#whatever shall we do?! they must be ableist!

[mechafiora]

“problematic media” please grow up, i am begging you. yes, be critical of the things you consume. no, you don’t have to proselytize your internet-informed deontological ethics to someone that enjoys something you find morally reprehensible within your chronically-online circle of influence

[faesystem]

I put far, FAR too much energy into this, so I'm making a separate post with just this. Essentially, this is about providing the scientific evidence proving that DID is a disorder. It also provides evidence of trauma being a factor in DID. It also discusses why plurality should not be conflated with DID (while remaining supportive of DID systems who identify as plural and not erasing the experiences of non-disordered plurals), because not only are they not comparable but then it makes DID out to not actually be a disorder. This is a huge problem of systemic ableism, which has not been helped by groups that plurality was born from ("natural multiplicity").

I am tired I am angry and I BEG of people to SHUT UP.

Context for the image: That is someone with a psychology degree who reblogged my post saying the DSM is a reliable source of information.

Table of Contents:

Prefacing Statements

Clarification on the Conflation of DID and Plurality

Education Surrounding What DID Is/Correcting Misinformation

Why What You Said Is Contributing to Systemic Ableism of a Disabled Group (pwDID)

Bibliography

Prefacing Statements:

Yes, this is so long I decided to include a table of contents for organisational purposes. As a result, I have a couple of key things to note before we begin.

1. I am autistic so I struggle with understanding and regulating my tone. I am clarifying that the following text is all educational. This is not a debate or argument, although you are absolutely free to debunk what I have said, and I am not attacking you. (Having said that, the final section in which I am attempting to explain how atrociously ableist what you said was is in fact not tone policed. I am definitely expressing my anger and pain there, you are warned. If it is not something you can read, tell me so I can rewrite it because it is quite you understand that.)

2. I am openly acknowledging that you have a degree in psychology. In fact, that is why I made such a lengthy and articulated post. You clearly must be very knowledgeable about the field of psychology and therefore able to engage in a well formulated discussion about it. Having said that, your degree does not make you infallible to misinformation. Especially if you are in or are going into the mental health field, it is critical that you are corrected in said misinformation prior to a potential negative impact upon your clients.

3. I know that you are a traumagenic system, I do not know if you have a DID system, any complex dissociative disorder (CDD) system really, or a non-disordered system. Whatever sort of system you are does not change what you have said nor my approach to this discussion. I am merely making this clear to ensure you do not believe I am invalidating any potential experiences you may have with DID, and also to clarify that non-disordered plural is how I will be referring to plurals without CDDs in order to be inclusive of non-disordered non-endogenic plurals.

4. Some of what I will be citing is DID-research.org. It is a compilation of various DID related research. While the sources it cites are credible, I acknowledge that the cite itself is not a credible scientific resource. However, due to the accessible format it is in and the fact that you can access the relevant credible sources through it, I am still going to be citing it.

Clarification on the Conflation of DID and Plurality

We shall begin with some definitions to ensure we are on the same page.

DID - Dissociative identity disorder is a complex dissociative disorder characterised by the presence of multiple identities within the one body separated by dissociative and amnesiac barriers. (DIDR, 2018)

Plurality - A non-pathologised label some may self identify with to describe their experiences of feeling like/being multiple people.

These two terms are not interchangeable. One is a disorder in which someone's development was interrupted as a child, leading to permanent and measurable alteration of their brain structure (Blihar et al., 2020), and the other is a label to describe someone perceiving themselves as multiple people.

You are correct when you said, ‘Plurality… is something u know in ur being. It’s not something a doctor can diagnose.’ Which almost perfectly summarises why DID is not plurality. Plurality is a non-pathological term to describe those feelings your mentioning, that thing you ‘know in ur being’. DID is a mental disorder that a professional can in fact diagnose, and often times is diagnosed without the system knowing they have DID.

Plurality and DID are separate things. DID systems can identify as plural in the same way anyone who is not a DID system can, if they believe it fits their experiences. Yes, even if those experiences are the symptoms of a disorder. But that does not make DID and plurality interchangeable terms, and if your understanding of DID is based in plurality then you do not understand DID.

Education Surrounding What DID Is/Correcting Misinformation

As I have touched upon already, DID is far more than simply ‘headmate disorder’. To summarise, it is a complex dissociative developmental trauma response disorder.

(Here is a post in which I discuss trauma in relation to DID. I request you read the rest of this first, but I put this here to ensure you have it in case the ‘discoursey’ nature of my comment puts you off.)

To begin to understand DID, let us focus on how it forms. The most reputable theory for DID’s formation is the Theory of Structural Dissociation (ToSD), especially when used in conjunction with the biomarkers visible in those with DID.

The theory follows the assumption that during the early years of development, children are not one cohesive identity and are instead a collection of different states of self. These self states handle different things, such as acquiring food or seeking emotional contact. Around the ages of 6 to 9 these states are supposed to integrate into one cohesive identity. DID (and other CDDs) occurs when two or more of these states are unable to integrate and instead grow into two or more separate identities (known as alters).(DIDR, 2015) Not reaching the developmental milestone of a fully integrated identity during the critical time period causes permanent damage to the brain’s structure. (Blihar et al., 2020) That damage is what allows for alters to exist and new alters to split even if the system had reached final fusion.

With the explanation out of the way, I want to address that I have seen a lot of baseless criticism for the ToSD. Most of it seems to stem from the fact that it does not explain non-disordered plurality. However, as we established, plurality and DID are different things and there is no guarantee that there is one theory that explains both. So, I hope that you (and anyone else reading this) are able to set aside personal bias and assess at my sources before reaching a conclusion.

There is no better source on the ToSD than "The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization" by Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele. Here is a link to a less in depth but free version of it.*

However, with my defence of it out of the way, I want to acknowledge the theory does have limitations. The reason I bring it up is because it is the best understanding currently available as to the formation of DID. It should, at the very least, provide a theoretical understanding of the way trauma impacted the development of pwDID. (DIDR, 2019)

With that understanding in mind, let us move onto the point. The idea that DID is based on a ‘feeling’ and ‘not something a doctor can diagnose’ is outright incorrect. Yes, due to ableism there have been dozens There have been dozens of studies attempting to prove that DID is not a real disorder, if it were possible for DID to just be something someone felt as opposed to a disorder, we would know by now.

The best piece of evidence towards the validity of DID historically was the association with trauma. This association has been further confirmed by the current best piece of evidence towards the validity if DID- brain scans. Various brain scans have revealed structural differences in the brains of pwDID. (Blihar et al., 2020) These differences have similarities to impacts of PTSD on the brain structure, while also being distinctly different from PTSD. (DIDR, 2017) This indicates that DID is, as studies have suggested for the longest time, a trauma response disorder that is different to PTSD.

Beyond just that, the brain scans have provided evidence and explanation related to many aspects of DID. (Blihar et al., 2020)Here’s just a brief list.

Whole brain: Structural changes similar to PTSD, further evidence indicating trauma in DID.

Motor regions: A greater amount of white matter in the motor regions in the brainstem and right hemisphere, potentially providing an explanation for differences in skills between alters.

Pars Regions: Reduced grey matter. Damage to this area is associated with muteness. While there is only one article I can find even beginning to broach this subject, myself and many other systems I know have mute alters. Further research is required, it appears like muteness may be more common in pwDID.

Orbito-Frontal Cortex: It is decreased in size, something that has been shown to occur in PTSD. This further indicates trauma as a key factor of DID.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Significantly decreased in size. This provides a potential explanation to deficits in emotional regulation, fear processing and learning, and interpreting emotion.

Global Parietal Cortex: Reduced grey matter, which is associated with increase in severity of dissociative symptoms.

There is more than just that, but I believe the picture is clear. DID is in a disorder that is diagnosable by doctors, and beyond that has disabling symptoms as a result of damage to our brains. It is critical for us to be able to access the proper care for our disorders, something that is incredibly difficult to do in the face of the systemic ableism you are promoting.  

Why What You Said Is Contributing to Systemic Ableism of a Disabled Group (pwDID)

This is no longer about science. This is about the demedicalisation of my disorder.

I mentioned previously how psychologists have tried time and time again to disprove the validity of DID. Things such as the sociocognitive model, the iatrogenic model, the fantasy model, all fancy ways of saying, ‘DID is not a real disorder.’

DID is very clearly a disorder. It has a lot of really disabling symptoms. Most of us require medical assistance in order to manage it. In the event that DID becomes demedicalised, we lose that support.

I have been truly trying not to be mean or aggressive to you, but I really need you to understand the severity of what you said. You said that, because some people have fun li’l brain buds, DID is not a real a disorder—clearly also fun li’l brain buds—and it is perfectly alright to advocate for removing life support from us.

You understand why I’m upset, right?

Especially because you are a psychologist. You are the systemic problem of psychologists denouncing and not believing in our disorder. You are the person these people rely on, you could get someone killed by not taking their disorder seriously because your own biases.

I seriously, seriously encourage you to shut up when you don’t know something. Especially when you are a psychologist, your claims have credibility behind them and people are going to be influenced regardless of whether or not you know what you are speaking about. ‘Oh, this psychologist thinks DID is not a real disorder!’ is an old song I am so tired of hearing.

Not to mention the general ableism behind fakeclaiming us. Saying DID is not a disorder is fakeclaiming, you are fakeclaiming all of those symptoms. For what? What justifies you literally saying DID is not a disorder and everyone dealing with its symptoms are liars? Because that’s what you’re saying.

There is no good excuse for this behaviour, especially not from you. I beg of you to do better.

Bibliography:

DIDR. (2018, December 17). What is dissociative identity disorder? DID-Research. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/did/

Blihar, D., Delgado, E., Buryak, M., Gonzalez, M., & Waechter, R. (2020, February 12). A systematic review of the Neuroanatomy of Dissociative Identity disorder. European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246874992030017X

DIDR. (2015, April 8). Structural dissociation. DID-Research.org. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/

DIDR. (2019, July 22). Problems with structural dissociation. DID-Research. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/problems

DIDR. (2017, March 9). Dissociative identity disorder validity. DID-Research. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/controversy/validity/

[hi-im-dingo]

Hey how ya doing, lemme introduce myself

Pfp created by chemicataclysm from Picrew

The name is Dingo. I'm 20 years old, go by they/he/it/bark/guts and I'm transmasc genderfluid (+some xenogenders). I'm bisexual demirose, and ambiamorus. I'm a full on sub/bottom I can't even think of being a dom or topping it gives me major anxiety lol. I am mainly t4t most of the time. Unless said so, my posts are all mlm. I do get shy almost 24/7 so sorry if we are ever texting/talking and I go quiet all the sudden hah. I'm single, and it's gonna stay like that for a while until I get more therapy. I love marine life and big cats so much please we must talk about them they are the best

I'm both mentally disabled and mentally ill af lmao /srs. Please be patient with me if we ever talk and please use tone indicators

I finally decided to make a side blog for reblogging nsfw stuff. I shall remain anonymous and not tell my main blog, so I can't follow back. Sorry :(. If you do find it, no you didn't <3

Even though I am a nsfw account, I do NOT sext or flirt, and do not ask for hookups/pictures. If this sounds mean I'm just setting boundaries for my mentality. Only those very close to me can do these. However I will allow nsft asks, and they can be nsft related as well and what you would like to do to me :3 I also would like to meet you guys, so my DMs are open. However due to my anxiety I take a while to respond sometimes. I also sometimes get sex repulsed due to some past events so I'll disappear for a while from this blog

Alright might as well tell some stuff/kinks I'm in to and along with turn offs

Terms

I am a dude so refer to me with masc related things, but I am fine with pussy, clit, tcock, and chest. I do prefer to be called handsome. Those who are close to me can call me cute, adorable, hot, etc. and only I can call it boypussy if it's myself. Don't ever refer to me in a feminine way

Turn ons:

Being the pillow prince I am teehee :3

Free use to an extent

I call it being playful, but others call it being a brat lmao

Degrading, teasing, and humiliating to an extent

Fear play to an extent

Praising/being called "good boy"

Light bondage (like a simple hands behind back, maybe even blindfolded)

Voice kink

Denial, edging, and overstimulation

Breeding (no pregnancy)

Biting

Ice play

Height/size different (I'm 5'2" lol)

Cockwarming

Spanking

Spitting

Thigh riding

Light claiming

Predator/prey dynamic

Receiving oral

Taking things slowly and romantically

Consent and communication is the best /srs

Aftercare, cause that's important frfr

Turn offs

Blowjobs/deepthroating

Choking

Anal

Petplay

Non consent/r*pe. Fucking nasty why would you ever be into that.

Ageplay. Also nasty.

Scat, piss, vomit, etc.

"Daddy/mommy"

Face slapping, hitting, and punching

Misgendering/detrans, why the fuck you even do that???

Heavy bondage

Corruption (trauma related)

Somno

Public sex

Obsession/possessive

Knifeplay/cutting

Weapon play

Fake safewords

Tags

- # Dingo is posting : Any post that I make will always have this, even those with no nsft

- # Dingo is shit posting : Just me being a silly fella teehee

- # Not my post - self explanatory

- # Nsft : self explanatory

- # Not nsft : self explanatory

- # Serious post : for addressing anything very important

- # Please💀 : Scenarios, imagines, etc. from I really like. Will be seen with other people's posts

Anons

None as of now. Send an ask for any emoji you'd like to claim along with your gender and pronouns ^3^

!! DNI LIST !!

- Minors and ageless blogs. You will be blocked on sight

- Cishets. Once again, blocked on sight

- Anyone 25+

- basic dni criteria (homophobic, transphobic, ableist, zoophiles, pedophiles, incest supporters, etc)

- Proshitter/"anit-anti" or whatever you sick fucks call yourselves these days

- People who age up any minors for anything nsfw and shipping with an adult

- TERFs/radfems

- People who exclude neopronouns, xenogenders, aroace, and/or more

- fetishize age regression

- DDLG and anything relating to such

- Fujoshis

- YBC supporters/fans

- My ex and anyone who has connections with him

- Support/like yanderes (also trauma related)

- Dr. Rockso apologists

- Anyone who is neutral about any of the above

We got that all covered? Alright cool nice :3

I have a feeling this blog won't be 100% nsfw cause I like to be a silly guy most of the time lol

[viledevilcunt]

So you admit it? You’re an ableist and a TERF? Yikes, you must be a ray of fucking sunshine to be around huh? Just the way you type gives off ‘ummMM AKCTCHUALLY-“ energy. I just know you’re the person everyone gossips about behind your back because they can’t fucking STAND you. Sad really, waste of potential ass human.

where did i admit i was a terf lol. that's a word you people throw at anyone that doesn't share the "right" views and isn't radically inclusive or whatever it's called. in the wahwah baby safe internet language you seem hellbent on forcing on everyone around you, im a transgender and system medicalist. i do think it's really funny how there's so much screaming and crying about unpalatable mentally ill people being accepted and understood, then when one is a big meanie they're a faggot ableist terf tranny. oh no, there's a random asshole online, whatever shall we do. should we call the hospital to get me re-psyched? do you want me to sadly and self deprecatingly agree with your asinine insult messages? shut up bitch

[peace-for-levi]

you could also just get another job instead of asking for money lol greeeeedy

if i was in ur situation i'd just get another job rather than ask ppl to give u money ffs

Hello nonnie, there are quite a few things wrong with this message. allow me to correct you.

