#my lil silly habits are there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

swordheld · 8 months

Note

how did u choose your username?

oh, this is a fun one!! i think i considered being swordtold at first, for that very ancient myth vibe of the sword being this narrative tool for adventure and structure and physical time, the parable being passed down through the centuries until it meddles into modern day rhetoric and ideology – a kind of fantastical tool, a spark of magic, of possibility.

i like the arc of the story of a place being physical / having it be held by time and hand alike, wearing with the years and having it become something different to each holder, each reader, each experience fantastical and individual.

having that kind of physicality to it; swordheld is the action of taking up and holding the sword yourself, choosing your own narrative, leading your own story. self-identity has always been something i struggle with (a novel concept i know, i know), so it felt right for this blog, since most of my older blogs before this one have been just me silently reblogging and never really posting anything myself, and i wanted this to be the change to that.

i've always had trouble wranging my social anxiety, esp. on the internet, and previously thought that keeping my words to myself helped keep the timeline cleaner, in a way, no messy thoughts for others to sort through, especially ones i believed no one would want to read anyway? but it never felt right, keeping myself apart from it all, esp. not in the way i so avidly enjoyed reading others' posts and additions, keeping their words close to my heart.

i wanted it to reflect that this was a space i was holding for myself? and i'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but this - this i think i got right. i love being here, on this blog, and the joy that it brings me. everyone else enjoying it too has been a wild ride that i never expected, and still surprises me, one that brings a little extra thrill to my heart whenever i think about it.

i had other urls that i liked, but i didn't want this blog to be tied directly to any of my fandom/story interests, since i wanted it to really just be a sort of archive of artistic inspiration and resource, like a little library or museum. i use them now as lil sideblogs of more niche interests now, which is rather lovely.

it hasn't always felt like it fit perfectly, the way that i'd like, but for some reason i can't think of really wanting to change it anytime soon. it feels mythic yet modern in a way that feels like puzzle pieces finally slotting into their place, something my own and inspirational to me, like a lantern i'm holding to make my way by. my own kind of light, if that makes sense – a star i know by name.

#q&a.#birdsong.#all of this is truly just a way to say: it's your blog! it's your party! do what you like if it makes you happy!! (and doesn't hurt anyone!#live your dreams!!!!!! do your own thing truly it is worth it. which feels silly and cheesy inspirational talk vibes but u kno. it's right #thank u for ur question tho !!! it's been so long that i don't really remember exactly what the beginning of it all was?#it wasn't always my url for this blog esp. in the beginning but i've forgotten what that was ghjk so sorry dear anon !#like little flashes of a story in my memory i have to make out / like steam or fog on a window pane. blurry and unclear?#but now it feels more intentional / almost like watercolor! something that mixes itself into a new thing; bright and bursting w/ it all.#i hope this answers ur question nicely all the same tho <3 #i always on habit write out lantern as lanturn so this is an unintentional shout out to one of my fav pokemon love u lanturn !!#some of these things i truly do just write out bc i know it'll make me laugh later if i ever come back to it. lil joys for ur future self !#and that IS a reference to the dickinson poem ' i am out with lanterns looking for myself ' it is in my brain always ! ! thank u ! !

56 notes · View notes

gxlden-angels · 11 months

Text

Shiny Happy People Thoughts: Episode 4

TW: The Duggar Family and their crimes

- All gang here we go again

- To recap, we left off on the discovery of Josh Duggar's business hard drive with CSAM on it and the affects of anti-sex and strict enforcement of hierarchies

- The episode starts with the phone call about the investigation and the discovery of CSAM linked to Josh Duggar's business IP address

- This episode is known for being the hardest to get through so be warned if you decide to also watch

- They use the term "child pornography" but I will be using the terms CSAM or child sexual abuse material

- Jen of Fundie Fridays described the Snark community's look into the investigation

- Fucking Covenant Eyes

- I think I talked about it before, but it's an anti-pornography and accountability software program where your porn use is sent to a trusted program partner

- There's a lot of talk about having to be happy at all times, which was also enforced in my households. My dad never enforce it, but other family members would insist on me smiling or they'd make me smile (meant as a threat)

- Theres also clips of Josh and Anna's courtship and how they weren't even allowed to kiss before marriage

- Bobye, Jill, and all of the other victims are incredibly brave for speaking up both during the trial and now in this docuseries

- Jim Bob ran for senate in Arkansas during said trial, which is fucking wild. I knew he did, but I didn't realize it was during the trial. They genuinely believe the issue is Josh was caught and arrested rather than the fact that Josh did these horrible crimes

- There's a firm belief in individualism and handling issues at home so they don't have to acknowledge the greater patterns of abuse in these circles else they make their christianity look bad

