Ok, this is the post where i'm going to get potentially stupid and sinful (for tumblr) and mix politics and fandom. and it might suck. Obviously we don't live in a world with this brand of supernatural shit, this is just a metaphor, an you're welcome to say 'this is a bad metaphor" and disregard it, or argue, or argue about any other aspect of it. And in a sense i think this works because The Magnus Archives is about fear and all that icky shit. So maybe it only works that far. So if you've listened to TMA...
this is also basically a response to this post https://landofspaceandrainbows.tumblr.com/post/716770248396800001/jambeast-captainjonnitkessler and this post https://jambeast.tumblr.com/post/716765867387617280/ok-i-think-i-figured-out-what-the-fuck-is-going on @jambeast 's blog and that whooole discussion.
but basically, this is an interesting discussion, but there's a lot of fraught bs going on, elsewhere in the chain - and a lot of it is basically ok, it's argument.
ok, this is kinda falling apart here, i'll try to put it back together. I'm seeing at least two threads here.
first part: somewhere along the reblog chain there's bringing up the idea that some people may just be seeing their culture as "default" and "less religious" and therefore "less scary" and other cultures as "less familar" "more religious" and "scary" which is - sort of a good point in many cases. there's a rather neat sounding line about "the call to prayer sounding unfamiliar, but the sound of church bells sounding as comforting background noise" cool, or semi-cool. and genuinely well said. but then it connects it to "being privileged which... ehhh. that's when things get dicy.
but i'll be coming back to that way later.
Ok, back to the magnus archives.
Thinking about Gerry Keay and Agnes Montague.
Thinking about Jared Hopworth and Mike Crew and Jon Sims.
Like the fire, the lighters, all that jazz. Like i think it can be easy to wonder why would anyone talk about leaving families, communities, books behind except as an act of coercion. "why would anyone burn a book?" "why would anyone burn a house?" "why would anyone leave a family or community unless it's some sort of forced plot?" but what if you grew up in Mary Keay's library? Or in Hilltop House? Would you walk in then? Would you find a volume to burn?
Likewise, i don't find the boneturner's tale and ex altiora frightening. I bet Jared hopworth doesn't mind the boneturner's tale too much I bet mike crew enjoys ex altiora. The statements, properly organized hepl people research, understand, and hunt down problems, and help keep Gertrude Robinson and Jon Sims going more viscerally.
But you might say, that's a fucked up implication because those are all monsters. and separately from being monsters, they all hurt people. Which, fair. But it's a metaphor, and maybe a bad one. And plus we all sort of like them. Jon, yes, gertrude, michael, helen, mike crew - maybe. And as above, Agnes? also a monster. and Gerry - hopped up on so much weird shit, just dripping with Eyes, so whatever. If we respect them, we might be able to extend that.
But basically all the above have reasons to team up when Fucked UP shit is about to go down, no one likes the Eternal Circus of The Extinction. We've seen it work.
Anyway, there's reasons not everyone is gonna like the web or the desolation or whatever, there's reasons why people don't like being infested with bad community and oppositely why people aren't gonnal like the idea of the stuff they like going away - and why they'd fear it's burning, even when it's not particularly likely to happen at that exact moment, because fear goes deep like that.
So in my ideal world, all the cosmopolitan atheists can go watch MAG 169: Fire Escape (which tbf, i almost couldn't watch straight through because it shows a deep connection and comfort that at this point I cannot have, except in little bits hedged about with nomadism and desolation. - but it's good!)
And all the people who have found a tradition they like can go listen to MAG 4: Page Turner and MAG 59: Recluse and MAG: 67 Burning Desire
And both could listen to Scrutiny, ig.
But anyway, like, even normies don't always like dumbshit hegemony. atheists and agnostics and freethinkers wouldn't benefit from more normative religiosity, and neither do members of minority religions. even normies and christians hate jacked up abortion bans, and even if they don't hate them they can still suffer under them.
In any case, i remember the messed up stuff i saw, and am getting away from. and it's mostly bad atheist shit. so sometimes atheists raise my hackles up, but i suspect now that's because i'm my own kind of "off". we probably don't want to hear from eachother all that much.
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but anyway, back to the beginning. sometimes people fear cute little bugs because they aren't familiar. there's cute little bugs everywhere and they're mostly harmless, and they're even there being cute in horror movies. But if someone's afraid of fire, or someone's taking a flamethrower to cute little bugs, sometimes it's because they're "privileged" and never went camping or out of bug spray or had a cockroach in their house. But they could have seen fucking Jane Prentiss or have lived at Hilltop House. And assuming things can be ok in most circumstances until it gets really fucking weird.
And this is the fucking weird everybody's hurt website.
and none of this makes hurting bugs ok - but it does require A Different Response, JFC.
Most of the time, the people who have the most reason to hate and fear church bells are the ones who grew up hearing them. And the ones who fear the call to prayer may have grown up hearing it. And there's a separate issue of what it's ok or not ok to do about that.
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Ok stepping down from the metaphor, holy hell the assumptions. And the republican agenda now sucks.
But basically when some hardcore "burn the past" type on here calls something "surface level fun" it's basically a compliment - though you may disagree or find the worldview twisted. because the "deeper than surface level stuff" in their experience is always UGLY. Likewise when someone speaks of "culture" and "underpinnings to everything" they can be talking about something that's been genuinely nice to them.
But it's gonna be hard to work together, if it's even worth it, because like, when you hear "of course people are going to leave their communities and families" if you have a nice place - there's a history of forced removal and so that's gonna bring up some very ugly questions about "WHY they would leave". But if you've been in a rough circumtance, "the second the door opens, people will walk out, and resources open that door" will make sense because you walked out. And people going "of course the Suffering is worth it for our stability and continuation." is gonna sound SUS as hell, because.... that's also what every sketchy relationship on the fucking earth is justified by. But sometimes it's more a matter of a minor suffering for something wanted. etc.
But there is a reason that if we ever do form an Atheist - Theist alliance (and given they're ok with dumb insular in-jokes) i'd like it to be called
Leitners & Lighters
or the Gerry Keay and Mike Crew society.
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