#saw my old religion teacher

[mishkakagehishka]

I dreamt that there was some sort of horror(?) spin-off for enstars. Btw. It was like neat, but so stressful. So stressful. It was like, short story, takes place in an art gallery??? One of them gets incredibly pissed off and you have a set amount of time to find weapons and a strategy before you have to face them in a closed space. Makoto had a sniper (?? In a CLOSED SPACE????) and the strategy for him was to point lasers at his eyes to stun him and then beat the shit out of him. If you even care.

#but also when you get in the closed space you can lock the door to give yourself some time #and there's like a magazine in each with in short what to expect #but it lies to you sometimes. it told me Makoto had a chainsaw :/ #but why it's in a gallery i think the magazine ends with fun facts ab one of the exhibits lmao #i also dreamt i got caught up in a storm so i tried to hide in an old old church nd i guess that was interesting #saw my old religion teacher #got in a fight with my best friend. neo was there. Vi went fucking underwater fishing?????????? #it was like the infinity war of crossovers. my irls my teacher my mutual my enstars charas everything

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 5 - Catholic Character Tournament

Propaganda below ⬇️

Sister Michael

She drives a DeLorean. She does judo on Fridays. She likes a good statue and despises the French. Her full nun name is Sister George Michael, after the guy from Wham!. She is the fiercest nun you’ll ever come across and, if you’re attending Lady Immaculate College, she’s the woman in charge. So whatever you do, if you’re feeling anxious or worried or just need a chat: don’t come crying to her.

joined the nunnery for the free accommodation?

she does love a good statue it has to be said

She is the headmistress of a catholic school <3

sister michael so reminds me of the nuns who taught me. they're tough and sometimes a little harsher than a woman who dedicated her life to god should be but they're also wonderful people. i had a nun teacher who was 60 years old and would do handstands. another nun (also in her 60s) told me god was nonbinary. another was really mean and made me cry. (so did the handstand nun.) while the catholic girls school is The Catholic Experience, the school wouldn't have been the same for me or the derry girls without at least one nun who seemed to have sprung up out of the ground fully formed, ageless.

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler Propaganda:

good lord where do i start. in the animated series he converts logan to catholisism and then fucks off basically thats the main thing he did there. i think one time they tried to make him a demon to explain how he looked but everyone hated that. he sold his soul one time to help his friends out after he died. he and logan have a weird little gay thing. he was a priest one time but he was made a priest by a fake bishop from a religion that hates mutants iirc so he just wasnt a priest. like 3 people have written him in a way i like and one of those is my friend just talking about how they view him.

wow marvel loves making catholic characters dress/look like demons

Kurt is a mutant who was born to mystique who looks a LOT like a devil (technically is half one but that cannon truth isn’t real go back to bed), his mother dropped him off a cliff when he was born and he was picked up by a Romani group/circus (fuck old comics man) however he then narrowly escaped being sold to a freak show and found himself in a small German town. There he met a kind priest, who showed him God, and he quickly grew attached to the idea- However, it wasn’t long before people began labeling him a demon and soon the whole town was against him with pitchforks and fire. Cornered and injured, Kurt thought this might be the end for him- maybe he would see heaven so long after finding it- but he was then saved by Charles Xavier who invited him to the X-Men. AND ITS BEEN SO MANY YEARS AND HE HAS BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH THERE. SO MUCH. SO GOD DAMN MUCH. BUT THE MOST AAAA THING TO ME CONCERNING HIS FAITH HE WHEN HE LITERALLY DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN BUT THEN BECAUSE OF DRAMA WITH HIS FATHER HAD TO BRING HIS FRIENDS IN WITH HIM FROM THE BEYOND. THEN WITH ALOT OF TROUBLE THEY FOUGHT HIS FATHER AND THE ONLY WAY KURT SAW TO STOP HIM WAS IN A MOVE THAT STRIPPED THEM BOTH OF THEIR SOULS AND PUT THEM BACK ON EARTH. SO KURT CANONICALLY HAS NOW LOST HIS ABILITY FOR ETERNAL PEACE, LOST HIS VERY SOUL, TO SAVE PEOPLE- AND ALSO TOLD NO ONE NOT EVEN HIS GAY LOVER WOLVERINE.

Nightcrawler is a mutant vigilante who looks like a classical demon. He can’t even go to church without people panicking and trying to exorcize him. Despite it all, he’s so full of faith and hope and compassion, and he wants to believe the best of everyone. Also, he’s bffs with an extremely angry Jewish sword lesbian. That has nothing to do with anything, but it’s important to me that you all know that.

What if you were a devout christian and literally looked like the devil? He nearly became the pope, which was a plot by some supervillains that also involved faking a rapture? There is nothing like comics I swear to god.

A catholic who is half demon I don’t think I can better explain a struggle than that. But his character is so relatable to people who feel unwelcome with their congregation because of something that is a part of them but still feeling a connection to the faith. Kurt actively engaged in his faith and shares how his faith helps him through all the things he has faced in life and how he found a home with those of the church who leave the judging to God.

so they made kurt a priest briefly before deciding to retcon it, resulting in nightcrawler actually being part of a plan by villains to promote him to pope then reveal to the world that the pope is a demon. wild.

I have a side blog and a tattoo about him and i really really want him to win

Wisecracking devil-appearing devout Catholic with the Best superpower (teleportation)? HECK YES

German Catholic circus acrobat who looks like a demon & can teleport through a hellish alternate dimension with a puff of sulfur. Character of all time.

hes catholic and his dad is the devil. what could be funnier than that. also hes my silly little guy.

Nightcrawler is the world’s most fun catholic priest. I first was introduced to this kindhearted teleporting acrobat while he saved a boat full of stowaway refugees from inter dimensional pirates with swashbuckling gusto!

#cct polls #tumblr tournament #tumblr bracket #tumblr polls #polls #kurt wagner #x men #nightcrawler #marvel #xmen #x men comics #marvel x men #r5 #the derry girls #derry girls #sister michael

[homunculus-argument]

I've learned to be neutral about other people being religious, but my own experience with it was definitely coloured by my issues with my dad. He was a proper Edgelord Atheist, loathing religions as a whole and christianity in particular, never hesitating to remark about how stupid and backwards or primitive it is. My mother didn't care either way, she only talks about god when she talks about gardening. So he was the only one in the house with any strong opinion about it. And yet, me and my sister were babtised, put into a christian daycare for a while and then put into christian religions classes at school.

I always loathed religion classes as a kid and didn't know why, I hated hearing about it and having to put up with it and always felt like the teacher is just insulting us by lying right at our faces, about something that surely nobody actually believes for real. My childhood best friend was put into the non-christian option despite of coming from the same kind of a vaguely culturally christian background as I did, and I envied her intensely for it. I asked repeatedly to get to go to the non-christian classes as well, and was told "no", because my mother didn't think that letting your kids do that was an option even though my friend's parents clearly had already done it.

I had a serious Edgelord Edgy Atheist phase in my teens, and was wrangled into going through confirmation anyway because Everyone Else's Kids Are Doing It Too. The aforementioned friend got to go through a non-religious version of the same thing, which I had not even known was an option, so I didn't think to ask for it. Being wrangled through jesus classes as a 15-year-old bag of spite who was only marginally self-aware enough to avoid physically wearing a fedora, I was not a pleasure to have in class.

My father was physically present in the house until I was 14, until my mother finally accepted that this man's presence might actually cause physical harm - his drunken attempts to cook almost caused a fire, and he drove drunk with me and my sister on board once - and he reluctantly agreed to be removed from the picture. His absence at home made no impact nor difference in our daily life, the man who sleeps in the spare room just wasn't sleeping in the spare room anymore.

We saw him frequently enough after that, he visited us for family events and joined us for outings. At some points I tried to bond with him, over mutual interests and passions, even tried to prompt him to join me on snide remarks about religions that he used to make all the time, but he would not. He refused to bond with his children even over mutually hating the same things. It slowly occurred to me over time that the reason why christianity had played any role in my life was because he had never, at any point at all, moved a finger to stop it. Harmless or not, he had no instinctive desire to move his children away from things he considered bad. He had hated it enough to make it known that he hates it, but genuinely just did not care enough to consider not letting him children grow up in an environment he loathed.

My father died when I was 17, and I never really mourned him - not out of hatred, but because his death had hardly even altered the empty absence that was his presence in my life. I had grown up with religious classes trying to tell me about a loving god, and I had not understood why I had hated it, why I felt betrayed and lied to. My relationship with the christian god I was taught to understand has been exactly the same as my relationship with my father.

Desperately shrieking into a void that is so vast that not even my own echo would answer, and knowing for certain that the dead silence I'm hearing in return is the complete, absolute absence of a loving Father.

[burningsuitfire]

Essek and religious trauma

Saw this post from @balleater here and having been meaning to write a meta on the subject, theorizing about what we know.

Essek admits to being seriously traumatized when Caleb talks to him in the Grove.

(141) Caleb: Somewhat hypocritical coming from me, but try to be kind to yourself.  Essek: You, more than anyone, showed me that trauma doesn't define you.

