#teenage evangelist

[vonbabbitt]

ok since people asked about the evil au. also please keep in mind this is a very 2000s/2010score au. its edgy and campy for fun

Isono Miki: Ultimate GFE Streamer

leans HARDCORE into GFE. constantly trying to manipulate money out of lonely people to fund a super bougie and comfortable lifestyle. snakesnake basically

Harada Keizou: Ultimate Butcher

butcher for the sole reason that he truly does enjoy chopping up and segmenting animals

just way over the top campy "haha i love killing and blood soooo much!!" 2010s deviantart creepypasta style

Chiba Airi: Ultimate Scammer

does exclusively ads for scummy faulty products and subscriptions and supplements so she can make mad bank

when we were discussing this in call we just kept saying "buy supplements" over and over and over again so thats the vibe

Kamimura Kazutoshi: Ultimate Cleanup Crew

its the same job but now he does it on the opposite side of the law

works directly in tandem with hasegawa, cleans up evidence and gets rid of bodies etc

personality wise....hes mostly the same LMAO

Hayashi Mai: Ultimate Hitman

doesnt ask questions. gets the job done

just in it for the thrill of the hunt. personality mostly the same but gets a bit feral edgy style when shes getting closer and closer to catching her target

Wada Masanari: Ultimate Con Artist

works with chiba and handles her phone lines

impersonates people's voices to give them the run-around when theyre trying to do something like cancel a subscription ("i wanna speak to the manager" "hi yes this is the manager now.")

buy supplements

Sasaki Hitomi: Ultimate Dictator

hey man gotta do something with those leadership skills

absolutely ruthless war criminal. this one is probably the most evil i think

Ojima Takeshi: Ultimate AI Artist

"nakamigawa i actually really like this design but i honestly think you could buff it up a lot with midjourney"

calls himself a "prompt engineer"

"wow cool drawing! i ran it through chatgpt to improve it a bit"

just a hardcore AI bro. thinks AI art is the absolute effing best and definitely real art

Okazaki Hanano: Ultimate Superhero

okay so shes not evil anymore

we thought it would be funny if in this evil AU shes just good now

still the rival of tsuno manami though

Hama Ran: Ultimate Occult Evangelist

just a straight up cultist

considers himself an "angel hunter", hunts down alleged "angels" and kills them in the name of his cult

tries to rope other people into his cult evangelism style

Tsuno Manami: Ultimate Supervillain

yeah pretty much what it says on the tin here

shes evil now

except shes actually good at it unlike okazaki

wants to take over the world or perhaps just blow it up maybe

Hiroaki Nakamigawa: Ultimate Model Coach

coaches young fashion models extremely harshly and pushes his fashion VERY hard

basically just yells at and insults these teenagers until they get eating disorders or quit forever

BRUTALLY mean

Tamba Ruiko: Ultimate Detective

except she absolutely fucking sucks at it

her detective-ing is an active detriment to everyone and actively sabotages crime scenes

she has no idea she sucks

Hasegawa Ken: Ultimate Information Broker

one smug motherfucker

works directly with kamimura in their little two man mafia

collects peoples information and uses it to blackmail them out of a massive amount of money and resources

Watari Nishino: Ultimate Demolitionist

we thought arson was way too basic

so now she blows stuff up with huge bombs

just for fun i guess. and can fun ever really be evil? certainly no way

Yanagi Shigeki: Ultimate Pick-up Artist

teaches those sigma male courses on how to pick up women

massive chauvinist

treats women like cattle and acts with the full intention of picking up as many of them as possible

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hey. I want to say Thanks for all the work you do here. My question is nothing biological, it's just something that spawned from a memory about my high school sex ed.

For some context, I went to a private evangelist high school in a semi-well off neighborhood in Buenos Aires. I had scholarship and some subsides that allowed me to go there as a middle class kid. So I did get Sex Ed that I can say honestly was fine.

Like, they didn't tell us to just don't have sex. we had one talk every two months from 3rd year onwards taught by a biology teacher and maybe some TA that got called in as aide if something needed to be demonstrated.

But every now and then we also has a "social sex Ed" class. Usually taught by one of the counselors. The gist was the guy coming in and telling us about interpersonal relantionships. We had a unit on like domestic violence and one on abusive relantionships from what I recall.

So my question is if that's something that exists in the Sex Ed space? Like, I'm on board with teaching teens those stuff a 100%. It's undeniable a good resource. But Idk if that's something that's standard practice or my school was just doing that

hi, thank you for sharing! I'm glad to hear that you had access to so much information :)

what's typical of sex ed varies enormously from place to place; in some places, you're lucky if the teachers are allowed to acknowledge that protected sex exists at all instead of insisting on abstinence until marriage. personally I think that sex education absolutely should include discussions about safely navigating intimate relationships, because leaving that out makes sex seem like something that happens in a void, like it has nothing to do with any other kinds of human interactions, which doesn't improve anyone's communication. a lot of people come away from sex ed with the impression that they're supposed to just Know What To Do instinctively if and when the opportunity to have partnered sex arises, which couldn't be further from the truth and can make early sexual experiences much more stressful and scary than they need to be.

most of the in-person teaching I do is with younger folks, around the aged of 10-12. and we absolutely talk about consent and boundary-setting in addition to basic mechanics of puberty and pregnancy, because that's a really important part of the equation. teaching the kids how a sperm meets an egg is useless if we don't also teach them how to decide if they personally feel ready for sexual intimacy and how to talk that through with a potential partner, as well as how to say no if they find themselves in situations where they're being pressure to do something that they don't want.

