#why does everyone have to be cishet Christian

[kimmie-nimmie]

This type of shit makes me want to kill myself man

[vrsmth]

being the only autistic kid in a small town school was probably the worst experience a person can ever have

[genderkoolaid]

hey i was wondering something and i wanted to know your opinion on it

Why is it problematic to say i hate men but not white people or straight people

(i'm a trans south east asian man btw)

I'd say on, like, a casual exasperated level, its not problematic to say "I hate [x]." It gets problematic when your venting about a group becomes your sole lens of viewing + interacting with that group.

Like, its entirely alright to be frustrated with behaviors common to cishet white men and express that in a vent by saying you hate them. But... its like how people make the correct point that they shouldn't be expected or obligated to give all their energy to coddling people with power over them, but translate that into "i never have to care about a member of this group at all" which directly conflicts with just. being in a community? Like women should not be expected to be caretakers for men, but people in a community need to take care of each other. When the only way you engage with a group of people is by expressing hatred and asserting how much you aren't obligated to care about them, its easier than people think to find yourself dehumanizing them.

Which does not mean "you are just as bad as a racist/misogynist" or "you are oppressing them"; you are An Individual whose biases are not necessarily backed up by powerful systemic powers. But, for one, its very easy for those biases to be used by systemic forces: with men, misandry is very easily used to justify all kinds of violence towards marginalized men & people perceived as men. You also have situations where people will say the Holocaust "wasn't as bad" as, say, US slavery, because it was "white on white violence," or saying the Armenian genocide also wasn't that big of a deal because "it was done to Christians and Christians are always killing people" (two real things I have seen been said). And, again: if you are going to care about community and restorative/transformative justice and all that, you need to be able to give a shit about all kinds of people who you live with. You need to be able to see them as whole beings you are capable of connecting with on some level. You don't personally need to date or befriend men, but you do need to be able to give a shit about men in your community.

Its fine to feel annoyance and anger and use "hatred" to express that. But the problem occurs when people take "its okay to be angry with your oppressors and not spend all your energy coddling them" and make that the end-all be-all of their relationship with people of whatever group; revolutions can't accomplish compassionate goals when they are run on hatred. Very hooksian concept but "love" (as in "a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust", not in a strictly emotional sense but as an action) is a skill that is as vital as understanding class dynamics and protest tactics. Maybe you don't need to love everyone, but try to have the capacity to love anyone; the ability to physically care for someone you don't emotionally like is, I think, a vital step towards truly challenging and bringing down the kyriarchy.

Basically its about recognizing when your venting stops being an outlet and starts being a way for unproductive feelings to shape how you view other people.

[deservedgrace]

I don't think that framing "Marginalized™️ Atheism/Deconstruction" and "Cishet White Male Atheism/Deconstruction" as inherently ~separate and distinct~ is super effective (and disclaimer I'm specifically speaking about my experience with christianity, atheism, and ex christian atheists/deconstructors), but also... okay so I was raised in a cult, and cults are oppressive for all its members. Nobody gets out unscathed, everyone experiences the abuse tactics, everybody is a victim. But within the cult there is a hierarchy, and cishet white men are at the top. So while the cult is oppressive to everyone, and everyone is harmed in some way, it is also uniquely oppressive to queer folks, to BIPOC, to disabled folks, to women, etc etc. And the thing that happens to some of those cishet white men is they leave an oppressive cult, where they are considered the "default", and they go into the ~real world~, where they are also considered the "default", and even in atheist/deconstruction spaces, their bodies and experiences are often the leading voices.

The men that leave go from an oppressive patriarchal culture to a far less oppressive (to them) patriarchal society. The white people that leave go from an oppressive racist culture to a far less oppressive (to them) racist society. The people that leave go from an oppressive culture that does not value marginalized voices to a different, less oppressive culture that also does not value marginalized voices. And if you personally do not experience [xyz] oppression, it can be difficult to even realize there are things surrounding that you have to deconstruct unless you listen to the voices of the oppressed. But some cishet white men go from being considered the "default" in an oppressive culture, to being considered the "default" in a less oppressive culture (to them). Their experience of "overcoming systemic oppression" comes from leaving the church, and it can be really easy to fall into the trap that the church, specifically, is the sole oppressor and enemy of everyone.

Of course this doesn't happen in every single case and it's also not exclusive to cishet white men. But those blind spots are why I think it's important for everyone to listen to a variety of voices when they're deconstructing, especially if those voices are talking about oppression you wouldn't have experienced firsthand.

