#moral puritanism

[not-poignant]

Every time someone reblogs a post of mine on Tumblr that is like 'actually reading what you want in fiction like incest / rape etc. is fine' with something like 'yes because incest in fiction shows you how wrong it is' I want to scream and shake them like *you missed the pointttttt.*

People can just enjoy it in fiction because it's hot. They can enjoy it because they find it hot and enjoyable. It doesn't have to say anything about a moral compassion, it doesn't have to be huge and meaningful, and it doesn't have to reflect on any real world values re: incest and rape.

Please don't reblog my posts and try and do your thought policing, moral crap with what I'm writing.

When I wrote incest in Strange Sights, I wrote it to be HOT. That's why I tagged and used liberal warnings for it. So that people who find it squicky or triggery can avoid it. When I write noncon, most of the time, I write it because it's hot, because the majority of human beings have had rape fantasy.

We seem to have a genuine issue with folks no longer being able to tell reality from fiction due to a profound lack of media literacy, and a need for opaque, black and white thinking with no nuance, and it's so incredibly dangerous re: the health of our minds.

Like, I genuinely fear for any moral puritan and the people around them, that they don't simply stop and recognise the difference between reality and fiction, that they do not have a 1:1 relationship with each other, that you don't have to be like 'it's okay in fiction because it is wrong there too' or w/e.

Knowing this is going to get worse before it gets better, having come so far down the slide of 'golden age of the internet' to here, is like... deeply unpleasant to say the least.

[screamingfromuz]

I find feeding tubes unnerving, the thought of colostomy bags makes me sick, the look of diapers is making me uncomfortable, and when that woman that had no eye socket was talking to me I felt deeply uncomfortable.

All of that doesn't fucking matter, that is a me problem, therefore it should not effect other people. When I meet people with those kind of disabilities I treat them like the fucking people they are, and I advocate for them because they are people. My discomfort is simply unimportant.

Being uncomfortable around disabilities does not makes you a bad person. being a prick about it? does.

stop with moral puritanism, advocate for the rights of people even when their disability makes you uncomfortable. It's ok. you don't have to be perfect.

[craycraybluejay]

apparently it is morally wrong to have a crush/sexual feelings for anyone in general. Like. the whole 'dont sexualize literal people ewwww.' i really really wish less teens were on the internet because of this kind of stuff. we are mass-producing mental illness and i am not kidding.

like imagine being 15, having a crush on someone in your class, going on the internet, and being bombarded with all sorts of people saying its wrong to experience sexual thoughts towards people in your peer group. its wrong for adults to have sexual thoughts about other adults. its even more wrong for you, a teen, to have sexual thoughts about your classmates.

you are 16 now and very lucky to be in therapy with a well off enough family. you confess to your therapist how evil you are for wanting to touch or look at that one girl in your class. she looks at you with confusion, like how your mother looks at you when you ask her why you have a computer and your friend doesn't. why is it fair. everyone's confused about you and you are confused too. you're evil, you must be, because you have dirty disgusting feelings. you deserve to be mocked online, says dogluvr15089. you're an evil monster, says @Official Priest of West California. you're a pervert and sexual predator, says fandom_m0m321. they have stupid names and no faces-- but if all of them are saying it then it must have some truth to it, right? your therapist is saying something but you don't hear her, you're in your head wondering if you should punish yourself, how you should punish yourself. when you're back in the room with her you ask her what's wrong with you. she writes you a diagnosis for ocd and anxiety. you take the drugs, like the good, righteous, pure teenager you want to be. they make you feel weirdly empty, and not very hungry, and kinda sleepy. they might give you dementia in your 50s but who cares. you deserve it for being gross. you look through the comments even on other people's stuff, the comments telling them the same thing you were told. you're still punishing yourself for natural feelings-- seeking out the same degrading bullying when you don't get enough of it. you don't tell your therapist you are doing this; because you know she would tell you to stop and you don't want to stop. it's a compulsion. you talked about those last Tuesday.