I had a conversation once with the father of one of my students - nice guy, really excited for his kiddo to receive a thorough sex education - who told me with very real regret that his high school offered very thorough details on the physical mechanics of sex and contraception but didn't offer students any guidance on how to actually navigate consent with partners. while he never experienced any pregnancy scares of STIs as a teen, he said he was sure that he was nevertheless "not a very good partner" because while he knew about using condoms, he never learned how to actually talk through his feelings with the girls he dated. it seemed really obvious, to me that, having learned a lot since his teen years, he was carrying a lot of remorse for the ways he might have unintentionally hurt his teenage girlfriends, and was eager for his own child to learn the tools to avoid falling into the same behavior.

part of the curriculum is learning to spot inappropriate behavior and potential predation and how to seek help in those scenarios. when learning about sex, especially for young people, I do think it's genuinely really important to model positive, consensual interactions so that there's a clear point of comparison against situations that are unsafe. but in my class also talk about situations where there are questions of consent but no one clearly in the wrong. what if you friend wants to try kissing and you don't know what to say? what if someone you like is getting too touchy and you want them to stop? if you have a crush on a friend but they don't reciprocate, how should you act towards them after that? all of those are important scenarios to talk about, and help the kids build their skills of conflict resolution and communication in all areas of their lives.

so, the short answer is that it's absolutely not a universal practice, but I really wish it was because it would do a tremendous amount of good.

[district-thirteen-intern]

to catch a victor (bribe him with bad embroidery)

pairings: haymitch abernathy x reader

blurb:

it’s not love. it’s frostbite prevention and mutual exasperation.

(fine. it’s also love.)

The first rule of being a victor is: don’t let anyone care about you. The second rule is: don’t accept hand-sewn items from people who break the first rule.

It’s a few days after the quarter quell announcement when he breaks both these rules spectacularly, through no fault of his own. Haymitch is perched on a lichen-slick boulder at the edge of the woods, his breath fogging in the brittle air, half-listening as the boy outlines a training regimen with all the blind devotion of a zealot trying to out-organize a funeral. Peeta has a binder, gods help them all — tabs meticulously color-coded, sections labeled with grim optimism, drills scheduled as if discipline alone could outpace the death sentence hanging over the girl's head, and he’s earnest enough to make saints exhausted and martyrs reconsider their contracts. Katniss, for her part, has brought along her ever-present shadow, the surly hunter boy, who is theoretically here to demonstrate snares; in practice, he is clearly more interested in watching her as she catalogues various edible roots than in offering any actual instruction and when she moves out of their field of vision, he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. (Haymitch, for the record, would also rather the hunter boy be anywhere else in the world, but keeping a petty rivalry with a moody teenager does seem like a new low, even for him, so he keeps his mouth shut about that.) The whole thing is laughably futile, a mockery of preparation — because the quarter quell is a loaded gun aimed squarely at their heads, and here they are weaving daisy chains out of training drills and desperate routine, pretending they have some say in how the trigger gets pulled. Haymitch could have been at home instead — indoors, horizontal, and safely ensconced in an embrace with a bottle of white liquor — but no. Peeta had insisted earlier that week, with quiet, unbearable hope, that he sober up to help them prepare. And Haymitch, idiot that he is, had agreed in a moment of generosity. Which is how he now finds himself freezing his ass off in the middle of a dying forest, listening to a teenage bakery evangelist preach about upper-body strength, all while painfully, bitterly sober.

He opens his mouth to suggest they all go home when he sees it.

A streak of red coming through the trees.

And then—

And then she arrives.

The bushes move first, in warning, and the leaves rustle, followed by the sound of someone tripping on their own feet twice, and then she's bursting through the clearing in her signature haphazard way.

There's twigs in her mussed up curls, and her cheeks are pink in the cold air, and she's wrapped inside a bright red overcoat a few sizes too large with a suspicious bundle of blue flannel in her hands.

Haymitch swears under his breath.

“Morning!” she calls, entirely too chipper for someone voluntarily entering a training zone full of traumatized killers filled with unresolved tension.

“That had better be white liquor.”

“It's socks!”

“Socks,” he repeats flatly.

“Yes.” The bundle is being opened, and out come some questionably not-sock-shaped socks. “It's so cold outside and Primrose told me yesterday you come without socks so I sewed some— and they match.”

Katniss picks hers up, examining them they might bite her.

“There's a cake sewn on mine,” says Peeta, sounding pleased.

“Yes, and Katniss has fire— for the girl on fire.”

“And Haymitch?”

“His has a crow.”

His lips twitch. “A crow,” he says.

“Yes.”

He examines the blob of stitching at the ankle. “It looks like it's got three wings and no head.”

She huffs. “It's stylized.”

“It's sad.”

“You're sad.”

Peeta's eyebrows have almost risen past his hairline, and even the girl looks interested.