The simplest conclusion is religious trauma, along with neglect and abandonment.

In the wrap-up Matt puts serious emphasis on Essek's parents and family being "very deeply steeped" in the religious culture alongside how Essek has "very much eschewed" the religious culture, that no one has ever genuinely cared about Essek beyond his influence and talent, that his family didn't understand or support his focus on dunamantic research (or his career), and draws clear lines about the negative aspects of Dynasty's theocratic authoritarianism and uncompromising cultural zealotry, at points Mercer even compares it to evangelicalism and doomsday cults.

He also gives us hints that it's a bad situation for anyone who doesn't follow the official faith, like in Eiselcross when Caleb asks questions about the mandated religion and Kryn theories on the beacons:

(124) Essek: It is an interesting idea, though I would caution to keep it close to the chest. Such conversations might be considered sacrilege in some circles of the Dynasty.

Which as word of god tells us Essek had a very bad relationship with his powerful authoritarian den family that didn't understand him or his goals, and he grew up in the Bastion (which is a temple to the Luxon), when the Dynasty laws are founded on the faith and enforced by the military:

(EGtW) The laws of the dynasty, which stem from the faith of the Luxon, are enforced by a network of trusted Aurora Watch captains and soldiers

To the point where Matt emphasized how even petty criminals in the prison were systematically "beaten and emaciated", sacrilege could have ugly consequences, even growing up.

Especially considering that all we know of his father is that he seemed to have a temper to the point of extremely self-destructive tendencies, and that he was possibly military and thus law enforcement (warriors function as both in the Dynasty).

Even in the dinner conversation when he was being outstandingly open, Essek was very careful not to tell the nein anything that could allow other Kryn to question his faith:

Marisha: So his lying about it [consecution] was just about going along with the zealotry and not- Matt: Exactly, because he didn't want people to think that there was something up.

And then there's Essek's massive trust problems, which are specifically focused on the word "trust":

(131) Caleb: We feel we can trust you more than my old teacher. (You see, when you say the word "trust". It's simultaneously like seeing a small hit to the heart... and whatever icy bit that cracked melts away for a minute. There's a moment of him hearing the word and letting it wash over him.) Essek: I'm thankful for the trust you put in me. And I hope to make this up to you.

(124) Essek: I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust. When I- when you gave me trust, it gave me a perspective that was so agonizingly striking. So easy to see that I refused to acknowledge it at first, even. (135) Essek: The more I begin to see Beauregard, yourself return with these markings- I've only just recently learned to trust. It's hard to begin to mistrust so quickly.

Where there's a theory that it might stem from the Dynasty's training for echo knights and dunamancers (when we've heard Essek tell Caleb that the training is comparable to that of scourgers), and we even see the echo knight in Zadash react very strongly to the word "trust":

(13) Mollymauk: We just need to know who we can trust and who we can't.  Thuron: You cannot trust anybody in this city. You cannot trust yourselves. Anyone who has not bound themselves. They are the enemy.

Other context and info gives us that consecution and worshipping the Luxon and following the umavi-written "system of pure faith" created from their interpretation of the beacons (as EGtW dictates the Luxon is canonically silent and unconscious) is required for people to hold Dynasty political/spiritual/military office and influence, to work for the theocratic government (comprised of the 12 noble religious den families), and that dunamancy and the Dynasty's dunamis research is only accessible to those working for the government.

And it seems like Essek hints at unattractive consequences to others discovering he's been lying about his faith (and/or the dangerous nature of his career):

(131) Essek: I just know that I've also survived this long, weaving the intricacies of deceit like I have, by knowing how best to keep myself out of the complications as best as I can.

Finally, we have Essek's relationship with punishment and pain, alongside the Dynasty's systematic religious corporal punishment:

(57) In the shadows there look to be multiple figures. Some human, some ogre-ish with more reinforced bars, drow. Emaciated, beaten. Not looking happy and healthy, but then again, what good Dungeon of Penance would?

(77) ...days of chosen sunlight in which the nightfall is dispelled and the people of Rosohna and Xhorhas bask in the sun. Even those who find pain and challenge in its presence, as it is part of the worship. (EGtW) The Kryn drow who emerged from the shadowed depths of the caverns beneath Xhorhas now endure periods of sunlight as part of their worship. Periods of days, sometimes weeks, will transpire in a state of perpetual evening, enabling the darkness-bound denizens to go about their work. Such periods briefly come to an end to usher in periods of scheduled, mass worship under the sunlight.

(99) Essek: I will take my leave for the night. Thank you for not throwing me into the water. (97) Essek: The pain is somewhat comforting because I am my own punishment. (91) Essek: I have seen those far older than you that have experienced maybe half the pain I see in your eyes. Age isn't everything. Experience is what hardens you, prepares you for the worst. (138) Beau: My essence will haunt you. Essek: And I would deserve it, like I deserve all of the things that haunt me. Jester: Aw, Essek... Essek: Don't- offer me any solace. (141) Essek: Maybe it's time I just found my way. Really began my penance. I've procrastinated long enough in dealing with my sins. I convinced myself I'd be alone for so much of my life. It's hard to say goodbye when I don't feel alone anymore, but… I understand. I understand and accept what I've done.

#essek #essek thelyss #kryn dynasty #kryn #egtw #cr meta #cw religious trauma #den thelyss #verin thelyss #critical role #c2 #campaign 2 #the mighty nein #mighty nein #shadowgast #caleb widogast

[cosmicdream222]

have you entered the void before?

I'm asking cause I've seen you post about it a bunch times with different methods to enter

Also, thank you for introducing me to the phase method! I'm using it and another method (one I created) to enter

Hey! Glad to hear the Phase has been helpful for you! Happy to answer your question, but it’s a bit more complicated than a yes/no answer and I’m feeling rambly today so you’re gonna get a whole backstory on how this blog came to be 😂

Backstory about me & this blog

I’d been in the personal development manifestation community since around 2016, and it was my life for a long time. But the kind of manifesting these people taught was basically like… wake up at 5am, work out, journal, meditate, shadow work, tarot cards, affirmations, cold showers, start a business, post no less than 10 times a day across your 5+ social media channels, and maybe if you hustle hard enough and cleared enough past life karma and Mercury isn’t retrograde, then the universe might grant your wishes... (if you don’t die of exhaustion first. 😅)

It really was a mess and realize now despite the facade of positive thinking and good vibes, the whole community really just keeps themselves identifying with lack & victim mentality so the coaches at the top profit off everyone else’s misery.

I believed in manifesting and had faith I would achieve my goals, but despite years of trying a million different things, only saw small or short-term successes and never seemed to get anywhere. I was feeling pretty burnt out and miserable, so summer 2023 I decided to stop trying so hard and just spend some time focused on myself and what I wanted. I went back to the two methods that I’ve always loved and had success with: affirmations and tapping.

I tapped every day and started making affirmation art and lockscreen wallpaper for fun. I posted the affirmations on Pinterest, which eventually lead me to finding affirmations pinned from tumblr. I think it was a screenshot from blushydior I saw at first, but her blog was deactivated by then. So I started stumbling around tumblr (around Aug-Sept 2023 at this point), where I eventually came across loa, the void, and shifting.

I was surprised because despite my extreme research into all things personal development & spiritual, I’d never heard of it. Although I’d read about quantum physics and more supernatural things, every coach/teacher had major limits. “Manifesting” only meant getting logical earth things like making 6 figures in your business through hard work and hustle so you can afford to travel and buy luxury cars & Chanel bags. Stuff like changing the past, waking up with all your desires, etc was absolutely impossible and not even talked about except “you can’t change the past”.

So having only heard about these incredible overnight life-changing manifestations from tumblr, I was skeptical and wanted more information. I basically started this blog to collect information from outside tumblr to prove it to myself and share with others. Which of course sent me down a rabbit hole of research and overconsumption and overcomplicating the void 😅

I did get kinda obsessed and throw myself into trying every shifting & void method I saw right away, which just left me frustrated with “failed” attempts. But I see now I was just repeating the same victim mentality from the old community - that everything had to be hard and a struggle, that I was a victim of circumstance and limited by a higher power. (This is also a really commonly held limiting belief in religion and society in general that affects many people.)

It took me more than a few months to realize, but I’m finally switching my default programming to that of a creator instead of a victim. Because I don’t want to be obsessed and put the void on a pedestal, I’m currently just working on my self concept that I am in control of my reality and can manifest whatever I want - with or without the void. I still do want to experience it of course, just want to make sure I’m going at it with a healthy mindset.

However!

About a week or two ago I read someone’s void success story that triggered a memory from many years ago: I realized I actually did wake up in the void and manifested something, long before I even knew what manifesting or the void was 😭 Because I’d always believed in supernatural things, I thought I had a “psychic dream” but now I know it was the void! (If anyone wants storytime I can make another post with more detail).

And since at the time, I entered without even knowing about the void’s existence, I realize we here or tumblr really do overcomplicate it. Like the video I posted where the void is described as the midway point between wake and sleep - it really is that simple!