No, our deconstructions are not inherently different, but the experiences and circumstances prior to it often are. It's okay to acknowledge that and beneficial for everybody to listen to each other's experiences.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Back when Vritra's design was first revealed, but not her actual name, there was some discussion about her being one of Arjuna's wivesm I believe it was Ulupi but I wasn't paying that close of an attention to the name. It was a fairly popular speculation at the time, and there was often a really consistent note made by people talking about it.

They "wanted F/GO to know that she was Arjuna's wife".

So I get the intent here: they don't want waifuism to make her "available" to men, because she's married! She should be faithful!

Unfortunately, that's still fandom misogyny babe! That's still a deeply misogynistic ask!

People, for years, had no problem shipping themselves with Arjuna, or Arjuna with other characters. Arjuna having a wife wasn't even a mention really, because it had never really been brought up in lore. Arjuna was completely free game if you wanted to fuck him, and it didn't help that he was drawn by pako either.

I'm also burying the lede a little bit, because Arjuna did not just "have a wife". He had several. Arjuna was engaged in polygamy.

This is part of why it ends up misogynistic: Arjuna is, of course, allowed the ability to have multiple partners if he so wishes, and of course, the fandom at large is allowed to self-ship and put him in yaoi situations, but Ulupi isn't allowed that. She can't be allowed to pursue multiple partners like her husband because she needs to be Arjuna's faithful wife to own the weebs.

But. Like. That's ALSO misogynistic babe!

The "faithful, ever-loving wife" is in itself a stereotype that derives from the cishet white misogynistic fantasy of the nuclear family, and as we've seen with Kriemhild, it arguably makes the character even more misogynistically written. But people in fandom are generally not inclined to critically examine presumptions made by the existence of the nuclear/Christian family (see: waaaaa why does everyone suggest polyamory over a love triangle), so this is seen as fine.

This is still ignoring the ways in which lesbians in fandom are constantly treated in misogynistic ways, the ways in which lesbians are continually implicitly blamed during discussions of female characters. If the woman is sexually available, or if the lesbian wants her to be in some way, that's wrong! It's not when gay men want Arjuna though.

tl;dr if Ulupi ever joins F/GO, I hope she fucks complete nasty with the women at Chaldea.

[creepykuroneko]

Dear white people,

I am begging you to please learn the difference between sympathy, empathy, and how you do not need both to help other people.

I am saying this as a brown, genderqueer, autistic, person who has dealt with all different types of bigotry over my life time.

The best way I've ever seen sympathy and empathy explained in an oversimplified form is as follows:

Sympathy, "that sucks bro"

Empathy, "I feel you bro"

You do not need to feel bad for someone in order to help them. Simply recognizing they are in a bad situation and in need of help is more than enough.

I often see white people shit on brown and black communities for supposedly being more homophobic and transphobic than white communities are. Yet ask any queer person of color and they will tell you they would rather hang out with cishet people of their same race than hang out in the white LGBT+ community because of the racism they experience within the white queer spaces.

No I'm not a fan of Christianity and I think America would be better if people were less religious but I do recognize that in America black churches do more for the black community then other Institutes do. I have known more black queer people who were facing homelessness and were able to get help from their church versus any government lead organization or white focused queer spaces. Good luck explaining this to White LGBT+ people though. They refuse to acknowledge not only the problems within their own community, but how other communities outside of theirs take care of each other while yes still being problematic.

When the script is flipped though, when it's a white woman who is very blatantly bigoted and hateful, who suddenly finds herself and in dire need of help, suddenly white people are willing to put their politics aside to help people. I've noticed when women of colors speak up about how they do not feel bad for a former Trump supporter who is now living in her car suddenly every single white person is a feminist. You'll notice that often times the people who say they do not feel bad for said white woman never actually say she deserves her situation. Other people fill in the gaps that they believe are missing. Suddenly It's what about helping people? What if it was you? We need to lift each other up.

For those of you who lack reading comprehension I do NOT believe anybody should be homeless, starving, or without basic necessities.

I simply believe you do not have to feel bad for someone to help them.

People like to joke about how people who live in red States deserve what they get for living in a red state. What about the people who were born in that situation and do not have the means to leave? Not to mention the fact that it is a white centric colonizer point of view to have the mentality of " I'll just move away and gentrify some other neighborhood rather than fix the problems in my community".

I just find it awfully convenient that anytime it's a bigoted white woman who is in dire straits, suddenly everyone can put their politics aside to help her. When it is literally anybody else, it's crickets chirping in the room.

I have seen more men of color put themselves in a potentially dangerous situation to see if a white woman who is crying needs help then I have seen white women reach out to men of color and ask if they need help. So "why" is it that the group I see all around me be more compassionate towards other human beings gets scrutinized for supposedly not being more empathetic?