1. I never asked for money in this post. read it again, you'll find that i offered my services in exchange for money. the same way you'd commission people for art, you pay them money for their services. this is how websites like Fiverr work - you pay them money in exchange for the skills and services they offer. i explicitly said i wasn't looking for people to donate. I left no paypal/cashapp or any such link in the post. I would not ask people for money like that as i am very awkward around these things. Read the post again since you clearly didn't read it properly the last time. Get your eyes checked while you're at it.

2. "i'd just get another job rather than ask ppl" ok. Let's break this down, shall we? This is a very ableist comment I feel. You're assuming that people in this position who need a little bit of cash to help them achieve their goal - whatever that may be - are in the position to "just" get a job. Whether it's for an instrument in my case that'll help me with my career, college tuition, rent, groceries, etc. some people come onto tumblr and such websites just for a bit of help. Is that so wrong?

Seems like it is to you.

By this ask, I can assume you think "just getting another job" is very easy to do. what about all the CVs I'll have to send off? GDPR is very hard to navigate in my country, it's so hard to even get interviews and pass the questionnaire stage of the jobs here. If I put down my disability - assuming I had one - I can get rejected. But I am obligated to "inform my employer in advance" of such conditions otherwise it is I who gets in trouble - and subsequently fired - for having a tough time at the workplace. What about these people, hmm? Whose conditions make it hard to get another job, or even work?

I could go on and on about this, and frankly? I think I will.

What about Covid-19? What country do you live in, nonnie? Do you live in a country where Covid is under control? I don't. Hospitality services close here at 5PM. Restaurants that open at 12PM can only stay open for five hours. So multiply your minimum wage by five, and maybe add a bit on to include tips and such? Not enough, no? Sure, I could apply for financial aid. But in my country, if I apply for that, it'll come out of my taxes over the next few years, or something similar - the financial aid I receive during Covid, must be paid back. I'd rather not land myself in debt, personally.

Nonnie, my brother has Covid right now. I currently can't work for the next two weeks. That's two weeks of pay I am already cut down by. Two weeks of pay that would have paid for my groceries and such. And maybe the scraps of money I have left I can put towards my goal. Two weeks of work. And in the school I work in, I have to pay these two works back unpaid because I have students who paid their deposit to this school at the start of the year, and if their teacher has been off, then they won't be getting the full value of their money. That's not fair on them. That's not fair on me either, considering I have no choice to stay at home until everyone's symptoms clear up. I am currently showing symptoms of Covid-19. So these two weeks of isolation are just a precaution since a member of my immediate family has Covid. It is extremely likely I either have or will have it. So add another week on to that. Three weeks without work.

Could you afford to make a rent payment at the end of the month having only worked one week? Not many people can. Some people live paycheck to paycheck. They might have to dig into their savings.

So "just" getting a job is hard. Sometimes sustaining a job in the pandemic is just as hard.

Look into terror-management theory. (Greenberg et al., 1986) from Public Self and Private Self, pages 189 - 212. "The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory."

"It provides an explanation for prejudice for when mortality salience is high" says Amanda A. Arcieri and I read the cited pages. Arcieri says and I quote, "Particularly relevant for the current COVID-19 pandemic, terror-management theory suggests that in order to cope with seemingly unending reminders of our own mortality and the anxiety that comes with it, we are likely to hold on tighter to our cultural values and worldviews. In doing so, we may become less tolerant of those who are perceived to hold different cultural values."

Watch what you fucking say to me, to my friends, to people on Tumblr and anyone, really.

I work as a teacher part time so allow me to assign you some homework and some light reading so that you can become educated and become an ally to people of all types, disabled or not.

- Hey You - Here Are 10 Examples of Ableism

- 9 Ways Ableism Is Showing Up During the COVID-19 Outbreak

- The Relationships Between COVID-19 Anxiety, Ageism, and Ableism by Amanda A. Arcieri (this is a good study, nonnie, you should read this one.)

- "Ableism "is rife" within Irish workplaces and society, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission says."

-

[subject-v]

A lesson in diplomacy (whumptober 5)

Five is punished for stealing.

TW: death, branding, blood, restraint, forced to watch, ableist language

“Wake up!”

I jerk upright, shoving hair out of my eyes, expecting to see it day outside because surely if Dex is here, in the servant quarters, I’ve slept until noon, but I can barely see by the flickering torchlight. He sets his torch in a sconce on the wall and drops something, no, someone, a body, with long hair and a ragged skirt. She grunts as she hits the ground, unable to catch herself. Ari rushes to her side to help her up but I remain frozen in place as she lifts her head: Amira. Why is Dex upset with Amira? She’s always done everything he’s asked of her.

“I have a simple question,” Dex says, leaning against the doorframe to block our only exit. “Who stole the cipher from my office?”

My stupid human brain still struggles to interpret sounds as a form of communication and I stumble over two words: cipher and office. Office is where he works and cipher is… oh. The paper I took off his desk, the one with the jumbled letters that were so fun to put back in order. I’d overheard him call it unbreakable with a group of senators, but it was a one-to-one substitution, easily broken with a little frequency analysis using books from his library. I’d solved it in about a decan and I couldn’t even read.

“Don’t look so terrified, Nike.” With no apparent effort, Dex leans forward and curls his fingers through Amira’s hair, pulling her back to her knees. “I know you’re too much of a simpleton for this. You three, however.” He flicks a finger at the other indentureds: Ari, Ermes, and Hesita, all of whom find reason to look elsewhere. “Only servants had access to the room since it went missing. Énas assures me it wasn’t one of the paid servants, so it was one of you.” A knife appears in his hands, a long, curved one with a terrible sharp point that he plants on Amira’s cheek, making her tremble, making her cry, and if I didn’t know from experience that nothing in my physical capacity could overpower Dex, I would jump at him then and there for scaring her. “Well?” A rivulet of blood rolls down her cheek.

“Sir,” Hesita begins. “I would never steal from you.”

“It’s not merely theft,” he says idly. “That cipher was a message from the rebels.” A small gasp goes up around the room, so whatever this rebel word is, I assume I want no association with it. “Whoever took it is a traitor and shall be treated as such.” He smiles, not the smile I’ve seen him use with other important people when he wants them to like him, the sort he flashed my way the first day we met, when being in a human body was still so new and unbearable and he’d seen the helplessness written all over my face. We were, I realized, helpless. None of us will leave this room alive but through his mercy. “Ari, perhaps?”

When he faces her, she ducks her head, just like Amira taught me to do. If you challenge him, he will try to break you, she’d said. Don’t give him reason to. “S-sir, I’m not a rebel.”

“They do love sending cute little things like you to my household. Did they give you that scar themselves, thinking it would make me less likely to abuse you? Ha!”

Ari’s chin is shaking. “I-I’m not-”

Dex waves her protestation aside. “They’ll elicit a proper confession at the Keep. Until then.” He plucks something off the wall behind him, a long metal stick like the one I use to tend his fires, and the one he once used to beat me when I let a fire burn too low, except this one has a shape on the end, an interlocking spiral made of wrought metal, and it makes Ari fall to her knees.

“Please don’t brand me, sir. I’m not a ciphramancer. I’ll do anything, please. It’s…” She takes  a deep breath. “Nike hides something in their shirt. Paper. Please, sir, it wasn’t me.”

I frown when she points at me but I’ve broken the cipher and I’m not a rebel or a ciphramancer, whatever those are, so Dex can’t be mad at me. Really, I’ve helped him, by solving it. Maybe he’ll see how good I am at this and stop making me do all his laundry. I remember to vibrate my neck as I exhale and say, “I. Have it.” Then, even though esses always get stuck under my tongue, I add, “S-sir,” because he looks like he’s in a bad mood.

Dex raises an eyebrow. “I’m not in a joking mood, Nike.”

I pull the paper—cipher on the one side, decrypted version on the other—out of my tunic and hand it to him.

He is, for the first time since I’ve arrived here, dumbfounded. Gobsmacked, even. “Are you-you’re a rebel?” He forgets to keep holding Amira up and she collapses to her shoulder, her bound hands wriggling behind her back. “Nike?”

Ari has a gleam in her eye as she ducks her head. Wait a minute, I know that one. Relieved? Why is she-

Dex slams me into the wall behind me, his arm flat across my neck. “I refuse to believe you’re a ciphramancer.” My eyes bug out of my head, I kick dangling feet, trying to speak, tell him I can’t breathe, but he drops me the next second anyway. “Hesita, Ermes, leave us. Ari, get my son and my riding crop.”

They all flee, except Amira, whose legs are tied together with thick rope, and even before she looks up at me with those big, sad, disappointed eyes, I realize I may have made a mistake here. I clear my throat. “I can.” What’s the word? “Help. You.”

Dex laughs. “You will, Nike. But first, Cassian?”

Cassian has only just arrived but he already looks miserable, which is his default state, as far as I can tell. He lets Ari hide behind him as he steps forward, all six feet of him. “Yes, sir?”

This always confuses me. My understanding of human social politics is that people fear pain and so power comes through the ability to inflict it. I have to wash and dry Dex’s clothes because he can hit me and I can’t hit him, but Cassian is wider and taller than Dex and he still always defers to him in these sorts of situations, even though he clearly doesn’t want to be here. What’s up with that?

“She will be going to the Keep. Get the necessary supplies and contact a guard.”

Cassian swallows heavily. “Yes, sir.”

“Ari, out of curiosity, how long did you know Nike had the cipher?”

Ari has nowhere to hide anymore and presses her lips together. “Sir, I assumed you told her to have it. I’m sorry.”

“You will be. Take off your shirt.”

Could I slip out, if I ran fast? No, Amira’s body is in the way. I opt to crouch in my corner instead. If I’m small enough, he might forget me, and he does seem excited as he beats Ari’s back purple with the riding crop, pausing after each blow so she can choke out a number.

Is he going to do that to me next? My hand goes to my back, worried. He whipped me, once. This will hurt less, right? But in my mind, it hurts more. A great anvil settles on my chest, pressing down until I can barely breathe, and then when Cassian returns, he’s holding rope and other things I don’t even recognize. If Ari deserves this punishment for the crime of hiding my crime, what the hells are they going to do me?

The knife? Dex’s sword? Something worse? Cassian shoves the brand into the brazier on the far wall, rustling the coals against one another, and my stomach drops. Do they-are they going to make me touch the fire?

Tears spill into my eyes, making Dex laugh as he shoos Ari out of the room. Instead of falling on me though—I want him to, even as I cannot stand the thought, because at least once the pain starts, I know how bad it will be—he drags Amira to the wall by the back of her shirt. “Put those on,” he orders, kicking at a set of manacles. He flicks Amira’s chin up with the riding crop. “Do it or I’ll hurt her.”

I snatch them closer and fit them over my wrists, but they’re so big, they fall to my elbows. Cassian moves forward to tighten them, then tugs at the chain, looking at Dex to make sure he approves. I wish I had the words to ask him to help me, instead of Dex. Neither of us like Dex and with his size, we could probably take him, even though he is holding that riding crop. He treated me so well last night, feeding me, telling me stories about Marius. Isn’t he supposed to like me?

Maybe he can see this urge in my eyes because he looks away quickly.

“Pull down the shirt.”

Cassian’s hands are hot against the skin of my back. “Kneel, please,” he whispers. I don’t understand. Why? Why must I? What was my crime?

“I helped,” I manage to say.

“Kneel,” he repeats. “Please, Nike.”

I kneel and he presses my cheek into the cold stone wall. Someone stirs the embers and a moan escapes my mouth—mistake. “Yes, Nike, perhaps you should’ve considered how much this would hurt before you crossed me.”

The strength comes from nowhere but suddenly, I’m struggling, pressing against Cassian’s hands on my shoulders, trying to stand, and his grip tightens. “I don’t want-”

I hear it before I feel it. A sizzle, like meat on the grill. A hiss.

Then-

Gods. Someone screams, not me, even though it’s my vocal cords vibrating, because this is not a sound I could ever make. It echoes in the small room, cracks, warbles, louder than I’ve ever made, and when I run out of breath the pain is still there, pressed hard against my back. I smell something burning, then realize it’s me. I’m burning.

Even when Dex steps back, the pain doesn’t diminish, and Cassian allowing my shirt to fall back into place makes it worse. I drop to hands and knees, the chains rattling, my back keening. Dex props the brand against the wall and I almost sob because that means we’re done, this is it. I can survive this. I can-I can do this.

“Look up.” I struggle to obey. “She begged for me to spare you, you know that?” Dex taps the riding crop against Amira’s cheek, which is stained wet. “My original idea was to skin you in front of Ari until she confessed, but Amira begged me to use her instead. Isn’t that touching?”

Amira’s shoulders shake.

“I assume you feel something for her as well.” He punches her, even though she is already lying on the ground and bound and helpless, he punches her so hard, her head slams into the wall with a horrid crack and blood pours from her mouth and splatters across her grey hair. I flinch, reach out to her, forget about the chains, half fall. “As I thought. Let this be a lesson then: your beloved rebels will always hurt people more than they help.”  He kneels, strokes her hair, and slides his knife between her ribs.

I’m too weak to cry out as she babbles, as he lets her go, as she falls. Too weak to pull away from her spreading blood as it stains my skirt and skin. Too weak to struggle as Cassian lifts me up, avoiding the raw wound on my back, and carries me outside, and between the searing pain on my back and the terror in my chest, all I can find myself thinking is that he promised. He said if I obeyed he wouldn’t hurt her, and he hurt her, he killed her, she taught me to speak and he killed her, she’s dead and I wish I were too because it hurts more than I can comprehend.

As Cassian hands me to someone outside dressed all in grey, I manage to lift my head, look Dex in the eye, and though I cannot remember how to speak, I think he understands the look in my eyes because he ruffles my hair with a rueful smile. “I know, I lied. Don’t worry, better dead than where you’re going.”