I’ve noticed now that whenever I wake up naturally (not getting woken up by an alarm, outside noise, or cat jumping on me) I do always seem to wake up in the void. It’s the same kind of experience, and I don’t hear anything, but my first natural instinct when I wake up is to wonder where the sounds of my environment are. So I end up tuning in to my room and snapping out of the void.

I guess I just have to train myself to make my first thought an affirmation for my desires instead of just wondering where the sounds are 😅 But regardless, now I know it’s absolutely real and possible for me, I know it’s only a matter of time until I figure it out!

#manifesting #about moi #void state

[motsimages]

Since that article about physical contact vs non-physical contact in different countries, here are some experiences I've had about it:

Usamericans are, by far, the most different from my experience. They are the only ones that get physically tense if you unexpectedly touch them, the only ones that would make a step back if you get to close so as to keep their personal space safe. The first time I met a Usamerican, he was my age (17 at the time), and he was staying in my house for a week as part of an exchange program. My mother felt that he was always very tense, that he needed to relax and so she did what every Spanish mother in her place would do: hug him, hold him, touch him and feed him. He would only get tenser, to my mother's frustration. Nobody explained us or him that the reason he was so tense in our house was the incredible amount of physical contact he was seeing and experiencing all the time by everyone. I have also met very huggy and physically affectionate usamericans and I wonder in which circles they usually move or where are they from because they are an exception. It was on the internet that I first saw "PDA" (public displays of affection) as something negative that people shouldn't do. I guess it comes from the US, it may also be a UK thing?? I don't know. It was confusing because people seem to get angry at it and I am like "what are you supposed to do then? How do people know you like them?" Also, learning that teachers are NOT (never ever) supposed to touch their students, I was in shock. What do you do with toddlers? They need physical affection and they will come up to you for it. What if a 12 year-old is crying? Aren't you going to at least confort them? How do you confort someone without touching them? Now that I know more about US culture, I wonder if white people are more distant than black people, or if religion plays a role.

Chinese and Japanese people I've met tend to keep their distance and may feel uncomfortable but, the ones I've had more contact with, soon get used to it and even enjoy it. I guess many won't or will find it invasive, but I have met some who went all in the moment they saw a world where you could hug people just because. I particularly remember two Chinese girls who, upon meeting a lot of Spanish people in France and seeing we were always hugging and touching, started to do it *way too much*, touching body parts you are not supposed to touch (like ass or boobs) because I guess for them it was all equally accessible/non-accessible, so we had to teach them to control themselves a bit. There was also a Japanese young man, a friend of a friend, who was shocked at first but then travelled around Europe and came back like "nobody was touching me :((((". He thought it was a European thing. He told me that back home in Japan, nobody would hug him, not even his mom.

Northern Europeans always keep their distance and won't hug you unless there is a need for it (and depending on the country/person, maybe not even then). Any other physical contact that is frequent in Spain, like grabbing someone's shoulder, is weird and could be interpreted as flirting. I have seen hugs and physical closeness in Sweedish series in situations that US series won't do, but I still had to tell my Northern European friends in Russia that, now that we were friends, I expected hugs and would ask for hugs frequently. Even with that, I once asked a Swiss friend for a hug and he went "why?". I was in shock. "What do you mean "why"? Because I want a hug? You shouldn't question hugs!". A Spanish friend in Switzerland told me that when she broke up with her boyfriend, her Swiss friend was there listening and giving company but not once did she got close enough to touch her. Not even for a hug. A Sweedish girl who couchsurfed at my place for a couple of weeks said that Madrid was the city of love because people were always hugging, snogging, kissing and touching each other everywhere (particularly couples).

A UK friend once told me about a girl he knew was feeling sad and he left her crying in her room and I was like "what the fuck. why would you leave her crying" and he said "that's what you do, if she wants to cry, you give her space" and I was like "listen to me: if a Spanish, and I would go as far as saying a Mediterranean, is crying, you better stay around. You keep an eye on them, you hug them, hold their hand, give them food. You do not leave someone who is crying and having a bad time alone unless they ask for it, and even then, you keep watch and check on them later on". He told me that you should leave English people alone when they are feeling blue (I can't promise I would do that but fair enough, I'll keep it in mind).

The UK is the only place where I don't know what is it that I do that people think not only that I'm flirting, but that things are happening between us, when I'm just there. I'm usually very good to know when I'm flirting and when I'm not but somebody may be interested. In the UK, it has happend a couple of times that we were having a normal conversation and then suddenly there was a certain complicity and I was there like "whaaaaat.... oh shit, I got in too close, didn't I? I may have touched their elbow on my way to the toilet or something".

Russians are surprisingly similar to Spanish, culturally and in character. There wasn't that much cultural shock there. They are not as touchy as Spanish people are, but they enjoy it, they hug people easily and they like physical closeness. Particularly, young girl-friends are very tactile, they often hold hands in the street, hug, etc. I have seen teenagers sitting on each other in public parks, I have seen couples hugging and kissing in the street. When travelling by train with my Spanish friend who lives in Switzerland, we chatted with some 50 year-old men in our wagon. She joked to one of them (in Spanish, I translated) and touched his arm to help drive the joke (he mentioned weaponry and she said "are these the Russian guns?"), and he didnt' bat an eye, he laughed and nodded. "Oh, they don't mind being touched" she pointed out.

Latin Americans seem to me just like Spanish, but they feel Spanish are cold and distant.

I think, amongst the Mediterraneans, we are all more or less the same, whether it's Europeans, Maghrebians, Balkans... I have a feeling that some Asian countries and some African countries might be similar too, but I don't have much experience with them.

I'd say the way it works in Spain is this: we touch people to communicate with them. It serves the purpose of showing we are there, we like your company, we are listening. If you paid attention, you could see who gets along with whom, who are closer friends or family by how they stand next to each other and how they touch each other.

I will end with an anecdote. I am currently interpreting psychological sessions for Russian refugees. We were in a session and the psychologist received a phone call, she excused herself saying that it was the doctor and maybe something had happened at school with her daughter. She apologised herself, she was only picking up in case there was an emergency. It wasn't the doctor so she asked to be called later but she was quickly given some good news before hanging up. She said "I apologise, but I need to share this with you." She shared the news with us, crying because she got emotional. My first instinct (that I noticed only because there was a Russian person there who may not be familiar with Spanish ways) was to touch her arm so she knew we were there. I asked her "do you want a hug?" and she said yes. So we hugged and the patient came to hug her as well, copying us. We stopped a professional work environment to hug a person who was celebrating some happy news, to help her regain composure and feel accompanied.

[unhelpfulfemme]

7 and 17 for the ask game!

7. I'm gonna be honest and say that this happens very rarely to me because if there's one virtue I have (and I have very few of them) it's the capacity to attribute blame correctly. So if fandom is weird about a character I usually start hating the fandom and withdrawing from at least that part of it rather than letting it influence my opinion about the character. Alternately, I'll perhaps review the canon and realize that the fandom is right and I had skipped some key details about the character or how they were presented, which will make me change my opinion about the canon character or the canon's framework overall, but I don't think that's what the question is asking.

BUT there is one notable exception, and that's Dara from the Daevabad trilogy. Which is barely a fandom LOL, like the entire series gets 2 Tumblr posts every six months, but I do love those books and I do get livid about the way the fans treat this particular character to the point that each time I see fanart of him I recoil in disgust.

I put in a cut because this turned out longer and angrier than I expected lol but I guess that is the spirit of the poll?

Basically you know the age-old debate about whether Kylo Ren fans are racist towards Finn and whether Kylo is a better or worse character than Finn and whether people just like him more because he's white etc. etc.? I generally think that's a stupid thing to hoist onto the sequel fans when it's the canon itself that encourages a superficial reading of Kylo as tragic and dramatic and of Finn as a plucky comic relief guy whose emotions shouldn't be taken seriously. But Dara and Ali from Daevabad are the perfect examples of the trend the people who complain about it are trying to highlight and I reeeaaally wish those books were more famous in wider fandom circles because we would be Having so many Discussions about them.

Dara and Ali are basically the two angles of what's a lowkey love triangle with the series' (awesome!) protagonist, Nahri. In my eyes, Dara and Nahri have so little chemistry that I nearly quit the first book 30% in because I thought it would all be about them, but YMMV I guess. Then I saw Nahri and Ali interact once, thought "man, I wish these two were being set up for a grand romance instead" and was then thrilled to discover that actually they were and the author was clearly phoning in the Dara/Nahri parts because they were there to make a point rather than to be romantic or appealing.

Dara is an asshole, but in canon, he's a well-written asshole and there's a point to his characterization. He's an extremely talented Proud Warrior Guy who is really patriotic and cares about his family and his country and about making them proud. He's also arrogant and short-tempered, but so is Ali. The thing is, Dara's superiors send him to commit genocide, and Dara does so to mixed success. Then the people he's tried to genocide come for his own people to exact revenge and brutally kill his family. This all sparks a massive civil war, in the middle of which Dara ends up trapped in a Fate Worse Than Death kind of situation for thousands of years, until he is somehow saved and joins the protagonist. He feels anguished and vengeful about his family dying but is also still chauvinistic AF and never examines his own role in all of this. He still believes that blindly following authority and being loyal to people of his religion and ethnicity is his highest moral duty. This makes him commit even more war crimes, end up in another fate worse than death situation, and only manage to get out of it by sheer luck and through the other characters being kinder towards him than he would have been in their shoes. He also always thinks he knows better than anyone else and routinely overrides Nahri's wishes because he thinks he knows what's good for her.

