Hello! I'm Julie from Cariona and I just want to ask if you're interested in doing ads/promotions here on Tumblr? If yes, how much do you charge per reblog?
For proof of legitimate promotions, you can check @catchymemes, @sulfatto, @isnt, and many others.
Website for reference: http://cariona.com
Over 200 five star Facebook reviews: https://www.facebook.com/carionaproducts/reviews
Please feel free to respond here or reach out to us on
[email protected] for more details! Thank you once again and have a great week!
absolutely fascinating that you decided to send this as an ask, when you also DM'd me. unfortunately, you may realize that this was a mistake - you see, asks can be responded to publicly.
so, allow me to respond:
hi, Julie! I'd never heard about Cariona before, so I decided to go poking around, and I learned something!
well, I learned a few things, actually. from your site, Cariona seems to be a small business that sells reusable menstrual products. and while I will never advertise a product that I haven't used, there's nothing wrong with wanting people to promote your company.
I have, however, found a few problems.
the first thing I found was this post by @crafiet from May 12th of last year, saying that shortly after making a purchase on your website, her debit card info was leaked, and used to make facebook ad purchases.
it seems that at least back then, your payment system was insecure. I'm really hoping you've fixed that, because. yikes.
and when I messaged crafiet to ask if it was okay if I linked to her post, she also mentioned that even though your website says you ship from Georgia, her package came shipped from China, and took a long time to arrive.
that's pretty sketchy.
the next thing I found was some folks talking about receiving cards with their orders that have a QR code on them with the words "Scan For God's Message To You", and that on the other side, have this bible verse:
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
Psalm 63:1
fun fact! that's from the King James Version (which I have a lot of thoughts about, but I'm not going to get into that right now).
additional fun fact! that particular psalm is from that time David fled to the wilderness because Jonathan's dad was trying to kill him.
and that's why I have to talk about the verses that follow it:
(ID in alt text; link to the NIV version if you want it)
so...are we like 100% sure it's god that David is thinking about here? because...I mean...that's pretty horny, right? and all of this while on the run from his boyfriend's dad?
I'm not saying anything, but like...¯\_(ツ)_/¯
it's a weird verse to choose for this, that's all.
anyway, back to you, Cariona: after seeing people talking about the bible verse cards, I decided to poke around your website more, and allll the way at the bottom of it, finally found your "About Us" page, which ends with this:
...look. there's nothing inherently wrong with being christian. but to say "we do not wish to impose any beliefs on our customers", and to then put bible verse cards in people's orders? that's sneaky, and I don't like it.
I also think it's a bit sneaky that you've flagged your tumblr account as pro-trans on shinigami eyes. at least, I assume you flagged it yourselves, because I didn't find a single post on your blog that mentions trans issues.
(though you have, entertainingly, reblogged some stranger things fanart, and a castiel cat cosplay)
and while your website uses very gender-neutral language, your "About Us" page doesn't say anything about being inclusive of trans people, just that you don't "discriminate against anyone who has a different belief than ours."
unfortunately, that's not good enough for me. I have this sneaking suspicion that "trans people are the gender they say they are" counts as a "different belief".
lastly, since you say on your website that people can message you asking about your faith, I had a friend do that!
baptists. you're baptists, which is a pretty conservative denomination.
and according to you, part of that 10% you donate goes to your local churches, and some missionaries. who are also probably baptists.
so.
in the end, I just...don't trust you? I don't trust that the 10% you're donating is going to organizations that aren't homophobic or transphobic. I don't believe that you're not trying to impose your beliefs on others, because that's what you're obviously doing. I mean, your "About Me" says that one of the reasons you built this company is to spread the gospel.
and I especially don't like it that you reached out to me (an openly queer person) for promotion without mentioning that you're an evangelical company.
so to answer your question, Julie: no. I am not interested in doing ads or promotions for you on tumblr. and honestly, you probably picked the wrong website for this kind of thing.
2K notes
·
View notes
Alright uninformed rant time. It kind of bugs me that, when studying the Middle Ages, specifically in western Europe, it doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite that you have to take some kind of “Basics of Mediaeval Catholic Doctrine in Everyday Practise” class.
