#I’m an atheist btw idk why some atheists are like that

[bumpscosity]

​atheists will complain abt religious ppl judging them for being atheist and then judge others for being religious

[ayzrules]

✶ 𝐇𝐗𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒: 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 & 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 & 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍   Long story short, I have been thinking about this for wayyyyy too long now and wanted to get some ~thoughts~ & analysis written down! This post is going to be...fairly long, lol. Apologies in advance :D

  Also, if you can’t see the last gif (the one for ‘holy’), click here. Tumblr keeps fucking up the image when i try to upload it :////

  This post is probably going to be about 2/3 yorknew & phantom troupe/kurapika focused, 1/3 chimera ants, maybe with some references to other arcs (including manga-only arcs) mixed in. so, ofc, tons of spoilers ahead! also, i realize that my blog theme is hard to read (and i’m p sure clicking ‘keep reading’ sends you to the og post itself), so i’m linking the post w/ full text copy/pasted in on my art backup side blog (which has a more legible font) here. 

✶ 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇   I’m sure absolutely nobody is surprised with me starting here - there is just. SO. MUCH. DEATH. in hxh. & right from the start, one thing I noticed that togashi really emphasized was the #4 and its connection to death. in japanese, chinese, and im p sure some other asian cultures the number 4 is pronounced like the word for death so it’s associated with death in general, and boy oh boy does the ‘deadly number 4′ thing show up E V E R Y W H E R E. we get to the hunter exam, and hisoka is applicant #44. kurapika is #404. i didn’t notice it at first, but this was so intentional holy shit. togashi is NOT SUBTLE.

  So pika & hisoka are, right off the bat, associated with death. okay. and then there are even more clues to drive the point home: hisoka is member #4 in the phantom troupe, kurapika’s birthday is april 4th (aka 4/4). 100% not a coincidence (!!). with hisoka, it’s pretty obvious why togashi’s throwing all this death 444444 stuff around - dude is a psycho murder pedo clown, literally gets off on killing people (and there’s also the fact that judas sits 4th from the left in the last supper painting, and he’s sort of the judas equivalent for the phantom troupe). with kurapika, though, it’s a bit more subtle and woven deeper into his characterization, which i LOVE. togashi puts the mans in blue & gold & white (traditionally ‘pure’ or ‘heavenly’ colors), makes him so fucking kind & so good-hearted.....when he’s not relentlessly pursuing his revenge, ofc. more on this in the next section, but pika = death. togashi has made that v v v clear.

  Backtracking a bit to hisoka, though, I also just wanted to point out the 4 is death symbolism in the fortunes too (GOD i love the fortunes): in one translation, he’s the false fourth moon, and in the og japanese (i think), he’s the false hare (4th in the lunar zodiac or w/e it’s called. i don’t know the japanese cultural influences here, but in the chinese legend that established the zodiac animals, they race across the heavenly river & the top 12 animals got zodiac slots. the hare finished 4th, so it’s #4 in the cycle). 

  And just as a final note, Tserriednich is the fourth prince of the kakin empire, and also another dude who has a hard-on for murder & other gory shit. again: togashi is not subtle with this, lmfao

✶ 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘, 𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘   As probably everyone who’s gotten to yorknew knows, togashi is so 0 fucks given when he wants to be. I mean there’s the whole thing where he just. took New York and decided, Yorknew. LMFAO, but also, he made the main antag of that arc be named chrollo lucilfer, sit around in a ruined church, have a reversed cross coat, pale & dark-haired/dark-eyed, generally dressed in dark colors, very terrible murder guy. liiiike......chrollo x devil symbolism game is 1000/10 at this point lmaooo

  And i know absolutely nothing about christianity in general, but pt/kurapika & yorknew arc is just so full of christian imagery/symbolism! one thing that i L O O O O O O V E though is how togashi really blurs the traditional christian-coded good/evil, holy/damned boundaries.

  Back to kurapika: he wears gold and blue, his coloring is very stereotypically ‘angelic’, he’s precious and good and kind. his chains are all about ~judgment~ and ~healing~ - some of the chains are also in literal cross shapes, aren’t they? And the chain dagger in his own heart...the imagery is very startlingly similar to the immaculate heart of mary, where the swords stabbing thru the heart apparently represent seven sorrows. IDK much about this stuff other than the visual similarities; literally had to google ‘daggers through heart christianity?’ to even get the name of that thing LOL. anyway, at first, it seems like togashi establishes him as the ‘angel’, the ‘good’, the ‘holy’ in the angel/devil, good/evil, holy/damned dichotomy between him and chrollo.

  But that’s not the end of the story. his entire storyline is driven by a huuuuuuuge giant desire for vengeance, first of all, and then there’s the scarlet eyes, which canonically are seen as demonic/cursed/what have you (according to one of the movies or smth? where they show pika as a 10 y/o?), and then we also have red eyes in modern culture being associated w pretty much the same thing (vampires, anyone?). the fight scene with uvo has everything in b&w besides the blood on his face & his red eyes & the moon (<<< more fortune foreshadowing & symbolism, i love to see it), and there are tonssss of scenes where he has to suppress his rage. so all of that is obviously not very angelic of him i would say LOL. in fact, what i find super interesting is that the scarlet/red eyes (which are ‘demonic’) is actually the driving factor behind his super powerful nen abilities; this ties in so well with the fortunes & death associations imo! the fortunes call him the ‘death-bringer’ in one translation, or ‘half-angel, half-death’, so that’s one side of pika = red eyes = death, but there’s also the fact that emperor time is literally draining his life force. so pika = death for both himself and others namely the pt, question mark?

  Now for chrollo: togashi’s devil symbolism is EXTREMELY overt with him, but i love the subtler jesus references too. the church thing, obviously, and the st. peters cross which is cuz st peter respected jesus too much & didn’t think he was worthy to die in the same way as him (or something like that, i am the most atheist person in the world & hxh is literally my entire christian education pls) but is also used as an anti-christianity symbol these days. bandit’s secret looks like a bible, lbr, and mans has a cross tattoo.

  Other things beyond visuals - 12 spiders, 12 apostles; hisoka’s betrayal, where member #4 can be thought to correspond to judas sitting 4th from left at last supper. and this miiiiight be a bit of a stretch, but i think the meteor city being the place of origin may also play into the blurred line between angel/devil and holy/damned here; meteors are defined as space rocks that are in earth’s atmosphere, becoming incandescent in the process. meteorites are for the kinds that actually reach the ground. and idk, lucifer was cast out of heaven / sky too right? so i think there might be some subtle fallen angel imagery/symbolism playing into the pt as well

✶ 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒)   Last section yay! i don’t have as much to say about this, besides when i was making chimera ant arc edits & realized that there might have been some subtle gon/meruem parallels???

  So obviously, everyone knows that line killua says to gon - “you are light” - and then i was just remembering that meruem’s name means.... “light that illuminates all” (!!!!). maybe it’s a coincidence, but knowing togashi, i’m leaning towards nahhhh. there HAS TO be some kinda meaning there (!!).

  Going back to the events of the chimera ant arc....ooh boy. let’s see: gon is optimistic & hopeful even in the face of kite potentially being dead, killua says he’s light, they find kite & dude is fucked up, gon is pissed. gets all angry & ~dark~, especially during the palace invasion when he’s staring pitou down as she fixes up komugi. then the actual fight against pitou: more darkness, more anger, but through it all there’s still light, namely his jajanken being very orange & fiery lookin.....and that final sequence, where he puts all his possible nen he’d ever have into his ~final form~ or wahtever & turns into a male version of true form!bisky but dressed in a crop top & short-shorts (i am SCARRED, btw. s c a r r e d !). there’s just huuuge flashes of light as that’s going on, and it reminded me of supernovas or dying stars when i was thinking about it, where the star is like, collapsing under its own weight? & burning thru its own fuel, until there’s nothing left except a dwarf or black hole or what have you. one final, extremely deadly burst of light & energy before death.

  On the meruem side of things: born into a dark cave, exhibits a traditionally evil/cruel/wicked/whatever personality/traits so that has ppl associating him with darkness. then he gets to know komugi, starts to appreciate other aspects of humanity, seems like he could have actually turned into a decent person who doesn’t want to eat everyone - so that’s a ‘path to light’, maybe? - and then the extermination team yeets themselves into the palace, netero takes him out to bumfuck nowhere, they fight. netero’s fighting is just ALL light, from his giant ass golden 100-type guanyin bodhisattva to the poor man’s rose. again, there’s the sense of finality to it all, in a similar vein to dying stars: netero comes in determined to kill meruem no matter what, and we all know netero doesn’t flake. then we see netero get destroyed after the zero hand, and he triggers the rose, and everything is burning & on fire before the flames are put out and all turns dark again.

  But wait!!! pouf & youpi revive meruem and all he does is play gungi with komugi, even with the poison of the rose. he eventually dies, and the gungi pieces in that final shot of them together (i am BAWLING just thinking about it holy shit) has one that’s all white, one that’s a black ring and white inside. i assume all white is for komugi, who has never done ANYTHING wrong in her LIFE, so i like to think that the 2nd one is for meruem - born “into darkness”, literally & figuratively, but he turns something like ‘good’ by the end. it’s interesting how togashi has sort of gone for a bit of a subversion here: the hero going from light to darkness, and the main antag from darkness to light.

✶ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍   AahhhhHHHHHhhh so if you read all the way down here through my LONG rambles, tysm! i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear what other people think about all this, and i’ve FOR SURE missed tons and tons of stuff - chimera ants is just. SO MUCH. and i don’t know it as well as yorknew eeek.

  I’m not sure if i’m really ~knowledgeable~ in any other areas relating to hxh, so this might be the only one of these that i do, but i definitely think about some of this - esp all the religious symbolism & #4 stuff - a ton! so in the meantime, if it’s of any interest, i’m just going to shamelessly plug my hxh x religious beliefs/superstitions edit series :D lots of love to all!!!

[alatismeni-theitsa]

My mom’s father is Pakistani and her mother is Algerian. And my dad is Russian. I was born in London then my father took me to Russia where lived with my fathers parents until 4 and then my father gave me back to my mom, who gave me to her mom and I lived with her until 12. From ages idk however to 4 I had no idea of my other cultures because yk I was a baby. But after that I grew up with my Algerian grandmother who taught me arabic and French (I was also speaking Russian by then taught by my father and his parents and along with that my grandma would frequently teach me arabic and French) and I grew up with all Algerian culture food, holidays. And by 12 I moved in with my mom’s house(who’s father is Pakistani and mom Algerian) and because she believes that a father’s ethnicity is more important, she doesn’t immerse in Algerian culture, only Pakistani(she’s Pashtun) and her second husband is Pakistani too, so after 12 I grew up as a Pakistani, all Pakistani culture and food and holidays and everything but I didn’t forget my Algerian teachings so by 18 I was very mixed in both Algerian and Pakistani culture. And related more to them than Russian, that’s perhaps because I spent very little time around anyone who was Russian, except for my father who would occasionally visit just check up on me. So that’s why I feel like I’m all parts Russian Algerian and Pakistani. This all questions came up in my mind because I’m getting married and I want to have one simple “white” wedding and one traditional wedding with both of my other cultures mixed, maybe a Pakistani wedding dress and Algerian food and Algerian jewellery. I hope that makes sense thanks for replying to my previous ask, hope you have a great day x

And btw I forgot say this but I don’t believe in either Christianity or Islam, I was taught both, I don’t know if it’s a subconscious act of rebellious or I just don’t believe in it. I certainly wouldn’t call myself an atheist but I don’t believe in either of the gods anyhow I do in fact celebrate Eid and Christmas because that’s part of my culture.

--------------- end of ask --------------

Oooohhh! It's for a wedding, that's so awesome!! 😍😍😍😍 Ftou ftou ftou 🧿🧿🧿 may you both live in happiness and health!!! I am honored I (hopefully) have the chance to help you in some way!

With such a cultural mix and teachings through the years I understand the dilemma xD In my humble opinion it makes sense for the wedding to reflect your upbringing. Maybe it's my poor Greek upbringing (xD) but I would suggest maybe have one wedding with Algerian and Pakistani elements + some Russian elements, and not an additional white one?

If I am wrong, feel free to ignore me and do your thing! 😁👍 But I suggest this because: 1) you'll save lots of money for one day, which you'll definitely need later in life 2) The way you describe it, it seems to me that you are the least immersed in Russian culture, maybe like this 10% I was talking about. (Again, I don't know you better than you know yourself, this is just an assumption based on what I read in the ask). So a whole wedding about it doesn't seem... "needed"?

