#I didn't really talk about religion but like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ceasarslegion · 3 days

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wait, now im really interested in the silica gel drama. how did hlrp sex ed lead to eating a gel packet?

This is going to require a novel's length of context.

To begin, I want to underline that this is not meant to be a callout post, and I will not be providing any identifying traits that could be used to single this person out. The most you will get out of that are she/her pronouns, and her age at the time this happened, which was years ago, and I will not specify what year. I genuinely do hope she got the help she needed after this, because LORD knows she needs it and didn't find it at home. This is also not meant to be a character assassination, nor should anybody who reads this post consider it to be a takedown of any sort, and if you try to find this person through me or any of our mutual friends, you will not be met with kind words. The only thing this is meant to be is a wild-ass story of some of the most off the wall experiences I personally had with this person from my specific side of the story, with a few no-username screenshots attached to prove I am not bullshitting you.

With that in mind, let's get started. This is going to be very long, so I'm throwing in a read more

Back when I was in uni, I joined a growing group of Half Life roleplay blogs. The whole idea of our group was that we each chose a character, canon or OC, and we would blog as if the pre-Black Mesa incident moment in the timeline was a workplace comedy a la The Office or Superstore. I played Barney, because I was already working night shift security at this point and thought it would be funny. Plus, it gave me something to do that wasn't staring at CCTV feeds all night tossing a ball against the wall. We played off of each other very well, yes-anding our way through funny little situations and plotlines we put together. At one point we had roleplayed enough that one of the scientist rpers created a discord server for us to talk as the actual people we are instead of through characters.

Great idea at the time. None of us saw the "Pandora's box" label on the tin before we opened it. Would I still join it if I knew what was about to transpire? Yes, because I met my boyfriend and many genuinely lovely friends through it. Would I hesitate for a second first, though, as the events that are about to transpire flashed before my eyes? Oh, abso-fucking-lutely.

We started off as many fandom servers do: chill for the most part, very loud minority of a few assholes who ruined it for the rest of us, but unlike most fandom servers, we actually won and it ended in them getting banned and the server itself surviving to this day. But the other two lunatics are not who you came here for. You want the christian lunatic.

Let's give her a nickname to make this easier. I have the Sylveon build a bear on my PC desk. Let's call her Syl.

Syl was not there for Half Life, she was there for Portal. She LOVED Portal, Half Life was just part of the same universe for her. Portal wasn't just a game for her, it was her entire personality. Which I didn't see much of an issue with at the time, because she said she was 15. Whatever, I thought; she'll learn to control her emotional attachment to things as she gets older. Syl also said that she was christian. I am a flaming atheist who doesn't even believe in the concept of a soul in comparison and I am NOT the biggest fan of christianity as an institution to put it mildly, but I'm not gonna like, be a dick to you for your personal religion if you are not a dick about my beliefs, so I didn't think much of it at the time.

It quickly became apparent that Syl looked up to me more than any of the other adults in the group the more I would talk about my life growing up as a third culture kid and moving out on my own at 19, working 2 jobs and going to a good university. She would ask me a lot about growing up and uni and moving out and yes, sex ed, and it became even more apparent that she didn't get any actual guidance from her parents or pastors or ANYBODY beyond bible studies and homeschooling, so I kinda stumbled into a mentorship role in her life. I wasn't cold, but I was aware of the age and maturity difference between us and established the appropriate boundaries with her and made it very clear that I am an internet friend, not an irl friend or an educator, but if no one else was going to give her information that wasn't actively harmful then fuck, I guess SOMEONE had to do it. I could not in good conscience watch some kid go through life with harmful inaccuracies about the world and basic human biology when I could have done something about it, y'know?

And the more things I taught her about the real world and how things actually work rather than how her republican bible-thumping rural town said they did, the more I realized she was born into a full-blown cult under the guise of a christian congregation. Oh goody, I had my work cut out for me. I will not get into the details of how messed up this group was because it will be a dead giveaway of where she lives and potentially who she is, but let's just say that one time I said that I appreciated the gesture of praying for me during a stressful week I was having but it didn't really do anything for my mental health because I was an atheist, and she sent me a bunch of bible verses begging me to start believing and said "I just don't want you to go to hell because you're so nice :((" EXCUSE ME??? Another time she said that death was only sad for non-christians because their loved ones were in hell and that proper christians deaths were a good thing because they were in heaven now. Hi, that's the most insensitive death cult shit I've ever heard in my goddamn life.

