#its the objective truth

[j4zz4lop3]

Andrzej: jan paweł jest z resztą niepełnosprawny, wszystkie jego dzieci to geje

[mikonoe]

[points to mlm ship] yuri.

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

genuinely I think one of the most pressing calls for Christians (namely Protestant Christians) today is to stop underestimating the power of beauty

visual beauty, beauty in word, beauty in sound, beauty in story

we have ceded beauty for the past 70 years to the atheistic world and people of all beliefs are realizing that world has failed to carry that standard. people are realizing their daily lives are starved of beauty--especially natural beauty--so they are turning to the entities which recognize its power. entities like paganism, witchcraft, ancestor worship, the New Age. if they are drawn to Christianity (not necessarily believing it), they are more likely to attend a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox mass.

humans need beauty because humans need God, and beauty belongs to God. which means the church should be the standard-bearer of beauty in this world.

if a church can afford it, they should prioritize building a beautiful church, even if that means it will be smaller or less trendy.

if a church has skilled musicians in their midst, they should prioritize using those musicians in worship, even if it means the style of the music changes.

the church should always prioritize hymns and spiritual songs which exemplify goodness, truth, and beauty in their composition and lyrics, even if it means newcomers don't understand every line yet.

all these forms of beauty should reflect the beauty of the story of the Gospel.

[obsessedwithstarwars]

An excerpt from a fic I’m writing:

“DON’T-”

The Red Hood turned toward her so fast, he hissed as he felt a sharp pain in his side. Oh right. He’d been shot. Twice.

“Touch that.” Jazz finished quietly. She strode over to his bedside and sat down, revealing a first aid bag. She waited until he nodded his consent to check his bandages and started to change them.

Shit that hurt. Her touch was light but a bullet wound was still a bullet wound. In an attempt to keep his mind off of what she was doing, he asked about the object.

“What is it?” She looked up. He nodded his head toward the… whatever it was. He could have sworn it had a faint green glow around it now.

“Oh that.” She resumed her work while she spoke. “It’s highly contaminated. One touch and your food will come alive and attack you for days until it wears off.”

Ooookay. Not what he expected to hear. And she was so nonchalant about it.

“Really?!” He asked incredulously.

“No!” She finished wrapping his side with new bandages and moved on to his arm.

“I just don’t want you to touch it.” She said with a mischevious smile, then resumed her work.

He chuckled at that, then winced at the pain.

“Careful. Don’t tear the stitches I put in. I won’t do it again.”

[marciaillust]

mom come pick me up people related to my personal posts too much

[write-to-tell-your-story]

Sometimes the point of a story is to be very realistic in its portrayals of people and/or the world it is set in.

Other times, the point of a story is to be a power fantasy, or a nice black & white escapist fantasy, or a horny fantasy, or all sorts of other fantasies that provide people with a fun and cathartic break from reality and all its gray areas and unfortunate truths and overwhelming systemic power structures that leave us feeling helpless against faceless enemies we don't always know how to fight.

Sometimes, "this story is unrealistic," is the point.

Seek realism when it serves the story. Throw "realism" out the window when something else will serve your story better.

[bananasfosterparent]

So the interview saying that Asc Astarion is "still him" (as we already know) and how ascending him is basically Tav confirming to him "yes you should be in fear".... I've seen strange reactions to it. Or rather, strange reactions about our reaction lol

Spawn weirdos and Fixers: "the Asc girlies aren't gonna like this, no no no! Hahahaha they're going to deny it all! This will destroy them!"

Asc Astarion fans: *giving the interview actual analysis and consideration* "Yeah that makes sense, he lives in a dangerous world and so many people could be after him. It would make sense for Tav to fear for him and want him to recognize that there are very real threats out there. And to help him ascend is to tell him that those fears are real and he'd do well to take out insurance against them (ie. ascending). And while that may lead to unhealthy habits (paranoia for example, especially for vampires), it's a valid and healthy thing to recognize in moderation if that's how you want the narrative to go."

[valtsv]

okay fine i'll read homestuck. whatever. i've cracked i can't take it anymore i need to fuck around and find out.