Everyone can help make the world a better place. Yes everyone deserves access to food, clean water, shelter, and medicine. Even awful people. It does not mean that you have to love thy neighbor though. I can recognize that this bitch means me harm and still believe she has every right to apply for food stamps. Because guess what? When one person falls through the cracks, the crack gets bigger and swallows us all up. It does not mean that I have to feel bad for her though. And quite frankly, asking people of color to feel bad for someone who actively means them harm is disgusting.

[p1nkc4tb0t]

OK GUYS IMMA GO ON A RANT ABT THE NOVEL UNWIND, OK? OK.

HOLY SHIT.

guys it was so fucking good i swear.

ok so yeah, warning spoilers n shit. yeah.

ok so i really like the concept of the whole Bill of Life thing, unwinding especially.

like holy smokes was it good.

OK SO IK ITS NOT THE MOST POPULAR NOVEL I DONT THINK SO FOR MY MOOTS WHO R SEEING THIS THIS IS THE GENERAL CONCEPT: since abortions r banned pretty much, ppl either “stork” unwanted children or “unwind” children when they became unwanted. like the story starts off abt three unwinds, being unwound for completely different reasons. Connor was like, a troublesome kid and his parents just didn’t want that so they signed the orders to get him unwound. i missed why Risa was unwound but im pretty sure the state house just didn’t have much room for her anymore(she got storked there i think. she really didn’t grab my attention at the beginning sadly). Lev came from a Christian family, and churches make everyone sacrifice one of their children for God by unwinding them second they turn 13, Lev being one of them(it’s considered an honor)

OK SO the concept of storking is that, the mother delivers a child, doesn’t want it, leaves it at some person’s doorstep and then it’s “finders keepers.” however if they are caught they have to take the kid back and legally obliged to keep it. same with the finders keepers situation, got storked and ain’t no one at ur doorstep? legally obliged to keep it like it or not. however Connor’s parents once got storked and passed it into the neighbors house, and the baby rotated for a week and back to their house, but already sick and dying. Connor then gets traumatized and further on in the book he’s so overridden with the memory that when a bitch got storked she yell at them (Connor abd Risa) to take it back even tho the kid wasn’t theirs.

the concept of unwinding is that legally between 13-18 your guardians can send you to a harvest camp where you’re taken apart and given these parts to those who need it. like for example: you got unwound, taken to a harvest camp, they take your hands and give it to a guy who lost his across the fucking continent. ppl literally stopped trying to cure things, just replaced faulty organs with healthy ones. and no one really knows what���s going on in those harvest camps. do they kill you off immediately or do they wait and wait for weeks on weeks to get to you while you never know when’s your last day.

SO ANYWAY

I really like Connor’s relationship with Hayden, and tbh if they would make them canonically in love i’d be the happiest person on this planet. but again that would cause even further complications w the plot so i get it ig. but at the same time i don’t. Connor never really struck me as a cishet dude even from the beginning of the story, and though him abd Risa r a very good pair i’d just kinda like it more if they paired him up with Hayden. cuz first of all it would add on to tge reason he got unwound in the first place. abd like, i want a gay protagonist in a horror book is that really too much to ask?

same thing with Lev and CyTy, tho i see them more as moirails. yk, homestuck. heheh. no bc they’re so caring for eachother it’s crazy. but again i don’t see them in a romantic relationship, i just rlly like their dynamic. live laugh love how Lev was willing to go through with CyTy’s shit and vice versa.

Hayden and CyTy gotta b my fab characters frfr. anyway so CyTy’s name is actually Cyrus, but he has an eighth of a brain of a kid who got unwound and his name was Tyler. so like, he sometimes does things that Tyler would do but himself won’t, leading them to Tyler’s parents’ house and it actually made me tear up.

ALSO RISA IS AN EMO GINGER. NOT DEBATABLE. I DO NOT CARE IF IT CAN NEVER B CANON, I LIVE FOR EMO GINGER RISA.

GUYS THIS BOOK IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL GO READ IT

i NEED to make a Homestuck Unwind AU

(imma just tag 4 moots i think would find this interesting @hiddencattoes @kovuspams @r3z1l1c1ous @imgoingtoeatyourfirstbornchild sorry guys this felt necessary)

[no-terfs-no-swerfs-no-fascists]

I seriously dislike the "if you are anti-religion, that just means you grew up around Christianity and are equating all of religion with Christianity" and the "it's only okay to be anti-religion if you have religious trauma" philosophizing I've been seeing more often on Tumblr these days.