Okay, set up is done. All of these details will tie in like the world's worst reboot of Pulp Fiction, I prommy.

After a good long while learning about the world from me (which like... a uni kid working night shift security is not exactly an academic source but we take what we can get) and exposure to viewpoints outside of her in-group, Syl began that very painful journey of realizing that what the cult taught you was a lie. Except that she just wasn't grasping that unlearning things was an active process. She started to flip to the opposite side very quickly, but kept all the fundamental brainwashing of the cult that raised her. The concepts were all the same, just slapped a different label on them. This created a noticeable pull between two sides of the same personality: the cult personality, and the person beyond the cult who wanted to break free. Mix that with how fucking 15 years old every 15 year old is, and you have a LETHAL concoction just waiting to blow up at the first sign of a spark.

Remember how I said that Portal was her whole personality? Syl decided that she wanted to be a scientist, and go into an ivy league program like I was in (I was in a SOCIAL science, but sure). Problem was, she didn't have the grades or the ambition, really. I had told her that I still got into an ivy league when I failed math in high school, and she seemed to completely miss the part where I said that I also joined every extra-curricular, then worked for 2 gap years for recognized institutions, and wrote an essay about why my math grade is not relevant to my program. I did it with one bad grade, so she was justified in basically just slacking off and then excusing it with "but its haaarrrdd" when we'd tell her she needs to put the fucking work in NOW if that's what she wants to do.

It quickly derailed from here. Not only was she going to be a scientist, she was going to be like Cave Johnson. And she was going to... replace her body with robot parts so she could be like glados. I don't... think she actually knew what science is, because she would just publically fantasize about running unethical experiments on people in the name of "science," and talk about how one day she wants to basically establish aperture labs for real. All of us who were there kind of agree that we don't think she was joking based on what we knew about her and the cadence of her tone. Here's something she said at the time to give you an idea of what direction she was nosediving in:

This was after a session with her therapist where said therapist said that she definitely has some kind of personality disorder, after which she was weirdly proud of having one and treated it like a badge of honour.

Syl then made a separate group chat for all the best friends she made on the server. There was her, me, @false-pyre, and @imtheaura. She titled it "My Family," despite the fact that we were all adults and she was 15 and she only knew us over a discord half life server where one person in it stepped up to somewhat equip her for real life outside of a cult. Regardless though that GC was more the vibe of a group of friends sharing memes and chatting about the day than the wider server was at the time. The others began to also take on a sort of mentorship role towards her as well, because that's kind of inevitable when you get someone talking about teenager problems in a room full of adults who all made the same mistakes before in their own lives. Well, minus the cult.

And remember how I said that she didn't unlearn any of the cult shit? Well, there was a lot of proselytizing. She decided she wasn't christian for a spell, but still wanted us and everyone to know that jesus was the lord and savior and we had to accept him or we'd burn in hell. Usually said after we'd make some joke about satan being daddy or declaring ourselves god instead, because that is just the type of humor the others and i have with each other. She took it so personally whenever one of us would go "oh my god" "you called?" it was fucking annoying. I lost count of the amount of lectures she gave us, all of which I'd shut down and tell her to get a grip about because I have a big stupid mouth.

The others and I also like to talk about evolution, and speculate about where we're going from here. My fucking god, did she not like that. She bit our heads off about how evolution isn't real and god made everyone as we are and there's no scientific evidence or whatever the hell. Like yeah good luck getting into STEM with that mindset. Whenever we pointed out that she was objectively wrong about that, she'd have a big stupid meltdown about how much we're slandering god and how jesus died for us and we're spitting in his face or whatever. He should spit in MY face inste-*GUNSHOT*

Eventually, we were making some actual progress with her. She was still one fry short of a happy meal and going off about how much she wanted to put living subjects in test tubes in between knocking on our doors and reciting Hello from the Book of Mormon musical, but we were getting somewhere. And then she went back to in person school, and her favourite teacher got fired.

The schoolboard did not say why she got fired, but we all had our suspicions that it was because she openly supported queer rights in a cult town. She was coincidentally retired shortly after making a declaration that queer people are still welcome in god's kingdom. This teacher was the first in person adult Syl had for guidance, so that incident shook her to her core, and she fell right back into the extremism. Hook, line, and sinker, even more extreme than before.