But you can honor the Russian element by having some Russian music, drinks and dishes at the wedding party afterwards ;) And do a Russian custom custom with your partner, maybe! I know a lot of German couples cut a piece of wood in their wedding day to show collaboration, communication and good work ethic. Maybe there's something like that you can do with your partner but from your father's Russian culture obviously.

(I'm not sure if a white wedding is because of the Russian heritage or because you simply want to have an additional Western wedding for the aesthetic, I just assumed the white wedding was because of the Russian side).

If you are very financially comfortable, go for two weddings if you like! But since I know a wedding needs tens if not hundreds of euros (think in your currency) to be made, and your three cultures usually go for luxury at weddings, I suggest one wedding to cover the three cultures. Older couples have told me that a beautiful wedding is great but not to the point you'll later miss that extra sweet sweet tens of thousands of Euros xD (you can spend it on your house, on a car, on a trip, on a medical emergency, on future children if you have them, etc. Like, practical things that will be demanded by some need because life is a bitch 😂)

I also don't know if your partner can help you incorporate the three cultural elements in some way. Through their clothing, or by doing the Russian custom with you.

I am here if you need more, and I wish you a wonderful wedding 🤩

[eredins-a-king-aint-he]

Since it’s after midnight here, I figure it’s a great time to have some Gaunter thoughts

I feel like I should’ve considered this before, but I wonder how Gaunter would interact with religion throughout time. I’m personally an atheist/agnostic so there’s that, but like… would corrupting churches/organizations be too easy or cliche for him?

I guess I was thinking about it bc of a song I really like, The Bitter Suite IV and V: the Congregation and the Sermon in the Silt by The Dear Hunter. It’s about this dude who’s a both a pimp and a priest, so right into the corrupted religion idea. One of the lines is “I hear you're looking for God. Well, I can show you the way just as long as you can pay, but the price is going up” and another is “If you want to get up, reserve a room on high, put your coins in my hat, and don't ask why”. (Fantastic song btw 1000/10 would recommend)

But yeah would Gaunter ever do something like that? The whole taking advantage of faith for personal gain thing? I feel like it wouldn’t be enough of a challenge for him… like he seems to enjoy the game of sorts that comes with his contracts and loopholes and whatnot

But also the idea of him being worshipped as a God (haha) is interesting. How would he react to that? He clearly will happily fuck over anyone who’s even remotely interested in who or what he is, but what about people who see him as a higher power? Would he fuck with them too? Or would he just kinda be ambivalent to the whole thing?

Idk I’m just having thoughts about it

[a---fire---inside]

how would you describe the ni function ( as a ni-dom i mean)

Constantly looking for meaning in things. Even random things. As if everything happening in the surface must have a reason or a deeper meaning for my life. Or seeing random things and seeing them as a metaphor for something else. Not doing it with effort but naturally, not even deliberately as most of the times it just happens and then you feel like that is ‘the’ meaning of the thing.

And not telling anyone in my case, I’m INTJ (-T), and kinda appearing like a rational person because I express myself through my aux TE so I keep all these things inside usually. lol my mother thought I was some kind of cynical atheist or smth even though I am definitely not.

Of course this ‘meaning’ is subjective, if someone is spiritual they might make it so, if they’re not they’ll go for something else, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that things are all connected in a meaningful way. As far as I remember I always lived in my own head and filtered everything through my own...uh...idk how to call it, cause it wasn’t ethics/values and it wasn’t objective criteria either, that’s how I understood that I wasn’t F or T dom, cause I sure have personal ethics and objective criteria but they come after.

Idk if this makes sense, I hope it does, also because I haven’t re-read my mbti books in a while and I’m not used to write about functions, I’m just used to read them.

I stumbled on my early teenage journal and it was funny to read how I wrote pages of thoughts about main ideologies, trying to make sense of them in relation to how I saw the world, or how as a child I was dead set on the other forms of life existing in the universe, and I had my own explanation that, getting older, I just honed with better ‘knowledge’ (amaterish ofc, I’m not an expert) but basically stayed the same. Or how I always thought that everyone was potentially bi/sexual and I just didn’t get why everyone was so full of problems but later it turned out that the bi/sexual was me lol. But I digressed.

So I’d also say it’s an interest in ideas, be it established (or less) ideologies, dreams or whatever. Not in a broad way (my ex was an INTP, so I high NE user and I could see how different we were as he was interested in ideas too but in a broader sense while I was very selective and I only cared about those that fit my own ‘vision’ kind of) but in a deep way. Which doesn’t mean you can’t be broad, but that you usually go deeper and it lasts longer, or forever.

But also, thinking about memories and the past, it kinda makes you rewrite it. We have SE as inferior so we remember the past objectively, not in the impressionist, detailed and subjective kinda way SI does, with sensations connected and all. I subconsciously erase memories, when they don’t ‘match’ with the way I am now. Because NI is like I have an ideal of how I 'have to’ be, in order to be the best version of myself, also. So when the past doesn’t match with it I forget it. I realized it growing up actually, and remembering things and laughing at this because this ‘ideal’ evolves and with it memories. I don’t really forget things btw, but they just don’t come up anymore.

Also NI is closely connected to the subconscious so those infamous a-ha moments exist but they’re not so magic, if you’re NI user you’re used to them and you kinda rely on them, like, whenever I write something and I’m stuck on some logistic problem I don’t worry cause I know the solution will come, and after a couple of days I might be walking with the dogs and bam-here it is, super easy. I know this happens to other types as well btw, especially NI users. I think it’s the frequency and the feeling of it being natural that makes you understand it’s a dominant function.

I don’t trust much online descriptions of NI cause all that mystic/genius thing is weird,  it makes INFJs appear as mystical something and INTJs as chess champions something, not to mention it assumes every INTJs is successful in work/studies, and maybe it’s like this in meritocratic societies but in my country where connections are more important, my lack of ability to kiss asses when needed, my introvertion (shyness during childhood) made me lose opportunities that sociable colleagues caught instead, even tho I was better for the task, cause I’m quicker and more efficient. But I also have a hard time adjusting in the beginning. Bureaucratic stuff like slow university workings (and lol phone rates)? I am terrible at them, while it seems that everyone else gets them immediately. 

All the future oriented thing that is very productive and efficient is TE working actually, because being concerned by future implications doesn’t always mean being efficient. Just thinking about the future. I mean I have in mind the eulogy for my father since he started getting old, and every time I do something I know I’ll regret it in the future, i.e. when the person will be dead, but do I do something about it? Nope.

Also speaking of NI I’ll mention inferior SE, which makes it hard to focus on the here and now. I’m a good observer of things I like, I notice nature and birds so well and voices/accents, and living with a SE-dom sister made me better at improvising, or rather, following her antics since she’s the type who never plans anything and drags me along lol. My first job was in a quick paced environment and with very practical money related tasks, so I had a hard time in the beginning and I felt stupid since most colleagues were clearly...uh...superficial people with minimum culture and interests, but then I learned and I became really good at it, even tho it was very very tiring for me to always be in the here and now.

And speaking of inferior SE how not to mention the ‘in the grip’ moments that I have so often where I buy stuff, eat what I shouldn’t and easily got drunk, for a while I even took some clubbing persona that was totally like a very bad version of an ESFP, feeling shitty later because it wasn’t me. So when I found that NI-doms can be like this I was wow, that was me back in the crazy days.

I hope this was helpful!

[shy-marker-pliers]

Just Catholic School Things (AKA why i became an atheist at age 11)

PSA: everyone’s religious experience is obviously different. i’m just talking abt my experiences here and i’m in no way speaking for everyone who ever went to a catholic school lol.

Ok my parents are catholic and because of that i went to a small catholic school for eight years (preschool-grade 6) and hoo boy it was Something. tw for religion, religious trauma, all that good stuff.

UNIFORMS UGHHHH (the only colors we were allowed to wear were red, white, black, and sometimes you could get away with very dark navy blue)

you could choose from this wide variety of options: long or short sleeved polo shirt (has to be tucked in), black dress pants or dress shorts. sometimes they’d let you wear a sweater or cardigan but only if it was red or black. you could also wear a jumper dress as long as you had black/white tights and dress shoes. also the dress had to be black and red plaid.

we only got to go without uniforms if we were having pajama day which only happened like once a year, twice if we were lucky.

having to wear clothes like that for so long is probably the reason why i live in hoodies and sweatpants now lol

Asking my mom if she would sacrifice me if god told her to and her saying yes (i was in FIRST GRADE)

crying for hours and saying that i’m going to hell because i lied about having seen a movie (second grade)

teachers deadass saying that u only go to heaven if you’re the right religion (catholic) and even then you still had to follow all the rules or else you’d go straight to hell

having to tell a priest my darkest sins (this was not optional, everyone was required to do this twice a year)

people in my class thinking that you couldn’t be friends with someone if they were a different religion than you

having to learn cursive ughhhh (jokes on them tho cause now i can read cursive but refuse to write in it out of pure spite)

not being allowed to sing non-religious songs for our yearly christmas concert

being required to speak in church (readings, lord hear our prayer, gospel, stations of the cross, etc) which was hell for ppl that have a fear of public speaking. 

also along with that we had to sing in the choir and be altar servers (again, this was non-negotiable)

ALSO ALSO whenever there was a funeral at church they would make 3 of the 5th and 6th graders miss recess and lunch and altar serve for it, and since there weren’t a lot of us we all had to do it at least once. i’m talking 10-11 year olds not getting to eat and having to spend an hour and a half plus wearing a whole ass robe in a building with no heating or cooling units full of crying people and a dead body 

the only compensation i ever saw for that was a lollipop btw.

im sure that didnt affect anyone in any way

being super fucking clueless about the world around me until like the middle of 7th grade because, whether intentional or not, i was being sheltered

not knowing gay ppl were a thing until 4th grade and only because i overheard my grandma being homophobic and asked what she was talking about

having shit social skills because my entire school, from preschool to 6th grade consisted of about 80 people, including teachers and i had known the same kids since preschool, so i never had to make new friends.

we also had one teacher for multiple grades (for example, 3rd and 4th grade shared a classroom and teacher, 5th and 6th grade did the same)

going to church every week was literally a part of school. every friday we’d get to class, be there for like 10 minutes to listen to morning announcements, and take a 3 minute walk to church. then we’d spend like an hour and a half there and go back to class

and don’t even get me started on lent, advent, adoration, and benediction.

ok i’m gonna get started anyway

fyi advent is the 22-28 days leading up to xmas. lent is 40 days long, not counting sundays, and lasts from ash wednesday to holy saturday (the day before easter).

so every day during lent and advent we all had to gather in the hall or outside and say a decade of the rosary. for those unfamilliar this means saying one our father, followed by ten hail marys, and one glory be. so that’s like 12 minutes of our time that we could’ve been using to idk learn math. 

and on fridays and mondays we had to do 2 to make up for the weekend so double the time wasted yayyy

we weren’t really allowed freedom of expression either. we were told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, and that’s it. even in art class.

i understand art teachers having everyone do the same style of project (ie: make a watercolor paining, sculpt something, etc.) but ours legit had us do THE EXACT SAME THING.

like, one time we were doing origami and instead of being like “ok here’s some paper and some designs to choose from go wild kiddos” the teacher was like “make a crane, a star, and an envelope. they all have to be different colors and you can’t use white or black paper. ok go.” 

total bullshit tbh

ill talk more abt her later cuz this is getting long lol

anyways thats my spicy religious trauma 4 u

but jokes on them cause now i’m an nb pan anarcho-communist lmao

[janiedean]

I really, really love your metas! In "Why a Jaime/Brienne Endgame in the Books Makes More Sense Than One Might Think, Based on Previous Works of GRRM's" you wrote, that you have endless reasons to assume that both, J and B, will survive the whole series - can you please name some? Aside from this mentioned meta I've only read an explantion of the weirwood dream, which can be interpreted in both ways. Or can you link a good meta that explains other reasons? Thank you very much!

hey!

first of all thank you so much, glad that you appreciate my rants. ;) that said, sure I can go in-depth. in order (btw @ginmo has written also some excellent meta about this, just check on her blog), and also counting the weirwood dream which I’ve ranted on at length in that specific meta:

now, the first thing is how grrm strategically placed these two in the narrative, in the sense that:

brienne has spent her life being passed for a joke and she desperately wants for someone to see her worth as a person and she’d about kill herself for the people who manage to get as far as to gain her trust/love, jaime has spent his life loving people without getting much in return and with that trust being used/abused/thrown away and everyone taking it for granted... and we’re assuming they’re not set up to be together when as stated grrm has written them as romantic from the first moment?