[frigidwife]

I really really. like i am very sympathetic about having tonal issues w the finale but to say the finale is a betrayal of the show's depiction of abuse bc lestat wasn't masterminding the trial and didnt want louis and claudia to die ... well

[3416]

everyone bitching about the pwhl logos and names all day long is so boring lol. i get that its in sports fans nature to never be happy about anything but fr the only reason established teams branding across every league is accepted is bc of longevity lkgfjdskl... like sports teams just have some of THE dumbest names available and i think it's a hard task to try to please any population of people about something that subjective but... i'm just excited that there gets to be a brand identity for these teams now for good.

[degloved]

sawlerinas (saw tumblrinas) i am genuinely on the verge of claiming saw v is my favorite saw. like. like i cannot keep lying to myself

[j4zz4lop3]

If mischa didn’t die young in a rollercoaster accident he would’ve ended up in a piramid scheme and you fucking know it.

[aether-friskets]

Why I Headcanon Waylon Park as a Trans Guy?

it came to me in a dream.

ok but jokes aside (well not entirely it DID actually originate because of a dream i had getting interrupted by a nonexistent video essay on the topic... dreams are weird man), i do want to try talking about my reasoning for this (although it's totally legit to hc a character as trans purely because you want to!! thats totally based also lol), because maybe it'd be interesting to hear the lens through which i saw this game? idk lol but i'm doing it anyway... below the cut in case it gets long

Ok immediate prefaces, A: i doubt this was actually the intended at all and i'm not trying to say it's canon, just saying why i read it that way :3 and B: this will probably be a rambling mess and I apologize, I'll try to make it somewhat make sense.

I guess I'll start with: a whole major thing of Outlast, is fighting to tear down this large corporation, that is like. the embodiment of shitty systems that exploit people (this post by bry mentions that general topic, although more focused on miles' angle). It's worth noting because, to me at least, fighting these sorts of systems really aligns with a lot of queer folks (and basically any group that gets fucked over by the system, which is most of them loll). There's like, this whole thing of Waylon seemingly fitting that image of the ideal typical man, with the wife and kids and a job, but he has to risk all of that to do what he feels is the right thing.

(Oh yeah, I guess quick tangent on that note. Yes I know in canon we literally see his dick lmao and also we know he has kids, which you might think would deter my hc here. but A: i already said ik it's probably not canon, i can still read into it regardless. B: intersex ppl exist. C: phalloplasty and other similar procedures exist. D: ppl can have kids in non-traditional way. so im prob not gonna cover that element of it more)

My brain hasn't been able to help but interpret his whole journey in a queer way, because i played it as a teenager still in the throes of understanding my identity and place in the world, so in the end this might not even make sense to anyone else. But, I'm trying to explain, so I'll continue to regardless.

I kind of saw it as Waylon hiding in the protection of an "ideal" life. On the surface he looks like he's in that American ideal family, but it's a subversion. He's only one of them because they think he is. Because he doesn't step out of line. Unlike Miles, who's more outspoken about issues, who seemingly has no one around him. He's treated as part of this "ideal" world, while working in the background to try and stop the exploitation and immoral acts going on.

When he's caught, when he's seen as something more complicated than first imagined, he's cast out. Lumped in with the same people being exploited by Murkoff already. He isn't "human" to them anymore. He's something else. Something they don't like.

Although the violence brought upon him is by the variants, it is still in part Murkoff's doing, since they fucked these people up via these experiments to a point of heightened violence and just generally ruining their lives more than they already had been by whatever they had done prior. That being said, they are still responsible for their own actions.

the stuff with Eddie is definitely the part that most resonated with me through this lens. I remember first playing it, and he scared me the most, for a lot of reasons. One of which being what he represented. He's The Groom. He wants someone to be his Bride, and you're it, even if you don't want that. As someone who's aroace AND already knew at that point that i wasn't a girl, this guy felt like a human embodiment of the pressures to fit what was expected of you. That one day, you'll be married and have kids. If you don't, then you're worthless.

But it's interesting especially, because Waylon IS married. He has kids already. He has that family. The difference is, in this hypothetical trans lens, he's not "really" in a traditional family. He's "pretending", as some might see it, because he's not "really one of them". Being Eddie's Bride is the situation that would've been expected of him, but he said "fuck that", and did his own thing.

Plus, like, with Eddie in particular, you will NEVER be what he wants. He will try to make his perfect bride, but you'll never be it. Even before Mount Massive, no one was what he wanted, judging by all the people he killed. He's a broken man desiring something but never liking his options.

Also just fucking. these lines from eddie make me lose my mind.