[revasnaslan]

I'll be honest about Annilis, I love him and his sympathetic background AS well as his awful approach to keeping Hec-tor safe, because he's probably in some legitimate danger but he took it too far. I love HP, but I also wanna beat his ass too. Just grab him by the ears and yell, "What are you doing you idiot sandwich?!" I just wanna ask him "Are you even happy? And no getting pegged by a Shade isn't happiness." Don't want him to die though, only because it's a cop-out for actual punishment.1/2

2/2 That's what kinda bummed me on HP in-show, he did so much horrible shit, was an arrogant living "God", and he was just killed? That easy? HP's hubris was grotesque and he deserved a worse punishment than just a lightshow to the face. HP was also a non character in the end and whatever characterization he did have was lost quickly, gonna admit. But, an arrogant jerk dying that quickly is too easy a punishment, he has to suffer the consequences of his actions and experience his loss in detail.

sorry I'm sending you so many asks about HP. But dear God did the show drop the ball on Horde "supposedly endgame villain who was woefully underutilized until the last minute and even then was handed the villain ball to make sure what credibility he did have was lost" Prime. Could have been great, his story was there, but Crew-ra wasted time on frivolous characters(star siblings might have been cool but s5 needed to work on its existing characters, not introduce new ones)and wasted plot points.

I actually have done a ton of analysis on why prime just doesn’t work as a villain for pretty much six months now. Like I started doing this pretty much the day that the finale dropped cause I never liked S5 at all. There’s just much wrong with it, strictly from a narrative prospective than I cannot get over it, which I why I’ve kind of retreated into doing Fuck Canon aus. And I don’t think the major problems plaguing prime is that he’s a bad person or a cult leader or whatever, that would be fine. This is a matter of set up and pay off. This is a matter of narrative structure. Those are my major problems with everything about this.

Anyway, I guess we’ll try a flaccid attempt at positivity, just to make it clear that I am not coming strictly from a point of view of hate… the one thing I remember liking about prime is that creepy dinner scene. Loved that scene, I was so giddy when they dropped it as a teaser clip, and I got to enjoy it in peace for like a day and a half before my love for the show went crumbling. Prime is absolutely on his game in that scene, I can very clearly see his mind working, because my interpretation of the scene is that he’s trying to bait glimmer into giving him information. Did he actually intend to harm adora? Who knows! Does it matter? Not really, considering he got the information he wanted, which was what was needed to work the heart. I can feel the tension in that scene, that is how he should have been for the rest of the season.

So what the fuck happened? *cracks knuckles* well let’s see shall we.

Foreshadowing It’s Fun Cause It’s A Thing I’ve Heard Of

So I think we all remember just how shocking it was when prime actually showed up, and he wasn’t anything like we’d all come to assume he’d be based on what had been said about him up until that point. What we had been fed was essentially that he was cold, calculating, and didn’t look upon “defects” well. He saw the clones as disposable. And they set up that aspect of his character just fine, and I don’t have a problem with how that was set up.

What they utterly failed to properly set up (and even contradicted themselves on) was the cult thing, and how prime is essentially this messiah figure to the clones. I highly suspect this occurred because they were writing the show as they went along, and hadn’t fully fleshed out prime’s whole deal until he actually appeared at the end of S4, but that’s just my own speculation given some of the things that had been said in interviews regarding other aspects of the writing (namely that micah was apparently not supposed to be alive in the first place and that happened because of a miscommunication between noelle and one of the other writers).

Regardless, there are a number of things that should probably have been done differently in order to properly foreshadow prime’s cult leader status, that actually would have heightened hordak’s characterization as well. For one thing, there’s a reason we all assumed that the galactic horde was merely a military program and it’s because of how hordak acts throughout the first four seasons. We can talk in circles about headcanons until we’re blue in the face (i.e., he might have memory problems), but the fact of the matter is that those are headcanons and that hordak’s entire narrative changes from one of an ableist family to one of a religious trauma seemingly on a dime come the very end of S4 when prime shows up.

imagine how satisfying the foreshadowing would have been if hordak had actually been spouting dogma the entire show (i.e., “cast out the shadows” and “all beings must suffer to become pure”) only for it peter off once he’s befriended entrapta, if he had been calling those who he respected brother/sister instead of force captains (which is a far more militarized word to use, and judging by the galactic horde isn’t even a term they use), if he had still been dressed in his uniform and only actually started dressing differently after entrapta had helped him? Hell, he never even so much as implies that entrapta is leading him astray before he’s back with prime, he doesn’t even seem particularly distressed about being around her most of the time, and the only reason he even gets persnickety with her is because of his medical condition.

One point I’m going to expand on for a moment is the whole “brother” thing, because that is actually a very good way of explaining what I mean. Now, hordak doesn’t actually mention any other clones at all from what I remember. This is contrary to all of the clones in S5 referring to each other as “brother” pretty openly and it being seen as a term of respect. However, the only person that hordak actually calls “brother” up until S5 is prime, and this inadvertently ended up making the word seem far more neutral than it should have been considering the context of S5. The word “brother” is actually a control tool, and if they had wanted to establish that sooner, hordak should have been calling anybody he respected that.

So, either the writers hadn’t actually thought of that part of the narrative yet, or they’re just that bad at foreshadowing.

There are also three instances of the narrative contradicting itself with regards to prime, one in S3, one in S4, and one in S5. The first is that hordak wanted to make a new body for himself. While one could argue that this was meant to be foreshadowing that prime takes new bodies whenever his old one failed (which is fine, that works as foreshadowing), the act of hordak admitting that he was intending to do that is what actually creates the snag. With the context of S5, we learn that becoming a vessel is meant to be a place of honor, but this comes with the caveat that it seems like only prime is allowed to take new bodies. So why the ever living fuck would someone as “pious” and “unworthy” as hordak think that was something he could ever be allowed to do, much less that prime would welcome him back with open arms if he did it. But there’s zero hesitation on hordak’s part, he doesn’t even mention that this is something usually only reserved for prime.

The second is that prime literally looked at the heart of etheria and said it was “unlike anything [he had] ever seen” despite canonically fighting the first ones, so he’d presumably have recognized the energy signature that first one’s tech gives off and be like Oh Shit. This one in particular drives me absolutely nuts because if I was writing a villain who had lived long enough to fight the people this mystical weapon was created by I would never write them saying that what the actual fuck. My gripe here is not that prime is ancient, that’s fine, I could’ve vibed with that. But the fact that he not only fought the first ones but also recognized mara is really egregious in a way that borders on parody for me. Like what a flimsy excuse for him to be connected to adora (and we’ll get to that!)

The third and final one is that hordak was allegedly thrown out for his defects. That’s what we were told, that’s what a major facet of hordak’s trauma is centered around. However, at the same times, prime seems like… oddly fixated on hordak in a way that usually implies something deeper is going on here. That was why I was so convinced that hordak wasn’t remembering something clearly, because why would prime spare him instead of killing him immediately after returning if he was defective enough to warrant being thrown out? Come S5, prime seems to have forgotten about the pesky little plot detail that is hordak’s defects, since they never come up again! Nope! Hordak is not only completely healed of his ailments (which Can I Get A Yikes?) but he’s also been welcomed back to his original position as prime’s right hand by the mid-point of the season, and he stays there until the finale unless the plot demands he be elsewhere to interact with entrapta cause hordak was added in post. You can’t even argue that he was keeping hordak alive because eThErIaN kNoWlEdGe because he has those fucking mind chips. Literally every single person he’s chipped is connected to the hivemind because of that. He’d have every single bit of knowledge that he could possibly want right there at his fingertips. He doesn’t need hordak alive at all.

Which brings us to…

It’s Almost Like He Wasn’t A Villain To The Proper People

The thing about villains is that, in order for them to not feel out of place, in order for their defeat to actually give a true feeling of satisfaction, you kind of have to put them up against the right people. The reason that prime ultimately fails in this respect is that he is not adora and catra’s villain, despite the narrative pushing him as that…

I actually once joked on twitter that if the rise of skywalker had come out when S5 was being written, then prime would have likely ended up being revealed as adora’s long lost grandfather in some attempt to make his fixation on her seem warranted. That’s the level we’re at in terms of how connected the two of them appear to be for the villain and hero thing. They just are not connected, and prime has absolutely no reason to be this fixated on her. They tried to explain it with she ra and prime being old enemies, but that’s equally as confusing because a) mara hadn’t mentioned him up until that point, b) this inclusion actually makes the first ones creating a superweapon look justified since prime is such a huge threat, and c) she ra is explicitly stated to have been on etheria long before the first ones even colonized it, so why the fuck is she just gallivanting around the cosmos fighting cult leaders?

And to be clear, if this whole prime versus she ra had actually been hinted at, I would not be taking so much issue with this. But as there was absolutely zero mention of him, it just comes off as egregious and very, very sloppy on their parts.

Prime also should not be as fixated on catra as he is, that doesn’t make sense at all. I know why this happened in particular, though, and it’s because the writing team was so in love with her that they just had to give her this arc. That just makes its inclusion all the worse to be honest. Why does he go to such great lengths to use catra to torture adora, why does he go into a total breakdown after catra escapes? He isn’t connected to either of them…

… because he is hordak and entrapta’s villain.

that prime didn’t immediately want entrapta dead continues to confuse me to this day, nearly seven months after the fact. Like you mean to tell me that this cult leader, who is presumably used to complete obedience from his followers, finds one of the wayward members of his proverbial flock lost on some backwater, who didn’t want to be found, and he knows exactly who is responsible for sewing those seeds of discord in this poor lamb’s head. And he doesn’t immediately want entrapta dead?

Not only does prime never mention her, despite it being very easy to push a plotline about how it’s necessary because she’s perceived as a danger to the rest, and especially to the poor lost soul who was ultimately returned to him. Instead, prime just doesn’t seem to realize entrapta exists. He doesn’t know who she is despite literally reading hordak’s mind. He doesn’t even seem to interpret her as threat considering he wasn’t worried about putting her and hordak right next to each other in the finale. He should have been using hordak to torture entrapta, and he should have had his break because hordak escaped him. That whole scene where catra is under mind control and adora was trying to snap her out of it was textbook entrapdak. Hordak should have been the one to delve into the hivemind to help adora. It was his story and it was taken from him when he was sacrificed on catra’s narrative arc altar.

And this is ultimately completely fixable. Because they had a villain they could have been using for adora and catra the whole time. Shadow Weaver. Y’know, their mutual abuser who was the main cause of strife between the two of them, and the person who kind of set the plot in motion since she’s the reason catra is the way that she is?

He Blew It. Super Hard. Complete Buffoonery.

Ultimately one of the biggest writing fumbles with prime is that he is just really fucking dumb as the plot demands, and it doesn’t make any kind of narrative sense for him to be that way, it is literally just him being at the mercy of the writers who need him to do something stupid so they can push the plot forward since they made him too overpowered for it to happen any other way.

There’s numerous instances of this across the season, including him bringing entrapta aboard the velvet glove when the very person he would have had very good reason to not let her near is standing right there, and him deciding to give catra pretty much free reign of the velvet glove and seeming to decide to trust her despite him knowing damn well that she’s likely to betray him the second he does something she doesn’t like, and the time he literally left adora to be beaten by catra instead of just killing her outright when she couldn’t even activate she ra. And in all these cases he had the fucking nerve to seem surprised when it happened?

However, there is one plot point that I feel illustrates how goddamn stupid he is to move the plot forward, and it’s the mind chips.

I mean one of the reasons I dislike it is going back to how little foreshadowing the writers actually seem capable of committing to. There is nothing to indicate in the narrative that prime actually employs mind control on anybody besides the clones, and this becomes especially egregious when we later meet the star siblings, and we find out that there are large swathes of the universe that are seemingly not chipped? It just screams like they needed some type of angst plot point for catra, so they had to find a way to make it work.

But the very inclusion of the mind chips as a plot point makes prime look so ridiculously dumb, because we are told those chips connect people to the hivemind, we are explicitly shown this for catra angst. So a) why does he need hordak around at all, because the excuse he needs to know about etheria doesn’t work since he literally chips like half of the etherian population later on anyway, b) if he needed information on the heart of etheria, why didn’t he just chip glimmer outright, it would have saved him a lot of time and hassle, and c) if he knew damn well that catra had betrayed hordak numerous times and was likely to do the same to him, why didn’t he just immediately chip her so he could mitigate two problems. If he had chipped catra immediately, he wouldn’t have lost glimmer, and it would have been next to impossible for adora and bow to storm the velvet glove through the means that they did.

When your main villain is that fucking stupid, the tension is completely sapped out of your narrative, and prime doesn’t have enough character unto himself to continue holding up his own arc. He is a sexy lamp cardboard cutout that just happens to be brought onto the scene when they were in need of someone to throw the idiot ball at. Prime is supposed to be this thousand year old body hopper who has the wisdom of the ages, and yet he was defeat by a group of teenagers driving a clown card held together by nothing but duct tape and prayers.

Anyway!

Guess Who Just Got Murdered!

Anon, I completely agree that the way prime got taken out was just… hm. Well, it was a choice, given how they had written the rest of the season.

I’ve said this before, but I really wish I could actually enjoy hordak yeeting him, but I just don’t feel anything. That scene is a culmination of an arc that never happened because hordak was barely on screen for S5. It feels like we’re missing this whole season-long arc about how hordak managed to break free of prime and was actively working against him, and that scene is the lowest point, right before the greater scope villain is ultimately defeated by the protagonist. Which just furthers my point that prime is really hordak’s villain, because hordak reads more like a protagonist than I think the writers actually intended for him to.

Since you mentioned anillis, I feel the need to comment on him as well, because I do know exactly what happens to him at the end of my au, because I actually planned for his ending from the beginning and built his arc towards that point. The very bare bones spoilers is that he isn’t going to die, because a) he needs to live with the consequences of his actions and b) him dying would affect hec-tor horribly, especially since if anybody had to deal the killing blow it would be hec-tor. And hec-tor doesn’t deserve to be forced to do that. He wants freedom, he doesn’t want his brother dead by his own hand.

So, I completely agree that just killing prime off feels a little… like a cop out? I’m not going to get into a discussion of how he was defeated by the power of (romantic) love because my issue there is not with the trope itself, but ultimately how it was handled, and that also has to do more with my grievances with how catradora was ultimately handled than my grievances with prime. However, him being like… exorcised…

Well it sure does clean up some loose ends that we don’t want to discuss huh?

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

why Christians need to stop forcing forgiveness

I got an ask from someone who heard someone at their church say that hating someone is as bad as murder and that Christians need to forgive everyone. It’s about time I talked about forgiveness at length, because it’s a concept that’s misused by too many people.

To start out, have a quick rant on forgiveness as preached in a lot of churches these days:

The pressure to forgive everyone hangs over a lot of Christians’ heads. While yes, it can be a beautiful thing to offer someone forgiveness, the way Christian communities threaten and pressure persons who have undergone abuse and other harm to “just forgive” the wrongdoers is horrible and completely against what Jesus instructed, as this long ass post will prove.

God is always, always on the side of those who have been abused, those who have been wronged – God saw and cared for Hagar, an abused slave; God saw and liberated the Hebrews, also abused slaves; God instructed Their people again and again to take special care of orphans, widows, foreigners, poor people, and other vulnerable persons of society (and became wrathful whenever Their people failed to do so); Jesus protected a woman from her would-be stoners, and promised woe to those who bring harm to “little ones;” and on and on and on.