(also, jaime’s entire first chapter in asos is basically ‘I find brienne attractive but since I never considered that I could be attracted to anyone but cersei I can’t understand I’m attracted to her so I’ll stare at her and think she’s ugly all along even if I really am attracted to her. brienne’s issues are also rooted in the fact that no one sees her as attractive. jaime does. hmmm?)

both of them start from a miserable situation from which they’re finding their own way up, not down - jaime is more obvious but brienne is too because she starts at the point where she’s so starved for recognition she would die for someone who just was nice to her but didn’t really gaf about her and now she’s... well, becoming a knight because sure af that is happening, I’m sticking with the theory that the knighting is book canon too -, and if they both end up miserable or one of them does it doesn’t work;

both of their chapters have heavy foreshadowing concerning possible marriage/having children/finding love - jaime wants to father his kids and at some point resents that other men are husbands and fathers but not him because he was always the warrior and he doesn’t say it happily, brienne is half-glad her first betrothed died because she thinks she’s not suited to typical feminine things/to fit into a woman’s role in society but she’s also sad at thinking she will never have children, these two are going to get together very soon, and I’m supposed to think they’re set up for failure? k but I can respectfully disagree;

also, this goes back to that meta I wrote in which I said that grrm does not do grim for grim’s sake and he’s actually way less cruel than it seems, likes a good love story and has more than once finished his other books with satisfying resolutions to that kind of storyline, but adding to that: in comparison to whatever calvinist crap message hbo wanted to send, I have to inform y’all that grrm is a currently agnostic lapsed catholic and it’s exceedingly clear in the way he explores/deals with redemptive themes.

now, let me break the jb narrative for a moment to inform you of a few things that as an atheist born and raised in a 99% catholic country whose literature’s funding works are heavily based on catholic themes/on stories rooted in catholicism:

the ‘you need to die to be redeemed’ narrative is 100% bullshit according to catholic morals and on top of that it’s opened to anyone at any time;

like, the basic distinction between catholic and calvinist approaches to the topic (and I can’t believe I’m defending catholicism but nvm that) is that calvinism preys on a narrative where your negative qualities define you and you cannot escape them (which is because calvinism accepts predestination ie the idea that seeing your lot in life you can deduce if you’ll go to heaven or hell, so if you’re poor/unsuccessful/you committed mistakes/a crime and so on you’re not redeemable and it’s proof you’re damned) and that meant that in societies with calvinist background the death = redemption narrative is extremely popular because it’s seen as ‘hey this person is wretched and they suck so they couldn’t have lived anyway and they did something good with it for once and it’s the best they could hope for’. catholicism, at the contrary, works on the basis that as we all have free will we can change for the better and if you repent for your sins/past wrongdoings/mistakes then that’s enough to be redeemed and if you do it on your deathbed.... you can still go to heaven, you’ll just have to atone for your wrongdoings (that’s the entire point of purgatory’s existence ie making people who repented near death or too late to gain heaven atone for their sins before they can enter heaven). and the moment you repent then you’re free to start your new life and do better and gain your place in heaven, which you’ll obtain in virtue of having turned a new leaf;

(again: not to be that person, but in luke’s gospel one of the two thieves crucified with him is like ‘can you save us since you’re the son of god’, the other thief is like ‘please he has done nothing and we have sinned we don’t deserve to be saved just please remember us when you go back to your father’ and jesus tells the second thief I won’t need to remember you because you’ll sit at my right. also, in dante’s divine comedy there’s a guy who had been excommunicated in the middle ages waiting to get into purgatory for having repented on his deathbed and in manzoni’s the betrothed ie italy’s funding novel the character who’s objectively better written is a dude so heinous for his crimes that he’s called THE UNNAMED and the moment this guy gets doubts and wonders if there’s any hope for him left the local arcibishop leaves everything saying that the moment someone like that is in need then they’re more important than his own parish, goes to receive unnamed guy, tells him that just wanting to be better is enough as far as god is concerned and he’s saved as far as he cares. like, as much as catholicism sucks for the entire rest of it and for how much the catholic church is the worst ideologically the fact that everyone can be redeemed is the basic staple of the entire thing.)

now, given the ^^^, this is where I tell you that most lapsed catholics/people who left catholicism for whichever reasons usually grew up catholic and if you grow up catholic you spend your first twelve years in church at least and if your parents/people around you are also catholic you will absorb it, good and bad, so if grrm grew up catholic, he grew up with that background. (I could again rant for hours about how atheist writers who grew up catholic differ from atheist writers who grew up protestant/calvinist because if you compare grrm and idk kurt vonnegut it’s glaring but this isn’t the place for it so nvm let’s go on)

now that I’ve told you this, I’ll get back to jaime and brienne’s canon survival chances. I needed to tell you that because...

all of the stories with redemptive themes in asoiaf (jaime, theon, sandor, whoever) are not by nature calvinist. whatever d&d think or hbo thought, none of them are written in a way where death is their best option/their only way to achieve redemption/to finish their story with dignity. theon has gone through hell and back and left and regained his sense of identity, he’s not built to die now, sandor has freaking gone to rehab and I’m 100% sure he survives the series and gets closure, while jaime is exactly a poster child for the above stuff I described. like, jaime is someone who’s fundamentally good who had the misfortune to spend his entire life jumping in different kinds of abusive situation one to the other (tywin’s parentage in general, his relationship with cersei throughout at least from the moment they were *experimenting* and like hell I’m going back on that sorry not sorry, guarding aerys, being with cersei at *her* terms and being forced to relieve his trauma all over and not having his needs met etc., tywin potentially ruining his only healthy relationship [with tyrion] and so on) who in turn has done exceedingly bad things/taken bad decision/committed heinous deeds that he regrets having done out of his bad reaction to all of that, not treating his ptsd and basically deciding to stop giving a fuck and embrace being the horrid person everyone thinks he is... until he meets brienne, remembers who he wanted to be because she’s posing an example of it and decides on his own to try and be better, which is... exactly... the entire fucking point. the moment he decides to try and be better and reclaims his dreams/the person he wanted to be/tries to do good he has automatically achieved a narrative status where he chose to be better and therefore the narrative is giving him a chance to be that, and usually those stories are meant to.... have the message that you can be better than the bad things you did and you can turn back the page at any point. like. jaime is written to show you that it’s not too late to get your shit together and not letting others/your surroundings define who you are;

on the other side, brienne is presented as extremely sympathetic from the beginning. also, grrm is very good at describing how shitty is your life if you grow up a woman who is not standard attractive, that everyone laughs at and who has endless insecurities for it.... and she’s the paragon of knighthood/everything good about chivalry in the goddamned series. brienne is legit one of the best people in these books and it’s not because I stan her - she’s kind, she’s just, she’s brave she’s everything a knight should be, she’s willing to change her mind when she misjudged people, she’s forgiving and life threw her crap all along and she’s still persevering from it. brienne is written in a frankly painfully objective way to eventually succeed at what she wants. if in affc she’s crying because she feels like she’s too much of a freak to be her father’s heir and she’s not woman or man enough for anything, the entire narrative point is that she has to succeed at both being a knight and a lady otherwise grrm can’t plant hints and believe me he can;

this means that jaime is headed on a redemptive path which in that kind of story when written by catholics or former catholics never ends up badly (also, aside: redemption is good for everyone and it can’t be just ONE character having it, you don’t buy it at the supermarket, so saying that if jaime has it then tyrion or theon or sandor or whoever can’t have it is just poor reading, people change all the time irl and in narrative you aren’t obligated to redeem one and kill everyone else) or in death, brienne has been written to succeed in her endeavors after she suffers a shitton and I think stoneheart has to be the worst and the end of it (in the sense that after that situation is resolved the way for her is down, not up). which if I do the math and we have stated they’re headed for romance, means the both of them should have a chance at a future together;

also, I can go and tell you that their asos road trip ending with harrenhal is bursting with symbolism that includes death and rebirth - not going into the weirwood dream and sticking to the basics... guys, jaime starts as a prisoner, then ends up losing a part of herself he thinks define him but in truth only defines what he thinks he is (and he’s not ie cersei’s double, the kingslayer, the person who has to drive himself crazy to protect everyone else), then ends up almost dying and sitting in the middle of his own filth for the entirety of the trip (and even then he does good things ie saving brienne from being raped *cough*) and then ends up in a scalding hot bath where he confesses his most well-kept secret and source of 50% of his trauma to someone he trusts regardless of how much he likes it or not, faints and then wakes up again when everyone thinks he might be dead. symbolically, I think it speaks for itself. thing is, during the entire thing *brienne* is there alongside him and while she’s also getting her own share of trauma/ptsd (I mean brienne has totally bloody mummers related ptsd and I’ll die on that hill) she physically is the reason he survives it - she cleans him up, she gives him enough pep talks to convince him to live, she hears his confession, she changes her mind about him for it (but imvho she had after he saved her from being raped because that’s where she calls him ser for the first time) and she catches him in the bath when he faints which is.... fairly symbolic in itself, and she is the one who puts him back on his feet after. like, while jaime’s choices after are all his own, his symbolic journey through his own physical/mental filth he has to go through during asos succeeds because she helped him even if she didn’t know she was doing it, and like... guys, there’s a reason why in the weirwood dream the brienne in jaime’s head which he has conjured and who is basically what jaime sees brienne as in that moment, not necessarily the real one..... keeps on telling him all the time she’ll keep him safe/protect him and she basically tells that to anyone he feels threatened by (or his subconscious feels threatened by), and as stated before, jaime lannister has never, until that point, assumed that *he* would be in the position where someone else gives a shit about him to the point where they will defend him rather than in the position where *he* is the person that has to protect everyone else regardless of how much appreciation he gets in return. like, excuse me but if I was writing my own book I wouldn’t put this much work and care and this symbolism in these two’s history if I meant to kill one of them off or to not have them be happy in the end.

like, the point is: grrm is an extremely meticulous writer with an astonishing attention to detail and who put in book two shit that made extra sense when reading book FIVE, see theon saying he wouldn’t go to his death wearing dirty clothing in acok which makes you go like ‘....... why’ the moment you read his adwd chapters. no one, unless they have a penchant for sadism, would put that much work with those themes in that specific kind of story if then it doesn’t deliver. or, in different words, using a character I love as well so no one can accuse me of being impartial: when grrm put the same kind of work in catelyn’s chapters from got to asos and then you read them knowing about lady stoneheart and the red wedding, it’s obvious that he built her up for being an extremely tragic character and that she was destined to die regardless of all her efforts to save her family (same for robb but we’re talking pov characters). but catelyn’s storyline doesn’t have redemptive themes. it’s about regret, loss, loving your children but being imperfect/not being able to be there for them, and so on. catelyn’s storyline never promises you a happy ending from the moment ned dies and probably even before then. catelyn’s storyline promises you endless suffering and that’s fine because that’s her point in the narrative.

on the contrary, brienne’s tells you ‘hey there’s this girl who has had it like shit all her life without deserving it and whose worth no one sees because she’s ugly and who at the same time is actually a genuinely good person who’s trying her best and okay, she’s gonna suffer but she’ll come out on top while getting what she wants which is recognition as both a lady and a knight’ and given that brienne is also an extremely rare rep (say what you want, cishet unattractive women with her issues and her backstory are basically only less rare than unicorns in media) that I’m 100% sure grrm knows speaks to a lot of people (because he writes her too well to not know), if brienne doesn’t get that after all that shit, the narrative would not deliver on a fairly huge promise.

even worse, jaime’s tells you ‘hey there’s this guy who has been an abuse victim to at least three different people who doesn’t even realize it and whose life is so fucked up you’d need fifteen psychology textbooks to even start grasping it and that everyone sees as the worst person ever and who has ended up believing he is out of not managing his trauma well and hey look at him going through an insane amount of extra suffering but coming out of it wanting to be better and sort of succeeding and hey he has setbacks but he’s starting to see himself as his own person and he’s out of his #1 worst abusive relationship and he can decide what to do with his life now and you should root for him’, which means that if he dies or worst of all dies like in the show (but that’s not happening) the narrative doesn’t deliver on a huge promise and gives you the message that you can’t escape your mistakes and the abuse you received...... which is not the message grrm likes/wants to pass. like, I’ll die on that damned hill.

and to finish it, that was for them as single characters, but going back to the beginning: love is a fundamental part of both their storylines. as I said in the beginning, brienne suffered because she wasn’t loved enough and would die for anyone she loves herself without even expecting anything in return because she thinks no one will love her like that, jaime suffered because he loved too much without getting anything in return (or better, getting cersei’s abusive crap for his entire life) and he turned it into something toxic that’s not what he thinks it should be (he sees his and c’s relationship as the best thing ever where they’re soulmates because she sold him that narrative, but that’s not the kind of rship where you *turn your partner’s blows into kisses* which is actual text). at this point, the narrative is telling you ‘oh hey here’s two damaged people who actually would be very good together because their personalities match in that sense [as in, brienne would thrive with someone who loves her that much openly and finds her attractive and respects her for all that she is and jaime would thrive with someone who would appreciate that tenfold and who’d love him back just as much and who’d die for him - canon! -, and it wouldn’t be the kind of rship where anyone’s blows turn into kisses unless they were friendly sparring before] and oh hey look at that they’re in a storyline where they both influence each other greatly and oh wait he’s attracted to her and she thinks he looks like half a god and she’d die for him and he was willing to get mauled by a bear for her and they’re obviously meant to hook up’, which automatically promises a resolution where they both get what they want or you basically spent all your time rooting for it.... for nothing. which would not give anyone reading it satisfaction unless you hate jb that much, but I’m 100% sure that most people reading asoiaf casually would not hate it that much and grrm likes that trope that much to not deliver on it.

so, tldr: if one of them dies or if they aren’t endgame with a reasonable happy-ish ending for the both of them, the entire narrative fails to deliver on the promises of their individual storylines and their shared one, and there’s nothing in grrm’s writing that suggests that he would not deliver on it. I mean, if it was stephen king I’d hold my breath because I love steve but imvho his endings suck 85% of the time and he manages to do 180° turnarounds that have no sense whatsoever, but it’s grrm, not stephen king, and everything of his I’ve read that actually had an ending ended in a way that was coherent with the overall storyline and maintained its promises, so here, the above is pretty much the summary. hopefully I haven’t exhausted you. ;)

[whereconfusionisarhyme]

First Reactions To Logan’s Playlist

K first song let’s do this

White and Nerdy-Weird Al Yankovic

Wtf this song was definitely Joan’s idea I mean who else would think of ‘White and Nerdy’ for Logan

Is this like canon he listens to this stuff or like songs about him???