Now, he also has positive traits, like he's a kind and patient teacher and has a code of honor etc. etc. but his narrative is clearly about radicalization and cycles of revenge and, well, toxic masculinity. There honestly isn't much else to him.

Ali is also stubborn and arrogant, quick to judge people who are different than him, and prone to foot-in-mouth incidents. He's more of a warrior poet type, equally badass but also bookish. BUT he's also Black and a practicing Muslim, which I guess puts some people off of him. The thing is, Ali is a wayyy more complex character than Dara, he has a whole-ass family and his relationship with every one of its members is lovingly and intricately drawn by the author, and he also has nuanced and complex thoughts about his code of ethics, the system of governance of his country, his religion, and many, many other things. He is put into a lot of interesting situations and forced to make many difficult choices and is just overall a more complex and interesting character.

And still! STILL! Like 80% of fanart and fan content for this series is all about Dara, a frankly quite unsympathetic character if you think about it for more than 0.2 seconds and the flattest one of the main three to boot. I would have been content to read Dara's canon story and recognize it for the well-crafted story it is and even empathize with him (he was quite young when all that happened to him) but the amount of passionate insistence by the fans that he is the poorest meow meow and so much hotter and more interesting than Ali makes me have an irrational and visceral negative reaction whenever I see him.

17. Superficial answer?

We need more Padmé Amidala/Asajj Ventress content. For some reason I really like the idea of the two of them together and there are like 4 fics with them on Ao3 of which 3 are orgy fics with 10 different characters. The reason I like the idea of the two of them together is totally not because they represent the two types of women I tend to develop crushes on and I'm just mashing my dolls together.

Deeper answer?

I really really love those posts where people apply whichever discipline they're working in or are passionate about to fandom works? Like that biologist who made up a theory according to which Wookies and Caminoans have a common ancestor?

I can never get enough of that and wish I could see it more often. I want more biologists squinting at the weird plants in the back of scifi series. I want political theorists to try to make sense of the politics in Vorkosigan. I want art historians to try to develop a theory of how art and fashion changed between Hot and GOT.

Make me a bastard child of your fandom special interest and your professional special interest. I will eat it up, I promise.

#the daevabad trilogy #I guess?

[spotsupstuff]

What do you think about the RW ships? just curious is all.

hmmm.. well! first i do wanna preface this with the obligatory "i'm not hating on anybody with this, u do u and i do me is my genuine philosophy. i'll respect u from the distance if you do the same for me"

aight so i'm not gon list every ship in the fandom that has spawned in outta the stardust n give my specific opinion on it, cuz i'm not exactly keepin up

the only two ships i don't mind n find cute on the paper are NSH x Moon and Arti x Gour cuz both of them have that Old People Love Each Other in Easy Peace Despite The Circumstances Surrounding Them kick to them. i'm a weak bitch for that type of troupe for romantic relationships. not gon do anythin with 'em in my own stuff, though

i find myself more interested in the entirely and wholly platonic interpretation of everything in the game. platonic love is a matter of course, makin the story flow feel more smoother to me for that while also stayin nicely close to that religious narrative of the game (u can fight me on this but the Ancients' religion isn't *wrong*. the bad thing that happened with it is that it was taken to extremes and variety wasn't allowed. i could tell you why riddin oneself of the third and fifth sin isn't a bad idea at all- afterall, i kind of live by that myself!- and what they probably meant by riddin yourself of the sins without the extremist approach)

for the other ships... 🤔

well, the iterators are far too rooted in my head as sibs to vibe with ships with them, but more properly told: • Suns and Pebs are too much of "teacher and naive student" to me and i also find this dynamic more interesting to explore. uuuuu how spicy it is to think of Suns brainwashing Pebs but meaning it well uuuuuuuuuu • Suns and NSH are... let's just say that if i was in NSH's place and Suns talked to me like that i'd slap them so fuckin hard n if i WAS in a romantic relationship with them i'd dump them then and there (not in a bitchy ex kind of way, i'd be still down to talk, but i can't imagine bein in a relationship where the other half calls the most likely inevitable death of your closest friend a "setback" to their brainwashing of that friend's little brother would be Very healthy) • n i think what is the only other iterator ship left, Sliver and Moon... i find it kind of silly, honestly? like as far as *i* know the main reason why that exists is cuz Moon remembers what happened with Sliver after being given her own pearl about some notes she wrote herself on Sliver despite being baround three gazillion bagillion braincells short. i don't really see that as a strong incentive to start shippin 'em cuz like. you give Moon a very solid memory jogger and right in her second set of monologue she states that Sliver is literally a legend among the itties-titties. the best i can compare it to a real life thing is asking an american if they have any idea who Abraham Lincoln was at all. or asking a slovak if they knew who Finally managed to solidly establish our language after centuries of oppression. like of Course you're going to know That even on ur deathbed??? those are incredibly important historical figures for you n your home!!! also c'mon she remembers the feckin bug pupae, if THAT stuck in there this big boy info is def gon be kickin around

as for the slugcats... well ehh..... you can probably guess from what i mainly draw that i'm not Too focused on the slugs, only maybe Hunter so my slugshippin lore knowledge is p weak. when i first saw the slugshippin take off before i started postin bout RW again i thought it was silly to ship animals n still kinda do? 🤷‍♀️ doesn't help that canonically they have no business meeting each other except Monk n Surv (that is a strong No to shippin) and Hunter's writhing corpse n Gour (we are Not ducks we do not support necrophilia). i generally like to stick to the timeline, personally. good world-building. i respect good world-building too much to deviate too hard

BUT! i am going to use my status as pre-Downpour RW veteran and tell you to not listen to the whiny wrinkly babies in the tag that wail about how slugshippin is ruining the fandom. fuck 'em bitches, you do what u wanna (within moral common sense)

#Spot says stuff #rw #sorry you probably didn't want me goin on a spiel about RW shipping in general but yanno if we are already here #there's also not really much i have to say to the matter in the more specific shippin kind of sense

[nerdygaymormon]

hello! o/ im a queer teenager from canada! i lead my highschool's gsa and am very active in the queer community around us. we raised $800 for the Trevor Project last year, raised $500 towards a chest binder breakroom at our school and are officially putting on the school's first all-age queer prom this may!

however, im very confused at the moment. i grew up in an atheist household and have never really found myself believing in God or anything religious. while i still dont think i believe ALL of it, lately ive been doing a lot of thinking after finding an old pocket bible that belonged to my great grandmother (she practically raised me but i never knew she was religious, she never mentioned it at all) and flipping through it and reading her flagged scriptures (i believe thats what theyre called, forgive me if im wrong), etc.

i then resorted to the internet and have been doing a bit of research and am now very conflicted about my feelings and beliefs. i now have moments where i genuinely believe there is something/someone divine out there. i find myself... almost talking to it, sometimes? i dont really know how to describe it. i even tried praying the other day for the first time in my life. (i probably didnt do it right if theres a proper way, but the point is i did it and i surprised myself.)

even though i have these moments, i still have times where i doubt it all. aside from the occasional joke, ive always done my best to be respectful of people's faith, but never saw myself believing until now. and when i say believe, like i said before, it isnt all of it. (like the creation of the world, etc)

i feel sort of fake in a way i dont know how to describe because of my conflicted feelings and how i dont believe everything. there are a lot of things i want to say about it but i really cant pull words from the emotions and i keep trying to. i also dont really have anyone in my life who i can talk to about this stuff. my family will not take me seriously and none of my friends and teachers are religious.

i dont know if you take asks like this, and its totally fine if you dont, but if you have any kind of advice it would be greatly appreciated.

sorry for the long ask, but thanks so much! hope youre having a wonderful day my friend 🤍

Congratulations for all you accomplish for queer students at your school! That's amazing!!!

That you find some aspects with religion resonates with you shouldn't be surprising or upsetting. Humans have been creating and practicing religions since before there was recorded history. There seems to be a need that is satisfied by religion.

In a broad sense, religion does 3 thing:

1. It provides an explanation for natural phenomena. Why is the ground shaking? Why did the sun go dark temporarily? Why is there a drought? Why is dad sick? Why did a hurricane pummel New Orleans?

2. Religions provide meaning to life. Religion provides answers for what is the purpose of life and what happens when we die. Religions are a vehicle for passing along the wisdom from past generations from hundreds and thousands of years ago.