With the knowledge that God has compassion for the abused and vulnerable and demands that they be protected, Christian communities need to speak about forgiveness with more compassion and sensitivity so that they will stop causing further harm to already hurting people.

Okay, time to discuss the “hate = murder” idea, which comes from 1 John 3:15:

“Anyone who hates their brother is a murderer: and you know that any murderer does not have eternal life abiding in them.”

That seems like….quite the hyperbole, doesn’t it? When I experience a feeling of hate towards someone, it’s not like I literally leave them dead. So…is it figurative?

Let’s look to the surrounding verses of this 1 John 3 passage for context:

11For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. 16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a sibling in need and yet refuses help? 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

So this passage tells us a good bit about what it means to love, vs. what it means to hate. Both love and hate are very strongly tied to action in this passage – neither hate nor love is just a feeling in your heart (because, vv. 19-20 tell us, sometimes what is happening in our hearts will “condemn” us but the way we love “in truth and action” will “reassure” us) but an active way of living.

Actions associated with hating in this passage: Cain’s murder of Abel – for Cain, hate literally made him a murderer; it wasn’t just a feeling he held in his heart but a violence that he acted out. The writer also notes that the little faith community to whom he is writing is hated by “the world” (v. 13); we can assume that this hatred isn’t just a feeling that “the world” holds in its heart against these early believers, but an active persecution – just as Cain’s hate murdered Abel, “the world’s” hate is likely manifesting in violence.

Actions associated with loving: The passage says that “we know love by” the following: first, in the act of laying down one’s life for others (v. 16); second, in the action of using our worldly resources to help our sibling in need – you can’t claim to have love in your heart and not translate that into the active offering of resources to those who need them (v. 17).

So for the writer of 1 John, could you potentially have some hateful feelings in your heart yet not be counted among the “murderers” who “do not have eternal life” (v. 15)? I think so, so long as the hate in your heart does not manifest itself in hateful actions – I might harbor resentment and anger and even hate against someone and still treat them with love. My heart might “condemn” me (v 20), because it’s so hard not to feel resentment or anger or hate if someone has truly wronged you; but my “word and speech” can “reassure” me that I am still “from the truth” (aka God) (v 19), if that word and speech is loving.  

So yeah, for the writer of 1 John who wrote that hating a sibling is the same as being a murderer, the kind of hate he’s talking about will necessarily manifest itself in violence. A person who has suffered abuse or pain at the hands of someone else and can’t help but feel hatred for that person is not “a murderer” in 1 John’s writer’s eyes, unless that hatred manifests itself in active violence. (We’ll get back to whether I think violence against abusers can be justified – spoilers: I do not think that one is a “murderer,” literally or figuratively, for fighting back against an abuser or oppressor.)

Now, where did the writer of 1 John even get this idea that he could equate hatred to murder? (Why didn’t ancient writers have to cite their sources??) Well, maybe 1 John had heard tell of one of Jesus’s little speeches, as recorded in Matthew 5:

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’  22But I say to you that if you are angry with a sibling, you will be liable to judgment; and if you say “raka” [“empty-headed one!”] to a sibling, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the Gehenna of fire.”

So before the writer of 1 John equated hating to murdering, it seems that Jesus made a parallel between murdering and being angry at someone + calling them empty-headed or foolish (sidenote about being against saying “raka” or “moron” to someone: maybe Jesus was just super against ableist language?).

So wow, being angry at someone is really bad, huh. …But hang on – Jesus got angry sometimes!! He got wrathfully angry at the people selling crap in the temple; he snapped at Peter and said “get behind me, Satan!”; he looks around in anger at the people who try to stop him from healing a man…..the guy had a temper. So why does he say that those who get angry are “liable to judgment” just as a murderer is?

Well, if we keep reading in Matthew 5, we’ll see that the kind of anger that Jesus is comparing to murder is the same kind of anger the author of 1 John discusses: it’s anger that brings about violence. It’s anger that causes harm.

23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your sibling has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your sibling, and then come and offer your gift.

The person whose anger Jesus likens to murder is the person who caused some sort of harm – “your sibling has something against you,” rather than you having something against your sibling. You did something to hurt your sibling, not the other way around – you are the culprit, and it’s your anger that is, like murder, “liable to judgment.” It’s up to the wrongdoer to seek out reconciliation, to make things right; Jesus says nothing about it being on the wronged sibling to seek out reconciliation with you.

Jesus’s next example is set up the same way, with you, the one whose anger is “liable to judgment,” being the one accused of some sort of wrongdoing:

25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Jesus doesn’t compare the type of anger that the one’s who’ve been wronged – the “accuser” in v 25 and the “sibling” in v 23 – are likely feeling to murder. Their anger, the anger of one who is wronged or who has witnessed some sort of wrongdoing, is justified (much like Jesus’s own instances of anger as I cited a little while back).

Note also that Jesus does not tell the hypothetical accuser to “just drop your accusations and forgive the person you’re accusing.” He doesn’t say that bringing a wrongdoer to court instead of immediately dropping charges and forgiving them is a bad thing to do. Instead, the onus is on the wrongdoer to reach out to the one wronged, to “come to terms” with them before court, if possible. If they make it to court before the wrongdoer has reached out, the accuser “may hand you over to the judge” – and Jesus does not indicate that the accuser is making the wrong choice by handing over the unrepentant wrongdoer to the judge!!

That’s the really important part of this hypothetical court scenario, so I’m gonna go ahead and repeat what Jesus says for the people in the back: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Dang, Jesus. That’s not very “forgiving” of the accuser!

That brings me to the conclusion of this post, the

TL;DR

Churches often tell those who have been wronged to drop charges, to “just forgive” their wrongdoer.

Jesus tells the wrongdoer that it’s up to them to make things right, and if they fail, “your accuser may hand you over to the judge.” The blame goes on the wrongdoer, not the one wronged. The pressure to reach out for reconciliation is on the wrongdoer, not the one wronged!

And look at that “may” – “your accuser may hand you over.” Maybe the one wronged will choose to forgive the wrongdoer, that’s cool! Or maybe they’ll choose to get the wrongdoer locked up – that’s 100% acceptable too. According to Jesus’s words in this passage, it’s up to the one wronged – no judgment either way. No pressure to pick forgiveness.

So churches that pressure people who’ve been wronged to forgive their wrongdoers are going about the reconciliation process backwards and causing further harm to persons who have already been hurt. In the above conversation on Matthew 5, we see that Jesus puts the onus on the wrongdoer to make things right, and does not pressure the one who is wronged to choose forgiveness over justice. Whew!!

Okay. Let’s wrap this up already. I’m just gonna throw some miscellaneous extra stuff about the concepts anger and forgiveness are under the readmore and then call it quits. I welcome comments! 

Anger itself is not a sin; it just puts you in danger of (“liable to”) sinning – see this post and this post for more on that. If you experience anger, you should pause and consider whether it’s a righteous anger or a toxic anger, and move forward from there.

Ephesians 4:26 says, “Be angry and do not sin.” There’s some food for thought!

And here’s a really cool quote from a book called Rage Becomes Her

Leviticus 19:17 offers some wise instructions: “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, lest you incur sin yourself.” While I talked earlier about how the onus is on the wrongdoer to reach out to the one wronged for reconciliation, and there is no pressure on the one wronged to forgive, it is important for the person wronged to tell the wrongdoer what happened. Sometimes a person causes harm without realizing they did so – the one wronged shouldn’t hold a grudge internally, but communicate their pain to the wrongdoer. It’s then up to the wrongdoer to act on that information.

What is forgiveness, anyway? It’s not a simple act of one person saying “I forgive you” and the other saying “cool thanks” -- there’s got to be genuine remorse and regret on the side that did the wrong. There’s got to be genuine reconciliation, wherein a promise is made that the wrong will not happen again. And the one who was wronged is not obligated to keep the wrongdoer in their life, especially if doing so would put them in risk of being hurt again.

I mentioned above that the writer of 1 John would probably consider violence enacted out of hate by the oppressed person to be “murder,” I do not. “A riot is the language of the unheard;” when someone being oppressed is forced to resort to violence, that’s not on them.

I refuse to judge the reaction of someone experiencing abuse or oppression, whatever it is. 

I believe it is much more important to focus on the wrongdoer and preventing them from causing further violence. Why are we more anxious about someone “fighting fire with fire” than we are about helping them put out that fire that’s killing them?

See this article: “My ‘nonviolent’ stance was met with heavily armed men”

A little more on anger or hate being akin to murder: There is a difference between the hate or anger that simmers in the heart of a person who has been abused, oppressed, or otherwise wronged, and the hate that poisons the one who does the abusing, the harming, the acts of bigotry and violence. One can feel hatred against someone who wronged them and still act with love; when a bigot or abuser feels hatred, the fruit that hate bears is violence.

James Cone has a lot of important stuff to say about violence, such as this quote

[kemeticcalloutsfromthepublic]

To Light A Magic Fart

We have been made aware that our latest commentary has elicited a rant.

https://web.archive.org/save/https://smarmykemeticpagan.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/liminality-divine-intervention-and-other-heresies/

We would like begin by saying the first half of this rant is not only a misdirect but a lot of personal stuff that is outside our targeted topics of commentary so we shall be skipping that.

“As I type all this, I feel a strange sense of bewilderment. I’ve read very little on liminal spaces, magical theory, mythic time, or Dionysus; and yet I’m sitting here, trying to tell my own story and no one else’s, and finding myself describing something that I somehow, recognize as being intimately connected to all of these things at once. “

We must inform you this is very doubtful.  As someone who has crusaded against actual knowledge and those who teach it, study it, and understand it, you suddenly valuing any knowledge you are adamant against giving any sense of importance, this is a contradiction.  We would like to remind you, you have spent years demonizing those who are academically minded, who would possess the best supply of these topics of information.  We need to remind you, you have chased, and guided newcomers away from these very informed and academic individuals with a very glib and dismissive expressions that they are somehow morally and emotionally defective.

We need to remind you, you have spent more posts declaring how unimportant and meaningless academic resources, information, and knowledgeable people who covet such information, that it boggles the mind how you can sit here now and suddenly have an appreciation for information and knowledge.  We must say that is highly convenient, almost like you are a bag of contradictions and hyperbole.

“ I don’t know. Maybe I can’t know. Maybe knowing how and why this is happening isn’t the point. “

We would like to mention that in every occurrence that knowledge is passed on from a deity it is made obvious that it is given by them.  We would like to remind you, this would be conferred as a minor miracle and the god that granted it would not do so with a cloak and dagger delivery.

“Maybe no matter how strange and fantastic my real life is...“

We can not believe you, as you complain constantly about how you are incredibly oppressed and put-upon by the evil capitalist misogynistic patriarchy, holding you in a death grip of poverty...strange and fantastic is not the picture you spent years painting.  If you’d like to recant those lies and give a more accurate depiction of your life, feel free, no need to keep up the pretense.

“... there will always be some way that I and everyone else can convince ourselves that there must be a perfectly mundane, scientific explanation for everything, that nothing truly magical could ever possibly happen in our actual, physical lives. “

We would like to say this is a gross generalization that disturbs us greatly.  We would like to mention that, something can be scientific and still be magical.  Magical events do not have to be beyond scientific involvement or divorced from the world in a separate sphere.  They are part of the same world, they occupy the same space.  Magic is everywhere, and science just helps us understand how that natural magic works.  We understand the gist of what you are attempting to say but it’s so mushmouth muddled with it loses cohesion.  We would like to simplify, you’re wrong.  --Memphis

Not familiar with the idea that magic is only science we don’t understand yet, are you?  The world is as magical as you make it. --Cairo

“In fact, if I had done what nigh on every single Hellenic polytheist told me, 3 years ago, that I absolutely must do before I was allowed to even talk to any of the Theoi; i.e., devote far more time, money, and energy than I even had... “

You’d have a functional well structured and meaningful religious practice that you can easily make a habit to exercise, in order to have an actual religious practice and not just invent it on a whim while screeching “muh poverty lack of resources”, in a religious practice that has its ancient methodologies of worship and practice well outlined with a knowledgeable community that could inform you of them and help you?  We can see how dreadful that would have been!  Better you avoided any of that ACTUAL respecting the gods with their own religious practices which are time tested and just dump a can of wine on the ground, belch and in tone “amen, bro”.--Memphis

If every single practitioner of a religion is telling you that you do something, perhaps that’s how the religion is actually practiced?  Just saying.--Cairo

”I would still be refusing to accept the very possibility that the Theoi are real, and trying to communicate with me, and weren’t just trying to kick the shit out of me because I ‘m not “humble” enough to be allowed to even casually worship them, or even think about wanting to worship them. That is the extent to which I have been gaslighted by an ableist, sexist, queerphobic world...”

We must inform you this is not gaslighting, and none of this is true.  You’re so buried helplessly in the twisted murky interior of your own ideology that you have bought into all the lies and fables it has generated.  Snap out of it!

“It’s because polytheists are, for the most part, every bit as closed-minded and self-righteous as the Southern Baptists who told me I was an abomination and a Devil worshipper and a degenerate for being a queer witch who talked back to pastors and smoked weed.“

We must inform you, you are confused.  These are your actions which you committed upon every community you attempted to infect like herpes.  Anyone who didn’t bow down to every word of your vapid ideology was to be summarily purged.  You created an entire callout blog (which we parody), to bully, harrass and purge people you deem morally corrupt and a heretic to your divinely sanctioned and holy edicts of social justice that must be obeyed to the letter.  You terrorized this community for years with it, dividing it, polarizing it and demonizing our gods, twisting them into these token puppets you can make spit out any words you want to give yourself the squishy feels. 

The only ones who act like southern Baptists or medieval catholic inquisitors, are you and your friends.  Don’t try to backpedal that YOU are the victim here, you are the bully, the aggressor, the one causing harm. 

Some sects of polytheism have actual ancient records detailing proper practices to how their religion is followed.  While following them in personal practice is largely voluntary, they are the methods espoused to have been prescribed by the gods of their own religion.  It’s just respectful to those gods to follow such practices.

”Because of all this, polytheists are perfectly willing to bully, threaten, gaslight, and otherwise abuse young, vulnerable people in their midst who even for one minute threaten their perceived “respectability” in the eyes of the mainstream and of their favorite Big Name Pagans. They are perfectly willing to ignore the real problems in our community -bullying, toxic groupthink, overwhelming authoritarianism, rape culture and misogyny, TERFS and other assorted trans/homophobes, bigots of every kind, ableism to the point that the first thing anyone says to discredit me is that I’m “obviously hallucinating” when I talk about astral stuff or magic (that’s not how hallucinations fucking work you fucking morons! Read a book every now and then, for chrissake), and goddamn actual Nazis- in favor of whining about how Pop Culture Pagans or “fluffy” people or “loudmouthed brats” are OMG THE REASON NO ONE TAKES US SERIOUSLY!1!!11!!! They do all of these things, and simultaneously fancy themselves particularly enlightened, superior to followers of “”Abrahamic religions””, by virtue of simply “following the old gods” and “being connected to nature”, or whatever.”