- It explains the "Culture War" and what's essentially meant to be a new version of the crusade. Even in my small town black churches we sang song after song about being soldiers in the army of Christ and being willing to die for him

- The greater "Culture War" is for white, cishet evangelicals. My family might follow the exact same principles, but they would never be accepted by these groups in the same way because we're black

- A lot of black people hold the fear though that if they stop following these groups/mindsets, their children will be the next victims, rather than the black kid that got overlooked. There's no positive outcome, just a fear of the worst negative

- This is why there's been an attack on education as a whole, especially in places like Florida. They started with homeschooling, grew up and graduated, then became politicians and leaders and lawyers that could make public school just like their homeschooling or gut it so much that anyone not in these groups or people that can't homeschool their kids lose significant power and educational opportunities

- I was never homeschooled, but I was told by my churches that school will teach us things like evolution that we should ignore. The pastor and his wife at one church homeschooled their kids and advocated for it

- They are specifically referring to white, homeschooled, IBLP-trained evangelicals but this shit influenced the entire christian culture of the bible belt in the US

- There's a reason these people are gun-carrying, anti-choice conservatives and why they're making up lies and attacking schools for being "leftist indoctrination camps"

- Its all a fear tactic. I even got this talk when I was in high school and planning for college. We were told to keep close contact with the church and to not even join other christian groups your parents don't know in case they teach the "corrupted" versions of christianity

- Its Madison Cawthorn. It's Matt Walsh. It's the current Supreme Court. It's Donald Trump. It's all of these people that plan to take away autonomy from people so they can enforce this christian hierarchy throughout the world

- I'm at the Paul and Morgan part of the docuseries. Their interview was about their marriage and the role of the wife. They say it's a choice to submit to their husbands, though they feel like christian women always should

- The editing was incredible in this part. It goes from them talking about the role of the wife and being a light in the world to the jump cut of Morgan screaming about how it's impossible to "be a they/them"

- This part is what is making Paul and Morgan pitch a fit because they feel like it made christianity look bad, but all they did was edit in their own words from their YouTube channel

- "This is the Joshua Generation" gave me chills

- Its Girl Defined and the Rodrigues family and tiktok influencers and so on and so forth and all of them are white evangelicals who are trying to enforce this strict hierarchy and claiming it's the only way to save people

- Its why people say be careful when looking into cottagecore and tradcore and the "soft life" movement because a lot of it is ran by evangelicals trying to make strict hierarchies look trendy

- Its incredible to be a stay at home mom and traditional housewife, but only if it's your choice. All of the insistence that feminism is "destroying motherhood" and whatnot is all a ploy to take more women's autonomy. It's why feminism advocates for things like maternal leave, universal basic income with benefits for parents and children, universal daycare, universal healthcare especially for birthing parents. All of it should be a choice you can make for yourself

- The insistence on a family of a Working Father, a Housewife, and 2 or 20 kids was spread by a cult leader who never even had a wife or kids. Gothard sexually abused multiple minors during his time as an IBLP leader

- Josh Duggar was of course found guilty.

- It hurts knowing that his victims were expected to forgive him and let him back into their lives

- A lot of the family and friends are completely shut out of the picture now for advocating for Josh's arrest

- Amy Duggar reading from IBLP hurt, especially with the cut to Anna Duggar, Josh's wife

- They talk about why she still advocates for him and stays with him. She doesn't have a way to leave since this is all she was raised for. Find a nice, godly man and have his babies. No proper education. No source of stable income for herself. No privacy

- That goes double for her as the wife of a well-known person. She will never get privacy because she only sees herself as property of god, Josh, and the TV contracts Josh signed for her and unless she gets serious therapy and a safe, long term environment where someone takes care of her, thats all she'll ever see herself as

- My therapist pointed out to me today that whenever I burp, I completely change as a person for a split second. Despite all the work I've done and my transition as a transmasculine person, I still attempt to hide my burps, cover my mouth, completely straighten up, say excuse me very articulately, and even raise the pitch of my voice

- I know that seems like a weird tangent but it's an example of how even the smallest of things gets trained into you. Burping wasn't feminine so I got called a pig and a man in an insulting way when I burped loudly enough to be heard. I still burp in that polite way that makes me nauseous so I won't be heard unless I'm completely alone

- You can't just leave these cults. It comes with you. It stays with you even in these little habits and I was lucky enough to get the chillest parent of the family. Anna cannot and will not leave unless she is forced, and even then she will still be stuck. She won't suddenly have 12-13 years of education. She won't have the skills to get a good paying job in the current economic landscape. She won't have people to save her. This is what cults do. This is what they want. They want her to be helpless because it's a message: Next time, don't let him get caught

- "My only hope was to cling to my faith."