I know atheists get a bad rep (and if you know me, you've heard me criticize the movement atheism plenty of times), but there's one thing we are, in fact, right about - religion IS, by and large, bad.

That doesn't mean a religious person is automatically bad, but what you end up realizing after observing a variety of religious groups is that the concept of religion is, by its very nature, a breeding ground for abuse, bigotry, and anti-intellectualism like no other.

Half my family are Muslims, the other half are Eastern Orthodox Christians, and I've grown up around those groups + Catholics, Jews, and Seventh Day Adventists (and yes, three of those five groups fall under the Christianity umbrella, but trust me, cultural differences between them can be staggering). I've also studied these religions, as well as Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Unitarianism, Mormonism, Scientology, Happy Science, the Unification Church, Wicca, and a variety of neopagan revivals, mostly through books written by authors of those religious groups.

I've read histories of those religious groups and followed them in the news, less so after entering the work force in full capacity, but I really did have an obsession of learning about different religions and what makes them tick for about ten or so years. And I didn't study them from the point of view of an atheist/nonbeliever. Hell, I didn't even subscribe to atheism until about five years ago (I am currently 40yo).

Again - a religious person is not automatically a bad person. Plenty of people I love are religious and almost everyone I know is religious too. Being religious in never going to be the reason why I dislike, don't trust, or won't engage with someone.

But a religious person does automatically support a lot of incredibly unsavoury things by the simple act of actively taking part in a religion, and especially if that includes monetary support. The easiest, most obvious example of this is, of course, Catholicism - you going to church services, giving to the collection plate, taking part in church-organized activities, it all shows tacit support for an organization that not only historically has oceans of blood on their hands, but to this very day actively supports, protects, and finances fascists, rapists, murderers, abusers, paedophiles, the anti-LGBTQIAP+ movement, the anti-abortion movement, and subjugation of women, indigenous people, and pretty much anyone who isn't a rich cishet white Catholic man, not only in their religious capacity but also by influencing lawmakers in every country they have even the tiniest modicum of power.

Whether you like it or not, whether you personally subscribe to those parts of your belief system or not, bigotry, subjugation, exploitation, and abuse are baked into the principles of religion as a concept.

Plenty of religious people simply choose to ignore those parts of their religion. They do not practice them, do not teach them, and consider them a vestigial part of the religion they belong to that is simply no longer applicable to them as they have moved on with the times and do not subscribe to those moral principles.

But they're still there, and plenty of people who belong to your religion still practice them, and use the same texts and teachings you do to justify them as morally just and correct. Where you had the fortune to be taught by progressive religious leaders, many others have not. You may share a religion and have radically different view on what it is while using the same words to describe it, and theirs is just as valid a reading of it as yours.

And then, of course, is the matter of the corrupting influence of power. Even the cursory look at the headlines surrounding any religion will tell you that, while individual religious people and even groups who belong to a certain religion can be the most wonderful, accepting, generous people, their religion is but a stone toss away from using its teachings, principles, and beliefs as an excuse to commit unspeakable atrocities. The most infamous example of this is Buddhism, a religion which has radical anti-violence as a core component of their teachings... which has not stopped Buddhists from committing genocides as recently as the late 2010s. Buddhism sells itself as the most enlightened, accepting, and kindest of belief systems, but in those countries where it has power and influence, it is often a willing tool of oppression of its believers and weaponized othering of outgroup people.

Being religious also leaves people vulnerable to various trappings of anti-intellectualism. A religious person is, on average, less likely to trust experts, less likely to be intellectually curious and seek out new knowledge, and more prone to adopting bigoted views and conspiracy theories. Religion has historically had moments when it has been at the center of scientific discovery and development of new thought and knowledge. Medieval Islam is a great example of this, having made incredible strides in the exploration and development of medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, as well as the amazing job it did preserving the scientific and philosophical legacy of Ancient Greece. But it is far more common to see religion as the active suppressor of scientific explorations of reality and free thought, and it is such a common occurrence that I genuinely do not think I need to list the myriad examples of this happening, both historically and in the modern day.

Now, there are people who would reply to everything I've written here by, for example, citing studies that contradict my statements, such as the ones that show being a part of a religious community is good for people's physical, emotional, and mental health, or the fact that there are religious groups that put great importance on pursuing science and arts, such as Orthodox Judaism.

To that, I would reply with - yes, but studies also show same health benefits people get from taking active part in a religious community happen if a person is a member of any actively social community (that is, that the benefits come from socializing with people you have things in common with and taking part of community activities with them, not from religion itself), and that, without exception, the religious groups that put an emphasis on study and creativity will just as often actively discourage their female members from being anything but docile submissive broodmares without ever considering themselves hypocritical or wrong for doing so. Trust me, it wouldn't take too much effort to find similar counters for any other argument against what I've written in this post.

