and dangerous. They arenât the ones who profess to be âon the side of the angelsâ and in the same breath long for violent rebellious war to shred the country and slaughter millions. You are a hateful person devoid of compassion and an enemy of anything resembling freedom.Â
We see you have again mistaken UPG for something provable. If you had written that interview and stated that you wrote Setâs dialogue intuitively, or you interpreted them, rather then composed the transcript verbatim...weâd have been more lenient with our criticisms. We point out, every word of his dialogue was verbatim your own, that you have ranted about for the years. Every bit, from his diction, to his syntax, from tone to word choices was entirely from your own and not from an external source. The fact it entirely vindicates every word of your political tripe, your beliefs and ideology, to the decimal place, is evidence that itâs not from any external source, or external spiritual entity but from you. This was a complete fiction.
To state that âanyone who disagrees with smarmy, Set and his people gunna gitâyaâ, is such a colossal over reach that it strains believably. We are certain that any god who loves their devotee would say they will defend them against attack, but this. We must inform you this is something else entirely.
We are quite certain we donât need to change our behavior to profess your ideals as our own and bow down to accept communism and socialism or even anarchism as the true path forwards. We donât need to throw away any sense of actual morality to support systems that have led to more destruction and death then any others in history and recorded memory.Â
We are also not above admitting if we are wrong, but when it comes to you and how you abuse the name of the gods for your own twisted ends, we arenât.
We are however, certain you are. You are so in love with your own ideological puppetry that you not only profess that a god has endorsed you 100%, promised to smite all who oppose you, promise you power and prestige as his precious prophet of his ideals (which you forced into him). So deeply entrenched in this ideology and stances of no matter what the cost, no matter how ridiculous, you can never admit to being wrong when facing any dissenting voices or else it instantly negates all of your teachings, beliefs, and words (which it only does because you made them so absolute), that you cannot admit you are wrong and can only dig deeper down this endless trench of foolishness and madness.Â
We have no doubts the S/na/ke influences you, it praises you, it agrees with you, it gives you whatever you want, the sense of righteousness that youâre never wrong and always on the side of purity, everyone else is evil, everyone else is impure, everyone else is wrong, everyone else is at fault...That is the danger of isfet and the parasitic spirits that serve it, and you let them in.
â I believe that gods are huge, ancient, and multi-faceted, so sure, itâs possible that thereâs a version of Set out there that likes racist bootlickers and encourages them to follow the law no matter the human costâ
This is among the most offensive things youâve ever said. Historical record cannot be dismissed and hand-waved away of how these gods have acted in the past and expect they did a full 180. We would like to mention, that once again, like any good cult leader, you degrade anyone who dissents. We would like to state you are completely off the mark, you have no understanding of this god if you honestly think he loves communism and loves nazism and loves racism because âthere MUST be an aspect of him that likes itâ. We need to remind you, that would make him evil. This is a complete insult to a god you claim to love and worship. This is a damning and horrible thing to say about a god you claim to respect. This shows us you have nothing but sheer contempt for the gods, so you invent a twisted and corrupted idea of them. We need to remind you, itâs bullshit like this that makes us say your a delusional child aspiring cult leader who is aligned with the sn/a/ke, if you honestly think this about Set. We are disgusted, you do this noble god, so much dishonor. --Memphis
How dare you. How dare you insult a god you claim to be even an outlaw priest of with such a foul misunderstanding of his character?! Even for hyperbolic rhetoric?! Can you not have even the barest smidgen of respect for the god you claim to serve or worship? Or are the words that describe the most basic relationship of priesthood too uncomfortable for you?--Cairo
â ... to âkeep it realâ by regurgitating tired and ignorant bigoted stereotypes and acting as though the fact the stereotype exists at all is somehow evidence that youâre right to be a bigot; and believe that âillegalsâ seeking asylum so that they and their families wonât fucking die are inherently dangerous enough to justify putting them in motherfucking concentration camps. But just because itâs possible doesnât necessarily mean itâs very likely, now does it? â
We would ask if you ever get tired of making sweeping incorrect generalizations that make you look stupid but we already know the answer. If youâd like to discuss what we believe regarding various political situations, we at KCFTP would be happy to chat, but do stop shoving words and beliefs into our and everyone mouths that do not apply.--Memphis
Who the fuck is Smarmy even talking about here?--Cairo