She was WEIRD that week, man. Suddenly everything was about how great god was, how amazing jesus was. Suddenly she understood why her cult member parents "just wanted to protect her" from gay characters on disney+ originals. Suddenly no one could say "jesus christ lol" around her or she'd have a fit. I said "I hate cycle counts lmao i wanna kms" because my then-job (I had graduated at this point) made me do inventory management spontaneously and wouldn't let me go home until I had counted every product in the store, and she bit my head off accusing me of turning suicide into a joke.

It was that incident that made us tell her to knock it off already, that we understood it was a hard week for her and she was in a period of grief, but that is no excuse for how she had been acting towards everyone around her that wasnt christian, and that she was actively relapsing. I'll let the exchange speak for itself:

So uh. After years of helping Syl through this she goes and pulls this bullshit. And then has the fucking AUDACITY to act like nothing ever happened in the wider server. I am genuinely gobsmacked by the balls on her to act like it was all sunshine and rainbows in the wider server after sending this and immediately leaving the same GC SHE made and titled "My Family" just because we told her to stop acting like a goddamn Jonestown citizen after all the work we'd put in to get her out of that mentality at this point.

So I dragged her up in front of everyone and essentially said "no, nuh uh, you don't get to say that shit to the people who have lost sleep and asked for nothing in return trying to help you escape a cult over the last 2 years and then act like we're all buddy buddy to everybody else. You don't get to be that arrogant and self-righteous without any consequences. I don't give a fuck how young you are, you DON'T treat the people who have helped you this much like that, you selfish little shit. How dare you treat us like this after all we've done for you over the years."

Unfortunately, no one involved had surviving screenshots of this, but they can back me up on it if they so choose. And oh boy, DID she face the consequences of her own actions. The whole server basically turned their heads and went "what the FUCK is wrong with you, Syl??" and asked her to at least like, apologize. She proceeded to double down with the added audacity of "you guys taught me how to establish healthy boundaries, that's all I'm doing right now :(( oh woe is me :(((" like WOW, okay. Someone's really going for the persecution complex.

Here's her last goodbye to us all before the mass block fest occured:

Oh, boohoo. You're so hard done by. You spat in the faces of everyone who stayed up all night multiple times helping you through crises and spent the last 2 years teaching you about how the world really worked and then they asked you to apologize after you tried to escape accountability. You truly are god's strongest soldier, the most persecuted minority in the world. Let me play you an ode to how righteous and holy you are and how this was the most important hill to sacrifice all your outsider friendships on on the world's smallest violin.

Syl then went on to post on her roleplay blog that she "was banned because I spoke up for what was right, and they didn't like that" before deleting it. Truly no one has suffered as much as you.

Anyway, the day after that went down, I called in from work, bought this book, and read the whole thing purely out of spite:

It was greatly therapeutic. After that incident, I vowed to never sanitize my own atheistic beliefs for the benefit of others again. If they don't like them, they don't have to talk to me. But I am not changing them for other people or keeping them quiet just to spare your feelings anymore, I have as much a right to my beliefs as anyone else does, including the world's most persecuted minority here.

And well, the silica gel incident?

There was one incident, during the height of Syl's "I am the irl cave johnson and only want to get into STEM to conduct unethical experiments on people. follow jesus" era, the rest of us were joking about how silica gel packets are the ultimate forbidden snack, and said "haha would eating it make you see shrimp colours" knowing full well it can kill you.

Syl proceeded to actually eat a silica gel packet and then send in "it has a sandy texture and tastes bad" prompting the rest of us to go "WE WERE FUCKING JOKING FIND YOUR POISON CONTROL HOTLINE RIGHT NOW"

And because i didnt get this done until now, I'll tag everyone who said they wanted to read this or expressed interest: @captainjonnitkessler @formydarlingtoread @cra-zwizard @chasingnightrainbows

#ramblings #what do i even tag this

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jewish-vents · 1 day

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I can't with this anymore uhhhhhhggggg

"AITAH for creating a private doc to keep notes on what my racist teacher said"

I have this teacher who said a lot of shit (eg. "Ashkenazi people were Europeans forcefully converted by invading Jews", "the Torah mentions Jesus and Mohammed", "Judaism started in Ethiopia because it's the oldest religion and therefore must come from where all people do", "getting angry at Houthis for attacking Israel is like getting angry at a l*nched man for struggling on the noose", etc.). No one cared that she said these things besides a boy she kept deadnaming, a girl who she used as an example talking about slave r*pe, and a kid who she humiliated in front of the class a few times.