We are touched, this is clear vagueblogging about us.  What was it you said...

Seriously though, you left this on our post as if you don’t care, and then wrote this thesis of how much it bothers you and you do care.  You’re pathetic.

“Because of this shallow, petty, and toxic paradigm that permeates basically every single official pagan and polytheist space, it is almost impossible for most of us to really, meaningfully connect and communicate with our gods. “

We must inform you, this is fundamentally untrue.  You’re reaching again.--Memphis

Citation needed.  This mod has actually heard more complaints that name you, Devo, and your friends specifically as making it difficult to practice, than heard such complaints about other online spaces.--Cairo

“Because of this shallow, petty, and toxic paradigm that permeates basically every single official pagan and polytheist space, it is almost impossible for most of us to really, meaningfully connect and communicate with our gods. Human beings are intimately social creatures; we are constantly, consciously and subconsciously, affected by the social environment that we are in, whether we like it or not and whether we know it or not. It’s basically impossible not to be drawn in by the assumptions everyone around you makes and operates on, even if we’re ignoring thoughtforms and energies and other woo stuff. Polytheists have convinced ourselves that anything we experience that’s in any way out of the ordinary; in any way not exactly what the historical record we currently have portrays…in other words, anything that might realistically be a part of interacting with actual deities and doing actual magic, absolutely will be called a delusion, an attention-seeking stunt, an idiotic act of hubris, an attempt to “start a cult” or gain coercive power over others, an evil and sacrilegious act, or all of the above, by anyone and everyone in our community who wants to discredit whatever it is we’re saying. No wonder even people who have fantastic experiences doubt themselves, or refuse to go public with it; I’m not a particularly sensitive person by a long shot, and I often have to steel myself to be honest online because of the (attempted) bullying and public shaming that I know for a fact will result from it.“

More about us.  You must love us dearly.  We must inform you, again you are entirely wrong.  You literally told Set in that interview post, you would start a cult.  You adhere to a collectivist ideology that operates on the concept of original sin and so everyone of that group must atone for the sins of the group for every instance in history.  You follow an ideology that abhors individual worth and thought over the group opinion and the group’s collective thought, in which any dissent and the individual will be sacrificed to ensure purity of the group.  You operate like a wanna-be cult leader who wants a cult.

You have done alot of evil in this community and you called it righteous because your ideology decrees it must be.  Your every action is dictated by it, your every thought is shaped by it to the point you declared that a god who historically always supported a theocratic monarchy...suddenly fell in love with socialism/communism...an inherently destructive and genocidal form of government and philosophy.  One that has claimed over 100 million lives, and more?!  That is alot ot buy, smarmy, a LOT to buy.  We didn’t even mention how he just outright confirms all your political points, thoughts, beliefs, and heralds them as divinely sanctioned?!  We don’t have to know how the stove top makes the coil red hot to understand touching it will burn.--Memphis  

Others have said it, and this mod will say it again:  It is not that you are sharing your personal experiences that is the problem; it is that you are stating them as being as factually true as peer reviewed historical sources.  You can believe what you want, but it is absolutely dishonest and disgusting to expect and insist that the rest of the community treat it as fucking holy scripture.--Cairo 

“I’m not a particularly sensitive person by a long shot...”

We would like to say, considering you felt the need to write this dissertation of drivel, you most certainly are sensitive.

“If you say you worship Set, but then spit in the face of his ideals in almost every mundane action you take -from the way you treat people traditionally associated with him to the way you think and talk about mundane, real-world chaos, riots, criminals, and political violence- are you actually worshipping Set, or are you just worshipping your own assumptions about Set?“

We are amazed at how unironic you write this and yet, it’s like you wrote this looking in a mirror.

“And if the very fact that someone online who you don’t like has posted UPG about Set condemning your actions and behavior…causes you to post frantic, histrionic paragraphs about how the person in question is an evil, power-hungry, lunatic aspiring cult leader who is “evidently” crazy and lying and trying to manipulate the entire kemetic community and also is in league with the Sn/ake that wants to destroy existence itself, are you really prioritizing your devotion to Set? Or are you prioritizing your own ego, because you refuse to even entertain the possibility that you could be wrong and ought to change your behavior in some way in order to better honor him? “

Wow again, you gazed in the mirror.  None of our commentaries, nor those of any of your critics, are frantic, nor histrionic, but it is apparent that you are and you do.  They are not the ones fueled by such deep seething hatred and rage for anything outside your own myopic and narrow minded views.  They aren’t the ones demanding slavish devotion to an ideology that history has proven is murderous and dangerous.  They aren’t the ones who profess to be ‘on the side of the angels’ and in the same breath long for violent rebellious war to shred the country and slaughter millions.  You are a hateful person devoid of compassion and an enemy of anything resembling freedom. 

We see you have again mistaken UPG for something provable.  If you had written that interview and stated that you wrote Set’s dialogue intuitively, or you interpreted them, rather then composed the transcript verbatim...we’d have been more lenient with our criticisms.  We point out, every word of his dialogue was verbatim your own, that you have ranted about for the years.  Every bit, from his diction, to his syntax, from tone to word choices was entirely from your own and not from an external source.  The fact it entirely vindicates every word of your political tripe, your beliefs and ideology, to the decimal place, is evidence that it’s not from any external source, or external spiritual entity but from you.  This was a complete fiction.

To state that “anyone who disagrees with smarmy, Set and his people gunna git’ya”, is such a colossal over reach that it strains believably.  We are certain that any god who loves their devotee would say they will defend them against attack, but this.  We must inform you this is something else entirely.

We are quite certain we don’t need to change our behavior to profess your ideals as our own and bow down to accept communism and socialism or even anarchism as the true path forwards.  We don’t need to throw away any sense of actual morality to support systems that have led to more destruction and death then any others in history and recorded memory. 

We are also not above admitting if we are wrong, but when it comes to you and how you abuse the name of the gods for your own twisted ends, we aren’t.

We are however, certain you are.  You are so in love with your own ideological puppetry that you not only profess that a god has endorsed you 100%, promised to smite all who oppose you, promise you power and prestige as his precious prophet of his ideals (which you forced into him).  So deeply entrenched in this ideology and stances of no matter what the cost, no matter how ridiculous, you can never admit to being wrong when facing any dissenting voices or else it instantly negates all of your teachings, beliefs, and words (which it only does because you made them so absolute), that you cannot admit you are wrong and can only dig deeper down this endless trench of foolishness and madness. 

We have no doubts the S/na/ke influences you, it praises you, it agrees with you, it gives you whatever you want, the sense of righteousness that you’re never wrong and always on the side of purity, everyone else is evil, everyone else is impure, everyone else is wrong, everyone else is at fault...That is the danger of isfet and the parasitic spirits that serve it, and you let them in.

“ I believe that gods are huge, ancient, and multi-faceted, so sure, it’s possible that there’s a version of Set out there that likes racist bootlickers and encourages them to follow the law no matter the human cost“

This is among the most offensive things you’ve ever said.  Historical record cannot be dismissed and hand-waved away of how these gods have acted in the past and expect they did a full 180.  We would like to mention, that once again, like any good cult leader, you degrade anyone who dissents.  We would like to state you are completely off the mark, you have no understanding of this god if you honestly think he loves communism and loves nazism and loves racism because ‘there MUST be an aspect of him that likes it’.  We need to remind you, that would make him evil.  This is a complete insult to a god you claim to love and worship.  This is a damning and horrible thing to say about a god you claim to respect.  This shows us you have nothing but sheer contempt for the gods, so you invent a twisted and corrupted idea of them.  We need to remind you, it’s bullshit like this that makes us say your a delusional child aspiring cult leader who is aligned with the sn/a/ke, if you honestly think this about Set.  We are disgusted, you do this noble god, so much dishonor.  --Memphis

How dare you.  How dare you insult a god you claim to be even an outlaw priest of with such a foul misunderstanding of his character?!  Even for hyperbolic rhetoric?!  Can you not have even the barest smidgen of respect for the god you claim to serve or worship?  Or are the words that describe the most basic relationship of priesthood too uncomfortable for you?--Cairo

“ ... to “keep it real” by regurgitating tired and ignorant bigoted stereotypes and acting as though the fact the stereotype exists at all is somehow evidence that you’re right to be a bigot; and believe that “illegals” seeking asylum so that they and their families won’t fucking die are inherently dangerous enough to justify putting them in motherfucking concentration camps. But just because it’s possible doesn’t necessarily mean it’s very likely, now does it? “

We would ask if you ever get tired of making sweeping incorrect generalizations that make you look stupid but we already know the answer.  If you’d like to discuss what we believe regarding various political situations, we at KCFTP would be happy to chat, but do stop shoving words and beliefs into our and everyone mouths that do not apply.--Memphis

Who the fuck is Smarmy even talking about here?--Cairo

“No wonder people react to anyone showing historically common, textbook behaviors of a person being called to spirit work or reacting to being in a liminal space or state of mind, with derision and scorn and bullying. Genuine liminality, one of the main historical requirements for communicating with gods or using magic, is almost universally despised and cursed by modern-day polytheists as heresy.“

We would like to say this literally never happens.  This is a bold faced lie.  We knew you could not help it!--Memphis

That is really fucking weird, every discussion I’ve had with other polytheists and pagans has touched on how to communicate with gods, spirits, and other entities, magic, or other things that require having a foot in multiple worlds.  Everyone usually seems pretty eager to talk about such things.  Unusual for something “universally despised and cursed.”--Cairo  

“LGBT+ people are stereotyped as “special snowflakes” and yelled at about “assigning modern labels to gods” when we say that deities who canonically act as multiple genders or sleep with same-gendered-beings, are queer like us. “

We would like to clarify, no smarmy, that’s just you and your ilk...and it’s by other LBGT+ people...Stop trying to be some martyr, you aren’t.  Go outside, get off the internet.

“ Young people are bullied and publicly shamed on a regular basis if they run afoul of the wrong “Big Name Pagan”, and people smugly tell themselves and each other that it is, somehow, for the kid’s own good because they have to be “taught a lesson in humility” and “being the bigger person” or some other fucking nonsense that sounds like it fell directly from the mouths of actual child abusers and predators. “

So anyone who disagrees with you are child abusers and predators now too!?  We would like to say that is astounding, almost like it’s entirely fiction.  We’d also like to mention, the only BIG Name Pagans around here are you and Devo, and you guys are constantly a problem.  Maybe its you who needs to “be taught a lesson in humility” because you are no where near humble and you are among the most abusive individuals in this community.--Memphis

Said it before, will say it again.  We have seen you and your crew bully and publicly shame far more people in this particular community than any of us.  We’re not the ones who started the Kemetic Callout war, only the ones who have arguably been more successful at it.  And your callout blog only has the people who talked back and wouldn’t bend, it doesn’t count the many who bowed and broke before your bullying or those who left here altogether.--Cairo  

“Until sharing UPG that goes against the more popular narratives no longer makes one a social pariah among their polytheist peers, nobody should be surprised that it’s almost exclusively the heretical, disrespectful punks who are constantly being publicly snubbed and dismissed by their peers, who ever seem to talk about seeing any results or evidence that anything out-of-the-ordinary is actually going on. “

Translation: “Until I can share my UPG and it is believed as absolute fact without any question, and be heralded as the divine truth, the community is a shitshow!”--Memphis

As long as your UPG agrees 100% with your own personal and political beliefs, it will and should be questioned.  Whatever your stance, the gods have a wider experience and knowledge base than we do and will always have a different perspective.  Any spirit that tells you everything you want to hear and flatters you shamelessly is no god and has no good intentions towards you in the end.--Cairo

“Until we all accept that it doesn’t matter if Christians and mainstream secular people think we’re weird and so we don’t need to constantly jump through hoops to seem Academic™ and Serious™ and Normal™, nobody should be surprised that the only public discussions that don’t devolve into nasty name-calling matches are ones facilitated by a handful of holier-than-thou assholes who treat having a PhD in Philosophy as though it’s a permission slip from the gods themselves to be a self-righteous, know-it-all douche, and never really allow any disagreement with them on anything important.“

Translation: “We need to continue being edgy punk teens who disrespect gods and culture and snub actual belief systems by turning them into comical satires of themselves, until the people smarter then us give up and let us have all the power, while we use our UPG to try and seem way more divinely important then we actually are by assigning ourselves flashy titles and divine endorsements!!! Cause if the gods support US, then we can’t be wrong!”

We would like to remind you that history is fraught with oppressive regimes who used this tactic, one example is the Spanish Inquisition.  Did you agree with them torturing and killing people to force them into conversion?  Another example we would like to mention is the North Korean regimes.  The ones who still have ACTUAL concentration camps. 

We would like to mention, China now has concentration camps where they hold and torment innocent Muslim citizens, and Chechnya who still have death camps where they send gay and LGBT citizens. 

We would like to mention these go entirely against your belief and political structures about LGBT+ issues, oppression, and gay rights.  We notice you never mention those.  We notice you never complain about them and how evil they are. We wonder, is it because it goes against your narrative of “communism is the truth and the way” or do you just not care? 

We would like to point out it would seem like those are true injustices you could fight against and for...not...how everyone needs to behave and believe how you want.

We would like to set the snark aside for a second and say, we’re always up for discussions.  We need to clarify that you always reduce the conversations to insults and calling everyone who disagrees with you “racist bootlickers”, so the issue is not on our side, but with you, so stop lying that we and all your critics are the unreasonable ones.

“And until we care more about taking care of each other than protecting our deities’ reputations, nobody should be surprised when our community remains a toxic, misogynistic, homophobic, Nazi-infested shithole, while everyone is more than happy to spend hours arguing about the particulars of shrine setups and deity name pronunciations and whether or not it’s okay to offer potato chips and Netflix binges to ancient deities who, ultimately, realistically are not that likely to give a shit either way. “

Literal Nazis wandered into our community and your reaction was “meh so what” and continued bullying other innocent people, who you labeled as nazis and racists.  You’re a one tune piano smarmy, and you just keep tooting the same tune.  It wasn’t believable when you were “the holy ambassador, ordained by Jesus, to the hellenics” it is not believable now.

“Until we fix the problems with our collective paradigm, until we fix the way we treat each other, until we genuinely value wisdom, compassion, humility, and courage over our reputations, we are all gonna have to accept that the gods we worship are not all that interested in revealing their actual, authentic, awesome, strange and unexpected powers to people who are determined to believe they are either incapable or unwilling to do so.“

We agree, you should start treating people better, starting with inatier and all the other people you’ve spent YEARS defaming, bullying, berating, harassing, snubbing, and demonizing.--Memphis

Actions speak louder than words Smarmy, and based on yours none of these are your values.  We have seen you bully and cast aside community members who did their research and were willing to share, we have seen your utter lack of compassion throughout your time here with anyone who has the nerve to disagree with you, and the idea of you having humility is a joke.  You worry more about being seen as your edgy, antifa, communist [insert additional labels here} self than about having the courage to suck it up, show some compassion, and value the wisdom of trying to mend the fences you have broken so badly over the years.