Not Perfect-Tim Minchin

TIM MINCHIN

Bo Burnham better be on Logan's playlist

#deep

Is this about the mindpalace/inside of Thomas’ head??? Cause like???? Ouch???? I think????

Lol nvm it’s not sad lmao

I take back my take back it is sad

So this could be literally “in his mind” or it could be figurative and it’s really messing with my funky flow

Streaks-ANIMA!

Cool instrumental

Love the voice sounds a little like MARINA and Regina Spektor

Oh no I’m two lines in and I can tell it’s gonna be sad

OH NO CONFORMITY RELATED ANGST AHHHHH

Wow Logan is just out here being relatable isn’t he smh 😔👊

"Cause you're a smart kid, but you're still a kid" LOGAN REALLY BE OUT HERE BEING RELATABLE ON MAIN

The Elements-Tom Lehrer

Sounds like what piano class would sound like if I took piano class

Something you would listen to in science class

Bop

Medicine-STRFCKR

A Fever You Can't Sweat Out vibes

Lmao nvm

Gonna go look up the lyrics rn brb

A sad bop

Philosophy cool

Human-Tank And The Bangas

Logan playing this to comfort himself because this singer is the only person who has ever told him this

WHO HURT LOGAN WITH THEIR WORDS

LOGAN THE HEART SKIPPING COMMENT ARE YOU OKAY IM GIVING YOU A HUG

GUYS LOGAN IS TRYING TO CONVINCE HIMSELF THAT HE MATTERS IM NOT OKAY

Last???? Relationship???

Okay I'm not a shipper BUT my theorist analysis obsessed brain is just SCREAMING about Roman and Patton

Observation: Logan is probably atheistic and this song covers God a lot. I don't have a conclusion or anything just pointing that out

This woman do be calming tho like yes I'm beautiful yes I'm special thank you

Okay so I already knew Logan wasn't okay but he 100% isn't okay

Fittet Happier-Radiohead

K two words in and I can tell this is gonna be sad here we go

Employees? Or maybe…other sides?

Minor key ok

SELF HARM ISNT OKAY

"WILL NOT CRY IN PUBLIC" NONONONO

So I heard of a good therapist just downtown-

The Watchtower-The Dø

I paused it cause I need a second after the last one

Guys as someone who dissosiates a lot I think Logan might be dissosiating

Dissosiating to protect himself from his emotions

Y'all just trust me in this one

Coming for the TØP brand I see

K ready to start again here we go

Fire beat I'm vibing with it

Is he trying to distance himself from his emotions to try and perform his tasks better like watching from a Watchtower???

This is the first character I've seen that might dissosiate which only means one thing

I'm gonna be projecting an unholy amount in my fanfiction

"No one in particular" hon who hurt you

City Lights=Emotions (which he considers distractions)??? Maybe??

I'm a William Finn fan come on this isn't my first rodeo

Art Is Dead-Bo Burnham

BO BURNHAM I WAS RIGHT

We all love some good Imposter Syndrome (tm)! :D

This gives Learning New Things About Ourselves' a whole new meaning

Ngl this is the first time I heard the degrading of the piano at the end and I'm here for it

In My Mind-Amanda Palmer

Oop we LOVE setting up impossible expectations for yourself to the point you have a cripplingly horrid self esteem! :D

Logan I've done this before and trust me it isn't worth it the mental breakdowns are too taxing

I'll do it when I'm older=I'm never gonna get around to it

I don't wanna be the person I wanna be either

Why do I perfectly understand every lyric am I ok

Live!!! While you!!!! Can!!!!

At least there's a happy ending

Okay so I've decided that once I'm done I'm gonna make a list of songs I think would fit in the playlist

Algorythym-Childish Gambino

K its spelled incorrectly get ready for some metaphors my dudes

Intro is cool definitely very very Logan WOAH OKAY CHAIN SMOKER

Gonna go look up lyrics I don't understand shit

The chorus sounds like Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house where like 100+ African American relatives blast house music and dance until their feet falls off

Nvm no it doesn't

GO OFF

ELPHABA BETTER WATCH OUT CHILDISH GAMBINO IS COMING FOR YOUR BELT

Adlibs are everything

Letter C-Zach Sherwin

This gives off the same vibes as that one pickle video by Charlie Puth

Roman vs Logan rap battle but it's this

I don't really see why this is related but sure

Time Adventure-The Marcus Hedgehog

Nostalgiaaaaaa

Okay Logan has too many songs talking about one (1) person who is it

I have a gut feeling that it's about Thomas and how Logan used to be enough "back then" but now he thinks he's not cause like let's be honest when was the last time someone gave Logan a strong sincere thank you for all that he does????Excluding DWIT (which doesn't really count in my opinion cause they said he was cool, not like an integral and arguably the most important and powerful side) nobody really appreciates Logan???? Hugs???

Anyway plz ignore this is just how my brain works

K next song

The Breach-clipping.

OKAY SLOW DOWN IM GONNA LOOK UP LYRICS

Is this Daveed Diggs???? I haven't listened to Hamilton in like forever is this Daveed Diggs???

LITERALLY PERFECY PARRALLEL TO LOGAN AND THE SIDES

Sound effects

Really just gonna fry my eardrums like that huh

What I Do For U-Ra Ra Riot

Okay scrap anything and everything I said about it being the sides Logan is 100% talking about Character!Thomas

Erase Me-Ben Folds Five

Ooh this intro reminds me of this one particular musical songs but I don't remember which one

Wait have I listened to this before????

I've listened to this before!

Okay I need to stop being distracted

NOOOOOO don't Erase Yourself!!!!

Logan really just do be having no Self Esteem don't he

Okay so theory: Logan didn't pop up in person in the last video because his eyes were too red from crying

I have 0 evidence so it's not a very good theory but…

Just throwing it out there

One More Time with Feeling-Regina Spektor

Oh no it's Regina Spektor

Oh no I'm gonna cry

Okay so Logan doesnt wanna block of all emotion, only permit some to show???? But most of the time block everything????

Did I get that???

Nobody!!!! Thanks!!!! Logan!!!!

Awww he just wants love and recognition

Tbh this sounds a lot like Roman they have so much in common despite their constant arguing

Galaxy Song-Monty Python

Ooh Monty Python

I haven't listened to Monty Python so I sadly don't know the context

Really just dissing all of the other sides aren't we

Can't really blame him tho

Very scientific

"Yeau~"

Sweet with dark undertones. Love it.

Equation-Hans Zimmer

Later I'm gonna check the equations if they're correct XD

Sunrise-In The Heights

!!!!!!

WHO???!!!!!

K to this is one of my favorite love songs ever it's just so sweet and as someone who's bilingual the concept is just amazingly wonderful so yeah I may be freaking out

Also because WHO??!!

Okay I said I wasn't a shipper but let's be honest this is probably about Roman not romantically but like

OR MAYBE JANUS???

IM SO CONFUSED

But Logan is definitely Nina in this situation it just fits so well with her character for the same reasons I really wanna play her (but never will cause I'm exactly 0% Latin American smh) yeah the pressures to be the smartest and then it backfiring horribly and oh God what if Inùtil is also in the playlist ahhhh

Okay moving on

Lifeboat-Heathers

WHAT

NO

NO

CONFORMITY RELATED ANGST LOGAN STOP BEING RELATABLE AHHHH

IS THIS CAPTAIN THOMAS??? THE OTHER SIDES AS A WHOLE??? AN ABSTRACT CONCEPT???

IM NOT OKAY

Bohemian Groove-Will Connolly

Okay I'm still not recovered from the last song but I need to continue or else I'm never gonna finish this playlist

Eeecccchhhhhoooo

Your friends haven't surpassed you Logan you belong with them okay????

Emptiness despite success??? Millennial who???

Vibing with it but also are you okay

Nvm I know the answer already

Hug All Ur Friends-Cavetown

Okay so Logan is a Cavetown gay noted

Self validation??? Who's she???

Lies. You care so much about what other people *sides* think about you

Maybe Logan listens to this song to remind himself to not care too much

But it doesn't work and it's getting to him more and more

Oh

That took a turn

Breathin'-Thomas Sanders

Good move

Don't really have much to say on this

The Bidding

Spoopy

Alchoholic!Logan

New idea for us fan writers

The pronunciation of beurgoise

Okay I'm like pretty certain at this point that all of the songs that mention a someone else is about Character!Thomas

A Better Version

OHMYGOD I LOVE THIS MUSICAL ITS SO UNDERRATED I HAVE LISTENED TO THE SOUNDTRACK AND UNGODLY AMOUNT OF TIMES YESSSSS

But also since I know the song in terrified cause the feels are gonna come in I just know it

Wait so is Jayce supposed to be Thomas???

I am suddenly feeling much more uncertain about my certainty

Okay let me unpause and just listen to it (even though I already know all of the lyrics)

Okay so I'm a dumbass and apparently this song isn't even part of the playlist

Okay so I'm an idiot and the last few songs have all been "related to playlist" and not in the actual playlist I'm big dumb.

Anyway here's my list of songs I think would fit. (BTW, I only went off of lyrics for these ones. I realize that there’s a general sound and vibe for the playlist, but I decided not to follow it.)

Oh No! ~ MARINA

Hug All Ur Friends ~ Cavetown

Bohemian Groove ~ Will Connolly

Guiltless ~ Dodie Clark

Lifeboat ~ Laurens O’Keefe

The Bidding ~ *idk who*

I Am Not A Robot ~ MARINA

Inútil - Lin Manuel Miranda

Through The Eyes Of A Child ~ AURORA

Community Gardens ~ The Scary Jokes

Let me know if I should do this with the other playlists as well! :)

[startledstars]

How can for (extreme) example kids being physically abused/raped by strangers/parents be a trial to overcome for good? Girls being kidnapped and sold for sex? Students stepping on a little puppy for views? If this is a sometimes situation where god lets evil thru, then its everyday 24/7 around the world not just sometimes. God cant stop evil, bacause we are everything between good and evil. Not god makes live wonderful nd miserable but we do. Towards us and others. Being afraid of live being meaningless none guiding us, that is what makes religioun(and other factors) u are free when u are open to see. There is no pure good and evil. Whatever you wet thru its not your fault, you happened to be where its bad but you are grown up indipendent and you can choose to be 'good' or 'bad' in order to help u or other people so long u live. But this god, at least how christianity potrays him, is a fear in your head that prevents you at crumbling infront of the worlds truth to make this all more bearable. People should believe whatever they want as long as it gets them going. But saying all you want is the truth, and yet believing in a god as the catholic religion and you present him. You seem to scared for the truth if you are willing to leave it at that. A simple as god knows. What kind of truth are you after? Be at least honest with yourself

Hi,

These are the right questions. The problem of evil is a Big One. 