When I reported this shit to the dean he was concerned as fuck and 100000% on my side because he's really cool. And to report the stuff, I'd been using a private google doc to keep track of what she'd said. The principal though was overly optimistic and decided instead of talking to the teacher in private, she would hold a class discussion! Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy. I was less than pleased by this, and at the discussion most people took her side. I eventually decided to share the doc with the other three kids so I could get better firsthand accounts.

But then the doc started spreading.

One of the other kids shared it with this boy who she used to mock and throw under the bus, and he shared it with his friend. Who shared it with another friend. Things went like whisper-down-the-lane until someone, I don't know WHO, got a hold of it and shared it to the whole. Fucking. Class. Including the teacher. People started claiming the doc was Islamophobic and didn't elaborate why, and saying we were only "attacking" the teacher because she was Muslim. Or that we only reported this stuff to get drama and attention. The principal herself even said that this was happening because we have varying cultures, which is BS because I have plenty of Muslim friends who have never said ANY of the shit this lady has. That is waaaayyyy more Islamophobic of a statement and I felt offended on my friends' behalf with that one.

I feel bad for the teacher for seeing that doc, but then again, I myself am suffering because someone leaked all my personal opinions to the class. I'm a super conflict avoidant person because I have severe ADHD and OCD and mild autism (ASD1, to be specific), and I hate being involved. I want to sympathize for her. I really do. But when asked to apologize for what she said, she started defending herself and saying we were all closed-minded for not thinking what we previously thought was wrong. My mom wants to take me out of the class to do an independent study project so I can pass the required course without being in that classroom. Because nothing gets in the way of Jewish parents. Especially during Passover.

My classmates are saying she's a sweet lady and it was wrong of us to get upset at her, so are we the bad guys and/or am I overreacting to this scenario.

Anon I'm going to be very honest here. You are absolutely NTA here. And you're not overreacting at all. Your teacher is being very offensive, not to mention historically wrong.

And the doc? If she didn't want to have her offensive opinions called out in front of everyone, maybe she should stop being offensive.

I'm going to say, personally if she were my teacher the doc would be the least of her problems. She would not like me very much.

I hope you're safe tho, you and the other students she's hurt. You don't deserve to be treated like this

-🐺

#jewish vents #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism

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bookreviewcoffee · 14 hours

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Dune Frank Herbert

“Dune" is, without exaggeration, an era, a magnitude in literature that is difficult to overestimate. A science fiction saga, with elements of the novel of chronicles and adulthood, space opera and dystopia, metaphorical narrative full of philosophy and mysticism.

The first trilogy of the classic cycle is full of the life and life of a free people, the planetary ecosystem including the giant worms, echoes of courtly strife, the structure of organizations equally ruling the Known Universe but also dependent on the spice that is produced only on Arrakis.

High and intense text full of concentrated substrate based on religion, politics, ecology, legal and cultural issues, immediate survival, while learning about the future.

The plot is fascinating, like standing in the center of a huge temple complex in Kornak, where the desert wind brings the essence of plans within plans.

Compared to the TV series and screen adaptations, the book predetermines the accents in relation to the characters, making them full and vivid, clear in plot twists, meeting the author's intent and the logic of behavior under given conditionsThe story itself I really liked, probably partly because I generally love fiction and somehow have not read something interesting and non-anal of this genre for a long time. A lot of fiction books are based on Christianity, and this is the first book in my memory that is based on Islam.

I also like the way Frank Herbert describes the characters' looks - almost without details, leaving room for imagination. The story is not long, lively enough and colorful enough, and I have experienced this forgotten feeling again and again, when I want to return to the book to find out what is going on.One of the main themes is the opposition between the houses of Atreides and Harkonnen. In these quotes, a clear example of the difference between the houses: the Atreides pay love for loyalty, while the Harkonnens gain submission through hatred. 'How much he talks! - Hawat thought. - This is not Duke Leto, who could speak to me with a wave of the hand, a movement of the eyebrow. What a carcass! The author (maybe the translation) shows Vladimir Harkonnen as a huge carcass, which has accumulated large reserves of precious water. This is the main peculiarity of the desert Arrakis. Arrakis. A desert planet, also known as Dune. There, under the scorching sun, there float huge worms on the sand, from which it is impossible to hide. There’s a free folk out there - Fremen with blue-tinted eyes that cover even squirrels. And, most importantly, Arrakis - the only place where the spice is extracted. Spice or melange - the most important wealth in the universe. If water is commonplace on Kaladan... here, in the desert conditions, its value is high. To show your respect, love, loyalty, you must share water. Whether it's spitting or mourning the dead. One of my favorite characters is the planetologist Kynes, who dreamed of turning the desert into an oasis. His father managed to plant and implement this idea among the Freemen, and his son continued his work ... Freemen are a hardened people of the desert with their own philosophy and way of life...they were told that the work of greening Arrakis is labor-intensive and the results can be fully appreciated only by the eighth generation. Not only that, but the Freemen and the Kynes did not abandon it, but passed it on from generation to generation. Valuable and very much appreciated. Chani is a great representative of the Freemen. Honestly, I didn't really understand why Jessica didn't think she was a good match for her son, even though she thought she was a worthy representative of the Bine Gesaerit school. Chani is wise, intelligent and loving to Paul. She is such a reliable and strong support for him.In general, the novel is a very interesting story, competently combining social problems, political peripetias, religious ascents, life philosophy, many multi-layered mysteries, and I think, even some meditation.And all this cornucopia is doused in beautiful, smooth, syllable with detailed, distinctive style descriptions that include perfectly developed characters. I wholeheartedly recommend the novel, I don't know if I'll be able to experience all six books, but I'm now serious about part two. For anyone interested, I recommend that you be patient and take your time with this story, getting to know it at your own pace.