âNo wonder people react to anyone showing historically common, textbook behaviors of a person being called to spirit work or reacting to being in a liminal space or state of mind, with derision and scorn and bullying. Genuine liminality, one of the main historical requirements for communicating with gods or using magic, is almost universally despised and cursed by modern-day polytheists as heresy.â
We would like to say this literally never happens. This is a bold faced lie. We knew you could not help it!--Memphis
That is really fucking weird, every discussion Iâve had with other polytheists and pagans has touched on how to communicate with gods, spirits, and other entities, magic, or other things that require having a foot in multiple worlds. Everyone usually seems pretty eager to talk about such things. Unusual for something âuniversally despised and cursed.â--Cairo Â
âLGBT+ people are stereotyped as âspecial snowflakesâ and yelled at about âassigning modern labels to godsâ when we say that deities who canonically act as multiple genders or sleep with same-gendered-beings, are queer like us. â
We would like to clarify, no smarmy, thatâs just you and your ilk...and itâs by other LBGT+ people...Stop trying to be some martyr, you arenât. Go outside, get off the internet.
â Young people are bullied and publicly shamed on a regular basis if they run afoul of the wrong âBig Name Paganâ, and people smugly tell themselves and each other that it is, somehow, for the kidâs own good because they have to be âtaught a lesson in humilityâ and âbeing the bigger personâ or some other fucking nonsense that sounds like it fell directly from the mouths of actual child abusers and predators. â
So anyone who disagrees with you are child abusers and predators now too!? We would like to say that is astounding, almost like itâs entirely fiction. Weâd also like to mention, the only BIG Name Pagans around here are you and Devo, and you guys are constantly a problem. Maybe its you who needs to âbe taught a lesson in humilityâ because you are no where near humble and you are among the most abusive individuals in this community.--Memphis
Said it before, will say it again. We have seen you and your crew bully and publicly shame far more people in this particular community than any of us. Weâre not the ones who started the Kemetic Callout war, only the ones who have arguably been more successful at it. And your callout blog only has the people who talked back and wouldnât bend, it doesnât count the many who bowed and broke before your bullying or those who left here altogether.--Cairo Â
âUntil sharing UPG that goes against the more popular narratives no longer makes one a social pariah among their polytheist peers, nobody should be surprised that itâs almost exclusively the heretical, disrespectful punks who are constantly being publicly snubbed and dismissed by their peers, who ever seem to talk about seeing any results or evidence that anything out-of-the-ordinary is actually going on. â
Translation: âUntil I can share my UPG and it is believed as absolute fact without any question, and be heralded as the divine truth, the community is a shitshow!â--Memphis
As long as your UPG agrees 100% with your own personal and political beliefs, it will and should be questioned. Whatever your stance, the gods have a wider experience and knowledge base than we do and will always have a different perspective. Any spirit that tells you everything you want to hear and flatters you shamelessly is no god and has no good intentions towards you in the end.--Cairo
âUntil we all accept that it doesnât matter if Christians and mainstream secular people think weâre weird and so we donât need to constantly jump through hoops to seem Academic⢠and Serious⢠and Normalâ˘, nobody should be surprised that the only public discussions that donât devolve into nasty name-calling matches are ones facilitated by a handful of holier-than-thou assholes who treat having a PhD in Philosophy as though itâs a permission slip from the gods themselves to be a self-righteous, know-it-all douche, and never really allow any disagreement with them on anything important.â
Translation: âWe need to continue being edgy punk teens who disrespect gods and culture and snub actual belief systems by turning them into comical satires of themselves, until the people smarter then us give up and let us have all the power, while we use our UPG to try and seem way more divinely important then we actually are by assigning ourselves flashy titles and divine endorsements!!! Cause if the gods support US, then we canât be wrong!â
We would like to remind you that history is fraught with oppressive regimes who used this tactic, one example is the Spanish Inquisition. Did you agree with them torturing and killing people to force them into conversion? Another example we would like to mention is the North Korean regimes. The ones who still have ACTUAL concentration camps.Â
We would like to mention, China now has concentration camps where they hold and torment innocent Muslim citizens, and Chechnya who still have death camps where they send gay and LGBT citizens.Â
We would like to mention these go entirely against your belief and political structures about LGBT+ issues, oppression, and gay rights. We notice you never mention those. We notice you never complain about them and how evil they are. We wonder, is it because it goes against your narrative of âcommunism is the truth and the wayâ or do you just not care?Â
We would like to point out it would seem like those are true injustices you could fight against and for...not...how everyone needs to behave and believe how you want.