In the past century, we’ve had:

two cities decimated by a nuclear bomb

hundreds of millions of people killed by their own governments (socialism is orders of magnitude worse than the holocaust)

famines that lead to parents killing and eating their own children

a global “pandemic” that governments used as a power grab, shutting down the global economy, causing millions of people to starve

And these are only the things we know. For every rape, abuse, and act of violence that is reported, there are many more that go unreported and unpunished. However, almost every rapist/abuser/theif/murder/politician is justified in their own mind. The true mark of an evil person is that they believe they are righteous, to the point where they are above any laws, and will never be sorry for anything they do. 

So, in a Godless world with no objective standards, it’s anyone’s game. Evil is simply a perception; an opinion. Same with good. You can choose to believe in a random, meaningless world where Shit Just Happens and humans are the highest power. You can choose to ignore the fact that there is an undeniable order to reality, where even atheistic scientists admit the universe is so finely tuned, they have to reevaluate their own theories. (That’s actually why the multi-verse theory exists. Scientists have no solid evidence that our universe is one of infinite parallel universe. Watch this video, time stamp 43:19 where famous athiest Dawkins admits the multiverse theory has no scientific evidence.)

You can turn your back on God because He allows things you disagree with. That’s what it usually boils down to: we look at evil with our limited intelligence, perception, and imagination, and decide that because we can’t find a reason for every single instance of wrong doing, no reason can exist. 

It’s like a teenager getting mad at his parents because they enforced curfew. Like a toddler raging because she was denied that fifth piece of candy. In those moments, because the child can’t comprehend their parent’s decision, the parent’s character comes into question.

This is pride and short-sightedness, especially when we’re talking about an infinite creator operating on an infinite universe over an infinite span of time. 

Again, I’m not condoning or justifying evil. The question of evil and human suffering is extremely valid. And I’ve never shied away from looking at the darkest parts of humanity, because that is an important piece of understanding reality. If you do a little digging, you’ll find that this world is so much more evil that you or I could begin to comprehend. People are evil, and it’s going to continue to get worse.

In the face of such evil, it would be easier to not believe in God. (There’s a post sitting in my drafts about how I actually tried to be an athiest because I couldn’t justify evil.) So I think you’re saying that I’m not sincere when I say “search for the truth,” because from your perspective, I believe in God either out of fear, or because it gives me a false sense of comfort. While I can understand why you might think that (because this is how I used to feel about Christians) it’s simply not the case here. 

No one forced these beliefs on me. I am not part of any church or denomination-- the ‘catholic’ comment is a bit out of left field. I don’t blame myself for what happened to me. I don’t blame any victim for their circumstances. Idk there’s some level of misunderstanding and too much to unpack entirely. 

But, if you’re looking for real answers to the problem of evil, I’d suggest approaching The Big Man himself. I do this all the time-- when I see something absolutely horrible, I ask Him how he could possibly allow that. Sometimes, He will give you answers (if you’re willing to hear Him out) and almost every time, He will send a sense of peace. This is something you have to experience for yourself to understand. 

Also, here are some debates between Atheists at the top of their field and Christians. Both sides present arguments better than I ever could, and I actually watched these videos thinking the Atheists might sway me but. Well, see for yourself:

Does God exist? William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens

Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox - The God Delusion Debate

William Lane Craig and CosmicSkeptic Discuss The Kalam Cosmological Argument

(Not a debate but worth checking out)  Stephen Meyer: The Return of the God Hypothesis

Would God Allow Evil? CosmicSkeptic vs InspiringPhilosophy

And here’s a muslim vs. atheist debate to round things out

Bolded my favorites. These take a few hours to get through, but if you’re really interested in the problem of evil or the proof for God, these guys present it well. (btw surprisingly there is more logical/scientific proof for God’s existence than for the athiest or pantheistic model of reality. Check out this short clip. Science and religion used to be two sides of the same coin; people took an intelligent, ordered approach to studying the universe because they believed in an intelligent, ordered creator. So God answered the “why” and science answered the “how” of existence. Just some food for thought.)

I’d also recommend you look into the biblical story of Joseph (his own brothers sold him into slavery, but because of this, Joseph ended up ruling all of Egypt and saving the very brothers who betrayed him). And also the book of Job. While we can’t know everything about the mystery of evil, we can know enough to make an informed decision about God’s existence/character.

Anyways, thank you for this message. I hope you’ll consider the information in this response. I’m glad that you are asking the hard questions, and assure you that the answers are worth seeking and finding. Good night and God bless you :)

[romanticdykee]

⇩⇩⋰⋰♖✬⋰♝☯ Journal ☯♝⋱✬♖⋱���⇩⇩⇩

**First of all trigger warning**

I'm really mad lol. Ok so I've been doing really great lately. I haven't really been depressed and I've been so much more positive and hopeful!! (Minus the dysphoria though, and I wanted to talk to my psychiatrist about that but I didn't. I'll talk about that later) she asked if I blamed my mom for what he did to me and I said that I did. I love my mom but I do blame her for some percent of what happened. *trigger warning btw** She told me that when I was little my dad would touch me inappropriately while changing my diapers and when she told me that I was like wtf?? You didn't bother to tell him not to molest your child?? (Idk how old I was then and I obviously dont remember it so good but ugh) so she knew he was like that. He even assaulted me ON THE DAY OF MY FUCKING BAPTISM WHEN I WAS 8!! In the mormon church the dad baptizes the daughter or really any man with the u priesthood and he touched/fingered(but i don't,like to use that word so I always say touched) me in the waiting area She knows that he's a pedophile. I'd just like to preface that. And he still lives with us. He packed but hasn't left yet. Then my psychiatrist said that when I go off to college it'll be so freeing and I'll feel safe because he's not living with me. Then she said that I can finally be able to explore religion and the different denominations of Christianity and she said that it doesn't matter what I choose because god loves me no matter what and she went on a rant about religion. And don't get me wrong, I love her to death but I honestly don't like that she's bringing up religion knowing im atheist. And I felt uncomfortable so I didn't bring up my dysphoria (I honestly need help with that but I felt like she'd try to bring religion into it so I didn't... ) but we did talk about self harm some and like I said, I haven't been sad or depressed lately but sometimes I feel the need to so I do (not unless I have to) so sometimes I do. It's not really something to worry about, it's just a habit. She told me that its because I feel hopeless and that I feel like its the only think I can control and :') mood

But she called my mom in and my mom said that she didn't know about the sexual stuff when Maggie and I would come to her crying when he'd touch us. And she told my doctor about him and my sisters afair and when my doctor asked if he was a pedo she said no and she said "what about the afair?" And she said "we'll we don't know for sure" and I was like SIS. We found love notes (they were love notes. Im not over exaggerating) she sent to him in our garage and when we came back from our trip you found out he changed his sheets when he hasn't changed the sheets on his bed in 15+ years, they hours together alone in his truck when he'd pick her up from school (and made my sister and I wait for the bus) Its safe to say they were together. Just call him what he is. A pedo. I know he's one from experience. And then she started complaining about me to my doctor saying that I'm lazy and my doctor said "well that's why I'm treating her. That's not laziness. Its depression" its uGHJhhHHHHG

In other news I like this guy and I just realized that he's the first guy I've liked after the incident and that's kinda a milestone for me. Like, we all know im super gay and all but I'm bi and still like guys. I am finally trusting men again

[vitki-x-visindi-blog]

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

I’m not really good at talking about myself unless prompted, so I’m just snagging a Bio Template and a Questionnaire and filling it out. I might add to it, IDK. I know you’re supposed to be asked these and then answer, but I don’t have any followers, soooo... BASIC INFORMATION Full name: Nah. Call me Vitki. It kinda means something like “shaman” in old Norse. Visindi means “knowledge”, which I’m always after. I love learning things. Pronunciation: “Vit-kee” “Vis-IN-dee” Nickname(s) or Alias: I haven’t chosen a male name yet, so we’ll stick with Vitki or V. Gender: FtM. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you move on, or “DNI”, as the kids say. Species: Age: 28... I think? Birthday: 9/24 Sexuality: How do you get the eggplant emoji when you’re on the computer... Nationality: Idk. I’m a whole jumble of things. I look like your typical white American, though. Religion: I don’t even know. I think the best way to put it is Atheistic Asataru Shamanism... I’m still figuring myself out. Place of birth: South Carolina. Current Resident: Indiana. Languages: English. I know. I’m mundane and sad. I want to learn another language, though. I just don’t have a way to take classes or anything. Relationship Status: Married PHYSICAL APPEARANCE Height: 5ft 3in Weight: 180lbs. Yeah, I’m chubby. I don’t have the motivation to do anything about it, though. I do have a goal, btw. I swear I’ll never crack 200lbs. Hair Colour: Black, usually Hairstyle: Short, messy Facial Hairstyle: Clean, right now. I haven’t transitioned, so I really can’t do anything about that. Eye Colour: Brown Tattoos: None yet, unfortunately, Piercings: Ears HEALTH Smoker? Nope. Never. Drinker? RARELY. I can’t really handle the smell of alcohol, so I kind of avoid it unless I feel like I NEED to get a little drunk. Even then, I really only drink Mike’s Hard Lemonade and shit like that. Recreational Drug User? Which? No. And I would ONLY consider cannabis. First off, though, it’s illegal. I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it was legal, and I do wish it was so cops could focus on shit that needs to be dealt with. Smoking anything just doesn’t appeal to me. Addictions: None that I can think of. Allergies: None that I know of. Any physical ailments/illnesses/disabilities: I am SUPER. FUCKING. BLIND. Without my contacts. And I get worse every year. I’m really terrified of getting so bad that contacts and glasses can’t fix it. PERSONALITY Personality: Likes: Dislikes: Fears/phobias: Talents/skills: EATING HABITS Omnivore/Carnivore/Herbivore:  Favourite food(s): Favourite drink(s): Disliked food(s):  Disliked drink(s):  HOUSE AND HOME Favourite type of house/home:  Do you share their home with anyone? Who?  Significant/special belongings:  CAREER Level of education:  Current job title and description:  FAMILY, FRIENDS AND FOES Parents names: Are parents alive or dead?  Still in contact with your parents?  Siblings? Relationship with siblings?  Other Important Relatives: Partner/Spouse:  Children:  Best Friend:  Other Important Friends:  Pets:  50,000 Questions 1. What’s your favourite colour? Icy blue. It used to be red, maroon, or terra cotta, but my personality has kind of... calmed down since then, I guess. That doesn’t mean I don’t still get mad, though.

2. What’s your favourite movie? Forever Lion King. I do really like other movies, but if I had to watch only one for the rest of my life, it would have to be Lion King.

3. What’s your favourite book? I don’t really have a favourite book. I really like a few different series, though. Harry Potter is a big one, but I really like Guardians of Ga’Hoole as well. I feel like it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves because the movie didn’t give it justice (even if it was really good on its own). I also used to be REALLY in to Warriors, but I’ve kind of resented the Erins ever since the “bad kid atheists” arc. Don’t even get me started on that.

4. What’s your favourite kind of food? Italian, I think. I’m super, ungodly picky, but I feel like a lot of the food I can eat is used in Italian food a lot.

5. What's your favourite kind of weather? Storms. Precipitation. Rain, sleet, hail, snow, anything. Also heat storms are nice.

6. What’s your favourite season? It’s between Autumn and Winter. Really, just the 6 months out of the year that aren’t sweltering hot. I hate heat.

7. Have you ever been in love? Well, I’m married, so I’d have to say yes.

8. What’s your favourite animal? Don’t ask me that. It all depends on my mood at the time.

9. Favourite thing about where you live? It’s a little bigger than a town and a helovalot smaller than a city, but it’s close enough to where the interesting places aren’t a day’s drive away.

10. Have you ever been overseas? No. The closest I can say is I lived in Hawaii for three years, but that doesn’t really count.

11. What’s your favourite place in the whole world? Any place that doesn’t have people in it.

12. What’s your favourite kind of music? I’m not too certain, really. My taste is kind of eclectic. I grew up on country, so of course I hate it now. I like Evanescence, Linkin Park, Five Finger Death Punch, Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Nickleback (I know), Seether, Eminem, Korn, and certain songs from certain bands, but not the band itself. I honestly really love pagan-style bands like Omnia, Faun, and others.

13. Where would you like to visit? Anywhere in the UK or thereabouts, really. England, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, etc.

14. Biggest fears? My biggest fears have always been giving birth and having my spine messed with. I’ve done both twice, so I’m good. Mostly I’m just afraid we’re never going to be able to live in our own house, which isn’t the end of the world, really.

15. Do you believe in the paranormal? I don’t know. There’s things I’d really LIKE to believe in, but once you’re an atheist and a skeptic, it’s REALLY hard to believe in anything that can’t be proven logically.