#aesthetic #light academia #romantic academia #academia aesthetic #chaotic academia #classic academia #dark academia #dead poets society #book review #donna tartt #dune movie #dune #dune books #reading #books #book history #fantasy

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canisalbus · 2 months

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Imagine if Machete was Muslim instead of Catholic. His name would be something like Saif سيف, and Vasco would probably be something like Dhahabi ذَهَبِيّ

#I don't know Arabic so I can't weigh in that much but if you say so!#it seems like these mean “sword” and “golden” respectively that's neat #Machete wouldn't be able to cling to his Catholic guilt in that case #I don't think Islam has the same concept of original sin that Christianity does #I'm simplifying but it's a belief that humans are born with an innate tendency for evil sinning is part of our nature #and staying on the positive and in God's good graces requires a lot of repentance which can lead to excess guilt and shame #I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that this idea of a manufacturing error is a very Christian thing #sorry I know you didn't sign up to hear me try to talk about big theology things and I don't want to make it weird #but I find this stuff really interesting I unironically like to read and think about how religions work #and how they shape things they come in contact with #in Machete's case in particular his troubled relationship with God and his career choice are big parts of his character #and why he turned the way he did and thinks the way he does you know #answered #kachavashka #Dhahabi is such a regal sounding name #I'd steal that in a heartbeat if I didn't already have one extremely gold-coded character

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sisterdivinium · 5 months

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You know, for a show with so many female characters that so many of us love given how they all get time in the spotlight one way or another and they fill that time up rather wonderfully since they are deeper and more developed than what we're used to seeing in general media, it is peculiar (to say the least) to see so few "alternative" ships to the main one.

I'm not saying the canon ship doesn't deserve its attention -- I'm wondering instead why the canon ship and it alone seem to guide the WN fans who just so happen to enjoy writing/reading fic or fanart or whatever.

You'd think all these cool women would inspire more ships or combinations thereof, but those of us who aren't invested in avatrice just... Float along, around one another, ignored (and, yes, mostly undisturbed too; being unpopular does have its advantages and that includes a lot less weirdos leaving you strange or awkward messages -- it does not, however, shield us from people flooding our goddamn tags on AO3 with fic that has nothing to do with our little ships and I do wish such negligence of the pairing itself meant we didn't have to deal with this spam...)

I am also not saying that fandom activity should be based solely on shipping (and recently someone on Reddit was rather confused by the fact that a lot of it is, which is quite an interesting topic to discuss in itself -- after all, there is more to fan creativity than shippy fic... Or there used to be), merely that, here, it appears that a canon relationship can outshine interest in the other, non-canon ones. It's already there and it was doubtless well-done by the show, so it's natural that it should claim people's attention, sure. It's just that being canon was never the parameter for whether people were interested in these or those two (or more) characters maybe being involved and trying to explore what that could mean through fanwork.

There has always been a complaint haunting fandom spaces concerning the minuscule amounts of f/f fic, art, discussion, w/e based on how few (interesting or sympathetic or relatable) female characters there are in media at large. So what I'm curious about is why fan creations made around WN -- a show that finally gives us a whole cast of female characters that are what we have been craving for decades -- don't also reflect its diversity.