I can appreciate that religion plays an important role in your life and that it is a positive influence for you. Life is awful, unfair, and cruel, and you will never hear me begrudge you any ray of sunshine you can catch or any coping mechanism that gets you through life's horrors. I will also not go around telling people that they should abandon their religion - it is neither my place nor my job to tell you how to manage your life.

But don't expect me to indulge the position that religion is a net-positive as a whole or that anyone who isn't blind to the fact that this is demonstrably not true is just a victim of Christianity.

Yes, absolutely, educate yourself on other religions, it will do you a world of good, just like most other honest intellectual pursuits, and you will learn a lot of fascinating and fun things, and broaden your cultural horizons.

But go into it with open eyes, study the history behind those religions too, and try to do so from as objective sources as you can find.

[jinxedshapeshifter]

Do people realize you can be religious but also an atheist, as non-theistic religions do in fact exist

Like monotheistic and polytheistic religions are not the only religions that exist.

You also have:

Autotheism/egotheism, which is the belief that humans can attain godhood (good example of this is Mormonism)

Deism is an approach that uses scientific evidence to back up religious beliefs, instead of belief in the supernatural

Pantheism is the belief that God and reality are identical

Agnosticism is where I stand, where someone believes that it’s impossible to know if a god actually exists (I stand here because we know Jesus existed as a person but not if he actually could do everything it’s claimed he did).

And that’s only covering a few types of religion. Being antitheist is absolutely NOT the same as being anti-religion. Being antitheist, by the very meaning of the roots in the word, is being anti god/gods.

Antitheism does make me uncomfortable admittedly but if you’re gonna say you’re antitheist and therefore against all religion, check your etymology knowledge.

As for why it makes me uncomfortable personally? Ignoring the fact that I view it as inherently antisemitic and islamophobic, no??? Not all religion is bad???? I’m not saying bad religions don’t exist. I grew up Mormon, of course I don’t think bad religions don’t exist. But religion is not inherently bad. If you’re using that religion to be a bigot or your religion sends people on missions specifically to convert people, yeah, that’s a fucking problem, and it can be fucking dangerous for the missionaries going on the missions (while I don’t believe in Mormon beliefs, The Saratov Approach is one my favorite movies and it shows how dangerous Mormon missions can be). But that completely ignores the fact that not every religion does that.

Religion is a very individualized experience. Even just within Mormonism, not everyone is taught the same thing. There are different types of Mormonism, different types of Christianity, different types of Catholicism. Religion isn’t a monolith, whether it’s a theistic religion or not. The Satanic Temple is considered a nontheistic religious organization.

You can’t be anti-religion while simultaneously being, for example, a Satanist or Nontheistic Quaker. They’re still considered religions. Religion is so vastly individualized that you’d have to criticize the core belief system or people in power of the religion you’re criticizing, not the religion itself. My experience in Mormonism was not the same experience my grandparents have had, and we were going to the exact same church for over a decade.

People who go to a specific church will have individual experiences and personalities, they’re not a fucking monolith. I know many a cishet Christian — even cishet Mormons — who very much so advocate for trans rights and respect trans people, even when they’ve been taught that it’s wrong.

Anyway, long winded rant over, religious atheists exist.

[boreal-sea]

A patriarchy is a culturally constructed hierarchy that is designed to structure society in a way where certain cishet men of the dominant culture (and in many cases the dominant race) in that country are placed in positions of power over everyone else. Patriarchies have developed over many centuries in many different forms across many (but not all) cultures around the world.

A patriarchy does not unilaterally benefit all men under its control. There are extremely strict rules within a patriarchy that defines what acceptable forms of manhood and masculinity looks like. Even the men who do benefit from the patriarchy are still damaged by it, but in ways they have been taught to accept as good.

In the United States, for example, the patriarchy is interwoven with white supremacy and cultural Christianity. These are inescapable facets of American patriarchy. Gay men, black men, disabled men and more, none of them benefit from the full power of the patriarchy.

A marginalized man can attempt to access the benefits of the patriarchy if he conforms as closely as possible to what the patriarchy demands, however, he will never truly access the full benefits. His intersecting identities preordain that he belongs on a lower tier of the hierarchy, and he ought to be thankful for the scraps he gets.

And women can benefit too, if they conform - because the patriarchy has rules for her too, of course. If she is heterosexual, if she stays at home, has Christian babies, and is white, of course. Any deviations knock her down a notch.