We would like to set the snark aside for a second and say, weâre always up for discussions. We need to clarify that you always reduce the conversations to insults and calling everyone who disagrees with you âracist bootlickersâ, so the issue is not on our side, but with you, so stop lying that we and all your critics are the unreasonable ones.
âAnd until we care more about taking care of each other than protecting our deitiesâ reputations, nobody should be surprised when our community remains a toxic, misogynistic, homophobic, Nazi-infested shithole, while everyone is more than happy to spend hours arguing about the particulars of shrine setups and deity name pronunciations and whether or not itâs okay to offer potato chips and Netflix binges to ancient deities who, ultimately, realistically are not that likely to give a shit either way. â
Literal Nazis wandered into our community and your reaction was âmeh so whatâ and continued bullying other innocent people, who you labeled as nazis and racists. Youâre a one tune piano smarmy, and you just keep tooting the same tune. It wasnât believable when you were âthe holy ambassador, ordained by Jesus, to the hellenicsâ it is not believable now.
âUntil we fix the problems with our collective paradigm, until we fix the way we treat each other, until we genuinely value wisdom, compassion, humility, and courage over our reputations, we are all gonna have to accept that the gods we worship are not all that interested in revealing their actual, authentic, awesome, strange and unexpected powers to people who are determined to believe they are either incapable or unwilling to do so.â
We agree, you should start treating people better, starting with inatier and all the other people youâve spent YEARS defaming, bullying, berating, harassing, snubbing, and demonizing.--Memphis
Actions speak louder than words Smarmy, and based on yours none of these are your values. We have seen you bully and cast aside community members who did their research and were willing to share, we have seen your utter lack of compassion throughout your time here with anyone who has the nerve to disagree with you, and the idea of you having humility is a joke. You worry more about being seen as your edgy, antifa, communist [insert additional labels here} self than about having the courage to suck it up, show some compassion, and value the wisdom of trying to mend the fences you have broken so badly over the years.
Additionally, we have had no problem seeing the many wondrous and varied faces of our gods because we are not hell bent on forcing them into tiny boxes that fit only our own personal beliefs. If this is a problem you have been having, perhaps you should take your own advice.--Cairo
My colleagues have added much to these particular points of your diatribe, but Iâll add my bit here. While it seems like you may be in a better place physically (despite claiming you know more about psychology and medicine than your previous doctors do), you seem to be going down a dark, dangerous road mentally. You might just find yourself in jail yet, or worse if you donât reevaluate your thinking.
âThe insomnia is what caused my other symptoms to get so bad that they become delusions, paranoia, mania, and once, auditory hallucinations.â So youâre admitting to having breaks from reality, along with your emotional instability. Yet, you get butthurt when people are skeptical to your religious experiences. Iâm no psychologist, admittedly, but I donât automatically trust random peopleâs religious experiences, much less someone with a history of psychosis. Whether itâs you or anyone else.Â
I would also recommend you be very, very careful using THC. I donât know what medications youâre taking, but THC can interact with several different drugs, including Prozac. High levels of THC can cause paranoia and psychosis as well.Â
Youâre trying to act as a leader and activist when youâre still dealing with some very serious conditions. This is why so many people recommend to not use magic or occultic practices when dealing with mental health. People are not being elitist or ableist when they do this. The whole purpose is to encourage others to first attain treatment for their conditions. Youâve been claiming your own voice as Setâs, threatening violence to attain your desires in regards to politics, and using magic to harm your political enemies. You refuse to understand the motivations of people who donât hold the same political opinions - even âcentristsâ, so that even the politically moderate are your enemies. This is even a symptom of borderline personality disorder, which you say youâre diagnosed with. Clearly, your symptoms arenât completely managed.
