#not necessarily true belief

[onewomancitadel]

Given that Reylo doesn't really bring me very much joy anymore it would probably do me social good to stop mentioning it. But it is really a microcosm of everything that interests me - both from an inside fandom thing (fanon which runs counter to the canon dynamic) to an outside fandom thing (anti-Reylo as a point of signalling moral health and sensibility) to the commercial squandering of it to the General Audience response which differed so radically from prevailing online discourse.

I don't know, I think I'm feeling sensitive because I've seen so many anti-Reylo posts recently. I wonder when it will ever die down lol.

[creekfiend]

I think a lot of this 'religion is necessarily oppressive' stuff honestly is kind of like the confusion about ppl thinking that like, slavery and scientific racism and etc came about BECAUSE OF beliefs that Black people etc were not fully human rather than those beliefs -- those ARGUMENTS, really -- being JUSTIFICATIONS that were invented to allow white ppl to continue to engage in slavery which was at its core about economic exploitation. Like that most systemic bigotry serves a Useful Purpose to those in power and that's why it exists; the policies aren't put in place because of the beliefs. The cart isn't pulling the horse. Christian stuff was used to justify the same things that later, "scientific progress" was used to justify in the west (e.g. scientific racism, eugenics, etc. Very very very much rooted in the idea of certain beliefs and cultures as inherently more rational and forward thinking because BEING RATIONAL AND VALUING SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS WERE CULTURAL VALUES AT THE TIME.) (This does not say anything about Science. It says things about Institutes and power and oppression.)

Similarly, you see a lot of people saying "well religion is used to justify oppression by the people in power" and its like yes. Religion is not unique. Beliefs about what is true about the world -- ideology -- can always be used to do this and frequently is.

When there are common beliefs held by a majority of people in a given culture those beliefs will be used by the people in power to explain and justify the things they do to maintain power and control in society.

This isn't a function of religion. It's a function of power.

When people say "well, this religious rhetoric is/was used to justify misogynistic legal standards in this society" the answer is yep. And if it wasn't that it would be something else because that society had an investment in that specific kind of oppression of women. We have seen this morph into 'rational' 'scientific' explanations for women's inferiority and justifications for making women second class citizens once the cultural values swing more towards rationality and science, as well. Thats... regular.

Like... love to have a good faith convo about this with someone who doesn't get weird and reactionary about "Religious People" but sure not seeing much of that going on. Weirdly.

Anyway.

[theimpossibleness]

continually finding that the beliefs I hold about myself are the things that are holding me back from growing is exhausting

[valodia]

Real thing somebody said IRL today "the christmas tree in itself is from pagan culture so it doesnt count as religious"

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

i think the villa diodati speech probably had a big effect on how yaz approached the doctor in flux and after

[crunchycrystals]

the best and worst part about life is that there's a million different ways it didn't turn out like this, but everything in our lives lined up to get us here

[pinkseas]

girl who thinks about xiaolumi too much literally while in the middle of writing abt them and then starts crying a little bit

[party-gilmore]

not me thought spiralling about the eventual future break down and depression spiralling if/when the rabbi's reject me at my conversion

an event that all reading seems to indicate being at least two to three years away, from the point of even actually finding a relatively local Jewish community where I 1) can figure out what damn level of observance I am, 2) feel comfortable and accepted in, and 3) can confirm is not actually a scam*

anyways it's hard enough dealing with the RSD for shit ACTUALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, can we just fucking... NOT for shit years down the pipeline please?

[faaun]

my (neuro)psych professor is fucking hilarious i love him sm

[aliteralgrizzlybear]

I'm tired.

[muirneach]

sitting alone in my room in the dark. does the norman bates smile. okay maybe they’re right horror ppl are freaks i get it now

[marionmaverick]

Stormblood head canon live blogging:

Marion got very antsy when they told him to rest while Krile was still captured. Both he and his Azem before that have a tendency to be unable to rest til they feel like a job is “finished”.

This is doubly true if a friend or colleague is in need.

Marion doesn’t believe in the gods, in relation to how he feels about traditions and how often they are tied to them. He thinks they are just an excuse.

So while he supported Alisae’s thoughts and beliefs, when Lyse brought up the Twelve in conversation later he just sort of rolled his eyes and said nothing. Knowing “they aren’t real so they probably don’t care” was not the answer she was looking for, but also being wholly uninterested in answering in a way she needed.

He knows everyone just assumes his silence is some “wiser beyond his years” nonsense anyway. When he’s quiet people always supply the answer they need from him.