Obviously you can’t cover everything- we don’t necessarily need to understand the ins and outs of obscure theological arguments (just as your average mediaeval churchgoer probably didn’t need to), or the inner workings of the Great Schism(s), nor how apparently simple theological disputes could be influenced by political and social factors, and of course the Official Line From The Vatican has changed over the centuries (which is why I’ve seen even modern Catholics getting mixed up about something that happened eight centuries ago). And naturally there are going to be misconceptions no matter how much you try to clarify things for people, and regional/class/temporal variations on how people’s actual everyday beliefs were influenced by the church’s rules.
But it would help if historians studying the Middle Ages, especially western Christendom, were all given a broadly similar training in a) what the official doctrine was at various points on certain important issues and b) how this might translate to what the average layman believed. Because it feels like you’re supposed to pick that up as you go along and even where there are books on the subject they’re not always entirely reliable either (for example, people citing books about how things worked specifically in England to apply to the whole of Europe) and you can’t ask a book a question if you’re confused about any particular point.
I mean I don’t expect to be spoonfed but somehow I don’t think that I’m supposed to accumulate a half-assed religious education from, say, a 15th century nobleman who was probably more interested in translating chivalric romances and rebelling against the Crown than religion; an angry 16th century Protestant; a 12th century nun from some forgotten valley in the Alps; some footnotes spread out over half a dozen modern political histories of Scotland; and an episode of ‘In Our Time’ from 2009.
But equally if you’re not a specialist in church history or theology, I’m not sure that it’s necessary to probe the murky depths of every minor theological point ever, and once you’ve started where does it end?
Anyway this entirely uninformed rant brought to you by my encounter with a sixteenth century bishop who was supposedly writing a completely orthodox book to re-evangelise his flock and tempt them away from Protestantism, but who described the baptismal rite in a way that sounds decidedly sketchy, if not heretical. And rather than being able to engage with the text properly and get what I needed from it, I was instead left sitting there like:
And frankly I didn’t have the time to go down the rabbit hole that would inevitably open up if I tried to find out
128 notes
·
View notes
So this is my idea of what the afterlife would look like for Everlark (this is a very rough draft) -
Katniss, as an old lady, smiling as she talks with a young man in a brown leather jacket & a short whisp of a woman in a colourful dress.
A woman with curly hair decorated with flowers (every kind except white roses) & a brown eyed boy are deep in conversation.
Prim & Rue (who also have flowers decorating their hair - for Rue it's the ones she was "burried" with & for Prim it's the ones Peeta planted by Katniss's house) are playing with Buttercup & Lady as their mother's (one of which looks much younger then she did in Katniss's lifetime) watch on fondly.
Old man Peeta suddenly strolls into the clearing with an, old, Delly laughing & talking as they carry baskets of freshly baked goods. Madge gives a wave & a smile then goes back to trying to teach Delly's brother how to play the recorder.
The woman talking with Katniss & the man in the leather jacket stop when Peeta approaches, let's out a squeaky laugh at his apology before going to join the conversation between the curly haired woman & the brown eyed boy.
Peeta puts down his basket to hug Katniss & the man in the leather jacket smiles & kisses her forehead before heading to where his wife is.
Peeta asks her where the others are, to which she says Haymitch & his GF went to visit Mayslee, Hazelle had left to catch up with her family & Greasy Sae went to spend time with Ripper.
Peeta was disappointed as he'd just finished making a strawberry tart that would have been a perfect dessert for Madge's father & Katniss lovingly reminds him that Madge can take it with her whenever she leaves.
Then Mags & Finnick show up, by climbing out of a lake, with a young Annie (they're both dressed in their wedding clothes). Peeta & Katniss congratulates her on reuniting with Finnick again & on all she's accomplished in her life after they left, explaining that Finnick & Mags weren't the only ones checking up on her from this place.
That wether it was from Peeta's kitchen window, Katniss's lake, the puddles Haymitch's geese loved to splash around in, the throats of the Mockingjays or Finnick's & Mags's dreams. Everyone had seen, heard or felt the best & worst parts of her life without them & had just been waiting for her to finally be able to join them.