https://www.webpsychology.com/news/2015/09/01/dangers-black-and-white-thinking-228391
You have a long way to go in terms of healing. You can blame the outside world all you like for not getting treatment or for a lack of progress, but your mental health is YOUR responsibility and you need to take responsibility and fix yourself before youâre in any position to try and âfixâ the world with your ideology.
I highly encourage you to take a break and get some further professional help; wherever you are and however you can get it. Your writings are extremely troubling to us here. The last thing you need is to get arrested or committed trying to âpunch a Naziâ or âtake down the systemâ. Youâre going to really screw up any chances of getting on your feet, getting treatment, and doing something actually meaningful with your life if you continue down this road.
--Karnak
#kemetic#kemetic fandom#kemeticism#Kemetic community#The Epic Tale of Smarmys Insanity#A Shadow Over Tumblr#The Call of Cruelty#Today on Dr. Phil...
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Diversity and character death in DAYD
(Or, âDAYDâs diversity iz pastede on yayâ.)
This long-as-fuck post has been sitting in my drafts since sometime in 2015. I decided to finish and publish it because an ex-DAYDian suggested that it might still be useful. The initial idea was to examine how Andy's portrayal of various charactersâ gender and sexuality had changed over time. Later, I expanded it to look at a number of different âdiversity labelsâ that Andy applied to his characters, and how they related to who lived or died. When counting casualties, I have excluded those who were resurrected after Druim Cett.
On gender and sexuality:
First, here is each instance that I am aware of in which Andy listed his LGBTQIA characters. Unfortunately, I donât have links for everything: most of the â20 Random Factsâ lists are no longer online, I donât want to link to chats that include DAYDiansâ real names, and I only have some of the Tumblr posts in the form of .docs compiled by DAYDians on the Facebook group.
Undated: In â20 Random Facts About Luna Lovegoodâ, Luna is described as bisexual, but âshe never [got] around to acting on itâ. (A DAYDian wrote that list with Andyâs approval and with information provided by him. Later, Andy seemingly forgot about that and wrote another one that didnât mention her sexuality.) In Susan, Colin, and Icarusâs â20 Random Factsâ, Andy says that they are also bisexual. Derekâs says that he is gay, and Rowanâs implies that she is only attracted to girls. Stephen and Gwenâs â20 Random Factsâ were each written by other DAYDians with Andyâs approval. Stephenâs says that heâs gay, and Gwenâs seems to imply that she dates both boys and girls, but prefers boys. Much later, in a Tumblr list of his LGBTQIA characters, Andy said that Gwen is a lesbian.
Sometime between April 2008 and July 2009: In his FAQ, Andy said, âI have no problem with slash or homosexuality. Rowan Glynnis and Malcolm Braddock both 'stir their cauldrons in their own direction.' IMHO, both Colin and Luna are bisexual.â
July 14, 2009: In the comments to his âSlash Gogglesâ post, Andy said, âLuna sees herself as pansexual. Gender is entirely irrelevant when she is looking for a partner of any kind, especially as she doesn't see it as a binary construct, or even a continuum, but as a physical detail as irrelevant to personhood as the color of one's hair. Colin honestly died too young to really know...certainly, he was bicurious, and he certainly liked girls, but where his sexuality would have developed can't be known when it never finished developing.â He also said that Colin, Luna, Stephen, Derek, Victoria, Rowan, Dean, and Gertie are the only characters that âfall under some form of âqueerââ and that it would be âtokenismâ to include a trans person in a group the size of Dumbledoreâs Army.
July 17, 2010: Andy said that Derek, Dean, Susan, Stephen, Rowan, Vicky, Colin, and Icarus are ânot strictly heteronormativeâ.