16. What’s your star sign? Libra... Or Virgo, if you add that weird 13th zodiac...

17. Favourite sport? I actually hate sports. But I do respect the old ones like soccer (the rest of the world’s football) and tennis. I don’t follow any team for anything, but if I absolutely had to watch one for the rest of my life, it would probably be UFC or Hockey. They’re just fun to watch.

18. Do you collect anything? Animal figurines, when I can... There’s other things I’d like to collect, but I don’t have the space or money for them. 

19. What’s something that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Hot Chocolate, Kittens, Puppies, 

20. Do you play any instruments? Besides the basic recorder, my first instrument I’ve ever played was the French Horn. I don’t know why. After that it was the snare drum, which I enjoyed a lot more. I played a little bit of the drum set when I was in school too. But I really don’t play anything now. I’d like to play the drum set again some day, though.

21. What’s your favourite drink? Hot Chocolate is good for cooler days, but my other favourites are Cherry Dr. Pepper, Cherry Pepsi, Lemonade, and Raspberry flavored anything.

22. What’s your favourite holiday? Halloween. Christmas/Yule/Saturnalia/Winter Solstice is a very close second, but I get more excited for Halloween/Samhain than my own birthday, which is a month before it.

23. Do you have any hobbies? I used to do this thing called drawing. And this other thing... I think it was writing? Sadly, I don’t have time any more to do those things, being a parent and all...

24. Do you prefer day or night? Night. Forever. I hate the day time. Night is so much quieter.

25. Do you have any bad and/or anxious habits? I used to pick at my nails, then it was my eyebrows, for some reason. Right now, I’m picking at scabs on my scalp. I need to quit that.

26. What’s your favourite kind of fashion? IDK. I mostly dress in a t-shirt and jeans. If I had the money, I’d probably buy some badass gothic shit or modern versions of old-timey garb.

27. Do you believe in anything enough to fight for it? Physically? IDK. I’ve never fought anyone in my life. I mean, I’d rip the spines out of people’s backs if they mess with my kids or anyone I love, but to fight for an idea is different. I guess if it came down to people’s rights being taken away and shit, like if they were to cart my loved ones into a concentration camp, I’d be having something to “say”...

28. Do you have any obsessions? Frequently

29. How do you deal with stress? I don’t

30. Do you want children? I have 2

[artvmvs]

Ena mexri 100. Dhladh ola :)

damn y u do this

(btw they kinda got mixed up bc i am dumb sorrry)

The meaning behind my url:  idk. just stardust but star is in greek. idek.

A picture of me: im useless and idk how to put the picture on this place specifically, ask me separately if you do want one

How many tattoos i have and what they are: im a minor so none yet, but I’d like some in the future!

Last time i cried and why: ..no idea. Probably an arguement but I don’t remember, I’m more of a silent suffering kinda gal

Piercings i have: I am currently stretching my ears and I want a helix or an industrial, ik i don’t have many but I think they’re really cool

Favorite band: don’t make me choose

Biggest turn offs: dunno. does this mean generally pet peeves or nah,, 

Biggest turn ons: uhm i am a child!!! neck bites tho  we’re not diving deeper

Age: 16 

Ideas of a perfect date: something chill and not formal like maybe exploring the city or watching movies together at home or cinema idk, something exciting 

Life goal: bold of you to assume i have any goals for the future

Piercings i want: as i said, right now helix or industrial

Relationship status: single :))

Favorite movie: i currently like heathers and the imitation game but i really gotta watch new stuff I just never get around to it

A fact about my life: i didn’t think I would live to 2018, or at least whole (due to an unfortunate series of events) , but here i am binch  y’all have to tolerate me now!! sucks to be you

Phobia: fish and insects freak me out because they’re tiny n I don’t want them near me bc they are fast little shits and also I could literally touch them and they’d die and it freaks me out. or at least that’s what i use to justify me acting like a little bitch

Middle name: dont have one

Height: 165cm or as the ‘muricans like to call it  5'4 i think

Are you a virgin?: yes

What’s your shoe size?: um?? in greece we use different sizing i think? so in greece im a 37  but i looked it up and im a 6.5 in us and a 4.5 in the uk im VERY confused but basically smol

What’s your sexual orientation? i currently identify as a lesbian

Do you smoke, drink, or take any drugs? i,,have,,,, drank beer once,,

Someone you miss: @221b-unicornstreet​ and people i cant tag

What’s one thing you regret?: not defending myself enough,,? I certainly have done many regrettable things but they’ve already happened now.. so

First celebrity you think of when someone says attractive: uhm BRYAN DECHART bitch i know im a lesbian but let me have this bc he is actually attractive and this is what came to mind rn so shut

Favorite ice cream?: i like vanilla flavour  dONT make that joke 

One insecurity: nose. spine.

What my last text message says: ‘’because it can mean either’’ im very interesting 

Have you ever taken a picture naked? nope

Have you ever painted your room? i want to

Have you ever kissed a member of the same sex? nYES

Have you ever slept naked? i think? in my?? underwear?? but not completely 

Have you ever danced in front of your mirror? i,,yes

Have you ever had a crush? kinda

Have you ever been dumped? yes

Have you ever stole money from a friend? no???

Have you ever gotten in a car with people you just met? i dont think so

Have you ever been in a fist fight? nope im weak LMAO you’d probably kill me by pushing me tbh

Have you ever snuck out of your house?  i’ve snuck into a house when i was six, i know im very cool.

Have you ever had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back? yeah

Have you ever been arrested? nope

Have you ever made out with a stranger? IVE NEVER MADE OUT WITH ANYONE DONT

Have you ever met up with a member of the opposite sex somewhere? met?? up?? a date?? kinda ,, (regrets)

Have you ever left your house without telling your parents? idrk

Have you ever had a crush on your neighbor? nah fam

Have you ever ditched school to do something more fun? if by more fun you mean cry myself directly back to sleep then yes, every week from grade 4-7 but now i dont have the ability to miss school for so many days,, still do tho, but less frequently 

Have you ever slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? yes

Have you ever seen someone die? no

Have you ever been on a plane? yup

Have you ever kissed a picture?,, i mean i was made to kiss pictures in church thanks mom!!

Have you ever slept in until 3? i do that every day in summer

Have you ever love someone or miss someone right now? i do miss someone now as ive said

Have you ever laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? yeah

Have you ever made a snow angel? yess

Have you ever played dress up? i think

Have you ever cheated while playing a game? probably when i was younger

Have you ever been lonely? hasnt everyone at some point tbh? but  not a frequent occurrence, at all

Have you ever fallen asleep at work/school? yes, from exhaustion

Have you ever been to a club? …unfortunately, 0/10 would NEVER do it again

Have you ever felt an earthquake? yeah, i live in greece dude of course i have

Have you ever touched a snake? not really… which is sad

Have you ever ran a red light? i dont drive

Have you ever been suspended from school? nope 

Have you ever had detention? i was made to sit in a corner once dgkdhfkg we don’t have detentions

Have you ever been in a car accident? no

Have you ever hated the way you look? always fam

Have you ever witnessed a crime? no i dont think

Have you ever pole danced? HH NO

Have you ever been lost? sorta

Have you ever been to the opposite side of the country? if you count athens then yeah, if you count the islands which i dont see why you wouldnt then no

Have you ever felt like dying? i’ve felt like i was dying and i’ve felt like i wanted to die both buddy

Have you ever cried yourself to sleep? i guess uwu

Have you ever sang karaoke? hell NO

Have you ever done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? probably a bunch of times and on a daily basis, i live to disappoint 

Have you ever laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? yES

Have you ever slept with someone at least 5 years older or younger? no?

Have you ever kissed in the rain? nope

Have you ever sang in the shower? always

Have you ever made out in a park? nope

Have you ever dream that you married someone? i think i have

Have you ever glued your hand to something? nope

Have you ever got your tongue stuck to a flag pole? ,,no

Have you ever ever gone to school partially naked? ,,nO

Have you ever been a cheerleader? nope

Have you ever sat on a roof top? yesh

Have you ever brush your teeth? ,,, YES??

Have you ever ever too scared to watch scary movies alone? SCARY MOVIES SCARE THE LIVING DAYLIGHT OUT OF ME AND I KNOW ITS STUPID DONT BULLY ME

Have you ever played chicken? no

Have you ever been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? i’ve been pushed into the ocean with all my clothes on and some money too

Have you ever been told you’re hot by a complete stranger? on tumblr where the magic happens yes because yall havent seen my face

Have you ever broken a bone? no

Have you ever been easily amused? on the not so frequent occasion i get in that mood i laugh at absolutely everything

Have you ever laughed so hard you cried? yyess love that

Have you ever mooned/flashed someone? n o

Have you ever cheated on a test? yup yuup

Have you ever forgotten someone’s name? always

Have you ever met someone who didn’t seem real? what does that mean

Give us one thing about you that no one knows. i cried when i realised im gay because i thought i want going to hell (im an atheist now)

Top 5 (insert subject): top 5 what anon

Tattoos i want: havent really settled on anything but i’ll design it myself so…

[anonthoughts2425]

Weird Dream About God

Welcome to the start of this tumblr for me to just put my random rambles and thoughts to. Enjoy your reading I guess. Idk. I’m not really writing for anyone. Just detailing things I think about. -- Notation: Dreams aren’t exactly real, I know that. This is just me detailing a dream. I’m atheist by the way, so if you’re christian imagine this god replaced with Zeus or Thor to exactly understand how I felt about it? Otherwise, yeah. I’m not trying to be offensive. It’s just a dream and my thoughts on it. I added ™️ every time I say God, as a compromise. -- I made a anon account so people won’t stalk me irl. Not saying all people on tumblr are creeps, but I met enough that I rather just yeah. Beep boop. You can call me “Anon”. -- The dream I had. I had a dream where I met the Christian™️ God.  We were in a quaint little house, particularly the attic of the house. The walls of which were wood and painted yellow. It had a little window with light shining through white drapes. Much like the drapes you’d see in a grandmas house. I’m not sure what they’re called “crochet?” maybe? Then there was God™️. Now God in my dreams has a particular look and personality to him (yes I’ve had dreamt of God multiple times. If you’re curious he’s about as intelligent as a toddler and intensely affectionate in my dreams, sometimes he throws temper tantrums but very rare) Except this time he was dressed up as a preacher, and I say dressed up because he wears random shit in my dreams. Sometimes a toga, sometimes a suit, and this dream a preacher’s outfit. Whatever he feels like wearing in that dream. It’s all Gucchi yo! So God walks to me and starts hugging me and going “I love you”, repeatedly. I HATE hugs. I hate physical contact in general, due to it feeling like I’m being trapped, so this was a bad start to the dream. I tell him “stop”, but the jerk keeps doing it. Eventually he stops, and compromises with a side hug (thank F**k!) He then starts talking about his religion. Particularly Christianity. Saying how he thinks I should join it, yadda yadda. I explained to him, I hate the religion. He asks why, and I explained. Christians abusing children, hating people particularly the gays, and in general being terrible human beings. He’s like “Oh, that’s not what the religion is about though! My religion is about love, compassion, yadda yadda”. I’m like “Yeah, but because you can’t english properly there’s a bunch of crazies in your religion”. This actually made me giggle typing, because of how surreal it was for me in the dream and just typing it out. By that phrasing too I meant the bible is so incredibly vague, churches could probably say “murder is fine” by interpretation alone and if you’re wondering, yes some churches do that garbage. We argued back and forth, but eventually dropped the topic, because it was getting heated. Started talking about art, because I like art, and I guess this dream version of god does too, and he was talking about how he enjoyed the art I made. (I draw some really twisted messed up stuff btw. God likes bdsm furry art, torture porn, and dank memes confirmed? lmao! I guess in this dream world he did!) Then yeah. The dream ended.  Meaning Of The Dream? I have no idea. It did give me a fun little question to throw at randos like “Have you ever dreamed of getting gently molested by a god before?” Omfg. Okay Mh. I’m done for the day.