Additionally, we have had no problem seeing the many wondrous and varied faces of our gods because we are not hell bent on forcing them into tiny boxes that fit only our own personal beliefs.  If this is a problem you have been having, perhaps you should take your own advice.--Cairo

My colleagues have added much to these particular points of your diatribe, but I’ll add my bit here. While it seems like you may be in a better place physically (despite claiming you know more about psychology and medicine than your previous doctors do), you seem to be going down a dark, dangerous road mentally. You might just find yourself in jail yet, or worse if you don’t reevaluate your thinking.

“The insomnia is what caused my other symptoms to get so bad that they become delusions, paranoia, mania, and once, auditory hallucinations.” So you’re admitting to having breaks from reality, along with your emotional instability. Yet, you get butthurt when people are skeptical to your religious experiences. I’m no psychologist, admittedly, but I don’t automatically trust random people’s religious experiences, much less someone with a history of psychosis. Whether it’s you or anyone else. 

I would also recommend you be very, very careful using THC. I don’t know what medications you’re taking, but THC can interact with several different drugs, including Prozac. High levels of THC can cause paranoia and psychosis as well. 

You’re trying to act as a leader and activist when you’re still dealing with some very serious conditions. This is why so many people recommend to not use magic or occultic practices when dealing with mental health. People are not being elitist or ableist when they do this. The whole purpose is to encourage others to first attain treatment for their conditions. You’ve been claiming your own voice as Set’s, threatening violence to attain your desires in regards to politics, and using magic to harm your political enemies. You refuse to understand the motivations of people who don’t hold the same political opinions - even “centrists”, so that even the politically moderate are your enemies. This is even a symptom of borderline personality disorder, which you say you’re diagnosed with. Clearly, your symptoms aren’t completely managed.

https://www.webpsychology.com/news/2015/09/01/dangers-black-and-white-thinking-228391

You have a long way to go in terms of healing. You can blame the outside world all you like for not getting treatment or for a lack of progress, but your mental health is YOUR responsibility and you need to take responsibility and fix yourself before you’re in any position to try and “fix” the world with your ideology.

I highly encourage you to take a break and get some further professional help; wherever you are and however you can get it. Your writings are extremely troubling to us here. The last thing you need is to get arrested or committed trying to “punch a Nazi” or “take down the system”. You’re going to really screw up any chances of getting on your feet, getting treatment, and doing something actually meaningful with your life if you continue down this road.

--Karnak

[dalishious]

@modnaegi replied to your post “@modnaegi replied to your post “do we think vivienne is elf racist?...”

like the behaviours you were describing were derived from prejudice against elves. you sai so yourself. she hadn't been around elves, had no idea how to behave around them because she never bothered to learn. that's racism, buddy

@modnaegi replied to your post “@modnaegi replied to your post “do we think vivienne is elf racist?...”

also against she's extremrly cruel to both sera and solas bc they both exhibit typical Autism bejaviour. god, keep up

Alright, so now I am convinced that you did not actually read the post. But in the case that you did and just require further details I suppose I can expand on this.

But before I even get into that two things:

1. I’d just like to say I really don’t appreciate your condescending tone, telling me what is racism, and what is ableism. (Especially when you’re wrong.) Being a person of colour and autistic does not suddenly exempt me from making mistakes on those subjects, nor does it mean no one should correct me when I am wrong, but it does put me at a greater understanding of them than the average neurotypical white person. And your “god, keep up” comment in itself has casual ableist tones. So, it’s pretty interesting how you are going to claim a Black character is being racist and ableist to two white characters and present yourself in such a way.

2. I can’t say it any better than @chasindcole did in a reply: “the lengths reaches and gymnastics yall will go through to be able to call a black woman racist...” 

First, I must reiterate that Sera is the one that initiates almost every single fight they get in, by saying cruel things to Vivienne. And you cannot look at this situation as just an elf and human character interaction, but as a Black and white character interaction, too. Sera, a white woman, picks and prods at Vivienne, a Black woman. She tells her that no one likes her, that she will never gain respect from nobility, shoves her ass in her face, spits in her food, calls her a evil, calls her a bitch, puts a venomous snake in her drawers...:

Sera: I've heard things about you, Vivvy. Vivienne: It is properly Madame Vivienne, official mage to the Imperial Court. Sera: Yes, that’s what I heard. Not the title, the snotty bit. Vivienne: How ever shall I recover from your condemnation? Sera: You’re still doing it. Can you even shut it off? Vivienne: For you, my dear? No.

Sera: Hey Viv! Vivvy! Look at this! I've got something for you! Vivienne: Darling, it's your bottom. Again. As bony and sad as it was the last dozen times you've displayed it. Sera: It's my butt! Vivienne: Maker, however shall I endure this horror. Someone fetch me a fainting couch.

Sera: They'll never really like you, Vivvy. Vivienne: Sera, dear, whatever has your scattered mind conjured now? Sera: Those nobs in Orlais. They barely like their own kin. And you're a mage. Vivienne: Your failing-- among many-- is that you presume I desire approval. Power does not require that I be "liked." Sera: Well, halfway there, then.

Sera: (Coughs) Who's a bitch? Vivienne: Charming, darling. Sera: Fact.

Sera: Enjoying your food lately, Vivvy? Vivienne: Ugh. Shall I assume you have altered my meals? Set the servants against me and encouraged sputum-based rebellion? Sera: Of course not, I would never. But you can't know, right? Vivienne: (Sighs.) Rest assured, I will eat privately from my own stores from now on. Blackwall: Whose idea was that, then? Sera: Varri-- MINE!

Sera: I bet you left a trail. Vivienne: Whatever are you on about now, dear? Sera: What you used to be. Wherever you're from. Little people will know about you. Vivienne: We all have something we used to be, haven't "we," dear? Done things "we" would rather die than have known? Vivienne: By all means, escalate, but I will answer in kind, armed with painful history I am sure is better left to your own sad memory. Sera: She's frigging evil, she is.

Sera: Checked your drawers recently, Vivvy? Vivienne: Hmm? Oh, yes, my dear. Although I was rather well stocked with that particular shade of viper. So I sent it back. Sera: Sent... sent it back? Vivienne: Yes. It should make its way to you at some point. Vivienne: I was most concerned it might have difficulty on the steps, so I gave it legs. Six of them. Sera: That's not... you're making fun, right? Vivienne: Do you sleep with your mouth open? I should avoid that, it was heavy with eggs. Skitter skitter.

Vivienne has no reason to like someone who is so horrible to her.

And yes, she does on occasion retaliate, for example threatening to search for Sera’s secrets if Sera searches for hers.

The one bit of banter between them that I would call ableist is when Vivienne says Sera is incoherent... But guess what? That is literally every single character in the game, and is the fault of Sera’s writing, not Vivienne’s, because Lukas mcfucking Kristjanson must get his jerkoff on to seeing women abused. More on this here. Gaider has explained that when it comes to party banters, each writer writes some with their characters, and then the other writers look over and check off if theirs are in character. I am willing to bet 1000% that banter was from Kristjanson, because it matches his style to a T:

Sera: Cruel bunch, your lot, Vivvy. Don't know how you live with what they think of you. Vivienne: My dear, despite your egalitarian protests you are ever so susceptible to the opinions of others. Sera: I don't give a squirt what anyone says. Vivienne: Of course not, coherent speech is your nemesis, but it is clear you care a great deal about what they THINK. Vivienne: Take heart that you are not among the nobility, little Sera. You would not survive. Sera: No one wants to join your stupid club! Vivienne: Of course not, dear.

I would also like to point out that this is only in response to Sera’s cruelty to her, yet again.

So, if you are going to consider this single line enough to label Vivienne as ableist, than you better label every single character in Inquisition the same, including the Inquisitor themselves. This is not to say it’s right, but it is to say that Vivienne does not deserve shit for it, Lukas Kristjanson does.

And yet, with everything Sera does and says to Vivienne, she still exhibits some compassion for Sera.

As I said in the original post, Vivienne at one point offers Sera aid with her Red Jennies, by giving them a tip off on a bad noble she’s come across. But Sera is reluctant to accept it simply because she doesn’t want Vivienne to benefit, despite the fact that Vivienne benefits in the exact same way his people benefit by taking him down; by being rid of an asshole, who for all we know could be just as bad as the all the antiblack racism she has to deal with from other nobles:

Vivienne: I have something for your silly group, Sera dear. Sera: Right, I bet you have plenty. Vivienne: A simple note for your Red Jenny associates. I believe it may point to anonymous holdings of one Lord Samerath. Sera: I know him! Pisshead's hard as ice with his people. Vivienne: Indeed. It would be a shame if his involvement in certain activities was revealed, his position at court weakened. Sera: So, we hurt a real prick! But you swoop in? We help people, but it helps you more? (Frustrated growl.) Vivienne: Try not to cry openly, dear, it is ever so demeaning.

Sera’s dislike of Vivienne apparently outweighs her desire to bring down jerks. I don’t get it.

As for Solas: I honestly have no idea how you even came to such a conclusion. Solas and Vivienne actually have multiple interactions discussing magical endeavours in quite a professional and respectful manner, including elven magic. She compliments his knowledge and abilities, and in return to her.

Vivienne: Solas dear, do you find your magic affected at all by the fluctuations in the Fade? Solas: Nothing unexpected, given the energies emanating from the rifts. And you, Enchanter? Vivienne: The same.

Vivienne: Corypheus is a complex creature. To draw upon so many different sources of power. Vivienne: He has his own magic, he draws from the blight, the artifact he carries is elven... Vivienne: And now, he uses a demon to create a false Calling to fool the mages. Solas: The false Calling was blight magic. The demon merely amplified its power. Vivienne: This ancient magister is like a man drinking from three wineglasses at once. Solas: And one of the glasses is poisoned.

Vivienne: I confess, Solas, I expected you to be back at the Temple of Mythal. Vivienne: Some powerful magic yet remains there... if it can be trusted. Solas: For once, we agree. Many relics were lost for good reason. Vivienne: You explore the Fade to ferret out such secrets, do you not? Solas: When I awaken each morning, all I have with me are those secrets. Solas: The power at the Temple of Mythal is tangible, potent... and far too easy to misuse. Vivienne: We are not so different after all, my dear apostate. We both believe magic must be limited safely. Solas: Only a fool would ignore such a stark reminder of the destruction of an empire. Solas: We may disagree on many things, Enchanter. But neither of us is a fool. Vivienne: You are too kind.

To again repeat what I wrote in the original ask, every occasion where they don’t get along, is because Vivienne underestimates his abilities as an apostate. She has been told her whole life that apostates are dangerously untrained, and there is not much Vivienne cares more for than seeing that every mage get proper training for their abilities. She says as much numerous times. She expresses concern for Solas, and offers him help. In actuality we know he does not need help, but she does not.

Vivienne: So, an apostate? Solas: That is correct, Enchanter. I did not train in your Circle. Vivienne: Well, dear, I hope you can take care of yourself, should we encounter anything outside your experience. Solas: I will try, in my own fumbling way, to learn from how you helped seal the rifts at Haven. Solas: Ah, wait. My memory misleads me. You were not there.

Vivienne: Solas darling, if you wish instruction in proper magical attacks, do let me know. Solas: I will. Perhaps you will direct me to a Circle mage who does not front-load her barriers?

Vivienne: I'm sure you know exactly what you're doing, Solas, but a word of advice? Solas: Oh, I look forward to this. Go ahead, Enchanter. Vivienne: You set your coattails on fire with that last spell. Solas: Perhaps what you perceived was merely a figment of the Fade. Vivienne: (Laughter) I would not claim your familiarity with the Fade, but I recognize fire when I see it, darling. Solas: It did go out eventually. It was not worth mentioning. Vivienne: Not for you, perhaps.

Vivienne is not even being rude in these banters. Well, save for when he lit himself on fire, but come on, that’s amusing.

And in similar fashion to Sera, Solas picks at Vivienne’s insecurities as well, totally unprompted:

Solas: Your position in the Orlesian court must be frustrating, Enchanter. Vivienne: Darling, I have no idea what you might be implying. Solas: With your magic you are kept at arm's length, never able to play the Game to its fullest. Some part of you must always wonder if you could have gone farther had you not been a mage. Vivienne: Don't be absurd. Without magic, I doubt the Orlesian court would have interest in me at all. Solas: That must rankle as well.

Solas and Vivienne may not agree on a lot of things, and there are a few cases of hostility between them, but they have respect for each other. After the Winter Palace, she tells him that she hopes he was not mistaken for a servant, knowing full well the treatment of elves in Orlais. (Like, if you reunite Celene and Briala she’ll comment that it will only end in bloodshed, because she knows that’s exactly what happened last time.)

I honestly have no idea how you could consider anything between Vivienne and Solas ableist.

And now, I will repeat from the post yet again re Vivienne not knowing about elves: SHE HAD VERY LIMITED ACCESS TO LEARNING ANYTHING. It’s not like there is the internet in Thedas, where she can Google shit! She blatantly says there are very few books available on elven magic, and that all her information is third hand! She is not being racist by asking questions in a respectful manner. However, the way that DA:I pushes it’s anti Dalish mage agenda by using her, Minaeve, and Iron Bull has mouthpieces to shove in retcons paints her as ignorant. This is part of a greater problem and not about Vivienne.

The biggest problem, from what I have seen, is that people are not willing to listen to what Vivienne has to say, or even try to befriend her. If you are nice and respectful to Vivienne, she in return is one of the most compassionate, hardworking, inspiring, and loyal members of the Inquisition. Treat her with value, and you will see her value. Dismiss her, and you never will.

[songketalliance]

The Privilege of Hands

“We normalise abled bodies so much that we ignore that other people have different experiences in everyday conveniences.”

by Teah Abdullah

Lift your hands and look at it. Study carefully at how the creases work so you can bend your palm and fingers. Look at the how elastic your skin is. Now grab something close to you—a book, or a pencil, or a portion of the clothes you’re wearing. Put the item on your palm. Explore how it doesn’t hurt you to do that. Hold the item. Grip it within your hand.

Let go.

Marvel at how your fingers can change shape.

For a long time, one of my hands cannot do any of these things.

I appear as an able-bodied woman—I can walk, have no visible crutches, and have somewhat okay posture (sorry, backbone, I have been so unkind to you over the years). But whenever I am asked to carry something, I quickly refuse it. Assume whatever it is that you want from my rejection to help you carry that damn piano—she’s lazy or hasn’t signed up for CrossFit so can’t carry the instrument—I have a hand that doesn’t function as well as any other able-bodied person’s.