you're 17. you haven't asked anyone out. by some miracle, a girl who likes you takes the initiative. you stumble through the date awkwardly and anxiously, trying not to touch her, flinching away when your fingers brush over a cheap burger. she asks if you're okay, and then asks, "don't you like me?" She asks, "why do you look like you're scared of me or something?" You stay silent. But then when it happens again, she gets up to leave and the rejection causes the dam to break. You try not to cry, because that's Emotional Manipulation. You choose your words carefully, because you don't want to accidentally Gaslight her like the evil thing you are. You stumble through it but you tell her you're sorry, you tell her you've never had the chance to date. You tell her, shaking like a leaf, like a dumb idiot, that you really really like her and she's very pretty and you're scared to say Hot or Sexy so you don't. And you tell her you're scared. You're really scared she'll see you're a bad person and leave you for someone more pure and good. You try really hard to phrase it like a PR team would. She tells you that's ridiculous, laughing like sunshine and kisses and god, sex. But most of all you've never heard someone so flippantly tell you how ridiculous of a notion that is. She makes you feel brave. You tell her what people have been telling you, scared that you're Trauma Bonding her but pushing through. She, with more surprise, again tells you it's ridiculous. She's not laughing anymore, but you want to make her laugh. You ask with a voice too small for your age if its okay you think her laugh is really sexy. She smiles so brightly its blinding, and says she thinks you're sexy too. You hold hands when you leave together. You go on more dates later, and the two of you talk about your problems and your dreams. And she shows you how to yell at "internet dumbasses." And you still go to therapy except this time you think it's working, because this time you Get It. You get it's ridiculous, and you're happy enough to try to heal.

And you know what? You're one of the lucky few that got that chance. Many teens struggle with mental health problems due to the internet. Not all of them are caused by this purity bullshit. Some of it is body image-- accounts that encourage eating disorders and low self-esteem. Some of it is trends and feeling lonely and unlikeable. Social media doesn't just excaberate mental illness. Sometimes it really and truly produces it and this fact needs more awareness.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Hobie Brown is anti kink send tweet

[bananonbinary]

me: ok so my brother has fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder that means he has to use a walker and wheelchair sometimes.

my mom: yes. this makes sense.

me: you also experience chronic pain in your hip and limp around a lot.

my mom: yes.

me: so you could perhaps use a cane or walker.

my mom: no thats illegal.

[kaleidoscope1967eyes]

im really trying to be accepting of myself, but being acespec is yet another damper on my ability to interact with people

[seaalgae]

literally the one thing that's been missing in a lot of the fanfic discourse is the idea that like

yeah you can write whatever you want

the thing you write can still very much be distasteful or poorly executed and it's not some great conspiracy if people react badly to stuff that is kind of gross

i do think it's just pure bad faith to present that as a matter of being "problematic" or making asinine arguments about the relationship between fiction and reality when a lot of the time it's people reading it and saying "wow, you have to have been an asshole or worse to think this was a good idea"

[not-poignant]

You've been getting death threats? 😕 I'm so sorry that's happening to you. I fuxking hate antis man

Hi anon!

Thankfully not for a while now, but it does happen from time to time. I'm generally not targeted as much as some so I fly under the radar a lot, but I do filter out the majority of the hate and weirdness because I just don't see the point having it here / giving it a platform!

I hate how much damage abuse/bullying does, but I sadly can understand how people end up with fancop / anti mindsets, especially when young. It's very sort of logical to go from 'I hate pedophilia (or rape or incest)' (a normal response) to 'I hate anything that causes it (or rape or incest)' (a normal response) and then making an illogical leap to 'people who write about it in fiction deserve to die and I have a right to destroy them because they're basically as bad as the criminals because they create more criminals and are criminals themselves.'

It starts in the most logical place. And I gotta say, people love being able to hurt others under the banner of a sense of righteous anger. When you feel justified ethically, abusing others, you don't have to deal with shame or guilt in the same way as just targeting someone in highschool or college (or in the workplace). Instead you just get to profoundly dehumanise invisible folks in the internet, and feel like that's activism. That's disgusting, absolutely abhorrent, but I do understand how people get there.

I used to get a lot angrier about it on Twitter, and I still do sometimes, especially when I see the direct harm it causes our communities, when it suffocates creators (many of whom don't even want to draw or write this content, but just feel judged and starved out of fandom), or worse, destroys their lives. I'm very angry on behalf of the people who are scared to post fics or art etc. because of the antis in the fandom/s around them, because it's unfair, and it's hard to convince people to just 'post whatever you want' when it's realistic that some of those people will be abused for it.

So yeah, the hatred makes sense too. It's like...indefensible behaviour and so different to just having general NOTPs / squicks / not liking certain ships. But I do sometimes look at folks who take anti positions (especially the ones who don't realise they're doing it, because they're generally permissive of like 90% of stuff including a fair bit of problematic stuff except like One Thing they're triggered or squicked by), and think... 'You've been fearmongered into believing abusing real people is appropriate behaviour, and if you're lucky, you're one day going to have to deal with the shame and guilt that comes from knowing you've actively tried to destroy people's lives online, and have done harm to many vulnerable people in the process. That's going to be a hard journey for you, but if you make it through to the other side, you are going to feel so much better about yourself as a person, and so much less afraid of your own thoughts, and your intrusive thoughts, and it will be worth it, I promise.'