There are alternative ships (I'm here, all happy in my tiny Doctor Superion bubble, and I know there are Camila/Lilith, Ava/Lilith, Mary/Shannon, Mary/Lilith shippers out there, so a warm hello to you if you're reading this), but go on AO3 and compare the numbers of things tagged with these proper pairings to the grand total of WN stories. Better (or worse) still, do so with the "otp: true" trick or simply by excluding avatrice from the search to see how many are left.

It's... A considerable difference. And a mystery, at least to me.

#tagging this as #warrior nun #simply because i'd like to talk about this and maybe some of you have thoughts or theories about it #i just ask you engage in good faith if you do. i'm not pointing fingers at avatrice people i think they're fine and dandy #i'm just -- to reiterate -- surprised at how little interest there is in other ships when the potential is all there #(is it because they're nuns? that never stopped avatrice so why should it stop others...)#(besides lilith is hardly still a nun after s2. bea left. mary didn't really take vows did she? you really thought i was a nun she says...)#meta fandom talk i guess #then again about the nun thing... i have noticed a lot of people just go for aus. i can't recall ever being in a fandom with SO many aus #is the religious aspect an issue by any chance? i also recall someone commenting on how little a part religion played in these aus #curious. very curious.#i imagine some of you are wondering why i care when i don't even read fic but --#-- to quote jillian salvius herself i am a curious person and well you are a curiosity lol

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bijoumikhawal · 1 year

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I'm thinking again about how much it annoys me when fics make Parmak a follower of the Oralian Way and Garak a scornful atheist when the material they draw on for that characterization portrays Garak as religious and as this being apart of his heritage- and connects Parmak to the Oralian Way in no way whatsoever. Aside from my general feelings about Hebitians and class in Cardassian society it makes my eye twitch because it almost feels like its implying they're like this because of their respective moralities and implying religious people are inherently good and kind and atheists are... whatever you want to call Garak... is pretty fucked.

#Cipher talk #Like with Garak. Okay he's done murder and torture and he's a liar and we get to know him while he's being punished for crimes #You know what a lot of guys who get punished for crimes do during their punishment? TURN TO RELIGION TO UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES AND OTHERS #it's like. To me. That's almost a trope. A murder goes to jail and realizing the wrongs he's done seeks out faith (usually Christianity #Or Islam) to reorient his morality and seek out a path to being a better human being AND come to terms with his punishment #It's not weird for a guy like Garak to be religious or turn to religion generally speaking #(Completely outside of ASIT and Andy's headcanons)#It's also not weird for a guy like Garak to be an atheist either and I've read one or two fics where Garak is atheist that I didn't have #Trepidations about his characterization #I think a fic exploring Garak as both being intimately connected to Hebitian identity and an atheist could be really interesting!#Will I write it? No because atheism is a foreign country to me. Even ethnoreligious atheism.#I don't understand the mindset of an atheist. I can understand being mad at g-d or not caring about wether or not g-d exists.#But I believe in G-d and could not tell you why I do which means I don't understand why someone wouldn't. I can only tell you it's not my #Business why someone doesn't believe in g-d and that it doesn't make them a bad person

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inthecarpets · 4 months

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I'm not sure if i have anyone to ask so i got a question regarding Good Omens season 2 here

i'm asking pretty much:

Does the second season of Good Omens get better?

Like: i watched the first episode and felt disappointed given how well written and throughrough the first season was. And the second season in the very first episode felt as if it was lacking.

Dad, who i was watching it with, thought it wasn't good. And he's one of those people who can actually tell if a production is well done, bad or just mid. (and He thought the first season was good and enjoyed it even tho he dislikes when authors play around religions in fiction as he finds it mocking toward religions.)

Maybe it was a mistake to re/watch the first season hours before watching the second one, but honestly i'm unsure whether i should watch it further, i might simply skip it? In this case for me the fandom fun is not important, i just want it to be actually good and as thought through as the first season, and i fear it is not the case.

#i cannot let conservative dad sit through a queering of a mid tv show #and 'representation time uwuuuwu!!'#'fandom/shipping pandering uwuuwuwu'#like idk. it's something i fear #sibling said second season mcs are gay and dad did not react to that at all #but if it's only mid but queer then i'd rather not watch further with him at all #carpet talks #Good Omens 2 #Good Omens second season #Good omens opinions #Good Omens criticism #also like: One thing is Crowley in the first season crying out that he didn't really want to fall. but if in second season they are going #to make religion look bad then my dad is going to be displeased #so it'd be another reason not to watch #(someone reading this might think my dad only thinks like that about christian stuff and i'm just going to cut it short: siblings offered #him watching a mockery movie on some small country and culture and he wasn't pleased either. :/ He said he really dislikes mocking of any #religion country or culture within popculture