Haymitch almost wants to wring out their necks. “The peacekeepers will have you whipped down to the bone if they caught you coming here.”

“I was careful.”

“You were lucky,” he says, standing up. “I'm taking you home now.”

“I'm staying.”

“The hell you are.”

“I walked all the way here.”

“And you can walk all the way back.”

“I brought you socks!”

“I didn't ask for socks!”

“I like the socks,” interjects Peeta, unhelpfully.

Haymitch glares. “You're enabling her.”

“If you don't like yours, I won't mind two pairs.”

He glares. “Shut up, Peeta.”

Katniss interrupts them. "We should be leaving anyway."

And that's that.

Later, when the pale sun bleeds into dusk and they trudge back towards the district, Haymitch finds himself falling into step beside her.

“What was Gale's symbol?” he asks, curious.

“Huh?”

“On the socks— what was his symbol?”

“There wasn't any.”

“Why not?”

“I don't like him.”

“You like everyone.��

“Not him,” she says, with stout partiality. “He looks at you funny.”

Haymitch stops dead.

“What?”

“He does!”

The world tilts— just a little— and he feels something warm and stupid looking inside his stomach. He pretends it's just heartburn from indigestion.

“Ridiculous,” he mutters.

But his fingers tighten around the pair of socks. And when she stumbles over a root and her hand grabs his—

He doesn't let go.

Not when the wind bites.

Not when the path darkens.

Not even when she laces their fingers together, her palm fitting against his like it was made to.

(Especially not then.)

this is not a serious thing. please do not treat it like a serious thing, lol. i just wrote this right now, and posted it because it doesn't really go anywhere, and i have nothing else to post, and why not.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Rabbi Jacob Tarshish

Our mission here at Accidental Talmudist is to elevate social media by sharing Jewish wisdom with everybody. We just learned about a kindred soul, Rabbi Jacob Tarshish, who almost a hundred years ago did something very similar. His mission was to elevate radio by sharing Jewish wisdom with everybody.

Born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1892, Rabbi Jacob Tarshish came to America as a teenager. He settled in Ohio and became the rabbi of B’nei Israel Congregation in Columbus. He served as a pulpit rabbi in Columbus for eighteen years before shocking everyone by quitting to start a radio show.

In the 1930’s, radio was becoming increasingly popular in America, with nearly every home owning one. Unlike today, with so many forms of media available to us, radio was the only game in town for home entertainment. The vast majority of shows were light entertainment, music or news. There were also a few Christian evangelists, including the wildly popular Aimee Semple McPherson, but there was no Jewish religious content.

Rabbi Jacob Tarshish set out to change that. He saw in the new medium of radio a golden opportunity to inspire people with Jewish teachings. He called his show “The Lamplighter,” and started at WAIU-AM in Ohio. On the show, Rabbi Tarshish shared universal Jewish wisdom with a wide and diverse audience. He was especially adept at making deep concepts accessible to all, and he had a warm, charismatic personality that gave the show its trademark combination of entertainment value and spiritual uplift. The Lamplighter was so popular that many other stations picked it up and soon the show was available in radio markets all over the country.

Rabbi Tarshish supported his family during this time by airing radio ads for cosmetics and medical supplements such as Dr. Edwards Olive Tablets, Kreml Hair Tonic, and Bost Tooth Paste. Some in the Jewish community disapproved of Rabbi Tarshish for selling air space, considering it too commercial and not befitting the dignity of a rabbi (maybe he should have formed a nonprofit like Accidental Talmudist!). Despite the naysayers, The Lamplighter was wildly successful. At the height of its popularity, Rabbi Tarshish had two million devoted listeners all over the United States, the vast majority of whom were not Jewish.

The Lamplighter ran from Jan 3, 1936 to April 14, 1941. After it went off the air in 1941, Rabbi Tarshish became an in-demand motivational speaker who traveled the country lecturing to a wide variety of religious, fraternal, women’s and educational organizations. He gave over 300 speeches a year, setting audiences on fire with his oratory skills and universal message of love and friendship based on ancient Jewish teachings. Rabbi Tarshish wrote a popular book, Little Journeys with the Lamplighter, and published a compilation of his most popular speeches, Half Hours With Rabbi Jacob Tarshish.

Rabbi Jacob died at Hanukkah time in 1960, at age 67, and is buried at the Greater Baltimore Lodge Cemetery. His headstone reads: “Beloved Husband and Father” and below that his Hebrew name Yaakov ben Peretz HaLevi. Rabbi Tarshish was survived by his wife Goldie, children Emanuel Tarshish, Elaine Eistenstein, and Rhoda Cokain, and two grandchildren.

Although Rabbi Tarshish was well-known during his lifetime, he seems to have been forgotten by history. We weren’t able to find any more information about him than what we’ve presented here. We’re very curious to learn if he has any living relatives. If anybody knows more about him or the Tarshish family, please let us know!