And that's the most insidious thing: the patriarchy turns the people it oppresses against each other. It dangles privilege in front of people's faces, both men and women, and says "if you just conform, if you attack your fellow men and women in the name of the patriarchy, we promise you'll rise up".

And that is why feminism is "Us vs the Patriarchy", not "Women vs Men".

Feminism isn't "Women vs Men"

Feminism is "Us vs The Patriarchy"

And "Us" includes everyone.

[stupidcupid06]

I want to talk for a second about what it means to be queer. This is, of course, a highly personal topic that varies from person to person, and I won’t mind if people disagree, but I think its important to talk about what I see as fundamental aspects of these words.

I am asexual. This means that I don’t want to, and probably never will, have sex (consensually). Plenty of people throughout history have been asexual, but I want to focus on the priests - christianity, in its conquest of the world, banned many of its priests and nuns from having any form of sex. As such, they probably attracted a good deal of asexuals, as it was a job that provided an institutional reason for them to not be interested in sex. Their parents, who might have otherwise insisted they have children, have no reason to complain, now.

Here’s the thing, internet. These priests were almost all not queer. Despite being connected with a label that is deeply queer, and despite living out their entire lives asexually, they were almost universally not queer, as I’m defining it.

Because queerness isn’t about what label you use. It’s about the actions you take.

So what does define queerness, then? Queer people are those who challenge the dominant narrative. Those who ask, “Why do we believe that my happy life requires sex, or mairrage, or for me to be the same gender as my birth?” “Why do we demand that everyone live the same way, with the same pronouns, using the same language?” Queerness isn’t about gay, straight, ace, allo, cis, trans, or nb. Queerness is about questioning society. And more specifically, it’s about living in such a way that it makes your questions about society readily apparent.

Now, this is a difficult idea to handle, internet, especially as you all live in a place where anyone’s identity is argument fodder. But I think it’s worth bearing in mind. I’ve met two cishet white men who I would absolutely consider queer, and a few bi people who I wouldn’t. Because those cishet white men were not just allies, they also live their lives outside of the dominant framework of society. They, just by existing, caused people to question society. and what’s accepted and not accepted.

And similarly, the bi people I mentioned all didn’t exist outside of society. They lived firmly within it, only willing to show their bisexuality to trusted people very privately, and never willing to question their society when outside of these small, trusted circles.

(Tangent: I’m not saying that being a social chameleon makes you not queer, because I am both of those things, but rather that you need to use your social maneuverability to spread queer ideas in your society and exist in a queer way even as you move among social groups.) (also none of these people I’m talking about (bi or cishet) have described themselves as queer to me, for the record)

“But wait, cupid!” you might be asking, “Doesn’t this lead to people with queer labels being excluded from queer communities?” I’m glad you asked, rhetorical straw man! I believe in a variety of different queer communities. There should be communities open to anyone which help all people become more queer. There should be specific support communities to help groups of specific labels. There should be cishet-excluding communities which help people who aren’t cishet become more queer. There should be communities of all types for all kinds of different queer people. The key is:

Maintaining compassion for individuals, and helping them become more queer and come to terms with their queerness and survive in an anti-queer society.

Maintaining anger against societal structures, which tell us who we can be and otherizes us and keeps us queer.

Done that? Great! You’re queer!

[transmascrage]

Trans men cannot gain "male privilege" becase there is no "male privilege" to begin with. Men are not privileged over other genders, they often have it worse.

I don't know know why I keep getting anons with such black and white, clear-cut ideas of privilege and oppression. (Well, I do know why, this is 🪱🎣)

I don't know in how many other ways I can explain those two things are complicated.

For example, a white man has more privilege than a white woman. But a white woman has more privilege than a black man.

Does a cishet woman have more privilege than me, a trans gay man? I don't know, but it sure feels that way when she can decide the poor little girls like my 20 year old ass are so stupid and don't know what they want.

And male privilege is real, it just isn't like a passepartout that unlocks everything a man wants, because that man could fall under other axis of oppression, like race or sexuality.

Because the patriarchy exists to regulate men too. Because as oppressive systems that needs to keep its subjects in check, as capitalism and the patriarchy are, everyone except the extremely small group of elites needs to be kept under constant pressure.

And there always needs to be some group the elites can point to as the problem to distract everyone else. Poor people steal and are lazy, trans people corrupt our children, gay people are creeps, women want to have more rights than us...

Now will cishet, white, skinny, abled, christian/atheist, neurotypical, gender conforming and with great social skills, have an easier time? Of course! Now calculate and tell me how many fucking people that amounts to.

Keep I mind how many of those things can change about a person. They can gain weight, lose social skills due to, oh I don't know, a pandemic, convert, come out...