[gffa]

Absolutely fascinated by what the coven's philosophy is in The Acolyte, where Aniseya talks about the Thread as a connection between all living things, that different people call it different things, and says, "Some call it a Force and claim to use it. But we know the Thread is not a power you wield. Pull the Thread. Change everything. It ties you to your destiny. It binds you to others." all while she's actively wielding the Force to demonstrate it. Are we meant to find echoes of the Path of the Open hand, who believed that using the Force in one place meant that you were causing an equal and opposite reaction in another? Where they said "the Force shall be free" as a way to stop anyone from using it in any way, saying that if you saved this life then the Force would take that life over there as "balance"? Is the Coven an evolution of their beliefs, where instead of saying that no one can use the Force, but instead that you should be allowed to use it despite that? Or are they an offshoot of the Nightsisters? Or are they simply saying that the Thread wields them, rather than them wielding the Thread? Or is it that they simply believe it's a large connective web, where when you pluck one string, it vibrates across the entire tapestry? The coven is such an interesting mix of things we know to be true about the Force, but also things that are suspicious as hell, like whatever they did to Torbin, whatever created Mae and Osha, why they felt they had to hide, when the Jedi have always existed beside other dark siders in the galaxy, the Brotherhood of the Ninth Door in the High Republic, the Nightsisters in the prequels, so why are they so afraid of the Jedi finding out their secrets? What is it that the coven believes in and acts on??? Because I love weird Force traditions and the different philosophies of them and I feel like The Acolyte is very much going for a story about unreliable narrators and differing desires conflicting against each other where you can at least understand where each group is coming from, like I don't think the coven is necessarily evil, but what they did to Torbin was certainly a red flag, on the other hand, Aniseya listened to what Osha had to say about leaving with the Jedi, but also we don't know what really happened that night, and I'm enjoying the weird Force bullshit because that's my jam in Star Wars.

[babybutchianthe]

↑ i am constantly thinking abt this reply because it is deeply reflective of the general attitude i see displayed toward palamedes, and camilla too, wherein people seem to assume that they are inherently more rational and comparatively unbiased as a whole when compared to everyone else. they are treated as if they are comparatively free from the same confines of thinking that affect other characters; they are characterised as a shining example of a truly equal necromancer-cavalier bond, of loyalty and love, and are treated as if they are perfect geniuses who can do no wrong—an attitude i feel very much inclines people to romanticise their devotion & treat paul's birth as a victorious thing.

@dve i feel summarised this phenomena the best: "i think cam and palamedes are nowhere near as revolutionary as a chunk of the fandom would like for them to be". i'd even go as far as to say that, in their role as foils to gideon and harrow, they are meant to showcase just how damaging the necro-cavalier dichotomy is to the individuals involved. i've spoke on this before but the bond is explicitly modelled on the example of john & alecto—which is already not ideal—and was built on a foundation of deception, with john hiding the fact the lyctoral process did not necessarily have to end with the death of the cavalier: the sacrifice of the cavalier is baked into it, because the history of cavaliership is indelibly tied into the avoidable deaths of the first cavaliers.

the equality ascribed to their bond is based on their seeming inversion of the exploitative nature of the necro-cav bond—compared to silas' siphoning colum, it seems improbable to say that they are anything but true equals who break away from the model, revolutionary in nature. they are devoted to each other, endlessly loyal! to the point camilla will violate the wishes and autonomy of palamedes in the name of her devotion.

camilla frames the fact she cannot sustain both of their souls in her body as her being weak, as opposed to being a product of the reality maintaining two souls in a single body the way they are doing is extraordinarily difficult and unnatural, doing herself a disservice in the process, because in her eyes she is failing in her duty to him.

his presence in her body is killing them both, and she frames this as [their] choice, but then wants pyrrha to lie to him about the fact it's killing her: meaning his choice would be based on her exploiting his absence in this moment, on a deception.

they can't keep this up forever, it is killing them both, but camilla's devotion to him means she won't accept that and doesn't want to give him reason to vacate her body. she wants pyrrha to lie—even though it's killing him too!—because she doesn't want to let him choose to let her live at the cost of his own life.

her death is avoidable but her role and her duty is to die for him, to sacrifice, to hold the sword for her necromancer. she won't let him, the necromancer, choose the cavalier's life because it is intended to be used by him—a soul to be eaten. she won't let him choose, violates his wishes and autonomy in the name of her devotion to him; i personally don't think equality in a relationship is based around denying the other their autonomy and lying to them, do you? and in this moment, camilla is treating herself as expendable, their inevitable death as inconsequential because it prolongs palamedes for as long as possible.

palamedes, conversely, has a very interesting perspective on lyctorhood:

he presumes that the original lyctors, the first necromancers and their cavaliers, sought to merge themselves from the start and that they achieved this incompletely. he posits the existence of true lyctorhood; palamedes views two becoming one, one being two, as something admirable, a truth not yet seen—grand instead of petty.

we also see somebody else who expresses a similiar belief in a perfected lyctorhood, one of the original lyctors, mercymorn the first:

the original lyctors did not seek out to merge with their cavalier, their other half in necro-cav terms, and only did so as a result of a lie, the idea of a one-way energy transfer. from mercymorn's perspective true lyctorhood is a process that preserves the cavalier; from palamedes' perspective true lyctorhood is a process that merges the cavalier and necromancer to form something new, the truest response to the call of "one flesh, one end" yet seen. palamedes' conception of lyctorhood is removed from the original context of lyctorhood's formation, and is shaped heavily by the ideals of the society he and cam were raised in.