For inspiring millions of radio listeners with the light of Judaism, we honor Rabbi Jacob Tarshish as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[olderthannetfic]

Anon from 722398181104795649 again about YA as a G-D and it's failure(s). Your response is really interesting because it definitely aligns with the market research I've had to do over the last 3-ish months for work. Adult YA readers want YA to skew older superficially as escapism from the woes of adulthood (It's like someone who orders a pasta with broccoli in it because they appreciate the flavor it brings, but they have no interest in actually eating their vegetables). Teenagers feel alienated by the G-D that is meant for them no longer allows them to confront said woes with honesty or maturity for their age to prepare them for adulthood or discussing broader ideas. More teenagers skip over YA altogether or just reader adult genre fiction with some Middle Grade fiction mixed in because the teenagers feel in MG, there's still an honesty to the stories that they can understand, having once been young children. In short: teenagers think YA books are talking down to or patronizing them.

The result is YA authors pushing for NA, New Adult, as a G-D, which hasn't taken off within tradpub outside of romance circles. Mostly, because what they're pushing for is already an established genre for around a century: campus novels--books about characters 18+ who are entering college, establishing independence, beginning to explore sexuality and enter the workforce, etc. But, again, YA adult readers refuse to engage with adult genre fiction because there isn't the facade of protection from adult themes or topics, and there's an aggressive refusal among many agents in literary fiction (and some adult genre fiction) to encourage authors to sanitize their stories. YA authors began attempting to cross over into adult genre fiction with mixed, but overwhelmingly negative, results, as they cannot shake the stigma of writing YA. And the genre fiction crowds they want to appeal to have higher standards, typically, than the average YA writer is able to meet. YA authors then complain about the differences in publishing YA and genre adult fiction. It's like when MCU actors and directors get upset when prestige film directors don't consider MCU movies to be "cinema."

--

This is fascinating.

I pretty much missed the YA boom (slightly too old, not paying attention, etc.), so I've mostly encountered YA through its worst evangelists of the Hunger Games knockoff era, and often a good bit after their favorite books were at their height.

As I've said before, this really strikes me as that pattern where something is big when you're at a formative age, and it becomes the Normal Default to you.

I'm sure some of it is refusal to engage with adult nuance, but I'll bet a lot of it is resistance to leaving the name of YA behind. People spent so much time defending this niche that they started believing their own rhetoric about it being the only place the good queer stuff was or the feminist stuff was or whatever. They identified really strongly as A YA Fan. It's hard to let that go.

And if you don't remember much about pre-YA boom publishing, the fact that all that YA-tastic Mercedes Lackey stuff was filed under fantasy, not YA is completely obscure. The places you find stuff you'd like that aren't called "YA" are not obvious. The fact that YA in its boom era form isn't universal and eternal is not obvious.

I think people are waiting for their Cool Era of their early 20s to return and for the things they think should always be in fashion to come back... Like everyone else aging ungracefully, they may be waiting a while.

Gotta say, every New Adult book I've been shown sounds like a hideously boring contemporary romance that would probably make a good coffee shop AU against a backdrop of a canon that's dark or magical but that isn't really pulling its weight even if you like contemporaries.

[postmoderntongues]

Hey can you recommend any disturbing movies aside from the usual ones that appear on all the lists (Salo, Cannibal Holocaust, Serbian, Vomit gore)?

First off Serbian Films, Salo, Cannibal Holocaust, and Vomitgore have about an hour and ten minutes of interesting watchable footage between all of them and are overrated because fratboys can stand to consume their violent content when chocolate-coated in 90% of the film being sex scenes.

Im giving these recommendations under the assumption that they are both legal in your place of residence and that you are of age to view them. If you are a minor do not watch any of the following films:

Right now I would say 'Nothing Bad Can Happen" is the most disturbing horror movie I've ever watched, which dethroned "Eden Lake". "Last House On The Left" (the original) is a close 3rd place. Im also an evangelist for the glitchcore robotussinesque classic "Where The Dead Go To Die".

"Happiness" is not a horror in the traditional sense, and neither is "Requiem For A Dream" or "Pixote", substituting drooling hungry monsters for unflinching examinations of social issues that nobody wants to acknowledge. "Unicorn Wars" and "Birdboy The Forgotten Children" are fantastic and emotionally devastating examples of animated horror. Another animated film not billed as a horror movie but that hits all the beats devastatingly is "Grave Of The Fireflies" and also "Barefoot Gen". "Oldboy" is more of a thriller but its a cant-miss. "Human Centipede 3" is one of my favorite modern splatterpunks and you do not need to view the previous two in order to understand it. "Funny Games" is another must-see, Im of the minority that likes the American version because I had a big crush on Mike Pitt as a teenager.

For true crime inspired I'd suggest "Concrete", "Juvenile Crime", "The Girl Next Door", "Bully", "Boys Dont Cry", "An American Crime", and "Henry Portrait Of A Serial Killer". Again while not traditionally considered a horror film, "The Plague Dogs" is a must watch for horror lovers as is "Fat Girl". Girl Hell and Eraserhead are also good (Id recommend taking DXM or some other dissociative with psychedelic properties like K or dust to watch Eraserhead). "Antichrist" is pretty extreme, as is the French film "Martyrs" and the historical piece "Philosophy Of a Knife".

Some Troma Studios favorites are Toxic Avenger, American Nightmare, Dumpster Baby, Redneck Zombies, Honkey Holocaust, And Beware Children At Play.