Mags (now free of the effects of her stroke) gose to join in the conversation between the short, whisp of a woman, the lady with the curly flowery hair & the brown eyed boy, who'd began feeding bread crumbs to a flock of Mockingjays.
Finnick smiles lovingly at Annie as she burst into tears when, later in the evening, Joahnna trudges into the clearing, plops down in front of the fire & deposits a bag of shells she'd "happened to stumble upon" in her lap which Annie & Peeta deside to set aside to paint/turn into jewellery later.
Much to everyones delight, Mr Everdeen opens one of the baskets & pulls out the ingredients to make smores. Then when eveyones nice & full him, Lucy & Maude strike up a song. Peeta eventually gets Katniss to join in, which makes her dad smile, her mum cry, Prim (with Buttercup on her lap & Lady at her feet) & Rue cheer, Joahnna wolf whistle & everyone else laugh & clap along.
When the fire finally dies out & the only light left comes from the moon & fire flys most of the people start saying their farewells & heading to their own "places" until its only Katniss, Peeta, her family, a young Haymitch & his family left.
At that point they all walk to what would be the Victors village in the real world (but there is no gate, the houses aren't run down & the path to get there is covered in flowers & beatiful wildlife).
Once outside his home, Haymitch says a hasty goodbye to Katniss & Peeta before him & his younger brother are battling to see who can make it through the door first (much to their mother's exasperation).
Katniss & Peeta then go to drop the Everdeens at their house that has a plant shop downstairs & leave just as Prim is begging Mrs Everdeen to allow Rue to sleep over the next day to which she replys 'if her mother allows it' (Katniss of course dose not leave without giving her dad & sister a big hug while her mother settles for a kiss on the cheek).
Katniss & Peeta then make their way to where Katniss's childhood home once recided (though much cleaner & warmer than it had ever been when she'd actually lived there & now with a rather nice kitchen).
As Buttercup curls up at the foot of their bed (she & Prim take it in turns who he stays the night with) & the two lovebirds get ready for bed Katniss turns to her husband.
'I want a night with the girl's tomorrow,' she says. 'I thought you might,' says Peeta with a smile. 'I'll be younger....for a bit,' Katniss decides. 'So will I, probably,' says Peeta. 'Oh?' Asks Katniss, curious. 'I was thinking of visiting my family for a few hours,' he admits. 'That's great, just don't let your mother-'. 'I won't, I promise'. Katniss still dosn't look sure. 'Tell you what if she says anything even remotely passive aggressive, I'll leave straight away & just hang out with Haymitch & Finnick for the day?'. 'Good, it's just'. 'I know'. 'I don't ever want you feeling bad about yourself again, not here'. 'Don't worry, this place is good, we'll always be safe here'. 'Like in our cave?' She asks fondly. 'Even better,' he insists as he wraps his arms around her small but plump frame. 'How long do you think it'll take for the others to come, do you think?'. 'Not for a long time, hopefully,' he responds & she sighs. 'You're right, I guess I just miss hugging my babies,' she admits. 'I know, my little swamp potato,' he teases making Katniss sit up with a blush. 'Oh, I should never have taught you about plants!' She seeths making her husband laugh, dissolving her anger as quickly as it had come but also waking Buttercup with a hiss. 'Ok, ok, we'll quieten down, you silly old thing,' she muttered. 'Hey, be nice to your sister's cat,' Peeta teased again. 'His both of ours now,' she reminded him primly before sticking her tounge out. 'Ok, you got me there, but we really should go to sleep now, we both have big plans tomorrow afterall,' Peeta says, through a yawn. Katniss nods sleepily as he turns off the bedside lamp & the two cuddle up beneath the covers.