If the cavalier and the necromancer do not take "one flesh, one end" as a maxim for their passion for each other, their bond is nonexistent. They must each take the other as their ideal. […] Their love is the love that fears only for the other: the love of service on both sides. Some have tried to characterise this relationship as the cavalier's obedience to the necromancer, but the necromancer must be in turn obedient to the needs of the cavalier without being asked or prompted: theirs is arguably the heavier burden. — Tamsyn Muir, A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers

suffice to say, i do not think paul is a defiance of the empire's ideals, so much as a perfected expression of them; paul is the embodiment of the love of service on both ends, the product of a mutual death. their choice to die as two to become one was exactly in line with what a necromancer and a cavalier are intended to do.

"One flesh" is the underpinning of our whole Empire [...] One end is one empire. — Tamsyn Muir, A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers

[discodeerdiary]

There's a good reason why I try not to argue publicly with anyone under 18, and it's not that I think they're inherently stupid, it's not that I think their brains are "underdeveloped", it's not that I think they can "do no wrong", it's that I never know how much freedom they actually have to think freely, or how many of their opinions are actually their own. Of course, under-18s *can be* capable of thinking for themselves and developing their own opinions, but (here in the US at least) law and culture put a lot of roadblocks on their ability to do so.

Of course parents and teachers cannot actually control the inner thoughts of the children they wield power over, but they can restrict the information that they have access to, can punish them for saying the wrong things, can cut them off from healthy diverse social groups, and can convince the child their thoughts are being monitored through religion, psychology, and other appeals to higher authority.

Thus if a random teenager says some headass shit in my mentions I have no way of knowing if these are opinions they arrived at on their own, or if they are dogmas forced on them by the people holding food and shelter over their head. If it's the latter, there's nothing to be gained from a public confrontation: people are generally unwilling to change their opinions in a direction that threatens their social support system, and they are especially unwilling to do so at the behest of an internet stranger who cannot offer alternative forms of support. If a teen is genuinely curious about my opinion (that is *if they consent* to a discussion of disagreements) and if I have the mental bandwidth for a potentially emotionally loaded conversation, yeah I'll have it, but I'm not gonna maintain any illusions about my ability to change their mind until they can find a way to live independently.

This is also why my leniency toward the not-yet-adult tends to also extend to the recently-adult. Coming up with a system of beliefs that you're actually willing to stand behind? Shit takes time, and I'm not necessarily gonna expect it of a 20-year-old who may, for all I know, have been living under conditions of near-absolute control up until their 18th birthday. Sure they may be opening their mind in college, or college may be their parents way of keeping them too occupied with busywork to develop new opinions, as they continue to hold financial support over their head. It's around their mid-twenties that I'm willing to go full gloves-off antagonistic with strangers, knowing that they've had a few years of legal and social adulthood under their belt, and that even if they're still financially dependent on their parents it's a different sort of dependence, one where they're given default legal permission to run away from home.

A lot of people are deeply uncomfortable with this line of thinking because if you look too far into the factors that influence young people's thoughts, you eventually have to start asking yourself which forces of dependency are influencing your own beliefs and opinions. Yeah, as an independent adult you may have the option to quit your job, divorce your spouse, ditch your friends, move to another country, but realistically how many of these can you accomplish at the same time? How many do you even want to? And how are all of these forces *in aggregate* setting the acceptable limits of what you're allowed to think and feel? It can be upsetting to think of yourself this way, it can be easier to think of yourself as a true free thinker and children as mindless automatons, but I urge you to think of mentally coercive environments as a continuum rather than a binary. The point is not to free yourself from all influence, but to gain the ability to see yourself as an influenced mind, and to have compassion for those dealing with all the bullshit you don't have to anymore.

[theconcealedweapon]

When a child is smart and gets good grades but struggles to socialize, they're often told something like "just wait until you're an adult, you'll be rich and people will like you easily, and those people who don't like you now will be working for you".

This is shitty advice for so many reasons.

They may not actually be as smart as you think. They may just have a special interest that causes them to notice a few extra patterns while they struggle intellectually in other ways. This could put an unreasonable amount of pressure on them, causing them to become burned out.

They may be unknowingly giving people a good reason to not like them, which is very common for autistic people who struggle to understand social rules or who don't realize that what they're doing is wrong because it's exactly what's done to them. If you convince them that everyone who doesn't like them is just jealous of how smart they are, then people will still continue to dislike them just as much as before but now everyone will think they're conceited on top of it.

Their smartness won't necessarily translate into a career. Even someone who's a total genius could easily have skills that are not specific enough to be useful for a career, or can struggle to market those skills in an interview. It's also very hard to get a good paying job without experience. For those who struggle in social situations, that's extremely likely.

It's not reasonable to expect them to just sit back and tolerate being disliked for their entire childhood and however long into adulthood it takes for them to become financially successful. They may decide that it's not worth it and stop trying. They may intentionally start acting dumb because they think people will like them more.

If your prediction comes true, they'll be surrounded by gold diggers who only like them for their money. And if they have a disability that affects their social skills, they won't know when someone is taking advantage of them.

You're promoting the belief that rich people earned their riches and that underpaid employees are experiencing karma.