Visitor Q and Audishon by Takahashi are worth watching but he tends to write with his erection and insert unnecessary scenes filling his incest and lactation fetishes.

"Tumbling doll of flesh" is a good gore flick as is "suicide club". "Victim" is weird and not gorey but was controversial. The short "Cutting Moments" is unforgettable.

Again not horror but the suffocating escalation of tension and catastrophic climactic blowout of both "do the right thing" and "when the wind blows" may appeal to you.

If you like horror that is a little more psychedelic, I cannot recommend "Pink Floyd's The Wall" highly enough.

If you are just looking for gore/special effects showcases I would recommend the series Guinea Pig, American Guinea Pig, August Underground, All Night Long, Amature Porn Star Killer, Angel Guts, Faces Of Death, Men Behind the sun, tokio gore police, or compilation series like MDPOPE, Orgrish Collection, How To Clear A Room In 90 minutes, Stars of TheYNC, fist pig, Gusomilk, Fetus Munchers, or SNuff r37. Due to recent legislation some popular compilations such as Amber Alert, Scream Bitch, and Suffer The Little Children are no longer legal to own or distribute in the united states so check the laws regarding both crime footage and obscenity in your area before viewing compilation collections.

For documentaries if you're really feeling saucy: Imposter, The Act Of Killing, Face On A Milk Carton, Paradise Lost (all 3), Just Melvin Just Evil, Swansea Love Story, Afghanistsn's Secret Shame, Rare: A Dead Person, Traces of Death, Child Of Rage, The Cove, Blackfish, The Bridge, The Barbie And Ken Murers, The Toybox Killing Audio, The Lesley Anne Dauty Audio, Children of Leningradski, Angels But Not Angels, Children underground, Jesus Camp, Afghanistan's Child Heroin Addicts, Black Metal Vains (although much is staged), Mondo Cannes, Invisible Children, The Jonestown Death Tapes, The audio collage "Buyers market" by Peter Sotos, And Who Killed Pixote are all real life examples of horror too horrific to feel true.

I would also recommend on a much lighter note small independent animators like Lee Hardcastle, Happy Tree Friends, Alfred's Playhouse, Jack Stauber, Dont Hug Me Im Scared, The Sad Man, Salad Fingers, The short animated films of Product, The Mandella Catalog, Whos Hungry, The Operator Series, or the work of Trent Shy just to name a few easily found on youtube.

Finally, if you're really nasty, I would recommend the following gore clips to anybody involved in the consumption of that stuff: Unknownrussiansoldiers.avi, Checlear, The Gurraro Flaying, Funkytown, The Russian lathe Incident, The Russian Daschcam Brick, 3 guys 1 hammer, Isis Human Slaughterhouse, Isis High Definition Headshot Montague, Killer Children of Isis, The Mexican Cartel Chainsaw Murders, Ghostrider, Porsche Girl, The Demigorgan Dive, Sponcered By Addidas, The Dagestan Massacre, The Morocco Backpacker Beheadings, The Body Cam footage of the first responders to the Travis The Chimp incident, and the Post-Arrest Interrogation Footage of Andrea Yates. These clips contain real footage of real death so please look them up at your descression. I will not be linking anybody to any of these clips of actual footage. They are perfectly legal for an adult to view and easily findable by googling the name of the clip on the surface web with no IPN or tor browser needed and I am violating no law or term of service by acknowledging their existance.

Other "famous clips" like Dafu Love, baby Burger, Green Ball, and the "extended cut" of Snuff r73 as well as "lost horror movies" like The Full Directors Cut of Last House On The Left or titles like "The Grifter" are urban legends perpetuated almost entirely by a single guy named Takedownman who was a predecessor to channels such as DisturbedReality, ColdravensNest, and PlaguedMoth without the proof of sources. The only confirmed footage to have been "exposed" by takedownman was a mostly inaccurate description of Daisy's Destruction that painted it as a snuff film (The little girl known as Daisy is alive and well, healthy, and cared for by loving adoptive guardians. She is receiving extensive trauma therapy. Due to injuries sustained during her abuse, she is infertile but otherwise in good health. Her abuser will never see the outside of a jail cell).

I would advise, for moral reasons, against looking up suicide footage like the death of Ronnie Mcnutt whose family has clearly and politely asked for their loved ones death to stop being circulated or aftermath footage of the 9/11 jumpers but also I'm not your mom or your priest and you owe me no display of morality.

Im more well-versed in transgressive/splatterpunk literature than in films Im a pretty normie edgelord with cinema but I'm in the Mariana Trench with books.

[fancyfade]

Raven's love interests, ranked from worst to best!

Everyone knows that Beast Boy is currently Raven’s true love, according to DC, but what many readers may not know is that in their first comic together, New Teen Titans, Raven and Beast Boy never dated! Gar in New Teen Titans was quite a ladies’ man, in fact, and Raven was the only lady who was immune to his amorous overtures. That didn’t stop Raven from having her own dating life, of course. Following are Raven’s love interests, rated from worst to best!

10: Brother Blood

Brother Blood expressed romantic interest in Raven twice, which is two times too many if you ask me! First he brainwashed her after she died and came back to life and used her to promote his Tele-Evangelist cult scam! Then, the next Brother Blood raised Raven into a teenager’s body and wanted to marry her as well. What a creep!