'I guess waiting for them here isn't really the worst thing in the world,' Katniss admits. '& why is that sweetheart?' Ask Peeta, curious. 'Back....before there was no guarantees, everything....so rushed & fragile, so likley to go wrong'. She says, starting to sweat. 'Ah huh' agrees Peeta patiently. 'But here it's' she stops. 'Different?' he asks gently. Katniss nods aggressively into his chest, wrinkly hands suddenly gripping one of his dad's old shirts he'd decided to wear tonight. 'We've got forever now right?', she whispers, like a kid who's scared their wish won't come true. ''That's real ok, please believe that," Peeta assures her as he strokes her back, leaning down to kiss her as soon as she lifts her face from his chest.
When Buttercup next wakes, it's to his parents holding hands & smiling as they dream of good things to come.
14 notes
·
View notes
Salty Ask List: 1, 5, 14, 22 ?
1.What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?
Dr/atc/het 100000%... I just don't understand what their chemistry is supposed to be together. It's partially ruined for me by Drift in MTMTE being an absolute mess of a character who got most of his planned plotlines cut or changed, and partially ruined by the fact Drift spends most of MTMTE straight up absent from the story, and then he and Ratchet meet up in Empire of Stone and come back during Dying of the Light and are just...together romantically now? I don't understand how they have any chemistry at all much less romantic lskdjflkds
I know a big one people talk about is "Ratchet saved Drift's life and then told him he believed in him" but... the way their meeting was written didn't come off as particularly romantic to me? Ratchet saved Drift the same way he's saved countless other addicts in the Dead End and then his parting words to Drift were to tell him to go to the Functionists so they could get him a job. Very "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kind of advice that clearly didn't work since Drift stayed impoverished, his friend got killed by police brutality, he went into the underworld to be a hitman, etc etc. Like yeah in theory it's very romantic for an OTP's first meeting to be one of them saving the other's life and treating the impoverished person kindly for possibly the first time in their life. It's just that that moment in canon doesn't have romantic vibes to me at all, it's just a doctor-patient encounter in which Ratchet is nice to Drift like he's nice to everyone, except it's also kind of condescending/ignorant bc Ratchet basically tells Drift "oh just get a job and get clean and you'll be fine" as if it's that easy to stop being a homeless/jobless drug addict?? If an ER doctor did that shit to me I'd be more likely to see him as an asshole than to admire or like him at all sdklfjsd.
Then Drift was a Decepticon for millions of years, then he joined the Autobots on Earth and like... he and Ratchet sure existed on the same team together dlkfjldsjlkds there were zero interactions of worth b/t them in phase 1, their ship dynamic came entirely from JRO's writing and even then I feel like it's an informed romance more than an organic and believable one.
5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?
I actually used to like O/Pli/ta when I first came here, but as I stayed longer it became evident that the overwhelming majority of the fan content of it reeks of "we are very sorry for having a heterosexual ship, let us compensate for it by making the woman a Girlboss Xtreme and the man a weak simp so that you can be sure the woman isn't being Oppressed and Stereotyped by being in a heterosexual romantic relationship" which is one of my most detested types of fan content, so now I have the ship tag blocked sldkfjlsdkdskl. Literally it's just the same "the woman is a TOTALLY COMPETENT AND COOL ACTION HERO and her man is a TOTAL SIMP FOR HER" that's interchangeable with most het ships in other fandoms, where there's no actual personality or chemistry for them and instead it's just the same Fandom Approved Heterosexual Relationship Dynamic.
That and a significant amount of content I see for it is just like blatantly ripped off from Me/go/p dslkfjsdfsjl or like, taking the main MOP dynamic and just swapping OP and Elita's places so now Elita is the cool action hero who's rival to Megatron and OP just Exists as an emotional support husband I guess. Or like Elita is made into a daring action hero while Optimus is reduced to a meek little wallflower who's no one of any real importance and just follows in her wake. It reeks of insecurity and unoriginality, as if the fanbase is cripplingly aware that Elita was made to be the Token Girlfriend and instead of just making her a better character and making the romance she's a part of more equal and compelling for both characters, they have to violently overcompensate by having Elita steal OP's role and everything interesting about him. 😂Like I'm begging people to just be normal about hetero ships. You can ship a man and a woman together without having to diminish the man and girlbossify the woman to prove you're a Real Feminist.
14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?