If they're unlucky, they never realise, and then we all pay the cost for someone who just lives in a state of moral panic forever :/

Anyway, for the most part I'm not really hurt by it personally because I a) have a background in university media studies and know that - scientifically speaking - antis are wrong about (nearly) everything they say, lmao, and b) can tell the difference between reality and fiction and know there's not a 1:1 correlation between the two, and c) I've experienced a lot of different kinds of abuse (sadly) and I can see most of it coming from a mile off these days and I'm not going to wear the shame and guilt people try to dump on me, because they're too juvenile or immature to process with and sit with their own discomfort that others are different to them and have different taboo fantasies to them.

Tl;dr anon - I'm doing okay! Antis do a lot of damage. I get where they're coming from but it never excuses their abuse. The hate they send doesn't really affect me these days, which might be why they started to leave me alone more sdalkjs

[emblazons]

Seeing people have to justify why childhood friends to lovers can evolve into something where they physically express attraction without being raunchy or distasteful is the craziest thing I’ve seen come out of the fandom internet in a long while I won’t lie

[elantedronai]

Tired of people saying ‘I hope no one loves Snow after the ABOSAS movie.’ You can love a character while simultaneously admitting they’re a piece of shit who would deserve death if they really existed. I love Snow as a character because I find him entertaining, and the way he continually lies to himself throughout the entire book about being a hero while he’s actually sociopathic is fascinating. I would read an entire trilogy about him, I think he’s a great character. I also love the themes THG + ABOSAS bring up - it’s easily possible to enjoy a fictional character while also acknowledging that the narrative is a warning against people like them.

There’s a huge difference between loving/enjoying a character and romanticizing them. If someone is saying ‘hey, I agree with what Snow is doing’ then that’s a whole different ballgame. But moralizing about how ‘if you like this bad character then YOU’RE bad and don’t get the nuances of the story’… C’mon, people. Sure, there are some fans who are that brand of crazy, but I like to think the majority of us are capable of critical thinking. Especially since a good chunk of THG fans are adults now.

Also, young President Snow is canonically hot. Complaints about how people will drool over him because the actor is hot are wild to me because that’s part of the point. Evil can be beautiful and dressed up; I know for a fact there would be endless amounts of bitching if he was some butt-ugly, misshapen, obese hunchback or something because ‘Hollywood always makes the evil people ugly and the good people hot.’ He’s hot and people will thirst over him for that. And that’s fine too. As long as everyone can differentiate between fiction and reality, let them enjoy what they enjoy. Truly, who cares if people wanna be railed by a fictional evil president.

[craycraybluejay]

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED on writing erotic povs of 'problematic content.'

I'm sorry, but if you write exclusively as a soulless narrator with politically correct and culturally moral opinions, your writing is boring. Give your narrator some spice! Yes, you can write murder erotically. Yes, you can write a cute wholesome scene like its the most disgusting thing in the universe from the narrator's perspective. You can write a mean narrator that pokes fun at the reader. You can write a weirdly maternal narrator that holds your readers hand and is meant to come off as mildly patronizing. You can write a sarcastic narrator, or an extremely blunt narrator. You can even write a narrator that is some insane political extremist. It's fiction. Creative writing. So be creative.

Write characters who's thought processes and actions are awful and make them look appealing. Write scenes that are relatively normal and make them look scary or strange. Please just write with some shred of creativity.

I need to go to the fucking library and read some good classics before I go fucking crazy. Y'all do not know how to just let go and enjoy the artistic process and it Shows. Everything is a reflection of you as a person. You always feel watched and judged. In the age of the internet, I guess it's understandable. (D'ya see what I did there, sympathetic to a problematic character-- in this case, the audience that wants to kill art for its wild spirit?)

Anyway here's a writing prompt:

Write a narrator that isn't Your Social Face. Bonus points if the narrator is telling the story very differently from how the characters or scenery do. Put your whole pussy into it bro.

And remember. The narrator is a character, too. And that character does not have to be You.