May 26, 2011: In the midst of a post about a lot of other things, including the Trail of Tears hike, Andy listed his "LGBTQ-spectrum charactersâ as follows:Â âDerek, Stephen, and Dean were gay, Susan, Icarus, and Colin bisexual, Michael and Terry bicurious, and Victoria and Rowan lesbians, and several of the characters have challenged the socially dictated gender roles, like Ricky fighting to keep his daughter as a single father and Susan heading up the farm and fund after Ernieâs death.â
June 5, 2011: In a chat with several DAYDians, Andy said that his LGBTQIA characters were Derek, Stephen, Dean, Icarus, Colin, Susan, Rowan, and Vicky. He further stated that Derek and Dean are gay; Icarus and Susan are bisexual; Colin is bicurious; Rowan is a âbaby bull dykeâ*; and Victoria could be either a lesbian or bisexual, but weâll never know for sure because she died in the Battle of Hogwarts. He didnât state Stephenâs specific orientation in the chat. In the comments to the LJ post in which the chat was shared, Andy acknowledged that heâd previously said that Luna is bisexual. He also mentioned for the first time that Terry is asexual.Â
June 15, 2011: In another chat, Andy clarified that Stephen was gay, as was Derek. He also said that Colin was bicurious, but considered himself bisexual.
September 22, 2012: In a Tumblr post listing DAYD characters and their labels, Andy said that Derek, Stephen, and Dean are gay; Malcolm is genderqueer; Terry is homoromantic/asexual; Michael is homoromantic/heterosexual; Colin, Icarus, and Victoria are bisexual; Rowan is a lesbian; and Luna is âpansexually identifiedâ.
Later that month: In response to a Tumblr ask, Andy confirmed that Terry is homoromantic/asexual. In another response around the same time, he listed his LGBTQIA characters as follows: âDean, Derek, Stephen, Colin, Susan, Icarus, Vicky, and Rowan out, Gwen deeply closeted maybe-lesbian-maybe-bi, Malcolm heterosexual but genderqueer, and Luna panfashionableâŚshe likes to think of herself as pansexual but has never actually gotten the warm tinglies for anything that wasnât cismale.â Shortly thereafter, he referred to Susan as âopenly biâ.
March 5, 2013: Andy repeated that Malcolm is genderqueer/heterosexual and mentioned for the first time that theyâd changed their name to Morgan.
January - February 2014: Over the course of several Tumblr asks, Andy repeated two or three times that Michael is homoromantic/heterosexual and Terry is homoromantic/asexual (but they âcould be fairly called âa queer coupleââ). He also referred to Malcolm as genderfluid.
Hereâs a breakdown by character.
Colin: Bisexual according to the 2008 - early 2009 FAQ and his â20 Random Factsâ, but bicurious in July 2009. Bisexual in May 2011. Bicurious in June 2011. Bicurious, but self-identifying as bisexual, later that month. Bisexual in September 2012. He is also included on the nonspecific July 2009 and July 2010 lists. Colin dies during the Battle of Hogwarts. He is very prominent in DAYD and a number of side stories, and appears as a ghost in A Peccatis.
Dean, Derek, and Stephen: Derek and Stephen are both described as gay in their â20 Random Factsâ lists (Dean doesnât have one). They are not mentioned in the FAQ post. All three are âsome form of âqueerââ in July 2009 and ânot strictly heteronormativeâ in July 2010. Starting in May 2011, they were consistently described as gay whenever Andy was specific about their sexuality. They all die during the Battle of Hogwarts. Derek and Stephen barely appear in DAYD, although theyâre both in âReasonsâ. Derek also has his own âRank and Fileâ story and appears in âBoys Will Beâ. Stephen briefly shows up in a couple of Mike-and-Terry fics and appears in a flashback at the beginning of A Peccatis. Dean only comes into DAYD for the battle and is not present in any of Andyâs other fic.Â
Gertie: First referred to as âsome form of âqueerââ in July 2009 and never mentioned as LGBTQIA before or after that. Her gender identification and sexuality are unspecified. She dies during the Battle of Hogwarts. Gertie doesnât appear in DAYD at all, but has three whole lines in a side story (âTurning the Tideâ).Â
Gwen: Dates both boys and girls, but prefers boys, according to her â20 Random Factsâ. She is a lesbian, according to an undated Tumblr post. Andy describes her as âdeeply closeted maybe-lesbian-maybe-biâ as of September 2012, but her sexuality is not mentioned on his âlabelsâ list that month. She is also absent from the FAQ post and the July 2009, July 2010, May 2011, and June 2011 lists. Gwen dies during the Battle of Hogwarts. She is only mentioned once in DAYD. Her sole significant appearance in any of Andyâs fic is in âWantedâ, which portrays a sexual encounter between her and Jack Sloper.Â
Icarus: Bisexual according to his â20 Random Factsâ. He is absent from the FAQ post and from the list of âqueerâ characters in July 2009, but is described as ânot strictly heteronormativeâ in July 2010. Icarus is consistently referred to as bisexual starting in May 2011. He is murdered in Sluagh (before Druim Cett, so he isnât resurrected). He is only mentioned once in DAYD, but is fairly important in Sluagh and features in a couple of side stories.
