#moderator to a conversation if you will

[seltzher-bottel]

Plutocrat <3

Anyways lore drop for my own character lol

[radsplain]

women can't even talk about our own anatomy without having to caveat every single thing we say with "i think all terfs should die btw!!!" like i find it so interesting that this was her very first thought after posting. she knew how the notes were going to eviscerate her for it so she had to beat them to it. this right here is one of the reasons i peaked. any discussion about our bodies always, inevitably, is boiled down to "bioessentialist rhetoric" despite the very valid points it's making. the fact that any discussion we want to have about female anatomy is somehow a "TERF dogwhistle" for simply talking about body parts that half the human population has. and that every conversation like this has to be prefaced with "TERFS can fuck off and DIE!!!" or else risk being ripped to shreds by the gender freaks is so telling of where liberal feminism is today.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

the never stop blowing up vhs is where cute twinks go to get harmed

[catadrome]

tried something clever today and got uno reversed. let this be a lesson to you: never try anything clever!

[aleatoryw]

both keto (high fat no carbs) and low-fat high carb diets are nonsensical to me because clearly carbs and fats were meant to be enjoyed together. pasta with creamy sauce. bread slathered in butter or peanut butter. cookies. this is a no brainer.

[thegreenleavesofspring]

Anyway maybe the Calvinists and the Catholics should try. You know. Talking to each other instead of making the sorts of assumptions that wouldn't be out of place on the preschool playground, and only based on half the available information.

[gothra]

Unsurprisingly, ideological polarization is bad for healthy conversation about nuanced issues. As it turns out, telling people that “if you believe in Concept A, you’re always and 100% X, and if you are X, you want me and people in my community to die” tends to make it difficult for people to speak up if they believe something, valid, yet hopelessly adjacent to “Concept A” and then, when they don’t speak up, no one ever solves anything. All that’s successfully happened is sending everyone on either side of that issue back into their hidey-holes, rightfully convinced that the other side is their enemy.

Literally, the only thing we can do to escape this level of reactionary behavior is to listen to what other people say, even if we disagree with them and even if we know they’re totally 100% wrong and stupid and evil, and come from a place not borne of moral righteousness, but of genuine curiosity and the hope that a conversation can scratch an itch or draw in some perspective. You should want to see in color, not just your black and white.

[aroceu]

one thing i learned from having ocd is that we can ease the suffering in our lives a bit more if we free ourselves from imposing rules onto ourselves and also onto others. obviously there's nothing wrong with having standards & personal boundaries but we reduce our own freedom (as well as others') when we have a set of guidelines dictating how people "ought to" think or behave or be. there are people and opinions and viewpoints i would rather not engage with but i will never go into the effort of trying to either control or destroy the feelings or thoughts or behavior or experiences of anyone (including my own) just to conform to my personal standards. i mean i suppose this is why i have avoidance issues lol but the point i'm really trying to make is that there is a huge difference between acceptance and complacency and that's that complacency abides by and conforms to rules while acceptance is a radical eradication of those rules

[thedreadvampy]

sorry I'm on one now. Narnia is one of my Big Rant triggers.

but like. I would be lying if I said I didn't love Narnia

(everything except the Horse and His Boy, which a) even as a tiny kid made me uncomfortable with how fucking racist it is (literally there is ONE. ONE. character of colour who isn't evil, selfish, greedy and violent. even when you're 5 and white and don't really understand racism it's like. sorry there are just no nice people in this whole country? and every Narnian is lovely?) and b) is just fucking DULL partly bc of the 2 dimensional racist caricatures populating the world)

but I can't pretend for a second that it isn't specifically built around a Christian theology that's explicitly racist, hierarchical, supremacist, colonialist and The Bits I Like Least Of Anglicanism

and my FAVOURITE books in the series (except the Silver Chair which tbh is WAY less theological and way more mythology-nerd) are the first and last, which are by far the most explicitly Christian. even more so than TLTWATW.

and I can just about stand by the Magician's Nephew bc it's mostly just a mix of Christian creation myth and CS Lewis's sci fi interests in the esoteric and multiverses and it honestly feels fine. but my all time favourite most iconic Narnia book is The Last Battle and I just. cannot. justify it for a second from a political or philosophical standpoint.

it's got it all bc it's the book where Lewis is like ok hold up let me lay out explicitly what my theology is. and what he thinks it's important to say is:

Almost all Muslims are bad and evil

They worship Satan by doing Bad Evil Deeds to please him

There are a couple of Good Muslims who do good deeds. they need to be brought to the light, understand that the voice calling them to do good deeds is the Christian god, and they too can achieve the kingdom of heaven

Some people will use Christianity as a mask for exploitation and mistreatment. They are bad and their faith is false (ok fine)

...and they're doing that because they're CONSPIRING WITH THE EVIL MUSLIMS TO OPPRESS GOOD CHRISTIANS

...and THAT'S THE ONLY REASON ANYONE WOULD TELL YOU THAT GOD AND ALLAH ARE DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME GOD. because they're either conning you or because they've been misled and can't really think for themselves.

DID I MENTION. THAT MUSLIMS ARE EVIL AND TRYING TO BRING DOWN CHRISTIANS.

and other than the GOD AREN'T MUSLIMS JUST THE WORST of it all, he also goes back over to more fully explain several points he's made throughout the series, such as:

white Christian public school kids are the god ordained leaders of the world and attempts to think otherwise are heretical

god places people where they need to be to serve his purpose

free will is largely an illusion - your only choice is faith or chaos, and as a godly person your actions are preordained

the problem is though. he's kind of a really good character writer? and in The Last Battle he pulls out most of his best classics (hi Reepicheep! hi Frank! hi Jill!) and gives us a whole wealth of really fun new characters (Tirian and Jewel, Emeth, Puzzle, Shift, Griffle and Ginger are all just SO FUN) and it's such a solid adventure. for me it's hands down the most FUN Narnia to read and an effective and affecting end to the series.

but like. god its unjustifiably fucked philosophy is baked into every single character and event. it's so hard to ignore. it's my favourite book in the series. it's the book that makes me angriest. it's everything right with Narnia and everything wrong with Narnia. I like it cause it asks me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy and I hate it cause it requires me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy.

in conclusion, Narnia is a land of contrasts. also occasionally brownface.

[wewontbesleeping]

one of my biggest pet peeves is the people who will comment things like "leftover wine??? what's that????" on videos. girl we're not all alcoholics.

[virtualcarrot]

the funniest thing about being a vegetarian "moderate" (do not put a charcuterie board in front of me or so help me I will eat it I have zero self-control where food is concerned) while having made peace with the inadequacy of my own choices in the face of the reality of things, is that I still get to suffer conversations on the topic from the side of HARD. SCIENTIFIC. FACTS. going ignored

[unopenablebox]

poor 🌸 is so constantly bedeviled by the fact that we have identical wardrobes

[starlooove]

Ur white kids wouldn’t be so easy to radicalize if y’all spoke about race and being actively anti racist in ur homes btw

[alchemylive]

actually not a bit i love talking about suicide i think its so important to talk about suicide

[authoralexharvey]

Ngl the reason I don't join more writeblr discords is—well, firstly, I'm already in enough of them—but more importantly, because people get inflated egos over being mods way, way too often. And for no real good reason, either, given they're shit moderators. And I don't have enough energy in me to constantly parse out whether a mod is on an ego trip anymore tbh.

[strixhaven]

i love when discord servers announce who they chose for new mods and immediately going to yourself “oh this is a bad idea this is Not Gonna End Well”