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ennieasys · 15 days

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when someone that you considered a friend (who you shared a lot of personal and traumatic experiences with) says such fatphobic and transphobic bullshit you are genuinely speechless

#Like I don't even know how to act around him anymore #Like I knew that the religion some of our system in is wasn't queer-friendly but damn #He literally said shit about stealing testosterone from trans clinics bc “he needs it more”#Like what the fuck #Like that shit keeps people alive motherfucker #I genuinely don't know what to do now bc like... Idk #goddamn #Fuck #transphobes #fuck homophobia #homophobia #fuck transphobes #This is someone who knew we were a system y'all #Like we didn't really talk to him as individuals but that fucking sucks #I genuinely thought some of these people were good people #But fuck them honestly

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quatregats · 5 months

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Yes my finals are going great! (<- has been obsessing over Solomon a Gaenor for the past 48 hours and has been rendered completely incapacitated by it)

#there are no good gifs of it otherwise i would add it to my cool little tumblr sticker collections #might make a post on my main idk #i don't even know why it's making me this insane like i'm not even sure what there was to be insane about #like it's literally giving romeo and juliet but make it even more depressing which i feel like is not usually my thing #but it was so interesting!!!!!!!! and like very nuanced in talking about religion and complicated relationships to it #this may have been helped by i watched the whole thing in welsh first and understood about 20% of the words on a good stretch #and so was really mostly watching the imaginary movie made up in my head based on images and snippets of dialogue #but also this morning i did a side-by-side with the english version and it was very interesting because it's literally two different takes #and so you can see the actors acting differently and the difference the language change brings out in their dynamic...very interesting stuf #anyways i've now written almost 2000 words of What If Solomon Didn't Die #because i think it would be really interesting to make them work out their life together and how they'd find community and such #idk man they're making me so insane i don't think i've ever been this insane about a cishet couple in media before :')#i need to stop thinking about them. i have like three and a half papers to write #perce rambles

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gxlden-angels · 1 year

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Throughout all of this, I never thought about the potential for my family members to also deconstruct/leave fundamentalist christianity, even if they remained a more progressive christian in the end

#I came out to my dad this weekend and he took it like #scarily well #specifically as trans. I'm still figuring out sexuality and also he doesn't need to know all that lol #this man used to punish me for *not* wanting to spend his money on clothes and hair styling #he pulled up his bible app on his ipad and told me my deceased mother would be disappointed when I tried to come out nearly 10 years ago #and we didn't really talk about it after that until now #He's still a christian but he hasn't gone to our church since the pandemic started since we moved houses #then I left for college #so he didn't really have a reason to travel 45 mins to keep going to that specific church #his father still does though and is as extreme as he always was #if not more since he sees more/is getting sick so he's holding onto religion more #We lived with his father for a few years and I think we both started to see how extreme that life was there #cause that's also where I started deconstructing #I don't think he's ever going to leave christianity completely like I did #and I'm willing to pretend to be one for him #but he's significantly calmer now #and said he honestly just wants me to be able to survive and be happy even after he's gone #he even knew when pride month was and helps decorate at work #though that's not really by choice since it's a part of his job #but yea I came out to him as trans and he's okay with it. he just wants me to be happy. we aren't gonna tell his father tho #or his mother for that matter though she has the gentler calm nature that my dad inherited #it's been a journey seeing him reconcile with that from my end since it was usually something with me that made him rethink things #he's at a point where he cares much more about seeing me happy than being 100% perfect for Jesus. He doesn't need to be perfect either #I'm still processing all of it ngl. He even accepted the little resource bag I made for him #n e ways thanks for reading my little ramble about coming out and seeing my dad leave fundamentalism for a gentler christianity #that makes both of us happier both now and in the long run #I never really considered the possibility of that happening #next step: coming out to my mom's side of the family. tho I might just let them figure it out like the rest of my dad's side

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alullinchaos · 7 months

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i don't believe there's a greater power out there because I've seen miracles. I believe there's one out there because I've experienced too many tragedies and too much misfortune in my short life for someone to not be out there skewing the odds.