3. Religion helps humans build community and encourages cooperation among those who believe. Religious belief also helps people develop self-discipline. Unfortunately, religions also have been used to define who is in a community and who is not, and this has led to a lot of harm and even wars

Beyond all these macro reasons, religion is experienced at the individual level. An individual prays and receive comfort and answers and feels a larger entity cares about them. Their faith gives them a purpose. They have a community that is meaningful in their lives. This is part of the truth of their lived experience and can't be easily quantified. It's what makes religion still relevant in the lives of many people today

[squeakintothevoid]

I decided to stop lurking and actually post my thoughts somewhere because of my man Larry here, who shared his reaction to "The Sound of Silence" covered by Disturbed. I've listened to the original by Simon & Garfunkel before but didn't pay much attention to the words. I mean, it's just that memed depression song, right?

What folly! I have failed ye, Simon & Garfunkel! But Disturbed's video made me pay attention to the obvious message:

“This is a song about the inability of people to communicate with each other"

—Art Garfunkel

Okay, I get the point. Now, if I may, I will disturb the sound of silence (ha) to share my own thoughts while I was listening to the song:

[Verse 1] Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains within the sound of silence

Let me give you some context about my life. I have social anxiety. Or did, I might not meet the criteria anymore. But woah boy, did I have social anxiety. I mean, sometimes I'd try to speak and simply could not make a sound. That's how paralyzing my fear of speaking was. I know now that this fear came from being either A) ridiculed or B) ignored whenever I spoke to my parents plus a heaping of religious trauma. Growing up, I'd hear teachers or friends say it's okay, just say what you want, be yourself. Sure, whatever. *eyeroll* I don't even have anything to say and if I did, why would I risk telling anyone? But that positive messaging still seeped in my brain somehow where it remained dormant.

[Verse 2] In restless dreams, I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone 'Neath the halo of a street lamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night, and touched the sound of silence

Of course, I still had thoughts and emotions to say even though I kept them inside. At age 10, I considered myself like a wise sage, only speaking when necessary, but really I was emotionally stunted and always afraid. I slowly learned how to socialize though, but real progress was made when I started gaining confidence and trust in myself. Mainly because of movies and music, hence the title of my blog.

More context about me: I was raised Mormon (Latter-day saint). So like, in a cult. Or a "high-demand religion" if "cult" is too much of a buzzword for ya. Anyway, I ended up attending BYU, a Mormon college that will kick you out for not conforming to their strict "honor" code. I was understandably depressed while I was there. Except I didn't understand why at the time.

Then my eyes were stabbed by the neon light of Freddie Mercury.

For real though, Queen, among other artists, helped me see that I felt stuck, and that the next step on my hero's journey was to break free from Mormonism and my parent's expectations (and somehow not get expelled and homeless at the same time). To have confidence in myself and keep myself alive.

[Verse 3] And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared And no one dared disturb the sound of silence

So now I was aware of how sinister and blatantly false Mormonism was. In a university full of devout followers that will tattle on you. Followers only talking about what they're allowed to talk about, and anyone who stands out is shut down. Everything seemed so platitudinous and hateful now. Man, I wasn't ever thinking for myself before, was I? I knew there were other people at BYU in my situation, because they said so on reddit, but I didn't dare make my thoughts known to anyone in person.

[Verse 4] "Fools," said I, "You do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words, like silent raindrops, fell And echoed in the wells of silence

Simon speaks like a prophet. In Mormonism, you have a prophet that claims to be speaking the words of God. So like, you gotta listen to him or go to hell. Actually, Mormons don't really have the same idea of hell as mainstream Christianity, but you definitely won't get into the special VIP top level of heaven if you don't shut up and obey the prophet with exactness. Prophets give you commandments. Prophets tell you to give all your time, talents, and money to the LDS church. (Although they only enforce giving 10% of your income.)

But Simon isn't really speaking to tell you what to do and not do. He, like most artists, is trying to reach out to you. To emotionally express himself and encourage others to do the same. It's a refreshing idea of what a prophet could be. He's calling us fools not because we are sinners, but because he wants to share what he has learned. His writing isn't to make a cash grab. But catchy music that can be echoed in the background tends to get the best sales.

[Verse 5] And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls And whispered in the sound of silence"

Most people see the "neon god" line as a critique of consumerism, and I wouldn't disagree. It's sad that television and music in many ways raised me better than my parents, that the religious texts that promised me spiritual awakening didn't have shit on Freddie's whimsical ballads. But these "neon signs" are what saved me.

Following fandoms, lurking on tumblr, sending superwholock memes to my friends, watching stupid youtube crack videos, staying up late just vibing to the music I had. These are my prophets. It's sharing all these little pop culture things that culminated in me finally realizing that I'm alright as I am, even with my cringe hyperfixations. That maybe I can slowly learn how to speak my truth and say with a newfound sense of confidence that I do want extra ketchup. Or that I'm rejecting my parent's one true religion.

It's all good now, I never got expelled nor disowned as I feared, but I'm still healing from things. I can't say I'm a beacon of self-confidence either (right now, I'm worried this whole post is too long and pretentious). So if you took the time to read this, thanks! I know tumblr can be a hellscape of a site but I appreciate y'all. It's our little ramblings that get us through the day when we feel like nobody understands us. Here's to the whispers in the tenement halls!

Yes, I did shoehorn a spn gif in my first tumblr post, what are ya gonna do about it?

#sound of silence #the sound of silence #disturbed #simon & garfunkel #simon and garfunkel #freddie mercury #queen band #song lyrics #song reaction #song interpretation #lyrics #lyric analysis #music analysis #exmormon #what it means to me #music is therapy #ex mormon #exlds #exmo #deconstruction #religious trauma

[rennorthernlights]

My Thoughts on Palestine.

I am 22 years old. Born in Texas to a Christian family. I was raised in a church that is a god-fearing, hellfire, and damnation type of church. Growing up I was put in my church’s school and they taught me everything about the Bible. But I didn’t always listen in fact I would question everything since I had a curious mind. Sometimes they answered my questions and sometimes they didn’t. I was active in the church and tried to listen to sermons. I wanted to be a good Christian girl and listen.

There is one sermon that I remember. It was during the 9/11 memorial that my church had and my Pastor was speaking about 9/11 and then it turned to speaking about Muslims. I remember I was drawing, I know “good Christian girl”. I got a lil bored but I remember this. I was 6 years old, my pastor on the pulpit saying “The only way to save a Muslim is to give them a Bible or shoot them in the head.” I remember the other men in the church yelling “Amen! Amen!” I didn’t know what that meant until I got older.

I was raised with a strong hatred for Muslims. All Muslims. Any Muslims. “Remember 9/11, remember what they did.” Is what my father said like as if they personally attacked my family even though we lived in a suburban area in Houston, Texas. I hated anything to do with Muslims and the Muslim religion. When I was old enough to understand what was happening in Afghanistan, I was about 14 years old, I remember a student alongside me said “We should just blow up all the Muslims there.” And I thought “but what about the kids?” I didn’t say anything I just nodded my head and agreed with the student.

I got Instagram against my parents wishes. Scrolling through countless videos and then I saw some Muslims on there. Men, woman, and children. Just like me only different in religion. I still hated them but I wanted to learn about them. I still hated them but I wanted to understand them. I still hated them… I still hated them because I was taught to hate them. That little seed of “Why do I hate them?” Was growing.

Eventually I left that church when I was 16 years old which lead to me no longer be a Christian. Mind you not because I couldn’t stand what they believed about Muslims or because of the hypocrisy of my church. No I was no longer a Christian because I was bitter about my family divorcing.

Being on my own without the church breathing down my neck and telling me what I should or should not believe left me confused. So I started going on Instagram more and more and you know what got me to start thinking without the lenses of the church? Abortion and a woman’s right to choose. Argued a lot with my family until eventually my siblings started siding with me. It took a VERY long time for me to make my own choice, to make my own decisions of what I should believe. And that’s what has lead me to this point about Palestine.

Growing up in that church my Principal/Teacher/Pastor’s wife, yes she was all three, would talk about Israel. Talked about it so much that it came almost synonymous with America. I never once heard her or anyone talk about Palestine. In fact the only memory I have of Palestine is a video I saw on Instagram when I was about 17 years old. That little boy, maybe 13 or 15 years old also looked like his birthday, said on the mic “I give my life to Palestine.” And I thought “Palestine? What’s that?” I didn’t know what or who they were talking about so it went into the back of my mind. Never thought about it again.

Until October 7th, 2023, I was up late watching tiktok and I saw this picture with the Skyfall song by Adele playing. It showed a picture of the Iron Dome intercepting a missile. So immediately I go “Israel is under attack!” And I’ll be honest I didn’t care. Just another thing that didn’t matter in my life because I’m in Texas. A million miles away from the comfort of my home and warm bed, I could easily just swipe away or turn off. Until I saw the videos of Palestinian men, woman, and children.

I watched those videos and in my head I’m going “But they started it?” Because that’s what I was taught. “They’re Muslims trying to exterminate the Jews.” My thoughts echoing the words of my pastor, my teacher, my church, my dad. I’ll admit that a part of me was cheering for the Israel people, that I was condoning what was happening. I thought that Hamas was this powerful group and that Israel was weak because that’s what I was taught. Israel is this little country and defenseless, that’s what I was taught all my life. To pray for Israel’s peace and safety, that’s what I always did. It what I was taught to do.