9: Eric Forrester

Eric Forrester was the sex-fiend who wanted to use Raven for her body – or rather, her soul! He was her first ‘real’ boyfriend and she easily fell for him. Sadly, he was a scumbag who wanted to use sex to steal Raven’s soul so that he could preserve his human body. The only reason he’s not the worst love interest Raven had is because Brother Blood exists!

8: Wally West / Kid Flash

Wally West was Kid Flash when he and Raven met and she saw him throwing a fit on Mount Everest because his girlfriend dumped him. He was also in the process of quitting being Kid Flash, a theme that would repeat itself during his tenure on Teen Titans. Raven used her emotion powers to make him fall in love with her so that he would help her save the universe from Trigon. He expressed interest in her at later points in the comic, but there was no way their relationship was going to go anywhere with how it started.

7: Dick Grayson / Nightwing

Dick Grayson was Nightwing when Raven was brought back from the dead. She immediately fell in love with him, probably due to that V-neck, and accidentally used her powers to make him fall in love with her. Dick’s girlfriend at the time, Koriand’r, was amazingly understanding, but sadly did not suggest a threesome. Instead, everyone just talked about their feelings to resolve things. How boring!

6: Garfield Logan / Beast Boy

Yes, as we mentioned in the start of the article, Raven did date Garfield for some time. This was after she was reincarnated as a teenager, so what the heck Garfield? Anyway, their relationship is this high in the list because there was no intentional or accidental power usage influencing emotions on her part, and he didn’t have evil intentions for her. Poor Raven! Her love life never goes well!

5: Paul (Azarathaboo)

Paul is a student from Raven’s college (Bet you didn’t know Raven was in college) who is in love with her because he’s obsessed with Azarathian culture! He then punches someone in Raven’s defense, indicating that perhaps he doesn’t understand the pacifist Azarathians very well.

4: Koriand’r / Starfire

Now, Raven and Koriand’r don’t technically date in the comics, but neither do Raven and Paul, Raven and Dick, or Raven and Wally, and they’re all still on here! After Dick confesses his feelings about Raven to Kory, Kory takes Raven skinny-dipping in Tahiti. They’re definitely gay!

3: Joseph Wilson / Jericho

Joey is the only guy Raven has good sexual tension with! She genuinely appreciates his compassion and listening skills, and he’s always there for her, even though he’s the newest member of the team and doesn’t know her well! She starts learning sign language from a book for him! They’d be adorable!

Sadly she goes evil and he gets traumatized by trying to possess her with his powers. Oof

2: Donna Troy / Wonder Girl

The other lady who makes this list, Donna Troy definitely was one of the Titans most consistently present for Raven during her slow slide into evil. She even begged Raven to turn good at one point, and it worked!

She’s rated higher than Kory, because Raven’s emotional repression would bother her less than it would bother Kory.

1: Donna and Kory combined:

I think that if the three of them were in a polycule, they could make each other better.

----

This is mostly tongue in cheek, except about donnakoryrae being the best raven ship, that is true

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in Irish History | 5 February:

1703 – Birth of Gilbert Tennent, a pietistic Protestant evangelist in colonial America. Born to a Presbyterian Scots-Irish family in Co Armagh, he migrated to America as a teenager, trained for pastoral ministry, and became one of the leaders of the Great Awakening of religious feeling in Colonial America, along with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. 1811 – Birth of journalist and…

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

"You see, there is one rotten canker that is in so many churches, as well as it was before-- Envy.

What does it say about Joseph? His brothers sold him. For what? For envy. What does it says about the Lord Jesus? The priests sold Him for envy. That festering thing in the heart of men and women. They sold Him because of envy. They sold Him because they hated Him. He was only a little baby, less than two years of age, when they had what history calls the Massacre of the Innocents.

I said to you before, I'll say it to you again, whether you love me or hate me for it: If you've got children you ought to be up an hour before they go to school and cover those children every day with the blood of Jesus and really lay hold of the promises. They live in a hell of a world in the day in which we live. If you don't do it, I'll do it for you. Remember, when Satan thinks there is something going to happen, he is going to dog that child. I prayed, and I still do, whether you know or not, I pray for some of our kids, if I am here or not, if Jesus tarries, they will become some of the leaders half a generation, a decade from now.

God will make them missionaries and evangelists, and teachers, and apostles, in the last great awakening, (which men are trying to work right up now and you can't do it.) But He is going to get youngsters and fill them with the Spirit, and teenagers in their early years."

Leonard Ravenhill

[dankxsinatra]

I swear if dumb teenagers run Mr J off this site, I will become the biggest AI evangelist you've ever seen.

[larathia]

Look, when I say I am ruthless with the block button, I'm pretty sure I mean it. Here are some examples:

People who do not respect the tags. If I am following a tag for Ship A, and you post art for Ship B in Ship A's tag, when Ship A is nowhere to be seen in the art, I'm just going to block you because either you're a troll or you're an evangelist, and either way I find it annoying and don't want to deal with it.