Let me give you some examples of my disability. I switch lights on and off using my knuckles or arm. I cannot turn faucet handles, preferring those that goes up or down (innovation is fantastic, isn’t it?) I cannot open unopened bottle caps at all because my right hand has lost a lot of its strength. I turn the keys to my car with great difficulty and would use my non-dominant left hand instead. I hate being the first one to come to my office because I’d have to be the one to unlock the door. Since it is the right hand, I break adab by sometimes eating rice with my left hand—don’t worry, I wash my hands notoriously (without soap, because soap burns). 

I am a proponent of utensils.

Even with utensils, it hurts. I am clumsy while eating because of my disabled right hand. And because my left hand is just as clumsy, I leave crumbs and mess behind. So, when the debate about whether pizza must be eaten by hand or utensil, it dawned on me how ableist that debate is. (For the record, my Italian friend—i.e., the place where pizza originated from, i.e., the person who would know the best—said that pizza should be eaten however well you want to, as long as it ends up in your belly, because damn, pizza=good.)

Ableist means prejudice towards those who are disabled. Brunei is ignorant towards those with disability, so much so that they are not visible in public spaces. How often do you see people who are disabled in your everyday life outside of medical centers? When was the last time you saw someone bound to a wheelchair in public three times within a week unless you live with someone who does? We lack resources to allow wheelchair to enter buildings as well as feel ashamed at those who are visibly disabled.

We normalise abled bodies so much that we ignore that other people have different experiences in everyday conveniences. The plastic straw debate that wants to ban the use of straw completely? Many disabled people can only use plastic straws at the current height of technological advancement of drink sucking. Hate Comic Sans as a font? Some dyslexic people find it to be the easiest font to read because of the way it curves. A step that’s half-a-foot high leading towards restaurants? Not everyone can climb it even if they have legs that can stand.

Ten years ago, I was obsessed with correct typing, but I am now known among my friends as someone who cannot bother with punctuation or correct spellings anymore. A friend recently scolded me asking why I can’t take the time to type things properly, because somewhere in their mind, thee has’t speaketh English prop’rly on Whatsapp or thee shall face the wrath of the mighty lord.

It occurred to me then that we all assume that those with hands equates to fully functional hands. I no longer type properly on chat because my fingers make so much typos, especially with technology that doesn’t recognise fingers that doesn’t have skin on them--I have not passed any fingerprint tests the past ten years! I can’t be bothered to text anymore and doing it regularly is a strain to my hand. There are even times where I hilariously unlock my phone with my nose (did you know that the iPhone’s fingerprint feature can identify your nose’s skin?)

By no means am I saying you should sympathise me. My life the past ten years has been about adaptability. But it still doesn’t change the fact that I am a disabled person on a visibly abled bodied, until you microscope onto the disability itself. I have had days where I cannot drive because of it, and have had days where I need to sanitise my steering wheel to make sure that I wouldn’t get an infection from holding it. I have had days where I had to assign my colleague to type for me, and days where my right hand is semi-functional enough for me to type my own work. There are days where my whole arm shrinks because of the pain. I have many days where I use the speech-to-text function on my phone, but also have many frustration towards my phone’s inability to understand ‘leak’ in my accent and would instead type it as ‘league’ (‘I have to take a league’ is far more ambitious than the originally intentioned ‘I have to take a leak’.)

I look forward to the day when medical advancement can cure me of this. But it has also been a decade since my condition started and has gotten progressively worse (yes, I’ve downed ten bottles of essential oils—it doesn’t work!) This is my life now, and the only thing I can hope for is for people to create awareness towards the most marginalised group in our society: the disabled. We need to make changes for people who does not fit the able bodied category. Whatever we do, whatever decision we make that has the involvement of others should consider those who cannot do things that an able-bodied person can because we stand to benefit from the involvement of many people who doesn’t fit in the mold of normality in our society.

by Teah Abdullah

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[iteration-rp]

17. BONUS

After another set of puzzles that were getting harder and harder to survive, the Floor Masters rounded you up to celebrate the bakery’s grand opening, of sorts.

“Mmhmhm! Welcome, welcome, one and all!”

“Congrats on not dying! Some days that’s all you can ask for, right?”

He may have said it jokingly, but in this place it was truer than you would have liked to admit.

“Now you can take a little time to unwind with some baked treats if you like—there should be something for everyone!—aaaaand...”

“Just like most occasions with good food, this is all a front for a meeting, but it won’t be a boring one, I promise!”

Considering these Dolls’ idea of “fun,” you could only feel trepidation about that claim. Surely this food wasn’t going to be poisoned, too...? 

Whether you felt like taking the chance or not, you all received your food and drink and took your seats.

“Are we all quite comfortable?”

The answer was obviously no, but Grey didn’t leave room for objections before continuing.

“Good! We have some absolutely wonderful news for all of you. No doubt you are on the edges of your seats to learn, mm? Well, I shall keep you no longer. Our floor, too, has a subgame!”

“You could call it two subgames if you wanted, but who cares about semantics, anyway?” 

“I mean, sometimes those can get you killed, but that’s whatever.”

“So! We can either take a little field trip to the arcade, or I can assume you’re all grown-*ss adults and don’t need a live demonstration.”

He paused a moment for reactions, but considering you’d all only just had the chance to start on your food, the field trip option didn’t seem too popular.

“Mhm, wonderful. Now, if we may explain…”

Evan reached into his hoodie pocket and withdrew some kind of silvery coin, larger than the $Me had been. He flicked it up into the air with a little ring and caught it between two fingers—not that you could see it like that.

“Ohp, hang on—” He brought his other hand in to help and was soon successfully displaying the broad side of the coin. “—There we go.”

“This is a game token. Nothing to do with $Me, orange tokens, Lucky Tokens, or any other form of cash money you may have acquired and/or completely gambled into oblivion. Unlike some arcade tokens, these are exclusively what the games give you for winning; you won’t need any to play.”

“If you want to play any of the real funky fresh new games—which you do—you just need to pair up with the participant of your choice and pick any of the six games that you haven’t played yet. You’ll only get to try each one once before it’s dead to you forever, but such is life. You’re not required to try all of them, but, well...”

“Now, for us—well, you, hmhm—to all move on to the next stage, you will have to acquire 5 of these tokens. In whatever way you deem fit.”

“Now of course, we would not wish to rush you, but as with everything, time is finite… So do try not to dilly-dally too much, mm?”

“If it is encouragement at all, and it should be—should someone acquire the grand total of 10 tokens… Well, we’ve a very special prize in store. A very, very special prize indeed!”

Evan nodded, looking like he was about to elaborate... before not doing so at all.

“Do note that if you choose to give tokens to another person, you won’t be allowed to take them back. But it shouldn’t be too hard to get what you need with a little careful planning. Depending on how well you play, the games will give you more or fewer tokens. Or zilch if you manage to lose, but what can you do, right? Since you’ll be going at each game as a team, you’ll be able to split up your winnings however you want—”

“—dead even, a little extra for whoever pulled the most weight, all for yourself if you can find a way to get away with it...—”

“—so keep that in mind, too. Unfortunately, the games aren’t 100% fairly accessible for everyone here, but that’s what teamwork is for, right? I mean, if you really want to keep Kamiya from getting tokens just because it’s harder for her to contribute, well...”

“...you’re perfectly free to! That would just make you an ableist little sh-t, and we’d all hate you.”

They didn’t give much time for the rundown to settle in your minds before going on.

“Perhaps all those flashing lights are a little too much for you? Well, unfortunately, you must still participate, but should you wish for a respite… How about a game of chess? There’s no tokens to be won, but should you defeat me… Hmmm, how does a tour of our Floor Master’s room sound?”

“You can also play against me if you like! But I’m not very stiff competition, so you won’t get as good a prize if you win. I’m sure I can come up with something, though!”

“So, that’s what’s going on now. You can issue a chess challenge anytime you want, but we’ll only let you have three days or so to get your tokens.”

“I do hope you all have fun! Remember there is plenty of excitement yet to come! I am most looking forward to seeing you all gathered again soon.”

Evan swiftly put away the token he’d been holding, leaving you to wonder just how hard it would be to get your hands on those. Enough to make it past this sub-game, or enough to get that mysterious bonus prize.

Not to mention the chess offer. Finally getting into a Floor Master room? It was hard to pass up... unless you didn’t think you were up to the challenge.

---

The sub-game of Chapter 3, Part 1 has begun! The following arcade games are now turned on and available to play for tokens:

Deathtime Trivia An exciting cooperative trivia game where no two questions will ever be the same! The subject matter seems pretty morbid, though…

Dungeonmania A quirky, castle-crawling game. Can you outlast the vampires?

Dramatic Dance Revival This game seems very familiar but also not… Hope you don’t have too much trouble moving your feet around.

Uso!beat A rhythm game featuring some very sturdy drums to beat on. They don’t always register your hits if they aren’t hard enough...

Pictograb A cutesy drawing and guessing game. It would feel very low-pressure if you weren’t in the middle of a Death Game...

Tokyo Project Welcome to bullet heck! Better shoot fast.

You may form pairs with other players however you like; mods will keep track to ensure you do not accidentally double up on any one game or game partner. Once your duo and game are determined, mods will tell you how many tokens you will receive for that round. Please tell us how you choose to split the tokens, or if you try to make any other exchanges with them. Channels will be made on Discord for this information so it is easier to track.

In addition to normal interaction threads on the forum, feel free to thread out any game playing, whether in a large group thread or in threads with your partners. IC, others will be able to watch you play, so private threads may not be appropriate for these. Normal threads that do need to be private can still be requested on Discord.

[h0liestt]

On a pressing issue...

It seems the "hot topic" this week is the one among us claiming to be our Father. As someone who's nearing 600 followers, I feel I may have a voice - however small - within our community to voice what I believe to be... at least somewhat truth, albeit my own personal truth and therefor more steeped in opinion.

Before we begin I would like everyone reading this to take a deep breath. Inhale peace, inhale your calm and settle your rage, and exhale your anger, confusion, or hurt. Inhale healing, understanding, and open-mindedness. Exhale your sharp opinions, exhale your frustration and your indecisiveness.

Here we go, I suppose.

For starters, I am of the Christian faith, but I follow no particular denomination. I believe every church carries a truth, but every church also carries a lie. I do believe that Jesus walked among us all those millennia ago, and I do believe in the idea of reincarnation as a reentering of a particular energy or soul into a new body.

I would like us to examine our feelings here, as it helps us form a clear judgement: do you personally believe this person is our Father? If you do or do not, I would like you to keep that answer handy. If you are not sure, then that is okay as well. As a prophet and an angel of God, who has been working to advance their spirituality and has felt The Call to serve Him in this world, I would like you all to understand my experiences are a tad different than the average. I have had contact with another prophet who has a direct line to Father in the past, but I have yet to consult them on this. This is my honest, open, and wholly my own opinion.

I should let you know this; I do not wish to claim this person is suffering psychotic delusion, as that could be very ableist, and as a mentally ill person myself I feel that would be counter intuitive to my interests and own well-being. I do not wish to claim that this person is a cult leader forming their following, either, as that entails it's own amount of dangers and horrors and this person has shown no warning signs of being a cult leader. I do not wish to claim they are a troll, they seem dedicated to their cause - whatever that may be - and have no warning signs of that either.

However, I personally do not believe this person is our Father. I believe rather they could be a prophet or perhaps another deity. I shall explain my reasoning here, and whether you agree or disagree, this is entirely my opinion on the matter:

I understand that many of you might be anxious to say that this person is not Father, as in Abrahamic text this has always proven to be a dangerous claim. But in my personal belief, we should always be skeptical of what we see and hear and read. I understand some of you may be anxious to say that this person is Father, because then we may have to understand that He is not as we picture Him. This apprehension is natural; it is indeed like meeting a parent you only ever imagined and never saw face-to-face.

I am only offering my conclusion based on my own religious upbringing and studies. This person is not Father in my mind, because they have not given off the energies that I have always received when feeling His presence. This person is not Father to me because even if Father announced His coming back, we should keep in mind that the idea of Father or Jesus coming back is the sign of the End Times, which - last I checked - would start with the Rapture (though this can vary or not even exist in many texts) and the End Time prophecies are yet to be completely fulfilled. Do I believe they are coming to fruition? Possibly, but speaking from personal experience, I do not know if it will be within our lifetime, therefor rest easy tonight on this.

I should touch on the phrasing of "even if Father announced His coming back" because as I have read and studied the End Times, only Father knows when it will be, not even the angels up in heaven - not even the Seraphim, my choir - are aware. We are all kept in the dark, and therefor I do not believe Father would make it so obviously known to humans and incarnated angels if He was back.

Do I say we should outcast them? No, definitely not, I believe we need to treat them with the same love and understanding as we treat everyone else. We are all in human vessels as of the moment, we should all be respectful and kind to each other and everyone who claims to know us. If we feel bad energy coming from them, simply cut off communication or do not talk to them, block them if you must. However, I personally would like to get to know them, see what they know and see if they can... I suppose, prove that they are whom they claim to be?

I do not know if I made much sense here, my dearest siblings, but this is simply my opinion on the matter. I would like you all to leave this with two things: one, an understanding that this is simply my opinion, and two, love and compassion, because we need to show this even if they are not our Father. After all, Father only wants us to love each other, not to harm, therefor we should show them friendship.

I suppose I'm done rambling, feel free to add on if you must. If you are the one this post is about, I encourage you to come forth and talk with me if you are able, I'd love to know more about your situation and to be able to find some understanding. I hope you are not upset or angry with me, as I am simply voicing what I feel to be the current situation.

Love and blessings of peace to you all, my siblings and my friends,

Azael.