[andromeda3116]

*slithers in under the door*

a ship does not have to be morally pure, you don't need to defend it in terms of its moral superiority. it can just exist without needing to be more pure than another "problematic" one. kill the puritan preacher in your head. he will not protect you. he will only strangle you with a tighter and tighter noose as you beg him to bring you perfection.

*slithers back out through the cracks in the floor*

[whiskeyswifty]

putting this under read more so if you don't know how to be normal about a discussion of reputation (the album) or ariana grande (if you choose to read it'll make sense, i promise) you can just keep scrolling

i had an epiphany today when thinking about the artistic exercise of Eternal Sunshine, ari's new album, which was not an epiphany about it's execution. that much is very clear and i enjoyed very much upon first listen, but if you want a refresher is this: after a very publicly broadcast and discussed personal scandal, the dissolution of her short-lived marriage and her appearing as the romantic entanglement in someone else's marriage dissolution, the interested general public was hotly anticipating her next album. they had expectations that she would discuss/confess/air her dirty laundry about these events, as she is a semi-autobiographical and confessional songwriter and performer, at least when it comes to her most prolific personal affairs. these expectations were brought to higher levels of titillation when she named the album after the titular movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I won't get into the plot as you can use google if you don't know and didn't have the pleasure of having your brain exploded as a teenager watching that in a college dorm room, but everyone of course anticipated the relationship that she would be exorcizing from her memory would be that of her ex husband. Ariana, knowing full well this is what people were going into her album expecting, decided to play with these expectations in a particularly fun bait and switch game artists of all kinds are known to do on occasion. first with the lead single, which is an interestingly offensive approach, scolding news and media outlets for talking about her life and judging it without knowing her. then if you've listened to the album, you of course realized very quickly that while there are a few songs where she starts off by giving the audience what they wanted (be it the bad behavior anthem the boy is mine or ex diss tracks like boy bye and the title track), the lead single was perhaps more of the central focus of the album after all. Songs that begin talking about liars and breakups soon weave contradictory elements in (wait she will wait for their love? i thought they broke up? situationship? weren't they married?) and depending on your self awareness, at least by the end you realize that perhaps a large chunk of the album was not about her jilted lovers or current messy romantic life, but about you. the fan, the critic, the audience writ large. songs like true story where you think it's about her lying ex husband, but by the time you get halfway in, you realize oh wait... perhaps its about more than one thing, or something else entirely... perhaps the ones "fantasizing about her demise" and the ones who "pay to see play the scene" are her audience. to whom she is biting and vindictive in her martyrdom, being whatever the public wants her to be so she can keep that love, because attention is still love in the eyes of a pop star. songs like we can't be friends play with that expectation that you think it will be about her ex husband or the early stages of her sneaking around with her new beau, but no, it is about how fraught her relationship is with her fans and audience. how pop stars do not have actual "friendly" relationships with said fans because of how fickle and superficial they are, how little these fans/audiences really know her at all due to the triple-paned window between them, but how desperate pop stars are for the love of those hands pressed against the glass. she slips in these fraught emotions and turmoil amongst the gossip you gobble, a little sugar to help the medicine go down in a way. But not too finger wagging, as often it's hard to tell what the song is truly about. all you know is it's not as simple as "my ex husband sucks." She knew all eyes and ears would be on this album and toyed with the listener to the point where she got them to listen to her airing her grievances to them about themselves, pay her even to hear it. a delicious little feat.

and of course by now you know where i'm headed, which is we know someone who did something quite similar. had a public scandal, understood the expectations of her, a singer/songwriter, releasing an album after said scandal and toyed with the expectations of that audience with that album. one she cheekily named reputation, doing the opposite of what ari did. where ari played into the promise of a gossipy album about her relationships but turned it into a confessional meditation on fame and the ups and downs of what it's like to be a popstar, taylor promised that discussion by titling it reputation, but her bait and switch was that she ended up telling you gossip about her new relationship. like ESotSM, reputation does dabble in what was promised up front, but as gleaned by listening yourself and as proclaimed by the artist herself, the album ultimately was more interested in gabbing about her newfound happiness where you expected fraught sadness.

this is not a discussion about which one is more "successful" if you can even quantify that. you can't really, outside of capitalist metrics which as we know are not arbiters of taste or quality. (and personally i'm way more interested in hearing the rarely revealed musings of a pop star wrestling with the way they've shackled their self worth to public opinion and fame, rather than hearing some girl talk about another one of her boyfriends. so it's no secret which one i find more artistically stimulating lol). but more of an epiphany that these two women, under similar duress of having their narratives taken from them, lives judged without any grace given, resorted to the same tactic. regaining control in what small way they could, luring people in with the bait of gossip and pop stars self flagellation that they so cravenly desired and force feeding them something else once they'd waded too far in to turn back. startlingly self indulgent and vindictive for someone who's job it is to appeal to as many people as possible, which makes it so curious to me.