Continuity soup is boring and for the most parts creates purely fanon plots/ideas/characterizations that have tenuous relationships to actual canon. It's nice that people have the creativity to make their own AUs, but I also want to read about the actual continuity in question and not someone's mishmash of it.
Like UGH when I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to see cop Orion not archivist or dockworker Orion. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to read about the Senate led by Proteus and the reigns of Nova/Nominus/Sentinel/Zeta, not about the Council from TFP. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 MegOP I want Orion being a simp for Megatron after reading his stuff/meeting him one (1) time sdkflsdkf not yet another iteration of the tired "one day an archivist and a gladiator became great friends! then they broke up."
It's not hate for other continuities, I'm just tired of the fact that continuity soup is so prevalent that even when I'm specifically filtering for content of the one continuity I want to read about, the fics I find keep having random shit from other continuities interjected into it. I think each continuity has really interesting takes on lore that have potential to be wholly unique for each one, so it's really frustrating when the average fic I can find is just a random mishmash of continuity elements, or more often than not just an IDW knockoff taking place in a separate continuity. Like guys, I'm an IDW stan myself, but wouldn't it be cool if we got more fics that explored ideas that only happen in G1, or only happen in Animated, or Aligned, etc?
Doesn't help that when I AM looking specifically for IDW stuff, most of the content I look at (MOP) does continuity soup for the sake of replacing IDW OP with some sort of aligned/g1 lite OP which makes me salty as hell
22. Popular character you hate?
Drift for sure sdklfsdlk. I mean when I first read about him in the comics (the Drift miniseries) I was like, he's fine I guess he's an action hero whatever. But then literally the more of the comics I read the more his personality and story were just incredibly corny, stereotypical, or boring as hell no matter what writer was controlling him. And he got bounced around between writers a lot, and then even the "main author" people know Drift from (JRO) kept changing his plans for what Drift was supposed to be (and cutting plots related to him) so any hints towards a storyline went nowhere. And then Drift spent basically all of MTMTE gone elsewhere on some exile-adventure, and then during LL he just kind of. Is there, existing.
So like, honestly Drift is a victim of getting bounced back and forth and having his writing changed so often he doesn't reach his full potential, which isn't really "his fault" as a character. It just so happens that I also think the bits of his character that exist are either boring or overhyped or in one case (portrayal of his religion/religious worldbuilding in general) outright offensive. He's basically written like some hippie stereotype with vaguely Asian/Japanese flavoring (the extent of which is basically his name + fighting style) and then he barely like... does anything in the plot? I think he's supposed to be like, ~mysterious and shifty~ but then all of the plotlines that involved him being a secret traitor got cut, so Drift basically just became Weirdly Suspicious For No Reason and his genuine personality/motivations felt indistinguishable from what he was faking and what plots got cut from him. Absolute mess of a character that got almost no payoff for any of the things planned for him, and all that's left is some kooky hippie personality of "hee hoo I believe in auras and mystical vibes and magical colors, also I'm dating an atheist who's openly dismissive of most of my religious beliefs (that I do or don't actually believe in depending on what part of the story I'm in) and this somehow doesn't get in the way of our personal/romantic chemistry
But then the fanbase are basically making him some kind of Gary Stue, obsessed with making headcanons like "Deadlock wrote/edited Megatron's speeches for him too!" and "Drift defected from the Decepticons to try and make a point to Megatron!" and generally trying to make him the Decepticons' Specialest Boy Ever and it's just. Ugh I get that he was under-written in canon, but every bit of fanon I've encountered doesn't make him interesting either. They just kind of make Drift the center of the world where he's actually the coolest, most talented and interesting person ever where other characters owe their accomplishments partially to his influence and I'm just. I don't get it, I don't understand the appeal of fanon and I don't even understand the appeal of canon either. I think part of it is for representation reasons (e.g. Asian, lower class, former drug addict) and it's nice that people can pull something meaningful out of the mess that is canon. It's just for me, canon Drift is so mediocre I don't get why anyone would even WANT him as representation sdlkfjsdlkf. I guess fixing what the writers failed to explore the potential of is an understandable motivation though.
14 notes
·
View notes