Privilege and oppressions are not badges you get handed out. It's a complex, nuanced thing that needs to be analysed.

And saying "man have it worse than other genders" is clearly bait, and a bad one at that.

[edelegs]

a very unfocused analysis on why edelgard stans are mostly lgbt

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men. Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero. She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated. Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind. And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but. Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route. The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for. This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman. Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment. Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of. Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating. I love this character so much. It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her, because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil, because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

[aleatoryw]

"but if the pro life movement wants you to have a baby, why not support child welfare programs or healthcare for new mothers?" they want all welfare programs ended and every child cared for exclusively by their parents, preferably with a stay at home mother and a working father.

"but if the pro life movement thinks abortion is killing a child, why not support sex education and contraception to prevent abortions?" they want all sex to take place within the confines of a marriage with the express purpose of creating a child.

"oh so they REALLY just want to control women?" well yes and no. what a lot of leftists and liberals don't seem to understand is that the right isn't perfectly sincere about their beliefs, but they're not secretly scheming to make women's lives worse on purpose (not most of them, anyway). the Christian right has a very specific idea of how they think society should work. they believe at one point in the mysticized past, it DID work that way. and they believe with enough laws and cultural outage, they can blunt force pummel society into working that way again.

it doesn't matter that sex ed actually causes teens to wait until later in life to become sexually active, they want teens (and adults!) to be abstinent so abstinence only will be taught. it doesn't matter if child welfare saves lives, they want the nuclear family to reign, so welfare will be eliminated. with gay and trans bans, there is a genuine belief that if they never hear about it, kids won't be gay or trans. if gay partnerships aren't allowed, if being publicly transgender isn't allowed, maybe queer people will become happy, healthy, cishet members of society. the woman pregnant after a one night stand would actually be happier in their eyes if she married the man she slept with, left the work force, and raised the baby. if she says this would make her unhappy, she's wrong.

and to be clear, it doesn't matter that the vision of society they have - with everyone in independent nuclear families, no drug use, no deviant sexual behavior, no non-Christian religious beliefs or practices, no physical limitations that prevent you from a full-time job or cause you to need (gasp) an abortion - does not exist, has never existed, and never can exist. they will use every tool at their disposal to try to bring it about anyway.

i keep seeing those first two suggestions - newborn welfare and contraception - brought up as actual ideas that we could unite both sides to implement, and I need people to understand who we're dealing with here and why they will never support either of those things. we're seeing a pretty rapid rise of right wing extremism so get it through your heads now: fascism isn't logical. it cares about the idea of society, not the actual people who live in it. the "pro-life" movement will never help us.

[lochnessies]

ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. 

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. 

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. 

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

[ifyouseekay468]

what do YOU personally think the teenagers (mcr) lyrics are about my friend ? like i keep thinking about them but im not sure im going somewhere

okay, ive answered this ask twice on mobile and each time my phone deleted it, so here I go, the FINAL version of this post

It's been a hot minute since I listened to teenagers so I decided to do a quick run-through of the lyrics, and while Gerard&Co were raised catholic the lyrics seem to REEK of protestant trauma, so that's what I'll be going off of, but I'm pretty sure the two denominations overlap here. The first verse is about kids in youth group, Christian GirlsTM especially, who are put there to pressure you into being "normal" into "cleaning you up with the lies in the book" (bible), although the pastor is the one giving the teaching THESE are the people who will get you to BELIEVE, who will get you to lie to yourself, who will get you to church camps that on some level utilize brainwashing techniques, and will DESTROY you with the idea that you're "Just one of them, and just need to change everything about yourself and fake your way through every last sermon to be just a part of the gang",

The part about sleeping with a gun and keeping an eye on you is about two things: one, about the idea that God can see all your thoughts, that THINKING about "sin" (ie; fantasizing about sex) is as bad as COMMITTING sin (which is fucked up entirely on its own because fantasy is SO FUCKING DIFFERENT FROM REALITY and that is a CRUCIAL aspect of sexual expression in order to safely engage in sex), AND the fact that these kids will pretend to be your friend, will prod you into doing things with them, into telling them things about yourself all the while making you feel like "part of the group" when really they're just blabbing either to religious leaders, or are ostracizing you and bullying you behind your back.

"The drugs never work"

This in my opinion points to the fact that this song is specifically about being QUEER in a christian culture. It is common for trans people to turn to drugs or psychedelics in an area that has little to no access to gender affirming care, or acceptance because they both change reality and disconnect one from the body that is causing their dysphoria. It can also help burn away the guilt, so to speak.