[satirical-sade]

1. Are you solitary or in a coven? solitary forever


2. Do you consider yourself Wiccan, Pagan, witch, or other? a witch, unless i've never met you, then i'm pagan


3. What is your zodiac sign? pisces


4. Do you have a Patron God/dess? not really no


5. Do you work with a Pantheon? nope


6. Do you use tarot, palmistry, or any other kind of divination? tarot


7. What are some of your favorite herbs to use in your practice? (if any) blessed thistle!


8. How would you define your craft? low spoon spirit work


9. Do you curse? If not, do you accept others who do? no, i don't because i'm devoutly wiccan so i follow pretty much every wiccan rule, but to each their own, it might bite you in the ass, it might not, who knows


10. How long have you been practicing? 1ish year


11. Do you currently or have you ever had any familiars? yes! my doggo bryant


12. Do you believe in Karma or Reincarnation? only the three fold law, and no


13. Do you have a magical name? no, i tend to use eren even though my name is michael


14. Are you “out of the broom closet”? ya


15. What was the last spell you performed? i enchanted my necklace


16. Would you consider yourself knowledgeable? somewhat


17. Do you write your own spells? yes because let's be real not all spells are gonna work for what you need


18. Do you have a book of shadows? If so, how is it written and/or set up? yes, and it depends on what happening that day


19. Do you worship nature? no i believe all souls are equal unless proven otherwise so


20. What is your favorite gemstone? any goldstone


21. Do you use feathers, claws, fur, pelt, skeletons/bones, or any other animal body part for magical work? no, unless i happen to find a random feather or bone out in nature because that's the only way i know it was done without harming anybody


22. Do you have an altar? yes


23. What is your preferred element? out of the four, water, out of the five, soul


24. Do you consider yourself an Alchemist? not at all, but i want to be


25. Are you any other type of magical practitioner besides a witch? i'm a wannabe psychic but idk how that's gonna end


26. What got you interested in witchcraft? one of my ex girlfriends


27. Have you ever performed a spell or ritual with the company of anyone who was not a witch? no


28. Have you ever used ouija? no


29. Do you consider yourself a psychic? okay so i'm not naturally gifted but i am trying to train


30. Do you have a spirit guide? If so, what is it? maybe? he's a river elf if i do have one


31. What is something you wish someone had told you when you first started? SPIRITS ARE REAL


32. Do you celebrate the Sabbats? If so which one is your favorite? yes and samhain


33. Would you ever teach witchcraft to your children? i would tell them about a lot of religions but i wouldn't force them to


34. Do you meditate? sometimes


35. What is your favorite season? winter


36. What is your favorite type of magick to preform? anything involving spirits


37. How do you incorporate your spirituality into your daily life? i don't know how to explain it but i burn sage and stuff


38. What is your favorite witchy movie? not a movie but supernatural 😂


39. What is your favorite witchy book, both fiction and non-fiction. Why? i don't really have a favorite but i do remember one that taught me how to organize my bos but i don't have it anymore


40. What is the first spell you ever preformed? Successful or not. a protection spell, successful


41. What’s the craziest witchcraft-related thing that’s happened to you? okay, my friend's spirit companion went through me (he's a trickster btw) to get to my friend and as a parting gift, he left about 20 random spirits at my house, one of which is violent


42. What is your favourite type of candle to use? i'm not very picky about my candles


43. What is your favorite witchy tool? don't have one


44. Do you or have you ever made your own witchy tools? nope


45. Have you ever worked with any magical creatures such as the fea or spirits? pretty much all my work is with spirits


46. Do you practice color magic? nope


47. Do you or have you ever had a witchy teacher or mentor of any kind? nope


48. What is your preferred way of shopping for witchcraft supplies? at a metaphysical shop near my house


49. Do you believe in predestination or fate? i believe in fate but i also believe that fate is not set in stone, like current fate may say i'm going to have a wonderful happy life with three kids, i could grow up and have zero, destiny is a thing but it's not set


50. What do you do to reconnect when you are feeling out of touch with your practice? i talk to random spirits


51. Have you ever had any supernatural experiences? my computer makes beeps when it's unplugged and off, even when the battery is out of it


52. What is your biggest witchy pet peeve? SPIRITS MAKING MY LAPTOP BEEP


53. Do you like incense? If so what’s your favorite scent? yes and sage


54. Do you keep a dream journal of any kind? i do not, but i should


55. What has been your biggest witchcraft disaster? haven’t had one yet thank the gods


56. What has been your biggest witchcraft success? having a spirit companion


57. What in your practice do you do that you may feel silly or embarrassed about? spirits tbh


58. Do you believe that you can be an atheist, Christian, Muslim or some other faith and still be a witch too? yes but i really don't understand being a christian witch, because it's against the ten commandments


59. Do you ever feel insecure, unsure or even scared of spell work? insecure and unsure but not scared


60. Do you ever hold yourself to a standard in your witchcraft that you feel you may never obtain? not really


61. What is something witch related that you want right now? this isn't physical but i would like some clairaudience


62. What is your rune of choice? don’t have one


63. What is your tarot card of choice? ace of cups


64. Do you use essential oils? If so what is your favorite? nope


65. Have you ever taken any kind of witchcraft or pagan courses? no


66. Do you wear pagan jewelry in public? i always wear my pentacle necklace


67. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your faith or being a witch? no


68. Do you read or subscribe to any pagan magazines? no


69. Do you think it’s important to know the history of paganism and witchcraft? yes


70. What are your favorite things about being a witch? just having this magical energy about, other pagans can usually tell i’m pagan even without showing the my necklace or tell the
71. What are your least favorite things about being a witch? judgement also i never have the energy


72. Do you listen to any pagan music? If so who is your favorite singer/band? are there actually pagan bands??? why was i not informed???


73. Do you celebrate the Esbbats? If so, how? no


74. Do you ever work skyclad? no i hate myself too much


75. Do you think witchcraft has improved your life? If so, how? yes, it’s given me an anchor in life


76. Where do you draw inspiration from for your practice? everywhere


77. Do you believe in ‘fantasy’ creatures? (Unicorns, fairies, elves, gnomes, ghosts, etc) yes! not unicorns though but i could be wrong on that


78. What’s your favorite sigil/symbol? the pentacle


79. Do you use blood magick in your practice? Why or why not? no because i have a bad habit of self harming and i don't want to trigger that


80. Could you ever be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t support your practice? no i get if you don't believe but it's the same as if you don't support me being trans, it's a huge part of my life so either stfu and go away or get your ass into the 21st century


81. In what area or subject would you most like your craft to grow? psychic abilities


82. What’s your favorite candle scent? Do you use it in your practice?
83. Do you have a pre-ritual ritual? (I.e. Something you do before rituals to prepare qyourself for them). If so what is it? i do no

but i do usually talk to one of my companions


84. What real life witch most inspires your practice? none really


85. What is your favorite method of communicating with deity? tarot


86. How do you like to organize all your witchy items and ingredients? in a cute little box


87. Do you have any witches in your family that you know of? no


88. How have you created your path? What is unique about it? through trail and error, i do a lot of demon works so that’s unique-ish


89. Do you feel you have any natural gifts or affinities (premonitions, hearing spirits, etc.) that led you toward the craft? If so what are they? spirits, even evil ones, have never tried to hurt me, idk if that counts but that’s what i got


90. Do you believe you can initiate yourself or do you have to be initiated by another witch or coven? i would like to be initiated by a coven but i think it's perfectly valid to do it yourself


91. When you first started out in your path what was the first thing or things you bought? tarot cards


92. What is the most spiritual or magickal place you’ve been? books beans and candles in birmingham alabama


93. What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone who is searching for their matron and patron deities? you don't have to to pick the "typical" ones just because everyone else does, fuck everyone else you are your own person, that being said, if you feel a connection to a "typical" god, then don't be afraid to choose them


94. What techniques do you use to 'get in the zone’ for meditation? i don’t meditate tbh


95. Did visualization come easily to you or did you have to practice at it? visualization is very easy for me


96. Do you prefer day or night? Why? night, less disruption


97. What do you think is the best time and place to do spell work? night time, in my room


98. How did you feel when you cast your first circle? Did you stumble or did it go smoothly? i have never casted a circle, my necklace is my circle


99. Do you believe witchcraft gets easier with time and practice? yes, things because more second nature


100. Do you believe in many gods or one God with many faces? many gods

[violetemerald]

Multi-Couples/Multi-Friendships - "Shout" (The Joy & Pain of My Queerplatonic Relationship) - WYA

Song is called “Shout” and is by Ross Copperman. This video was a NIGHTMARE to edit and render because idk, my software just KEPT crashing, GOSH it was trying to kill me I swear.

This was made for season 2, round 2 of GlowingAprilSky's "Who You Are" contest, this time themed around "The Relationship". (Round 1, “Breaking Point” I entered with a fanvideo tribute to embracing my asexuality & sex-aversion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqRr60lP444 ) The idea for this round was to show a person who helped really change who we are going forward in our life, basically. We participants in the contest were supposed to focus on capturing how they affected us, and how they shaped who we are.

YouTube descriptions have character limits but tumblr doesn’t so look under the “~~~~~” for more stuff than what I could fit in my YouTube description! I transcribed the voiceovers down there too.

Urban Dictionary begins defining Queerplatonic as "a relationship which is more intense and intimate than is considered common or normal for a 'friendship', but doesn't fit the traditional sexual-romantic couple model."

Every Queerplatonic Relationship (QPR) or set of Queerplatonic Partners (QPP) is different, chooses the terminology for different reasons, and that's really the beauty of it. This is a word to describe everything that was forgotten in mainstream culture's narrow boxes of "just friends" vs. "more than friends because of the romantic(&usually sexual too) component". Some sex-averse asexual people are in celibate romantic relationships. But others are in relationships that are "more complicated".

Robert* and I met at an asexual meetup group. I was 25, he was 26. He leaned gay and had no attraction towards women (I'm female) but we bonded quickly over having a lot in common, and became close friends. I wasn't sure if I was aromantic or panromantic or what, but I knew in the back of my mind I'd like a queerplatonic partner one day. We had a lot of fun, went to concerts together, played board games, watched TV/films, talked about families and pasts including the deep personal stuff, the traumas. He shared about his mental health with me.

(*name has been changed)

At some point along the way, we realized we wanted similar futures. We both had wanted, since long before we met each other, to become foster parents and later adoptive parents. We were both atheists & while I'd planned to wait to start looking for a qpp to be a co-parent for my future children until after I was no longer unemployed, maybe after I'd figured out where I'd live in the country and stuff, it just happened sooner than I was ready. It was too perfect, too good to pass up, and after we'd known each other for about 7 months we stopped just being super close friends. We became queerplatonic partners. We didn't do anything really different, but we had this shared plan to one day be committed life partners and to for now be logical "plus ones" to events where people might bring significant others, such as his siblings' weddings. We were "together".

He broke up with me the 1st time after we'd been QPPs for 4 months. I was really crushed but happy we were at least still friends. It took some time to get back into a groove. We weren't as close. He ended it because he wasn't sure anymore he wanted that future and because he'd been hoping to feel more romantic things for me with time but instead his feelings had remained platonic. He was super important to me, & he'd told me before we broke up that he was thinking of signing up to deploy (as a U.S. civilian contractor) to Afghanistan.

He ultimately did leave to go on the 6 month deployment about 2 weeks into me finally having a full time job, long after we'd broken up. But we started texting more, while he was over there. (Facebook messaging, actually.) Our friendship's closeness was rekindled. We each had lots of down time during workdays, and we got back together around 1 month into his deployment.

We talked about everything for the 5 months we were in a long distance relationship, shared our lives with each other, and were "together". I told him I looked forward to slow dancing with him one day, and ice skating, etc... we rekindled our plans to become non-biological parents....

Skipping over some details he broke up with me only days after we first saw each other in person for the first time in 6 months. He texted, said he "Couldn't do this anymore", and when I tried to ask why he said he got a call but we'd talk more the next day.

I had texted a little more after that, asking if our near future plans to do a suicide prevention walk together etc were definitely off (because last time we still did some things together as friends, I thought maybe it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility).

He never texted back, never contacted me again. I feel kinda like I was ghosted, abandoned. He never explained why we suddenly after 2 years were just... nothing. This was 6 months ago.