The videos I saw though proved otherwise. Israel isn’t weak, Israel isn’t defenseless, Israel isn’t poor, Israel is… Israel is bombing civilians. Israel is bombing churches. Israel is bombing places that are supposed to be safe.

It’s like the wool was forcibly taken from my eyes. Like a person gripping my hair and making me look. At first I didn’t want to see. I was content in what I was taught. I was safe with not knowing. But I couldn’t do that anymore. I couldn’t just look and forget. I couldn’t. My turning point was my little brother, 13 years old and mind you hasn’t been raised in the church like I was. His worldview is his own because he was allowed to make his own views without the influence of the church. We were talking about it and this 13 year old kid starts talking about Palestine. And at first I was against it, at first I argued with him but he wasn’t backing down. And I thought “He’s caring about this so much. Why?”

So I read as much as I could on Palestine. I’ve been reading articles and watching videos. I’ve been trying to understand. It was hard, the hatred I had for Muslims and the love I had for Israel made it hard. I second guessed everything and tried to find the moment where I could go “Ah ha! See the Muslims and Palestine is lying!” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t find it.

My tiktok fyp was showing me videos of the men, woman, and children left and right. Again it was like the hand was gripping my hair and making me look. In time I didn’t fight it anymore. I stayed and I looked. Video after video, reel after reel, I watched. A silent witness until I couldn’t be silent anymore. I follow tiktok and Instagram accounts to keep up to date. I’m trying to cram as much knowledge in my head so I can speak out about this to my friends that I was raised with. To argue with my dad about this because he’s only parroting what his pastor is saying.

2 weeks I’ve been learning. 2 weeks I’ve been doing the bare minimum of educating myself on this.

Did you know that I thought Israel’s state was there for at least 200 years? Did you know that I had no idea about the open air prison of Gaza until 2 weeks ago? Did you know that I have been loyal to a state that didn’t even know my name only because I was raised to be loyal to them?

I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed of myself. I’m ashamed that I, who prides herself on learning history and facts did not know about Palestine. I’m ashamed that when I saw that video when I was 17 years old that I did not look into what Palestine is. I’m ashamed of my church. I’m ashamed of the state that I was so loyal to even though they wouldn’t even care about me. I’m ashamed that all I can do is speak and post.

But more than anything, I bare witness. I bare witness to the men, woman, and children that are suffering. I am their witness. I will speak out. I will post. I will comment. I will share. Because that is the very least that I can do.

To the Palestinians, I am so sorry that I hated you without even knowing you. That I saw you as Muslim and hated you because of it. I’m so sorry.

To the Muslims, I am so sorry that I hated you and your religion. I hated you without even thinking why? Without stopping and thinking why do I hate you when you’ve done nothing to me? I’m so sorry. I can never not be sorry.

I can never be sorry enough. I’m no saint. I’m no good person. But I will try to be good. I will try and do better. I will educate myself and help when I am able to. I will speak out. I will be another voice. Another shoulder to lean on. I’m sorry and I will do my part to help.

#palestine #free palestine #muslim #christianity #raisedchristian #figuring things out #speaking out #im sorry #palestinians #free gaza

[rainingmbappe]

This is amazing because I’ve been listening to the destroyer of world (ost form Oppenheimer today) and I had this sudden urge to learn everything i could about space, feeling so little and insignificant. Feeling like a tiny speck of dust amongst what is and what could be. What amazes me more than « what is already there » is the things «that could be », and the things we haven’t discovered yet. I do not know any fancy science words, i do not study science in college, but it is something that always moved me to tears from the youngest age. Stumbling onto a random NASA rocket landing when I was just a little child changed the trajectory of my life and clicked something in my brain. When I tell you it is something stronger than emotions, I cry so easily when I watch documentaries, not because I’m sad to be so insignificant, I cry because of the frustration of knowing that I won’t make it alive until we’ve discovered everything, and neither will my potential children be. I will cease to live eventually, and maybe some stars will die at the same time. And what I used to know will probably be refuted, and humanity will go further. I love science and I love humans.

First off, I love you so much, Anon. I love you for talking about this to ME. For giving ME a chance to talk about this.

I was in physics class when my teachers phone started ringing. It was destroyer of worlds from Oppenheimer. I was writing notes when it happened and anon. The WAY my head snapped up when I heard it. As I was getting so freaking excited to talk about the movie with my teacher, I noticed how no one around me seemed to care or notice. I mean, it was pretty loud, so I assumed that they just didn't care. I don't understand how. Oppenheimer is the best science related movie I've watched recently. It changed my life. It reminded me to wonder again.

I understand you to a caliber that no one understands me. The things that could be. That's what keeps me up at night. Things that already ARE and we are not aware of. Oh, that drives me closer to insanity every fucking day. This is going to sound cliché but watching interstellar changed the trajectory of MY life. It lit a dwindling fire I didn't know I had in me. I'm studying science now, and I have unapologetically made it my personality, haha. I mean. How can you not?? I could talk about the wonders of this weird little universe that we're trying to figure out, for absolute eternity.

Anon. I kid you not, I was talking about this with my friend YESTERDAY. About how celebrities dying is sad and musicians dying is sadder. But absolutely NOTHING is sadder than a scientist dying and never knowing the leaps that were made in their field. Let's take the man who changed my perception of absolutely everything forever, Carl Sagan. I genuinely thought that he passed away around 2015 or something. When I found out that that man left us in 1996, I instantly had tears streaming down my face. I have spent so soo many hours of my life watching his lectures and talks on YouTube. I have read so many of his books. I've watched the very old TV programs that he did. The way he talked, the way he conveyed his knowledge, the way he saw humanity for what it was, and what it would become. Years and years before, any of us saw it. He talked about it all. I genuinely thought that he was alive for the things he was talking about. Politics, religion, the future of science, global warming, you name it. He was years ahead of any of us. The fact that the person who made me infatuated with this magnificent world is no more to see the wonders we have achieved makes me just so unbelievably mournful.

I don't know if you know this anon but. My first love in science was and is biology. I don't talk nearly enough about the thing that amazes me the most and beyond any human terminology. I don't think I should even get into the wonders of beloved biology because I'd genuinely never stop. I just want to say how my world only revolves around magnificent wonders so humongous that it's beyond human perception and paradoxically enough, breathtakingly mcroscopic things that are very well beyond our perception too.

Anon, please come off anon so that we can talk forever about this. Or don't. But please don't stop sending asks. I could always talk endlessly more. You seem to very graciously let me indulge in my fanatic talks 😭🫶🏽

I love science and I love humans too.

Edit : fuck it I'm pinning this

#this became long real quick #it felt like i was talking to my friend #i have sososoososooooo much more to say anon #i could have talked in lengths about every point you brought up #this was massively satisfying #i want to thank you again for bestowing me with this ask #i feel so happy that you did #i cry too anon i definitely cry too #🔭🌌 anon #astronomy #science #carl sagan #anon asks

[dana-is-snax]

sex education season 4 spoilers (yes the whole thing, not only a few episodes) ahead

so i just watched the whole season in one day and i just want to say how fucked up it is that neither jakob and jean nor otis and maeve really have a happy ending (yes, with otis and maeve there is still possibility in the future). (it is a very special kind of fucked up that motorbike man is the dad; like he literally called jean 'mum' in like s1ep1)

i love that once in television motherhood isn't only pretty. it is hard and heartbreaking and exhausting and more than not it is romanticised by filmmakers. and yes, jean is not her usual self, but she has fucking postnatal depression (saw someone on tiktok say that they don't like that storyline for her; like i'm sure she doesn't either). also, gillian is so fucking beautiful and talented.

i love that otis' and eric's friendship somehow ends in the same way it begin in the series, with them playing smash bros - while not being static; they acknowledge their differences and their ignorance towards those.

i love that aimee works through the trauma of her assault and i love the scene at the bus stop where she burns the pants and makes photos. so much love for aimee in general.

i love eric's arc. because getting queerness and religion into one person is really hard and i'm sure many can really identify with that situation. at every age too. i know i can and i know somewhere some eighty-year-old can too.

also love my babe maeve for shutting her teacher up.

AND i love, love, love that we finally got a jean/maeve moment where jean gives some motherly advice!!!!!! needed this!

i love so much more ab this: the topic of body dysphoria, t4t-relationship representation, mention of toxic positivity as well as ableism, mention of childhood trauma w special mention to the storyline w jean's sister, etc.

yeah, just my unfiltered, rambled, not-thought-to-the-end opinion.

also joy is a really cute baby in the later episodes when she's not crying all the time :)

#sex education #jean milburn #otis milburn #maeve wiley #aimee gibbs #eric effiong #jean milburn x jakob nyman #maeve wiley x otis milburn #snax speaks #joy milburn

[the-badger-mole]

I just saw a post about all the past Avatars telling Aang he should murder Ozai, even Yangchen (just like in the show) and it made me think: Aang is just 12 when he run away, and when he wake up, he's the last Airbender and last person from his culture, but he is still a 12 year old! I think it's crazy how everything that he says about the Air Nomads philosophy and lifestyle is taken as true. No question. I don't think he had much time to fully comprehend his own culture and its point of view. We know that Monk Gyatso killed Fire Nation soldiers and even Avatar Yangchen implies that kill Ozai is an option that he must take because isn't about him, but the whole world.