The methods of keeping you clean is about two things: one, about purity culture, no smoking, no drinking, no friends who drink, no sex, no porn, no masturbation, no impure thoughts. The second, is the way they're able to subtly manipulate you into hiding yourself, into lying to yourself, into forcing yourself to the point of death into being cishet. They're keeping you clean not just from the vices of addiction, but the vices of the flesh, the vice you can't escape because it's a part of you from the day youre born. On a darker note, this could also be referring to c*nversion th*rapy, given this second interpretation of the lyrics

"Ripping your head and aspirations to shreds," Is again about two things in my opinion: both the idea of "losing yourself to God's will" that usually leads one to losing their identity and getting depression and fucked up mental health, and the "shift" that happens at church when you reach a certain age. You know the kind, right? You're four years old, and church is FUN! You get to go to this big room and sing and dance on stage with all your friends! You get to play GAMES! You get to talk to the ~cool teenagers~ who are ~Just like you~ and ~think youre a "cool kid"~, you have ~best friends~ who will be with you like Jesus and the 12! but then, one day, something happens, something SHIFTS. maybe the Sunday school teacher leaves, maybe there's a new family at church, maybe the church changes buildings. Maybe none of that has to do with any of it, all you know is that now things are forever different. Church isn't fun anymore. The kids classes are repetitive, they're bribing you into memorizing bible verses with money, they DONT reward critical thinking or analysis, but they do call you smart, that's because they dont want SMART kids they want OBEDIANT ones. You have no choice but to stat going to REAL church. Suddenly, your best friends are not your best friends. Suddenly they're avoiding you. Suddenly they're lying to you. Suddenly you're too... well they don't know the word yet but "gay" for them...

"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me"

This is what youth group does to you, it isolates you from your entire generation because there are few people your age and a whole lot older than you, and everyone is so much DIFFERENT from you for some reason, but neither of you know why, not yet anyways. This makes you distance yourself from teenagers, because you can't SEE yourself as a teenager, because youre nothing like other teenagers.

"They could care less as long as someone will bleed,"

This is the martyr complex that permeates youth culture like the smell of wine, the problem? these kids love to make a show of themselves and their martyrdom, but they're unwilling to martyr themselves, so what do they do? They throw someone else to the wolves and take the glory. They ostracize and eliminate the unique in the name of preserving their faith. They convert and convert and god help anyone who doesn't want to convert.

"So darken your clothes and strike a violent pose"

This is about deconversion, how the moment you leave the church you never want to see another cross till the day you die, that you want to avoid christians of all costs because you don't want them To drag you back into the pit that devoured you. So you do anything and everything you can to make yourself repulsive to Christians, which actually coincides with your indulgence of mundane activities previously considered as "sin"

"Maybe they'll leave you alone but not me,"

There's a different between a cishet ex Christian and a queer ex christian, and that difference is that a cishet atheist is more likely to be left alone than a queer one, especially a queer one whose whole demeanor screams "Christians be gone," that shit is like... it summons christians faster than free winter jam tickets! They swarm to you frothing at the mouth with holy water waiting to either convert you or exorcise you into purity, depends on if you want them or not. Again, you don't even have to be OPENLY gay, they can TRACK this shit. it's like fucking... INSTINCT or something.

"The boys and girls in the clique, the awful names that they stick, you're never gonna fit in much kid,"

as alluded to above, this lyric is about how, even from a young age, BEFORE youth group, this toxic culture kind of develops. ESPECIALLY around christian girls. They don't have the vulgarity of slurs, but they can make up for it with slang like "tomboy" "nancyboy" "too boyish" "a sissy" "Weird" etc, youre NEVER going to fit in, because the moment that "shift", from fun games and songs to Real Church, occurs, you have a target on your back.

"But if youre troubled and hurt what you got under your shirt will make them pay for the things that they did,"

This is probably a gun. But that's a tad too boring for my taste. If you were raised protestant you KNOW that being an ex protestant, after the craziness of evangelicalism, you would not hesitate to burn down your old church. It could be a secret tattoo, top surgery scars, hell maybe even nipple clamps. Whatever it is, it's symbolic of revenge. I know that anytime I wore my labrys necklace to church I would always hide it under my shirt. I hid books and CDs under there too. Again, it's about revenge, it's about breaking free, gun or no gun, the point is getting out and getting back at them.

and thats pretty much my take on the song. Again, this is not about artist intent this is just what the lyrics reminded ME of personally (as you can see from the over biographical bullshit I wrote), I'm always open to contradicting interpretations though as I always have like 2+ interpretations of a song or book! I never really saw the song through the lens of youth group specifically but when I went over the lyrics again in retrospect it all seemed to really click (pun not intended) well! Thanks for the ask!