Most interesting to me is the conclusion of both of these creative and pseudo-therapeutic endeavors. While taylor claimed to have found peace and refuge from the thirst for public approval (although you could argue that metatexuauly, the release of an album about it, the subsequent massive tour, and her obvious devastation on grammy nomination day as depicted in MA say otherwise), Ariana comes to a similar conclusion in her three closing tracks. first, i wish i hated you which is the piece de resistance in this experiment in dubiousness, as it offers two readings impossible to irrefutably confirm. a song that quietly and beautifully speaks about a dissolution without any obvious wrongdoer or wrongdoing. just a natural drifting apart and how hating them would be easier than accepting some things just don't work, no rhyme or reason. in what sounds like one take, refreshingly tactile in sound and her breath catching towards the end, is this ariana bearing her truth about her divorce finally? confessing that sorry to disappoint, but there is no "tea" or drama, just two adults who weren't right for each other and mature enough to know that and part amicably? or is this about you? us? the pursuit of fame and the connection to an audience she tried so hard to achieve and enjoy, but has realized that it just isn't right for her? her choice to step back and away from the love she has come to want so desperately, but knows isn't good for her, despite not being able to find it in her heart to hate her fans/audience as much as she secretly wants to? It's followed up by imperfect for you which argues the opposite. is this about her new yellow rectangular beau who takes her with all her flaws as she is? does she feel understood by him and has found peace in him? or was the previous one truly about her husband and this one is about her fans and audience, who she feels love her despite her messiness and bad behavior and imperfections, to say the least? are they both about the audience? or neither? they allow room for both, purposefully so, and she's taken to not really talking about in detail it at all, perhaps an answer in and of itself.

the closing track ultimately ends in the same place as taylor. less of an answer but a discovery of peace with the reality of it all. for ariana, ordinary days is once again elusive in it's subject, as it talks about how she has found comfort in the subject with whom there are never going to be "ordinary days." is this a person? her family perhaps, as her grandmother is pointedly featured at the end? or is this once again about her fraught relationship with her fans, for whom she can credit for making no day ordinary ever again, as they have made her extraordinary with their adulation and love? and is she saying for better or worse, happy or sad, it's never ordinary and that's what makes it all worth it in the end? her grandmother's speech that caps off the album is rather contradictory to everything ariana has done in her romantic life thus far. among other things, she says "I mean, I could have packed up and left a million times, you know? It's not that we never fought, you can overcome that, you know?" We just listened to a whole album about how she did leave and didn't overcome the problems in her marriage.... or did we listen to her talk about her relationship to us, the listener, and how she didn't leave fame behind and despite the turmoil, constant and never ending and never tipped in her favor, she is choosing to overcome it every time... once again?it's hard to know as always with art, but it's a path laid out for you to choose as you wish. another question to answer the initial question on the album that she poses in track one, less to us and more to herself. She asks "How can I tell if I'm in the right relationship... If the moon went dark tonight and it all ended tomorrow, would I be the one on your mind?... and if it all ended tomorrow, would you be the one on mine?" Her and taylor (when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name // i'm still trying everything to get you looking at me) and Beyoncé (the legacy, if it's the last thing I do. you'll remember me) and all anointed pop stars probing the same question. not asking us if we will remember them, but asking themselves if the pursuit of that immortality is worth all of it, the self-crucifixion of fame. is this what they're going to choose? is she going to erase us from her memory or are we going to be her great love despite our fickle nature and the guaranteed pain and suffering? The album, much like the movie, offers no clear answer as to what the right choice is, or that she's even capable of being someone who could dole out such wisdom, but ultimately decides maybe there is no choice at all. we can't go back. we are all moths to one flame or another, forever changed by what we do and what we become. a non-answer that i had never really thought about before, that instead interrogates the very question as something worth asking in the first place. which perhaps it isn't. we do what we do because we must, so at least don't do it alone.

[lexyscross]

This may ruffle some feathers to say, but: At least half of the Ghostface killers so far would’ve won if it weren’t for the main characters having plot armor thicker than concrete and most mainstream writers/directors following the boring, puritan formula of having the villain(s) lose.