Luna: Bisexual in the 2008 - early 2009 FAQ post and her â20 Random Factsâ, pansexual in July 2009, âpansexually identifiedâ in September 2012, and âpanfashionableâ later that month. She is absent from the July 2010 and May 2011 lists of non-heteronormative and/or LGBTQIA characters, and Andy explicitly stated that she never actually feels sexual attraction for anyone other than cisgender men. luna survives DAYD, in which she is very much present, and is out of the country during Sluagh. She also appears in A Peccatis and some side stories.
Malcolm/Morgan:Â Implied to be gay in the 2008 - early 2009 FAQ post. First mentioned as genderqueer and heterosexual in September 2012 and consistently described as genderqueer (or genderfluid) and heterosexual thereafter. Absent from the July 2009, July 2010, May 2011, and June 2011 lists. Their gender identification is never mentioned in fic; it only appears in three responses to Tumblr asks and an infodump on the Facebook group. Morgan is also one of only two Slytherins to join Dumbledoreâs Army: Andy portrayed them as an effeminate stereotype alongside Terrence Runcornâs hypermasculinity. They live, perhaps only because they become too frightened to remain in the DA following the murder of their housemate. Morgan is barely in DAYD, and their only other appearances are in a snippet with Renny and in a short fic recounting their departure from the DA.Â
Michael and Terry: See this post. They both die in the Battle of Hogwarts. They are very prominent in DAYD and Andyâs other fic, and they also appear in a flashback at the beginning of A Peccatis. Andy had planned to write another fic, called Oubliette, in which the two of them would turn out to have been in limbo since the Battle of Hogwarts, and a âvoodoo queenâ named Mama Nola (yes, really) would offer to resurrect them ~for a price~.
Rowan:Â Her â20 Random Factsâ heavily implies that she is attracted to girls. Sheâs implied to be a lesbian in the 2008 - early 2009 FAQ post, first specifically called a lesbian in May 2011, and consistently described as such after that. She is also included on the nonspecific July 2009 and July 2010 lists. Rowan dies during the Battle of Hogwarts. She has an important role in DAYD, but is not very prominent in spite of that. Rowan appears in a few side stories and shows up in A Peccatis as a horribly mutilated ghost.
Susan:Â Bisexual according to her â20 Random Factsâ. She is absent from the July 2009 list, but is described as ânot strictly heteronormativeâ in July 2010 and as bisexual in May 2011 and thereafter--except that Andy didnât mention it in the September 2012 âlabelsâ list. Susan never feels or expresses attraction to anyone but cisgender men in fic: although her â20 Random Factsâ does say that she sleeps with women after Ernie dies, that is the only time itâs ever mentioned. Later, Andy did some Supernatural crossover Susan/Ruby fanart that may or may not be considered DAYD canon. Susan survives DAYD and Sluagh and is extremely important throughout the entire trilogy. She also appears in quite a few side stories.