- That's all she has. It's all that belonged to her. Everything else was her father's or her husband's

- Tia Levings describing the situation of getting her kids and leaving the husband that was going to get his gun was honestly the hardest story to hear

- I never experienced abuse like that, but I remember hearing over and over "well why wasn't she under her father/husband's watch" "why didn't she just leave?" "Why didn't she just trust in god?" and have this fear set in me of what if I never left? Is this where I would've been?

- Around my teen years I got very uncomfortable around most couples in my family. The husband would joke about wives submitting and the wives would snap back about how it's a choice they could take away. The husband retorts with a bible verse about how they shouldn't. They laugh it off and the tension sits in the air. They seem to hate each other, but they made a promise to god.....

- The lawsuit against IBLP and Bill Gothard and it being dropped because of the statute of limitations leaves such a helpless feeling, but I hope this documentary helps at least a bit

- "His eyes were open"

- "It was just a man the whole time."

- Brook and Emily's stories really hit. There's a sudden realization that these people are not gods. They are people that wanted power and they got it. They abused and crushed people, not because they are powerful gods of knowledge, but because they wanted to abuse

- WAS

- "I ended up in jail anyways."

- That's how it goes. I felt the need to lash out when I first got out. I didn't do well with my therapist at the time. She was a practicing christian recommend by my doctor who used to go to our church and also treated all of my family with insurance she took. She thought my family was a lil strict but couldn't quite believe me when I said it was so much more than that

- I did lash out, mostly towards myself. I'm not going to talk about my self harm in detail here. Lara talks about lashing out via shoplifting. I will say this is normal. If you feel like you need to do a 180, I won't say do anything and everything, but you might have to. I am a firm believer in harm reduction over flat out denial at all times. Sometimes it all just needs to get out. Sometimes you need to regain a sense of control

- I didn't realize until I started seeing my current therapist that I realized what I was raised in. I made jokes about my family being a cult before then, but it never actually hit until I said "Oh. I never had a childhood, did I?" and teared up for the first time in his office

- I honestly couldn't say the stuff about deconstruction better myself. It's exhausting but so so freeing. A lot of the people in the docuseries used instagram and tiktok. I use tumblr as my platform of choice.

- I honestly have to thank the religious trauma tumblr tag for getting me to where I am today. If you look at my main blog, you can even see that my first few posts are scattered with bible verses if I didn't already delete them. I hope my blog helps someone else the same way that tag helped me

- I get a lil personal here sometimes and probably should save more of it for my therapist, but I think it's helpful sometimes. I think he'd agree. My therapist knows about this blog and thinks it's good

- I've heard about Jinger's book but never read it so I can't say anything about it. I also haven't seen any of the casts' tiktok pages so I can't say anything about them either. I might look later but this episode was a lot so Ill leave it for now

- I figured Bill Gothard would decline further comments. He denied everything and will most likely never see a single punishment. It's how these things are built

- I think the final statement from Jim Bob and Michelle help really seal just how terrible both of them are. They rather side with their child who abused than the victims that spoke out because it makes them look bad that all of this got out

- Final thoughts? Great series. Very therapeutic. Very validating.

- Its the small stuff that gets you. Hair needs to frame your face and honor your father. Be a soldier for Christ. Be fruitful and multiply. I still have awkward pictures of my permed hair and scratchy easter dresses

- I also told my therapist about this show and my recaps here and he thinks it's great. I'm glad I did it. It's really motivated me and helped me see just how far I've progressed

- I'm glad I also learned Nope is on Prime cause I rarely use prime video lol I mostly use it for twitch and prime delivery on cat supplies in bulk

- Good luck all you blasphemers, apostates, heretics, and sinners out there! Be good people, commit to the bit, and love without remorse!

#SHP Thoughts #oh I hate the new tumblr update I keep hitting the wrong buttons #anyways thanks for reading #this was a lot #and I'm glad I waited until today to watch the last episode #because the comment about my burping genuinely did impact how I watch this #he now points out when I do that and encourages me to burp loudly and take up space #just to get out of the habit #of course I'd still politely excuse myself if I was in a business interview or something #but at least training myself not to have that bodily shift that I didn't even realize I had #it's the small things #good luck if you plan on watching #and good luck even if you aren't!#I honestly just hope everyone out there has a good day #Thank you all for being here #on my silly lil blog that I never thought anyone would look at lol #but now ppl tell me it's helped them and I'm glad #ex christian #religious trauma #csam tw #csa tw #child abuse tw

1 note · View note