That part of you the world sees, they think it's perfect. As God intended. Even these idiots and lunatics see it. There's something special about you. On the surface. But when they look deeper, when anybody with eyes to see looks at what you truly are. That's why they don't trust you. You're not what you're meant to be. Not yet. This place can see into your mind. And the things you've done. Oh, they're a sin, darling.

like HELLO??

I know it's probably just Eddie rambling but it felt like he reached through the screen and grabbed me by the throat like.

Anyway in actual relation to my point. uh. Remember the thing I said about Waylon being a "fake" typical family? This kind of relates to that. Like, on the surface, he seems like he's got this perfect typical American family, he's "as God intended" (which. bro. i swear that exact phrase has been used against trans people so many times). But if you look closer, you'll realize there's more to it than that. Also like, going from the "as God intended" line to the thing about the things he's done being a sin, like hmmm. Maybe I'm reading into that too much, considering we know Eddie wants to make you into his Bride, so of course he's gonna think stuff like that. But still. It's a bit interesting to me.

Plus, it's interesting how, despite having a wife and kids, he's still more... feminized, I guess, than any other characters in this game. Both in the game itself, and within the fandom. Like, not just Eddie literally calling him a woman and trying to make him his bride, but also stuff like a variant near the beginning calling him a "pretty flower" before threatening him, Andrew (one of the staff) licking his face at the beginning of the game... A lot of violence and sexual-ish acts that are often directed at women in media. Even Frank, who I don't have as much to say about here, has some weirdly sexual undertones to his whole cannibalism thing.

This isn't entirely related but one part of the game that still sticks with me but I don't see mentioned as much, is near the beginning. Those guys stabbing the dead staff member. One of them remarks that "there are no observers here" and "do you think you're different? Something special?", which I think helps cement the whole idea that he's treated the same as the rest of people being exploited by Murkoff now. There's no turning back to that "ideal" life you were hiding in before. Hell, that's definitely reinforced more at the end of the game, when you choose to publish your footage, knowing Murkoff will come after you for it, and probably ruin your life. Maybe there's more interesting things to glean from that, but i thought they were interesting lines nonetheless.

anyway, overall I know this is probably just the ramblings of a trans/generally queer person reading WAY too much into a character that I happened to resonate with when i played the game, but i thought maybe it would be interesting for others to understand what would lead me to this conclusion? Anyway, that's all i've got on the subject right now, so I hope it was at least a little interesting.

[glowont]

All the guys in marble hornets are so divorced with eachother. only jessica and taylor get saved from this and its because yuri prevails all in this essay i will

[themoonking]

finally finished the priory of the orange tree after putting it off for like a year, and putting aside the fact that it's insanely boring, way too long, and the romance is lackluster, it certainly was a choice to, in a book at least in part about finding common ground and coming together, basically go "religion a is correct and good and its believers can continue on their merry lives, but religion b is a 100% incorrect wrong bad lie founded by a wrong bad misogynistic lying liar, and everyone who believes in it should convert and in fact we're going to end the book by heavily implying that the recently-converted queen is going to slowly but surely pressure the entire country to convert because their faith is wrong and bad". like that was certainly a decision that samantha shannon made.

[adrianicsea]

can’t remember if i’ve articulated this via tumblr post or just discussed it with my bf & our roommate BUT ANYWAYS. the thing about the way people approach dennis is that they almost always fall into one of two intensely dichotomous camps.

1. you’ve got the fans who tend to boil him down to “omgggg he’s a psychopath narcissist serial killer!! so evil!! the implication am i right 😂” and naturally this approach is always taken with no nuance and no consideration of the numerous OTHER character traits dennis is shown to possess in canon, much less to how this language & rhetoric might affect real life individuals. conversely:

2. there are those fans who go SO far in the other direction to point out his more vulnerable traits and his tragic backstory (so to speak) that he becomes a watered-down caricature of himself. not to say that he doesn’t have a lot of inner pain and sadness and vulnerability, but this approach often seems disingenuous in its reluctance to engage with the more prickly and Problematic aspects of the character.

in both cases, HUGE and very vital chunks of dennis’ characterization is ignored for the sake of pushing the respective “agenda” of each group— either dennis is a monster, or he’s a broken and misunderstood man who’s REALLY just looking for love. and like… it’s both! it HAS to be both. and yet.