Victoria: âSome form of âqueerâ in July 2009 and ânot strictly heteronormativeâ in July 2010. She is called a lesbian in May 2011, but described as either a lesbian or bisexual in June 2011, and bisexual in September 2012. She dies during the Battle of Hogwarts. Her only actual appearance in DAYD is when she faints on the Hogwarts Express, and sheâs only in one side story and a snippet with Rowan.
The three most prominent LGBTQIA characters not involved with Dumbledoreâs Army are Robin (Icarusâs Sluagh-era fuckbuddy, always referred to as gay), Brian (Irish auror who is revealed to be gay during A Peccatis), and Emerson (Malcolmâs partner, always described as genderqueer or genderfluid). Neither Robin nor Emerson appears in Andyâs fic, although Robin is in a very brief snippet written in response to a Tumblr ask. Brian died at Druim Cett, but was apparently resurrected along with everyone else.
As a side note, the âdefying gender rolesâ business mentioned in the May 2011 LJ post is only noteworthy because Andy and all of his DAYDverse stories are so very, very gender essentialist. The examples that he gave are especially amusing to me because they both represent extremely common tropes in romance novels. For years, Harlequin and similar publishing houses have been churning out single dad romances by the dozen because theyâre so popular. There are entire publishing lines dedicated to them! Also ubiquitous is the tragic young widow who âdefiantlyâ chooses to run her late husbandâs farm and raise their child single-handedly until a big, strapping, manly man (with optional Dark Past) comes along to help her. My own mother has several of those books on her shelf, most of the historical and/or Christian romance subgenres.Â
That was as far as I got in 2015. More recently, I looked back at Andyâs LJ post from July 17, 2010, in which he broke down the cast list by which labels fit them: people of color, non-Protestants, people with disabilities, etc. I cross-referenced those lists with casualty lists from DAYD and Sluagh. I have to admit that I havenât read A Peccatis very closely, so if any of these characters died in that fic, I missed it.
* No, it is not okay for Andy to say things like this. Yes, he still uses this kind of language a lot.
On diversity and death:
Andyâs DA has 78 members, of which 36 are female and 42 are male (although one of the guys later identifies as genderqueer). 12 members of the canonical DA who have already graduated return for the Battle of Hogwarts. 5 of those are female; 7 are male. Of the 90 total DA members, 56 (62%) die in DAYD and Sluagh.Â
Iâve already noted that of the 14 LGBTQIA members of Dumbledoreâs Army, 11 die. One of the three survivors (Morgan) isnât in any fic other than DAYD, in which they exist only to make Renny look more manly, and a couple of short side stories. Susan and Lunaâs sexuality is informed-only, and Andy waffled about Luna a lot.
Of 15 characters of color--Andy omitted Cho Chang--seven (Stephen, Dean, Tommy, Padma, Parvati, Romilda, and Cho) die in DAYD. Two more of these characters are maimed: Tony Goldstein loses both legs and Li Su (called Su Li in canon) loses her entire body below the waist. They later get married. Emma sustains a traumatic brain injury and her back is severely scarred. Salome is so badly injured that it takes her a year to recover. Â
Of the 21 non-Protestant characters on this list, 13 (Stewart, Terry, Michael, Stephen, Leslie, Wayne, Oisin, Tommy, Camellia, Padma, Parvati, Romilda, and Icarus) die and two more (Tony and Li again) are severely maimed. Salome is injured as mentioned above. Neville is scarred to the point that he develops severe, chronic back problems as a result.
Of eight characters who are themselves immigrants to the UK, or are first-generation children of immigrants, five (Ritchie, Stephen, Tommy, Padma, and Parvati) die. Li and Salome survive with severe injuries, as described above. Fritz Bagman (an OC) survives, but loses both hands.
Of four characters born with physical disabilities, two (Jack and Ernie) die. Emma is injured and scarred as previously mentioned.