How much of this "every life is sacred" is really true? Maybe it was just his interpretation based on his age. Besides, Aang as the Avatar should be loyal to the balance of the world not just his own nation. Shouldn't he, as part of each element, eat meat or at least wear some Water Tribe clothes? Korra eats meet, it doesn't make her less of an Airbender or Avatar.

I don't know, I just think that as someone who should represent all the nations and cultures and balance, Aang seems always pretty bias and unbalanced.

What do you think?

I agree. The Air Nomad culture was both a society and a philosophical (religious?) ideology. I am a Christian and American. When I think back on what I understood about either at age 12, it's insane to me that everyone just took Aang's word for it on Air Nomad teachings. When I think of how I was taught both American culture and religion at age 12, I wouldn't have been able to have complex discussions about either topic, let alone teach someone else about it. My understanding at age 12 was rudimentary at best. And having not had anything approaching a history class since I graduated (unless you count interesting YouTube videos, which considering one of my favorite history YouTubers is Oversimplified, you should absolutely not), I am only slightly more qualified to discuss American society at any length.

Also, understanding a topic doesn't mean there's not ongoing research and education that needs to happen. The best teachers and pastors I had understood that while they knew a lot, there was still a lot to learn, and they kept studying and learning even while they were teaching. Having studied a few languages and lapsing in all but one of them, I can tell you from experience that no matter how good you are at something, continued studies are important not just for learning, but for retaining the information you already 'mastered'.

Now consider Aang, who we never really see practicing any form of bending after "mastering" it. I highly doubt that despite being a 'master' of airbending at 12 that he was among the best benders in the Air Nomad society. He was absolutely a natural airbender, but being a natural at something doesn't equate to being the best. After all, a natural athlete still needs to be trained and conditioned. But Aang doesn't even really practice bending, not even airbending, after getting what has to amount to basics down. Oh sure, he uses his airbending, but we don't really see him actually practicing or putting much effort into getting better at it. There's no reason to believe that he would suddenly throw himself into becoming an expert on Air Nomad philosophy or customs. He was born into it, after all. He studied with the monks (who likely kept the lessons age-appropriate). Why should he study it?

It seems to me, and I would argue that canon supports me, that Aang is not only basing his decisions on a 12 year old's perspective of his culture and philosophy, as he gets older, he's probably not even retaining information to that level. I have to assume that by the time the Acolytes come around, the version of the Air Nomad belief system they're getting is probably mostly just Aang's own personal beliefs and very little actual Air Nomad philosophy.

#atla #anti aang #aang is really out here basing his decisions on a half-completed education #ask the badger mole #the older i get the less the chosen child narrative makes sense #aang needs adult supervision

[milo-is-rambling]

I see my fathers corpse when I close my eyes. Words I never thought would leave my mouth are now exiting. I am begging to some higher power I do not believe in to make this all stop. I am holding the knife to my chest to my hips to my throat. I do not split the skin. I stare at old scars, I tug at my scalp. I pick my cuticles until I cannot move without breaking fresh skin. Days pass faster and slower than ever before. My mother is doing better with her husbands death than I am doing with my fathers. I didn’t even like him when he was alive. He is burning a hole into my chest. This large ache I cannot fill. I need to find another angry horrible man to fit into this space. I fear I am taking the role myself. I am bitter I am lost I am cursing the gods I am driving myself off the bridge I am screaming until my throat is raw I am smiling telling my mother what to wear on her date and when she leaves I collapse in on myself like a dying star. I am sucking everything into my darkness and calling it love, calling it rebirth, calling it redemption. I am struggling and wearing it as a badge of honor. After you have survived a suicide attempt you can see yourself as a god among men. I cannot hold a job or someone’s hand. But I am alive. I am still breathing and that in itself is my religion. I cannot get myself to cry even if I wanted to but the second I open my mouth and speak of him i feel an itch at the back of my throat my chin is wiggling I am holding back the tears as they threaten to pour over. I am all anger and sadness. We used to say my father only had one emotion and it was anger I am his little girl I am his disappointment I was nothing and he loved me despite despite despite. He never liked my brother after he went to college I feared that if I ever went away and came back he would hate me too. I never left. Dropped out of high school and spent most days talking to him. I saw through this emotional mask. I sat in the back of the car last January while my parents smoked and talked. My father talked about his father. My mother reminded him that we are no longer children. I sat in silence. I felt I could’ve been strapped into a car seat, pitifully small. My mother passed me the joint as my father tears up. She didn’t notice. He put all this effort into being likeable when we were young and once we formed our own personalities and weren’t parroting him he decided he didn’t care anymore.

Am I the same way? Am I growing away from my friends or are they no longer playing into my ego and I’m just as miserable as my father. I need to catch my breath. I need to remind myself what is real. I need to forget where we keep the knives. I need to forget where he kept the knives. I need to forget that he held the knife out to me and was proud when I took it in my hand. He wanted me to be angry. He trained me like a fucking dog. Every peer a competition every teacher a source of praise every stranger a friend every family member an enemy. His go to advice was “beat them up” I carried it with me through high school. I carried this violence in my chest that my parents did not know what to do with. My brother and I threatened each other like it was a sport. I always got the last word. Shocked silence at the dinner table. Storming away. Slamming doors. I was the violent presence in my house it was never my father he passed the torch when I was so young that I forgot if it even burned me. I still have the scars to prove that it did. All this violence. Getting scolded when I projected and so I put it all inside. I hacked away at my skin in the dark. Those were the quiet years. Family dinners. Long silences. Friends lost touch. Strangers calling me wonderful things. Strangers years older than me. Men with the same anger in their hearts as me. As my father. Men who talked about fights they got into and how sexy my voice was. I was twelve. I felt wanted for the first time in my whole life. My parents found the messages. Didn’t look me in the eye for two years. I knew what they thought of me. Dirty foul slut who was asking for it. And I was in a way. Asking for power asking for praise asking for anyone to be more broken than me. Is this the price of girlhood? Am I meant to be full of rage? I am still that child watching my mother read through my phone in horror. Listening to her cry through the walls. She asks what she did wrong she asks what she ever did to make me do something like this. The anger in me was something that spread like a disease. My first real girlfriend once got so mad that she smashed her phone with a brick. I had this sick joy in my chest knowing there was someone like me. Is it really sickness when there’s two of us? Partners in crime is still just two criminals. We tore each other apart and left no identifiable evidence. My mother tells me years later that my first girlfriend was crazy. I tell her about the way I treated her. The way I drove her to behave that way. The way I didn’t know what I was doing and so I tore her apart with my teeth. I still have scars on me from the guilt. I use it as an excuse to ignore the way I treated her. I hurt myself because she hurt me. Well who threatened who? Who said they were going to kill themselves because of the way you treated them? Because you were leaving them? I remember my shaky hands calling her mother and telling her to call out of work that night because I was afraid she would do something horrible. That guilt follows me everywhere. Being angry feels like getting in touch with who I was then. Who I hurt and how I hurt myself.

I grew up and lost more friends. Grew more and thought I finally had it figured out. Lost friends again. Each loss felt like a blow to the chest. I wanted so badly to be mad at them. Be mad at anyone but myself. I know I am to blame for the way others react to me. I do not hurt myself but I am constantly thinking about it. Some days I shower just a bit too hot and think about your touch. Some days it’s enough just to think of him. Some days I have to hold the knife in my hands and put it back down again to truly hurt myself. It hurts more to deny myself the blood than it ever did to create these scars. When I hold the knife I am brought back to when it all started. Scale in the bathroom with a notebook beneath it. Weight listings. Up then down then up and up and up again. Couldn’t get it to go back down. The word fat carved into my thigh. It’s mostly faded now but when I hear your knock on the door it all comes rushing back to me. Don’t notice don’t notice don’t notice. Ignore the blood. Ignore the tears. Ignore the way I am shivering under your touch. I deserve this. My mother sits me down at the dining room table. She washes my sliced up arm with alcohol and apologizes for the sting. She wraps me with a long bandage and tells me that just because I cut myself doesn’t mean that I don’t have to do my math homework. I had never wanted to die as badly as I did then. Thirteen and sobbing onto a placemat from dollar tree, better than my tears staining the wood table. My father never got mad at me for being depressed like my mother did. I know somewhere in him the same sadness resided. He may not have cut himself but he found other ways to hurt. He has tried every drug he could get his hands on. He’d pick every fight that wasn’t his to win and haggle until everyone in his life was miserable. It’s a wonder my mom never left him. It’s a wonder she hasn’t left me. When i close my eyes I see my fathers corpse. My greatest loss. My greatest disappointment. Forever wondering what could have been. I wonder if when my mother closes her eyes she sees me instead. Sees me as a young kid with bleeding wrists or as a disgusting slut calling men twenty years older than me Daddy online just for a chance at affection. I wonder what about me disappoints her the most. I still imagine myself dying before her. I do not know what I would do with myself if I had no parents left to disappoint. The knife so close at all times just begging to see the blood. The car full of gas and waiting to be at the bottom of the lake. Maybe I have a problem. Maybe I always have. Maybe it’s hereditary. Maybe it’s all me. Maybe it’s always been me. Maybe the knife is the only family heirloom I have left.