People I see no need to argue with. I enjoy a great debate. I really do. However, there are some arguments that go past a 'difference of opinion' and into 'bad faith' or just 'troll' territory as far as I'm concerned. People almost never change their minds as a result of something they've just had a verbal asswhuppin about on the internet. I might bother in person, where I can tell who's just being an annoying little troll and who I'm getting through to (or not). But online? I'm just going to block you and move on.

People who feel the need to post about their DNIs. Mostly, I genuinely think people who post DNIs are young and/or very new to Tumblr. That said, I don't regard it as my job to educate them, especially if I'm not being paid for it. People who talk at length about who they demand never contact them? I just block. So I won't contact them. Problem solved.

People that are clearly too young to have interesting conversations with. This is where I say yeah, I'm pretty liberal with the block button. Sure, some teenagers are really cogent and have well-developed critical thinking skills and are in general a delight to talk to. But y'all, I'm nearing 50, and most teenagers are just not that interesting to me. Especially teenagers who are obviously crushing on characters. It's not that I haven't Been There. I have. That's why I block them rather than interfere with their happiness. I mean really, they're not doing any harm. I just don't find it interesting, and having it clutter up my feed (which is much more about the critical thinking/rational discussion of Stuff) where I might wind up annoyed enough to snap at a kid for being a kid, I block. Nothing personal there, kids. Just me going my way and taking steps to let you go yours in peace.

As a result, I generally enjoy my time on Tumblr. I heartily recommend Harsh Curation Methods to all tumblrites, because it really does reduce one's stress levels significantly.

[lumonceo]

53k words of this manuscript but it still doesn't feel like a half a novel. partly bc it's a novel in stories i think so writing it in pieces and then trying to make them work together is different than just writing a novel but also i think the stories i've written so far are a little at the outskirts of the thing (right wing evangelist teenagers) that this is the big overarching dome everything is happening within and i'm fearful about really delving into that. BUT rereading what i have and tweaking/tying together threads that want to be tied but aren't quite there yet is giving me hope

[footytea]

endrick's family comes from poverty. that isn't his fault. unfortunately, the age of consent is only 14 and teenage pregnancy is a norm (the government has forbidden sex education due to evangelists & given the fact that a majority of especially black brazilians live in favellas with limited access to education.)

i'm not trying to say that they are dumb and ppl from those quarters don't know what they do. the governments across the globe, culture and also conservative ultra religious ppl are the problem.

so, endrick's family having a say over him dating a literal groomer is little because i can imagine them being happy that he has found someone 💀 but they haven't realized the depht of it due to how normalized it is in brazilian culture.

ik that girl has had the privilige to go to school so why does she have 0 shame. tells us a lot about her lacking maturity.

hmmm yeah i have read that his family is supposedly happy with their "future daughter-in-law"

[sadsongsandwaltzes]

Did you grow up Lutheran, or did something about the Lutheran church draw you in?

Both! I grew up ELCA then AFLC so it was kind of a weird hodge podge of Lutheranism combined with evangelicalism.

As a kid in the ELCA, we had strict Lutheran liturgy (confessions, creeds, call and response, etc) but simultaneously very progressive theology

Then we went to the AFLC which varies so much church by church, but basically it was very evangelical type church except we still baptize babies for some reason. So a lot of the core tenets of Lutheranism were kinda fallen from and I didn’t understand them or like them. And I couldn’t understand why I was expected to believe the answers in the catechism when the general attitude of the entire congregation was that communion wasn’t more than memorialism etc. it left me in an intellectual rut cuz I could see a clear hypocrisy. People Lutheran in name only but not giving their own self professed beliefs the reverence they deserved. I think this played a great deal into my teenage agnosticism — people clearly didn’t believe what they said I should believe.

Then when I became Christian at 18, it was baptist ministers who reached me tbh. So I had done away with Lutheranism entirely. And for whatever faults Baptist theology has, I have to hand it to them that they are better evangelists than anybody, and that they do have a very sincere love for the Bible.

As it goes, diving so deep in the Word is exactly what made me no longer able to hold to baptist theology, however lol. I found myself in a state of cognitive dissonance. And I eventually came across pastors like hans fiene who slowly chipped away at my theology. And it was a Bryan Wolfmueller video that finally made things start clicking in my brain. And beyond that, Lutheran sermons are so much more edifying than baptist sermons. Lutherans have a better law/gospel distinction than anybody. Starting to listen to truth Lutheran sermons absolutely changed my world. I had never heard these distinctions made so clearly. And Lutheranism is the most straight forward way of reading the Bible. Which is why people who come from stronger theological systems have a distaste for it. Because where things don’t make sense to us theologically, we’re content saying “it’s a mystery.” It’s a phrase that comes up often when discussing Lutheran theology.

I also found myself missing the liturgy. For however off track I got as a teen, I never fell into false trinitarian beliefs or anything like that and I 100% attribute that to saying the creeds every Sunday as a kid. The liturgy exists for a reason. It has its place. And it is good.

Not to mention that the more you study history, it’s pretty much impossible to deny some form of baptismal regeneration and real presence and honor towards tradition (not in the Catholic sense obviously) These are all historical Protestant beliefs.

[tracybirds]

HEYOO 16 and 17 with Scott / Virgil??

As you wish <3333 Thank you!