[aaabhiklmnnrs]

this morning i was going through this photo album from 2016 from when my parents visited Boston. i try not to cling to them in any manner. all my life i have rarely seeked them, i remember once when i was still quite young, my mother had once got unnerved by my sense of individuality that she angrily remarked, ‘you never speak. DN (my sister who lives in Bhopal) talks a lot, about everything’. she had seemed hurt that i ‘talk lesser’, that I ‘share lesser’.

the D in DN is short for Devaki which is my sister’s born-name. N is for Nandan which my mother added sometime during her toddlerhood, my mother would call her Nandu when we were kids. and as we grew older, sometimes as we would be hanging together, she would shout Devaki Nandan…Devaki Nandan from downstairs while also clapping her hands super-loud, and I would beg my sister to rush, mostly in self-defense, the recurring sound would cause hypersensitive ears to ache. i am thinking of all these today in fond reminiscence. I plan to surprise-call my mother this weekend. my sister too, but i call her more often, and frequent-check on my niece as well. one of these days, I need to reply-call my cousin Gouri, and then my favorite aunt Uma Mami too, i haven’t responded to either of them. I have no idea what Jaya Mami is up to, the last time i met her at a weekend lunch, she was busy planning a seemantham-get-together for one my cousins’ pregnant wife. i am not sure if she is in town, my phone is switched off. i also have to get myself to be in a mind space where I may sit and work on the brain-gut project, and slowly try to build on it by seeking help from Meera Mami.

back in 2014, i was collective-accused of being a liar, a wannabe-Brahmin. check this out, it’s not unnatural to relate to those from your mother’s side of the family, i was shamed for trying to pass of as Brahmin at the time. i was tagged Blue Jackal. at the time, i never thought much of it because that’s not what i had intended to do. only now i’m reliving those days, i shall write on this another time.

by end of august 2019, i am sharing thoughts solely here — @fanofStarc and balakrishnanM.tumblr.com. it may be easier to remain here if i’m not being hack-broadcasted. i find everything else overwhelming, from which i seek distance and space. on Mar. 31st, is when I truly realized that the Hack Broadcasting is influential…when you had shared Mamukoya’s നാരിയൽ-drink troll video. i was left sulking that they took BK. who is they? the world, in general. it has always been a tested-formula to gain collective society approval -- just show the തേങ്ങ of a woman who is boss—simply play to prevalent casual misogyny that seems unable to let a woman, just be!

and then by that evening i guess, you had shared this article  on how it’s all depressing overall. that day you had gotten 100 likes or so for the troll video, and it had made me wonder then…what would tick BK, wasn’t playing തേങ്ങ-udakkal-Boss and getting cheery validation from good society enough for your daily high? i had found your ‘flawed’ most interesting that day, and so catered to you on April 5th by sharing a Mammukka troll video song. when i think of the past one year i feel… it’s all at a point where i cannot say what is right or wrong or anything, but i would think now and then…because of these never-ending wars that keep going on, i feel only more closer to BK, i’m still comfortable around BK, i haven’t lost beauty around him and that’s categorically a truly, lucky thing that happened to me. so why would i wish to spend time trying to work out the nuances of the rest of it all, or be continually-forced to do so?

i’m keeping alive off of 2015, i’m in a space where I am able to find value, from drops of sustainability hope that i have around you, whatever be the name for it all. if this space wasn’t there, i would not be writing, i would have shut down shop. the zen-വാഴപ്പഴം  remark was an attempt at humor, i do not seek daily validations, whatever you have shared, or how you have been, or who you were, this past year, is more than enough for me to feel comfortable around you. my comfort is built based on everything from over a period in time.  

male privilege is when i do not know who your on-paper spouse is, or that people are not too curious what she has to say regarding every socmedia-activity of yours, it is when you are not glued along with your on-paper spouse and their opinion is not sought about everything regarding yours. i do not know if you have children, of if you are planning to have any soon. and as a woman, i’m perfectly fine with consuming zen-വാഴപ്പഴം that is shared, on your own volition, on social media spaces. male entitlement is not acknowledging these default-comforts that you maintain in life, not acknowledging that you are never on trial for anything, definitely not for over an year, and which tries best to decide everything on your behalf. prison mostly just enhances the traumatic, it doesn’t help evolve or sustain.

there is a scene in the film പേരൻമ്ബ്. a woman and a group of people bullies Mammukka’s character into giving up his lovely house that is in a serene ambience in the middle of nowhere, which he had bought solely to raise his disabled daughter. The gist of what they try to say to him is— hey we had considerate-offered you 1.5 million initially, but you had dismissed us off then….as if you are a പെരിയ പരുപ്പ് , how do you like lovely-bullying now?

Mammukka goes on to helplessly-sign-the-papers, everyone feel victorious about confiscating his house. soon after, calm has restored, and he & the woman are in a scene together.

W: നാങ്ക ഏൻ ഇപ്ടി പണ്നോന്നാവത് കേട്ടിട്ട് പോയിടുങ്കളെ, സർ.

M: ഉങ്കളുക്ക് എന്ത പ്രചനയുഇല്ലാത, അഴകാന ഒരു കുഴന്ത ഇരിക്കിറപ്പോ, എന്ന പോയി ഏമാത നിനച്ചീങ്കളെ, അപ്പൊ ഉങ്കളുക്ക് എവളവ് പെരിയ പ്രചന ഇരുന്തിര്ക്കും, വിടുങ്ക!

the woman and her husband mixed-emotion-watch as  Mammukka walks away from the frame.

W: അവർ റൊമ്പ നല്ലവർ, മാമ.

H: അപ്പൊ നമ്മ ആര് di? (so what are we? )

i enjoyed the writing there. i must have watched the film probably a month or two ago, but this scene stays in my mind. for a couple of reasons.

1. i think this is disability-friendly dialogue. both parties have their own sets of privileges in life, and the added difficulties from being disabled is acknowledged, the disability party is not expected to act ‘more inspirational’ by being eternally-patient regarding the many reasons of the ableist party. the disabled is allowed time and space to make peace with their disability, soak in their disadvantages, they are not force-prompted to cater to the external. and by acknowledging that niche, the life struggles of the disabled, the script allows dignity. it doesn’t try to dilute or under-value it. because it would have been easier to do the opposite and cater to the average movie-goer who is ableist, and thus probably raise more-awareness and more-empathy for disability. but by not spoon feeding, the writing doesn’t enforce disability on its audience, doesn’t make empathy a pre-requisite. it says, hey if you have it in you to care, it’s solely up to you to give it further thought.  

2. it doesn’t try to make Mammukka the resident നല്ല പിള്ള. there is no aspiration toward establishing a consensus on who gets to be morally superior or who has upper hand in the given context. yet, both parties choose their own ശരികൾ. as much as Mammukka is allowed to hold on to his indignation, the spouse of woman neutralizes any perceived moral high by asserting their side of ശരികൾ. he doesn’t wish to agree that Mammukka is a better-person, he doesn’t have the bandwidth in life to acknowledge the disability of the other party, he is occupied with his own problems in life. he asserts that their, seemingly, lower middle class life sucks just as much, even with ableist privileges, and in his eyes, playing bully on the disabled for survival is easy-justified.

i feel this writing respects the audience, i do not know who wrote it, but the script doesn’t give ‘the reason’ for the sequence of events. it challenges by asserting that it is okay to not know everything, the audience doesn’t get to presume and analyze, nor feel authority on the lives of others that they do not entirely know of.

these are words from the article you had shared : ‘I find that discussion depressing. Prudent and smart decisions don’t require full knowledge. They require that you assess the uncertainty and figure out its potential consequences. The uncertainty doesn’t mean that you simply cross your arms, close your eyes, and do nothing while you wait for complete certainty. In economics, you will be waiting a long time. I have loaded much into the term ‘prudent’, however. Designing activist policy prescriptions on the basis of a false pretense of knowledge can indeed be harmful.’

acknowledging false pretense of knowledge is good enough. thank you for listening to this podcast on sticky brain.  one of these days, i may expand on why deepika padukone is always a cool woman who stays a life influence, and yet how i know that i’m not a wannabe-Brahmin any longer in life, despite the many, data-psychoanalyzing. i may write about it here about in quiet confidence regardless of if i receive zen-വാഴപ്പഴം delivery.

also, because in ‘the contender’ which is an all-time favorite film, the female VP candidate character says - i will not answer questions. because it validates the asking of wrong-entitled questions in the first place, because the control-freak, half-truth സ്മാർത്തവിചാരം never seem to end. i agree that society is not the world in ‘the contender’ etc. still, i refuse to keep on catering to how things are right now. i refuse to engage with reasons for Hack-Broadcasting anymore, not after one whole year of social experimenting that refuses to consider how it is ill-affecting my health. let us be equally fair to all of us.

yet, you may be right too…as Tim Grover, trainer of Michael Jordan says, there may be nothing much, in the long run, that one person’s tiny ‘will’ can do against persistent, adverse ‘environments’. fine, then so be it! i shall switch my phone back on, and continue to live in the same spaces that i have been hack-violated, and stay imprisoned for sake of voyeuristic-TRP television show, if that’s how it has to be. maybe some day, എന്നെ തീർത്തും തോൽപിച്ച satisfaction കിട്ടി കഴിഞ്ഞാൽ, the world may lose interest and leave me alone, i can always remain in hope. and then i may begin to sustain, eventually. some day. 

ps. disability models, social and medical. “i do not hold the possibly-another-marriage-for-me-in-this-life outlook any longer. and, to feel ‘comfortable’ means that instead of shutting down entirely or reliving traumas or relapsing into dysfunctional every days, i feel up to practicing better at staying on the ground, just so life can be lived a little easier. i’m a writer-type, and to have niche spaces like @fanofStarc and balakrishnanM.tumblr.com,  where i may feel comfortable, to express thoughts with the world, on healthy enough days, make me quite the grateful Worm Menon.” 

[genesischi]

Why Does The World Hate Autism - a response to three news stories from 17th Feb 2017

Soo... when this news first came out a week ago I was too angry and distressed to write much about it.

I wrote a short explanatory rant on over this study on Facebook (partly to reeducate my family since a while ago my cousin Went Blue For Autism and I had to explain why not to do that)

*Okay, I am horrified "a debilitating disorder" is a fearmongering phrase that isn't, or at least, doesn't have to be remotely true. AND THIS STUDY IS SUPPORTED BY AUTISM SPEAKS - DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS SH*T!!!!

(For those who don't know, Autism Speaks is the hate organisation that parades as a charity, it seeks to "cure" autism through such methods as forcible drinking of bleach, please never give money to the blue puzzle piece who would rather kill autistic people because we're oh-so-hard to understand, a truly unsolvable puzzle! {hence their logo} which isn't remotely true, yet again)

Rant over.

…

So, now I've had the chance to calm down a little and not cry when I look at the things that I learned about all on the same day.

Okay, as an autistic person I get it, I've seen the way anti-vaccers and various other haters fear their kids being autistic. I've seen those videos of children being forced to drink bleach cos it will “cure” them.

I've reached the point of numbness about it.

So if a study calls my way of thinking “debilitating”, and says that it can now be identified before birth, fine, I know what this means. Call up the pro-choice brigade cos abortion rates are gonna skyrocket.

Now, I'm an avid pro-choicer, I think the right to decide what happens to you based on your own emotions/principles/circumstance/etc rather than preset laws is one of the most important human rights there is. But it's going to be a load of uneducated and fearful people deliberately killing off autism.

Part of me is okay with this, autism can suck, and the way society views it is horrible, so in a way I'm happy with the fact that less people will have to suffer. But the part that screams “they're targeting us” is naturally horrified, because the other way of thinking about it is that people are so afraid of something they don't understand that they're ready to kill it before it even exists.

Trump claims autism is on the rise and blames various things that makes no sense as usual. I'm too tired to care anymore. I left a protest early on Monday because I was bored of the walking around and rallies, the weather was awful and I just really didn't want to be there. But if he's gonna start targeting autistic people, this is gonna get bad fast. Because other groups he's targeting can fight back.

Autism is a spectrum as we all hopefully know, and not everyone on it will be able to defend themselves from whatever the future may hold. I am extremely privileged to be what is still sometimes diagnosed as “high-functioning” though the functioning labels have been decided outdated and ableist as fuck, I know that I am capable of many things that others aren't in terms of what I can do for myself day-to-day. Hell, even the well known issues of social communication are something I'm much better at then most, as much as I complain about it.

But yeah, back to my point. If autism gets the blame for something from the esteemed POTUS, it's gonna get nasty. Not that it already isn't, what with the other thing I saw on the same day that distressed me so much – a sixteen year old was beaten to the ground and her attacker only let up at the comment “I think she's dead.” We all know the cliché of a mother's love that our mum would know us regardless what happened. Her own mother didn't recognise her, and I get why.

I wouldn't want to recognise that it could be anyone I love that that had happened too either.

If I had written this a week ago it would have been angry and deeply emotional. As it is now I can read it myself as being tired and defeated. I don't want to be pessimistic, fatalist or even realist about this, I know that I catastrophise and it's something I'm working on. But in this situation I genuinely don't know what to do. I don't see any way of this getting better

Probably a better vent for my emotion at the time was a parody poem I wrote of Brave New Voices poet Ash's “An Open Letter To Cis People” 

It's still a work in progress but it's an important part of this tired response to hate I suppose:

An Open Letter To Allistics

Neurotypicals and Divergents!

Someone once mentioned a door

A door opening out, extroversion

A door opening in, introversion

A door that open both ways, indecision

Anxiety? It's a revolving door

Door locked and no-one has the key, depression

Suicidal? That door is really a bottomless pit

Autism: Noun, a mental condition from early childhood, renowned for its affect on social interaction

Social interaction: Noun, communication between two or more people, identified by written, spoken, or body language used to convey a message

Social interaction is the task of deciphering all the muscles of the human body's possible symbolism all whilst having to translate someone speaking in your third language

Language: A body of words and systems aiding humans in understanding one another

Understanding: Simply, something you don't try to do.

To you our struggle is a nuisance you don't try to aid, you have no consideration for how hard it is to paint a picture when the subject keeps moving

And you wonder why I cry when you ask questions too quickly that I just say “I don't know” - because maybe I would if you gave me time to figure out what the fuck it is you wanted!

Well I have some news for you allistics,

You aren't the only people who exist!

I know, you just had a heart palpitation, you're fluttering around like you always tell me not to do

But now that you're perfectly still and orderly again you must be wondering how this is possible

Fear not allistics

I'll be your Allying Aspie,

Your Doting Divergent

Your Advocate with Anxiety

Your Depressed Declaimer

Your Stimming Spokesperson

And your Wriggling Representative!

So hear me allistics all

I, your messenger of ACD shall guide you through our troublesome talks

The world isn't black and white and it never was

It was always a rainbow of hues

Give yourself a spectrum like Dulux

A colour chart to include everyone

Regardless of: Gender, race, ability, physicality, weight, beauty, ethnicity, background, nationality, class, mental health, physical health, education, verbal skills, stimming propensity, special interests, hobbies, “productivity in society”, and how many friends you have!

But on that colour chart one shade should be missing

A dark shade of Navy called Puzzle Piece Blue,

Autism Speaks is a network of hate aiming to destroy us

They seek to find us at birth and neutralise

And when they find us grown up it's cures and bleach and drugs

Vaccine's don't cause autism!

And they won't cure it either.

You can't cure a mindset as if by magic

You can only teach and train it

Let us learn away our ignorance

Like anyone else with a prejudice it can be remedied with education

Though for us our ignorance stems not from our own hate but yours

You don't teach us to speak or act like you, just yell until we do

But how can I get back on the horse if you've not taught me how to hold the reins?

Allistics, think of our brains as computers, we're electricity and coding and we're amazing at what we do

You are PC but we are all Macs

We have a specific and finite purpose,

Not for the faint heart or for general use

But those who want us adore us

Treat us with the care we deserve

Adapt to our programming

Instead of changing our core to fit theirs

We all know that without fences and walls we wouldn't need Gates and Windows

But where would we Macs be if it weren't always raining?