#alic lore #i don't generally like talking about my religion but this is kinda how i feel lol #im not a christian so let's just get that out of the way #also editing to add i didn't post this to garner pity or even really sympathy #if i wanted that i would've specified what i'm referring to

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birdmenmanga · 2 years

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it's sooooo funny because like. bikke's senpai is obviously supposed to be a homage to the heart of thomas as well. and it hits the superficial points really well— on the surface it resembles the heart of thomas much more than birdmen does. visually the character designs are much more similar and the whole "someone resembling protagonist's dead beloved" thing you know. but the thing is. bikke kind of missed the point of the heart of thomas imo. like they didn't seem to understand the significance that religion played in the story, and so in their contemporary response, they were missing a good 40% of the meaning of the original.

you can kind of see where they were coming from. in senpai, while the plot structure is largely the same as in the heart of thomas, there are a couple of notable differences: the eponymous senpai is killed in a car accident, whereas the eponymous thomas commits suicide, instead. and I can understand that from the sentiment of "ohhh burying your gays is problematic etc. etc." and consequently removing that in your contemporary adaptation of the tale. But I think the resulting work just feels kind of sanitized because of the removal— the element of tragedy through death is now just a chance happening, instead of a real consequence of a real choice. This story is now happening in the uncanny valley replica of the real world where all those romcom hallmark movies happen.

I like what tanabe did instead (to nobody's surprise I'm soooo impartial about birdmen)— she pushes suicide out of the limelight, but keeps it there at the edges to haunt the story. It avoids the trap of sensationalizing suicide, but it keeps the story grounded. The world the characters are living in becomes more complex. More tangible.

I think what makes the suicides in Birdmen and The Heart of Thomas work is the fact that they're a conduit for something more than just a suicide. In this post I wax poetic about how the suicide puts things into perspective and shows just how close to choosing death Karasuma might be, in order to give his choice to live meaning. In the Heart of Thomas, Thomas's suicide is his way of condemning himself to hell, in order to give Juli his wings, so he might ascend to heaven in Thomas's stead. I suspect Bikke couldn't work out a way to give suicide meaning in their work, and opted to remove it altogether.

Another thing that Bikke changed in Senpai was that they chose to make the nature of Misumi (Thomas parallel) and Kou (Juli parallel)'s very explicit. (In the sense of it being clearly defined, not in the sense of being sexually explicit.) They were dating. And then they broke up, and on the same day Misumi got into a car accident.

Meanwhile BIRDMEN and The Heart of Thomas remain extremely vague about the nature of Takayama/Thomas's relationship to Karasuma/Juli. Once again I find myself circling back to what Kitsoa said about agape, about the love of God for man and vice versa. I find it deeply applicable to both pairs of characters, but even more so than that, I think the opening to The Heart of Thomas sums what I'm trying to say up perfectly.

The way its described as asexual and inexplicable REALLY screams queer to me. The way it refuses to put a firm label on Thomas's feelings, the way nothing is clean cut, the way relationships and feelings are messy the way they are in real life... I really genuinely believe that this is one of Heart of Thomas's and BIRDMEN's greatest strengths. The relationship between the protagonist and deuteragonist is whatever the reader interprets it to be. There are no labels. Only what is there.

This, of course, extends to the endings for all three series. I'm sure the ending of Heart of Thomas ground a lot of gears in how inconclusive it felt. And of course it would feel inconclusive, if you were viewing it as a romance. Juli doesn't end up with Eric. He becomes a priest, instead. It is not a shortcoming; in fact I would argue that there's no other way for the story to end, but I'm sure it felt like a shortcoming to Bikke; in Senpai, the story concludes with Kou getting together with Saki. Despite the conflicts, they are able to sort out their issues and start dating. And yet for Karasuma and Takayama, we are only really left with Karasuma's platonic confession in ch. 77, followed by Takayama dropping a crab off at Karasuma's place, which is an equally or even more ambiguous ending than Heart of Thomas's.

and see that's where bikke really missed. the heart of thomas was NOT about getting Juli together with Eric!! It was about Juli's internal conflict with himself!! It's about absolving Juli of his sin!! About how he deserves love despite the fact he so deeply believes he cannot be saved!!!!!! and in a similar way, birdmen isn't about karasuma getting together with takayama either. it's not!! it's about finding and defending your community!! anyways this isn't a serious meta essay but I wrote it and I suppose I'll add it to my meta masterpost anyways lol

#just thinking thoughts...#birdmen #thomas no shinzou #the heart of thomas #senpai (bikke)#I didn't talk about the significance of religion in bm and the heart of thomas...#oh well...#sorry if this seems overly critical of senpai #but like. scott mccloud really wasn't kidding about the the shiny apple with a hollow core #tanabe made a pear instead of an apple. and it worked.

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