This vid should hopefully capture a lot of that (& more?). (Btw: I purposely didn't show ANY kissing.)

~~~~~

Some of the details I skipped over were that while I was with him, I realized how “demisensual” I am, not demisexual, I’m 100% asexual, but rather the “Sensual” suffix - I do not crave touch at all in my relationships unless I have a strong emotional bond, but I looked forward to reuniting and hugging him for months, and I did and it was a glorious hug when he was back home.

I also started fantasizing about maybe marrying him, or thinking about legality of adopting together if we weren’t married and how that probably would be impractical... and how we would or wouldn’t queer the wedding, and do it secularly without religion because that’s important to us, and how I probably wouldn’t want to wear white and stuff... but I was scared to voice these fantasies too early and scare him away.

Also we gave each other gifts by mail even during those 5 months when we were long-distance, and over the course of our relationship before that too. That was a pretty good indicator of how close we’d gotten, he bought be an iPod, gave me a necklace I liked to wear, I picked out gifts for him really carefully for Christmas too, etc.

But how did this relationship change who I am or the course of my life/my future? I mean, because of Robert I realized it’s possible for me to fall in love, and it made my dream of finding a co-parent despite my orientation seem tangible, it gave me hope and optimism for a time, showed me how much joy I was capable. For a while there I had started basically thinking of him as my fiance, I felt that committed to him.

I could tell things weren't perfect, especially at the end, but I couldn't tell for sure where his mind was at. I was waiting till we were alone and in person together and it basically never came. I was a little worried about him & his mental state near the end, also just worried about us. The time we spent together when he first got back was mainly in groups with other friends though so we didn’t get privacy.

I kinda sorta saw it coming here and there. He seemed a little afraid to commit to me, and much more closeted than me about any of his non-straightness, him being gay-gray-asexual, the gay part was hard given his upbringing and the asexual part he acted like was more private but I... I am not private about this stuff. Lol see this video I just made. So that was part of why I wanted to include David/Keith from Six Feet Under and capture the complexities of internalized homophobia/wishing he was straight/”using me” to be able to say he had a “Girlfriend” as a good thing for his reputation in front of his straight guy friends/co-workers while I kinda felt like I was lying every time I might call him my boyfriend maybe to a co-worker. The whole thing was more complicated than I can really explain right now, but I wanted to try.

After he left me with no explanation of why he “can’t do this relationship anymore”, why we couldn’t even stay friends, with nothing more than answering my initial “Was it something I did??” with a “Not really”, uh... my heart was shattered and I was so angry and so heartbroken and... at first I was a little worried he might be struggling so much mentally that he’d be suicidal and I was checking to see that he still was “Active” on Facebook sometime that day so I’d, I guess be assured he was fine.

He showed me how much grief and sadness I really can feel over a breakup,  he affected how I think of so many little things with a twinge of sadness for 6 months now, he may not be the love of my life, but he will always be my first real love. He wasn’t my first boyfriend. But he was my first queerplatonic partner, the first person I fell in love with, and the first relationship I truly had to learn to mourn. He will always be “a” love of my life, in my life story I’ll never forget him. Those 2 years were so significant.

He also has made it really hard for me to forsee ever trusting that a person really means it when they tell me how much they’re looking forward to plans for the future, how committed they are, how much they care about me, etc, because of how suddenly he changed his stances on everything. He left me traumatized to just suddenly go from assuring me yes he wanted to spend Memorial Day in two weeks with me and sending me cards in the mail expressing how happy he was to see me again in person soon, and then the next day be breaking up with me and cutting off all contact whatsoever, ending our friendship and acquaintance entirely. It gave me whiplash. It made me doubt my instincts about other people, and I’m going to have to make an effort to not let him taint any future relationship, if I’m so lucky to one day have one. Which. I’m not holding my breath there...

Because yeah, even now, 6 months later, I am legitimately worried I will never be able to find anyone to co-parent adopted children with who wants a queerplatonic type kissing-free, sex-free relationship with me. I’m trying to think practically about possibly doing the parenting thing single. I just don’t know yet where my life will lead, and if I indeed do any single or joint-parenting thing, it’s still a few years off.

About this video, I wanted to include a mix of friendships and couples to capture how being queerplatonic is neither one nor the other. I’m not “shipping” all these friendships, at least not in the traditional sense. I’m embracing loving them for exactly what they are in canon as a representation of what queerplatonic level bonds can be!

The majority of the ships started as friends and then started kissing/dating, and may or may not have ended up together on the show, but they had this heart to them of deep friendship which helps me relate to them and pushed me to want to include them in this video. I had so many options and some of the ones I chose to include in the end surprised even myself.

Every single pairing in this video remained friends with each other, at the very least, by the end of the TV show, except for the two Parenthood ones and also I think Jake/Peyton never saw each other again. So that’s pretty good, either ending up together or at least being on friendly terms till the end for 18 out of 21 “Ships”. Even one of those two parenthood ones, Ryan & Amber, did end up being co-parents so they are still in each other’s lives, LOL!!

I almost included other model relationships I love on TV shows like Reid/Maeve (Criminal Minds) but so much of their relationship is about literal grief over a death and idk, this is just different. There were tons of choices of ships, more queerplatonic level partnerships in things I watch - remember http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/155333908172/list-of-queerplatonic-level-relationships-people and well, basically... I watch WAY too much TV. But I ultimately settled on these 21 to get to the heart of what I wanted to go for. I even included two couples I usually consider myself not to ship, Laurel/Oliver and Chloe/Clark. I was never rooting for either, and think Lauriver are much better as friends on Arrow and don’t believe their chemistry, but the way Oliver and Clark act towards Laurel and Chloe respectively really reminds me of some of the moments of unreciprocated feelings Robert seemed to have towards me at times, like he cared deeply but didn’t care as much as I did, etc etc.

Friendships With Fully Incompatible Sexual Orientations to really capture our Asexual and Aro-Spec type of attraction me and my qpp had for each other:

John/Sherlock (to me these are THE classic queerplatonic bond) (BBC Sherlock)

Wilson/House (based off Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, these two also have so much of that vibe) (House M.D.)

Mario/Angus (Code Black)

Scott/Stiles (Teen Wolf)

Neal/Mozzie (White Collar) - it’s important to me that I headcanon them as queerplatonic these days, they are such partners in their lives, it’s like... the commitment, gosh

Friendships that also had one-sided romance or were more complicated:

Caitlin/Cisco (The Flash) - their friendship isn’t more complicated at all, yet, not really. But they are more obviously shippable even if you’re not a slash shipper because they both are straight and female/male. Like they totally could end up together on the show and it wouldn’t surprise me if they go there eventually, who really knows. They have compatible sexual orientations is all. They are therefore “more likely” to find each other attractive than either me or my qpp were likely to have those feelings for each other. That’s why I’m putting them down here.

Brian/Voodoo - Voodoo is asexual, Brian is straight (Sirens)

Karma/Amy - Amy is queer, Karma... well people might debate if she’s straight or not... (Faking It)

Chloe/Clark (Smallville) - I don’t think them dating for about 1.5 episodes out of 10 full seasons and over 200 episodes counts to put them in the category below.

Regular ships/couples, who still had long periods of being “just friends” (before and/or as exes):

Bay/Emmett (Switched at Birth)

Toby/Spencer (Pretty Little Liars)

Jake/Peyton (One Tree Hill)

Laurel/Oliver (Arrow)

Joan/Adam (Joan of Arcadia)

Auggie/Annie (Covert Affairs)

David/Keith (Six Feet Under)

Ryan/Amber (Parenthood)

Jim/Pam (The Office)

Drew/Amy (Parenthood)

Matt/Julie (Friday Night Lights)

Rory/Jess (Gilmore Girls)

Voiceovers:

Toby: I feel like when we’re picturing our future together, we’re not looking at the same picture anymore.

Peyton: Do you want to get married?

Peyton: Giving your heart to somebody; that’s the scary part.

Karma: What do I have to do to get you to stay?

Joan: But you had my heart, Adam!

John (Bay’s father): You okay?

Claire, David’s sister: What do you see in him? Keith: He’s smart. He’s kind. He’s funny. When someone sees you as you really are, and wants to be with you, that’s powerful.

Wilson: I need a friend. I need you to tell me that you love me.

Stiles: What if... What if Scott’s my best friend now, but he’s not my best friend for life?

Ryan: I... I went back, and I re-enlisted.

Mozzie: 48 hours. I hope you’ll come with us. Neal: You’re giving me an ultimatum.

Pam: You were my best friend before you went to Stamford. I- I miss having fun with you.

Brian: You don’t want to have sex, and that’s fine with me. ‘Cause I’m not having sex right now either! I’m just happy being around you.

Amber: I’m so mad at you. I don’t understand why you would leave me.

Amy: I need some space. Drew: How much space? Amy: A lot.

Amy: Karma and I are more than just best friends, we’re soulmates. The normal rules don’t apply to us.

Mycroft (Sherlock’s brother): This is a private matter. Sherlock: John stays. Mycroft: This is family. Sherlock: That’s why he stays!!

Oliver: What’s this for? Laurel: Because you’re important to me.

Laurel: Ollie, I know that I am not the love of your life. But you will always be the love of mine.

Rory: You know, I have actually thought about this moment. What would Jess say to me if I ever saw him again? I mean he just took off, no word, so he couldn’t possibly have a good excuse for that!

Mozzie: And I find myself reminded that... unshared life... is not living.

Jess: You still going to Yale? Rory: It’s really close to here. Jess: 22.8 miles.

Rory: You ended up not coming to my graduation, and leaving again, so... That’s it I guess.

Bay: I waited for you, to come back to me, to talk through what had happened! And I gave you space, and then you... just... you disconnected without telling me! You moved on!

Keith: Fine, why don’t we cut our losses and call it quits right now! David: What? Keith: As long as you feel a need to keep our relationship a secret, David... you’re ashamed of it, man!

Brian: She met him on... one of those Asexual Message Boards.

House: Boy meets girl, boy says, “I’m asexual.” Girl says, “Yeah, me too.”

Wilson: I think they were happy.

Amber: You’ve been through so much, and I hate that you hurt.

Adam: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you through a whole ‘nother mess, you know?

Matt: You know, with everything that I was going through- Julie: Matt, we were together for almost four years!

Joan: I know.

Julie: I know everything about you!

Amber: I want to have kids with you, and I want to be your wife.

Auggie: This isn’t our song.

Julie: I hate you so much for leaving me. How could you do that to someone you love?

Amber: I loved him, and now he’s gone!

Stiles: Scott, just tell me how to fix this, alright? Please, just tell me. What do you want me to do!

Tami (Julie’s mom): There’s gonna be somebody else special for you. Julie: But it’s not Matt.

[janiedean]

idk speaking as someone who's arab for me nowadays brown and black men are worse than white men bc middle eastern/south asian/some african societies are still patriarchal as hell. like honor killings child marriages female rapes etc are horribly common in asia and africa. saudi arabia is oppressive as hell towards women. and religion in particular fuels all of this. and yet ppl on this site act like speaking up for women rights in asia or africa is ~white feminism~ or w/e

ah well wait you’re talking in that sense I thought you meant the whole US debate XD

that said... I mean, that’s not an ethnicity thing though? or better, the fact that all the countries that are patriarchal and allow all the above mentioned do so 90% because they’re... not secular and honor killings and such on are allowed by the non-secular governments that put that as word of God, and the fact that they all happen to be in places where there aren’t white people means that the above is accepted more in places where there’s nonwhite people but the problem is that they aren’t secular, not that they’re not white. like we got lucky that we got enlightenment and such on, but you don’t solve any of those issues without addressing the fact that you will never have an equal society that’s not secular/where religion isn’t separate (I mean, how do people think the catholic church calmed the hell down in comparison? they realized they had to adapt or die).

then the problem is that since tumblr is made up of idiots who cannot see the world in lenses that aren’t US SOCIAL NORMS they think that criticizing people who aren’t white is inherently racism when in this case skin color is not the issue the issue is THE DAMNED SYSTEM, and on top of that you also have to take into account why and how that system exists in these countries (I mean, colonialism did play a part in a lot of africa’s current situation and I mean colonialism from both europeans and ottomans/arabs) so it’s not that easy imo but it’s a discussion that’s way too nuanced for tumblr where it’s all BLACK AND WHITE TM.

and anyway I laugh whenever I see people on tumblr assuming that they’re fighting for women in the middle east while a) assuming atheism = the worst, b) criticizing muslim countries is bad period even if you’re doing that for their treatment of women because criticizing islam = racist even outside the US, c) talking about how wearing the veil is a sign of FREEEEDOM (it’s maybe in the US, it’s not where you don’t have a choice about it), d) saying that if you’re a western woman you can’t absolutely speak on the subject nor have an opinion *shrug* but hey what do we know. anyway tumblr activism is crap, thanks, bye.

ps: I ABSOLUTELY don’t think islam in general is Bad TM actually I think on a few things it’s way better than catholicism/christianity when it comes to my generally low opinion of organized religions and I absolutely defend the right of anyone to practice their religion as long as it’s not automatically a law for everyone else in the state and when laws that are passed as religious teachings from the q’ran/bible/whatever (which btw is not the case for a good part of sharia law from what I see, same as the church’s stance against a lot of things is not based on things that actually exist in the gospels) and end up oppressing a part of the population. I generally don’t like systems that aren’t secular. period. the fact that most non-secular governments in the world rn tend to be muslim doesn’t mean I hate islam or that I think it’s The Worst, JUST SO THAT IT’S CLEAR.

(ps: I’m also atheist so I have absolutely no stakes here.)