16. The queer media they'd obsess over

Scott: While not technically queer media, I can totally see Scott watching things like Top Gun and M*A*S*H and just being like.... these things are queer bc i am queer and i say they are queer and i'm sorry were we watching the same screen?

Virgil: Sense8!!! I haven't rewatched this since it first came out so the details are shaky but I think he'd enjoy it :) The kind of thing that's totally overt in being queer and doesn't shy away from it at all but also has a mind bending scifi-action plot and examines queerness and worldview and politics and all that jazz on a more philosophical level while also holding up this ideal of people can love so deeply and in so many ways and yeah :D

17. A queer artist they'd listen to

Scott: Listen to me. L I S T E N to me. Scott is a secret MIKA stan and it's only secret because he's a little insecure about liking pop music because he's 16 and imperfect and one day Gordon discovers MIKA and basically becomes a MIKA evangelist and it annoys Scott SO MUCH because this is HIS thing and YES actually Gordon he DOES know this song and eventually he snaps and it all comes out and Virgil's like ??? none of us would have cared about you liking pop? and Scott's just all *mumble mumble* embarrassed lol bc self-conscious teenager ahaha anyway, everyone should listen to MIKA <3

Virgil: I love the idea of him listening to queer jazz musicians!! I saw @firstonthescene suggest this for Scott (and I agree!) but if feels very right for Virgil as well :D Of course, I also think Virgil listens to all kinds of music, from all kinds of people playing all kinds of genres from all over the world! It fits him well imo <3 I don't know much about jazz outside of like Count Basie and Louis Armstrong and that sort of thing although I do enjoy it! I will say though that although there have always been queer people involved in jazz, it doesn't seem to be the genre that really made a movement out of it, not like other genres have in more recent history, and I think to suggest it was some safe haven for queer musicians would be fairly revisionist. There'd have been pockets that were safe and more open, and other spaces where being closeted would have been the only option and how could you ever tell who was closeted vs who was straight and pinning down identities of people now dead for the sake of queerness doesn't seem to be Virgil's style to me. However, I do think that he'd make an effort to diversify his playlists in as many ways as he could because it gives him an opportunity to explore new ideas and perspectives and I think he'd really enjoy that. Anyway all this to say I don't have a real answer lol. I think he'd enjoy everything from Mozart to Elton John and everything on the spectrum between them and beyond :P

[rayless-reblogs]

2023 (some of it) in Reading

A quick list of ten of my favorite books I read this year.

(As always, me recommending a book is not me endorsing everything in the book. I read a lot of older stuff, so please keep that in mind when it comes to problematic material.)

Good Girls Don't Die -- Christina Henry: (horror, multiple strands coming together at the end) Great hook, don't want to give too much away, but it's a woman-centric horror novel that plays on tired genre tropes while also analyzing them. Extremely suspenseful.

These Old Shades -- Georgette Heyer: (romance, Georgian period, fabulous clothes) This one is representing all of the Georgette Heyers I read this year. A daring, strong-willed heroine. A cold, heartless (?) hero. Much amusing banter. Also recommended Georgettes from this year are Cotillion and Frederica.

A House With Good Bones -- T Kingfisher: (horror) Equal parts funny and unnerving. Lots of good build up and an over the top and exciting climax. The horror is deeply tied to family drama. Lots of vultures.

The Cat Who Saved Books -- Sosuke Natsukawa: (fantasy) A teenage boy in present-day Japan meets a determined cat with a mission. Reminds me a bit of The Neverending Story and just an overall feeling of Ghibli-ness. Unexpected villain.

Barberry Bush -- Kathleen Norris: (1930s, romance) A young woman makes an unwise marriage; we get to live the aftermath with her. Psychological, introspective, and at times anger-inducing, but it's a romance novel, so there is a happy ending.

Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves -- Sarah B Pomeroy: (nonfiction, Greece and Rome, antiquity) This one is standing representative for a number of similar books I delved into for research. I'm not an academic, but the style felt accessible to me and interesting, and it covered a lot of ground without being intimidatingly long.

The Dark Queens -- Shelley Puhack: (nonfiction, the Franks) So much royal drama between Queens Brunhilda and Fredegonde. Backstabbing, murder, endless family squabbling on a military scale. A brief interlude where nuns undertake a revolt. Deeply messy and engrossing.

Phoebe and Her Unicorn -- Dana Simpson: (graphic novel, a girl and her unicorn, it's that simple and good, very funny) This, the first in the series, is standing in for the eight Phoebe books I read this year. Each one is delightful, and they're sufficiently self-contained that you can read them out of order. I recommend The Magic Storm. Flawless goblins.

Shadow Hand -- Anne Elisabeth Stengl: (part of a series, fantasy, Christian) Intricate, magical, dramatic, and funny. Part of the Tales of Goldstone Wood series, one of the few Christian fantasy series I would recommend just as fantasies, period. I need to do a post some time about how unique I think the series as a whole is. This is reportedly the last in the series, but I hope it isn't.

The Bones of St Peter -- John Evangelist Walsh: (nonfiction, the Vatican, early Christians) Are the bones of the Apostle Peter really buried under his namesake basilica? Features a determined female scholar. Secrets discovered beneath the Vatican. So much graffiti. Somehow creates way more narrative momentum than you'd think it would.