Every single one of the six characters that Andy says had psychological conditions prior to DAYD (Anna, Terry, Gwen, Gertie, Jack, and Perseus) dies during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Andy also lists ten characters who are extremely rich or poor in his fic, and five of those (Ernie, Michael, Katie, Orla, and Hal) die. He indicates that six characters have criminal pasts, and two of them (Rose and Icarus) die in Sluagh. Of five characters who have substance abuse problems in DAYDverse, only one (Terry) dies.Â
Finally, Andy names all of the characters who are âtheir own definition of feministâ, i.e., every female character in Andyâs version of Dumbledoreâs Army except Anna, but apparently none of the women from the canonical DA whoâd already graduated, and no men at all. Again, Andyâs DA has 36 female members (of 78 total). 23 of them (too many to list) die in the Battle of Hogwarts and two more (Rose and Rachel) at Druim Cett. Another female member of Andyâs DA (Laura) dies four years after the Battle of Hogwarts from injuries sustained therein. In addition, five of the 12 original DA members who return to Hogwarts for the battle are female, and three of them (Katie, Alicia, and Cho) die.Â
The only student deaths in DAYD that also occur in canon are Colin Creeveyâs and Fred Weasleyâs. (Lavender Brown dies in part two of the film version of DH, but the book is unclear as to whether she survives being mauled by Fenrir Greyback.) Rowling does indicate that besides Fred, Colin, Tonks, and Lupin, the death toll on the side fighting against Voldemort is about fifty; however, none of the others is named. It is very unlikely that all or even most of the remaining dead are students. There were the Order of the Phoenix, staff members, Hogsmeade villagers, Aurors, house elves, centaurs, and others fighting at Hogwarts as well. Oh, and the only students below year seven who were actually present were Colin and Ginny. It was entirely Andyâs choice to have fifty-plus Hogwarts students, many as young as 14, die between the Battle of Hogwarts and Druim Cett. It was also his choice to kill them in a variety of horrible, disgusting, often degrading ways, all described in graphic detail. The text on this promotional image may as well end with, â...but they probably die horrifically.âÂ
Most of these charactersâ backgrounds are entirely of Andyâs own making, as well. Other than a handful of POC characters and one who Rowling specifically said was Jewish (Tony), the Harry Potter series is pretty terrible with regard to representation. On the surface, that seems to make Andy look pretty good. Itâs important to note, though, that most of the above information about these characters is not actually included in DAYD, Sluagh, A Peccatis, or even Andyâs side stories. It mostly came up after the fact on Andyâs LJ or tumblr, in chat, in Q&As, or in â20 Random Factsâ lists about the characters. Later, one of his readers might use that information in a fic of their own. When a mention of someoneâs ethnicity, etc. does show up in the main trilogy, it is often presented in a problematic way, with stereotyping and fetishization of people from âexoticâ races or cultures. The Patil twins are the most obvious examples of this, but someone also recently pointed out to me that the DA members constantly refer to Romilda using an ethnic slur. So while Andyâs fanfiction does have greater representation across the board than Rowlingâs novels do, he handles it very poorly and itâs obvious that much of it is an afterthought. Given that he was building a cult around his fanfiction, I believe his motives were most likely to widen the DAYDverseâs demographic appeal and to get people as emotionally invested in the characters and the âverse as possible--and ultimately in him, because he literally called himself God in the fandom.
TL;DR: I donât think Andy deserves much credit for âgreat representationâ when a) it was actually hugely problematic, and b) he killed or severely injured most of his diverse cast in such gratuitously terrible ways that large chunks of both DAYD and Sluagh can only be described as torture porn.
A few other items of note:
Others have written about how despite his alleged commitment to diversity, Andyâs art and writing make it abundantly clear that everyone in his version of the DA is gorgeous and athletic. The only DA member who gains weight (Icarus) does so after the events of DAYD and as a deliberate choice for armchair-psychology reasons. Only the villains are unattractive.Â
Andy does casually kill off a lot of characters off-screen or with a quick one-line reference, despite criticizing Rowling for doing exactly that.
I learned from this post by ladyloveandjustice that one of the characters that Andy killed off-screen was based on a real child who had a terminal illness, wrote to JKR, and died before receiving a reply. JKR gave her a cameo in one of the novels as a tribute, and Andy added her name to a list of âthe fallenâ without a second thought. (Ladyloveandjusticeâs sporking of all of DAYD is worth a read, actually. Or just see the wrap-up post, which nicely summarizes some of the major issues with DAYD.)
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