#most depressing poem ever slay

[jessythebunny]

✨Original Oc's: My team✨

🐰°•Jessy•°💙

This is littlery me but i'm going to introduce myself for you

Bio:

✓Age:16

✓Religion:Islam

✓Sexual: Asexual

✓Favorite color: Green and Black

✓Favorite food/drink: Pizza and cola

✓Favorite animal: cats

✓Hobbies: reading books/cooking/drawing

✓fears/things she hates: dark/spiders/highs

Some facts:

💙Jessy likes to spend time with her best friends Lucy, Alex and Liam, and sometimes with her boyfriend Jonathan and her family

💙Jessy has strong fellings for Jonathan and he also loves her back

💙Jessy has a bad past with her old friend Anna because when they were young, they were close to each other, but although Anna was jealous, Lucy later came and became close friends with Jessy and forgot about Anna, so Anna decided to abandon Jessy or not speak to her again

💙When she is angry, she draws or listens to music to vent her anger, she hates for anyone to talk to her when she is angry because at that moment she will hit him, so she likes to be alone

💙At school, when she wants to answer any question, for example, she begins to feel afraid and nervous because she is afraid that someone will make fun of her and she suffered from this in her childhood

💙She also had a boyfriend before Jonathan, but he did not treat her well. He neglected her, cheated on her with other girls, and was a pervert, so she broke up with him, but he did not want to do that, and he promised her that he would come back one day to take revenge on her

🤎°•Jonathan•°🎧

Bio:

✓age: 18

✓Religion: Christ

✓Sexual: bisexual

✓Favorite color: brown

✓favorite food/drink: black coffée

✓favorite animal: bunnies

✓hobbies: reading books

✓fears/things he hates: spiders

Some facts:

🤎Jonathan likes to hanging out with Liam because he's his best friend, Rami and Ken

🤎Jonathan has a huge crush on Jessy and he doesn't like when she hang out with other guy

🤎Jonathan confused between Jessy and Messy because they look similar. For example, when he wants to hug Jessy, he hugs Messy by mistake

🤎he is very jealous man and he doesn't like see his girlfriend talk to another man, for example Saiko, he's Jessy's cousin and he likes Jessy, So he wasn't comfortable with him the first time he saw him

💛°•Liam•°🐺:

Bio:

✓age: 18

✓Religion: Christ

✓sexual: bisexual

✓favorite color: Yellow

✓favorite food/drink: Macaroni and cheese and Cola

✓favorite animal: wolves

✓hobbies: study/football/drawing

✓fears/things he hates: nothing

Some facts:

💛Liam likes to hang out with Jonathan and Rami, but sometimes he likes being alone

💛Liam also confused between Jessy and Messy like Jonathan because they are such a dumba$$

💛he transform into a wolf when he is afraid

💛Liam is a vampire, so his eyes turn into red and he wants some blood, Especially Messy's blood, because he thinks it is delicious and he drinks it in case he feels jealous for her

💛he likes adventures and risks and he doesn't care when he gets hurt

💜°•Lucy•°✨:

Bio:

✓age: 17

✓religion: Islam

✓sexual: heterosexual

✓favorite color: purple

✓favorite food/drink: cakes and chocolat milk

✓favorite animal: nothing

✓hobbies: anything about fasion

✓fears/things she hates : being ugly

Some facts:

💜Lucy likes to spend her time with Me, Messy and Alex

💜she really loves Rami and she thinks that he's her world

💜Lucy loves anything about fasion like make-up, fashion design, hair styles, ect...

💜She's kind and sweet and sometimes she gets nervous and she is a bit vain

💜Her mother is a teacher and her father owns the largest fashion company, which means in short, she is rich

💜she is also very famous in school but there is some girls who are jealous of her and they keep bullying her for no reason

💙°•Rami•°☁:

Bio:

✓age: 16

✓religion: Islam

✓sexual: pansexual

✓favorite color: blue and white

✓favorite food/drink: coffee with milk

✓favorite animal: dogs

✓hobbies: being alone (emo boy)

✓fears/things he hates: people/fighting/math

Some facts:

💙Rami is the most boring person in our team

💙He is kind of gloomy but sometimes he smiles

💙he has a crush on Lucy but he is very shy to admet it to her

💙rarely he hangs out with his friends Jonathan and Liam,but he always wants to be alone

💙he hates when somebody reminds him of his past because he has a terrible past so that's why he is like that now

💙°•Owen•°🖤:

Bio:

✓age: 19

✓religion: christ

✓sexual: aromantic

✓favorite color: blue and black

✓favorite food/drink: pizza

✓favorite animal: cats and dogs

✓hobbies: montage/lestning to music

✓fears/things he hates: dark/Injustice/Treason

Some facts:

💙🖤Owen is a naughty, cute and funny boy

💙🖤Owen has neither a boyfriend nor a girlfriend because he knows that he acts like a little child and that he is not romantic enough and that he does not need either of them

💙🖤Owen has a twin named Otis, Owen and Otis were close brothers when they were young, but because Otis was not receiving attention from his parents for some reason, and he saw his brother receiving a lot of attention and affection, he felt jealous and very sad because he thought he had no importance, so he decided to leave his family and run away forever

💙🖤sometimes Owen could make many disasters and misfortunes at home, and sometimes, if he wants to escape from his predicament, he blames one of us XD

💙🖤Owen's father has a large company and likes to donate some of his money to the poor and do charity

💜°•Saiko•°🖤:

💜🖤i already introduce him to you so you can find all his information HERE

🩵°•Venessa•°🦋:

Bio:

✓age: 15

✓religion: undefined

✓sexual: pansexual

✓favorite color: cyan

✓favorite food/drink: cookies and strawberry milk

✓favorite animal: butterflies and hamsters

✓hobbies: drawing

✓fears/things she hates: nuts(allergic)/Cockroaches/horror films

Some facts:

🩵🖤Vanessa came from the world of stars, so she has stars in her eyes

🩵🖤When Vanessa dies, she will turn into a star and fly in the sky like other stars

🩵🖤Venessa thinks that Ken is really cute and lovely because she loves hamsters, so she littlery has a crush on him

🩵🖤Venessa likes to spend time with Messy and Alex, but sometimes she likes to being alone

🩵🖤she is allergic of nuts and chocolat because if she ates them she will get stomach ulcers

💙°•Ken•°🐹:

Bio:

✓age: 16

✓religion: undefined

✓sexual: bisexual

✓favorite color: blue and white

✓favorite food/drink: hotdogs and Pepsi

✓favorite animal: hamsters

✓hobbies: sports/swimming/art

✓fears/things he hates: dogs/butter(allergic)/dark

Some facts:

💙🤍Ken has a lot of friends, but Jonathan, Liam are his favorite (famous boys)

💙🤍Ken transforms into a hamster whenever he wants

💙🤍He likes Venessa because she is nice and shy and they suit each other

💙🤍he has a rival past with Anna because she is his ex and she cheated on him a lot of times but he can't stand it and he broke up with her

💙🤍Such a Drama queen

💙🤍he also likes to hang out with Alex because she is his female best friend and that's it no ship

💗°•Alex•°🤍:

Bio:

✓age: 17

✓religion: christ

✓sexual: transgender

✓favorite color: pink and white

✓favorite food/drink: Strawberry soda and pancakes

✓favorite animal: all the animals

✓hobbies: cooking/fighting/gymnastics

✓fears/things she hates:narrow places/Hassle

Some facts:

💗🤍Alex has come from the demon world to start a new life on planet Earth

💗🤍Before Alex came to Earth, she was never happy in the demon world because she was the princess of the demon kingdom and her mother was strict with her and she wanted to be the queen after her, but Alex did not want that and decided to run away without anyone knowing, and to this day they are still searching for her

💗🤍She has a crush on Saiko because he was the only one who understood her, and that he came from the same place, and that they really suited each other

💗🤍Venessa is her only best friend and the others are just normal friends

💗🤍Alex has an evil side and they say she is a legend of the kingdom, but she doesn't want to show it now

💗🤍When Alex came to Earth, she thought that people would be afraid of her because of her appearance, so she turned into a normal humanlike them to adapt to her, but then she decided to show them her true form, and when people saw her, they felt that she was cute and not evil at all. After that, she felt comfortable and decided to stay like this

#Original oc's #Original characters #my ocs #my style #my writing #my post #my everything #gacha oc #gacha games #gacha life #gacha #gacha club #gacha life 2 #gacha community #free gaza #free palestine #fypシ #viral #fandom #thomas and friends #thomas the tank engine #artists on tumblr #art #fanart #james the red engine #i love you #explore #jessythebunny #I'm tireeeeed of writing oh shit #Jessy speaks to you