[randomnameless]

The idea that SS says the Church needs to be rehabilitated in Rhea's ending is entirely on the translation. The Japanese text says that "Meanwhile, Rhea, who survived, returned to her duties as archbishop after she recovered her strength, and she aligned herself with the unified kingdom, working to rebuild the church and help people suffering from war damage." And while I've mentioned Claude's endings with Flayn before regarding Wind, the endings mention that the new order/society of Fodlan is built by the heroes who saved Fodlan which would include the CoS.

Pat really hated Rhea it seems if he does that to her ending. Her rebuilding the CoS? That's not good, she needs to make them atone. But then again, he also tried to make it so that Edelgard had similar ideals to Claude when the game ultimately says otherwise.

Oh I know, I've read your posts about this lol

TBH, while Pat is to blame for the Pat'd script, the Church, as in Rhea's church, is always depicted as needing/being reformed : it wasn't in SS's ending proper, but in Rhea's own S Support where she blames herself for, well, everything that happened but also confesses she used her position as the Archbishop for her personal plan to see her mother again...

And yet, if we look at her actions - and the ones that can be tied to her "rez Sothis plan", bar maybe making Sitri a priest/nun, what did she meant by the "took advantage of my position of the Archbishop"/"used my position as the Archbishop" to see her mother again?

In this S-support, Rhea herself considers her CoS/her lead of the CoS might be to blame for Supreme Leader's war and gives "empty" criticisms to her actions : emtpy as in, well, the game doesn't bother telling/showing what were those "occasions" where Rhea explicitely used her position as the Archbishop to make her wish come true.

Maybe if we pull our hair a bit, we can say the "Billy sitting on the chair" ceremony? That was made to "bring back" Sothis and she asked Billy to do that as their boss and the Archbishop of the CoS?

In a nutshell, it's less "the church needs to be reformed" in SS, but more "Rhea acknowledges she did BaD things (which are?) and used the CoS through her position as the Archbishop to do so (receipt not found?)" so with Billy and in the epilogue, obviously she doesn't do those "BaD" things anymore and their work is miraculous.

As for Claude, while he does "fall in love" with Flayn who is working in the Church with her Father - and this ending obviously cannot be triggered if Claude ends with Billy - Claude's very own words in his Billy S-support, imo, cannot be ignored, while Billy will take Rhea's role as the one people will rely on, he wants Billy to create a Fodlan with "new values" that won't exclude people for being different... implying Fodlan had such values before the War, CoS included - when we know, even in FE16, that this is bullshit!

So while Claude can end up with Flayn despite her being a member of the Church, she's a member of the post-VW Church that is "reformed/different" from the old church, because in VW, the Church has "new values that don't exclude people for being different".

So back to the original post

Compare with Houses, who always removes Nabateans/Rhea of the picture (except in SS’s S support) and brings “reforms” to the CoS - because it needed some, even if we will never know what they are or why those reforms were needed.

SS's reforms are less "reforms" and more "Rhea reckons she did BaD things so will stop doing them now".

The icing on the cake takes the form of Seteth'n'Flayn's paired ending, let it be in the lolcalised or even in the OG (Googled though!) script :

While Flayn disappeared soon after the war, Seteth stayed at the monastery and worked to restore the authority of the Church of Seiros. Doing away with his old strictness, he adopted a tolerant stance toward all, and encouraged his followers to do the same. When he was satisfied that the message was received, he vanished from the monastery.

In the lolcalised version, Seteth adopts a tolerant stance toward all (which he didn't have before?? Source?) and asked his followers to do the same (which he never did before either???) and apparently, when he was satisfied because his message not to be, uh, asshats was received, he finally left the monastery.

Because obviously, under the old CoS, when he was leading investigations against the Western Church and called names by those same people because his creed and followers are "too tolerant", he, uh, wasn't "adopting a tolerant stance toward all and encouraging his followers to do the same".

In the JP version :

フレンは戦後まもなく姿を消したが、セテス はその後も大司教補佐として大修道院に留ま り、教団の権威回復に努めた。かつての厳格 さは鳴りを潜め、何事においても寛大な措置 を取るよう運営方針を転換。時代に即した教 義の改革を妥協なく推し進め、信徒に混乱の ないことを見届けてから大修道院を去った

Google'd it gives some :

Flayn disappeared shortly after the war, but Seteth remained at the abbey as an assistant archbishop and worked to restore the authority of the order. His former strictness has subsided, and he has changed his management policy to take more lenient measures in all matters. He uncompromisingly promoted doctrinal reform in line with the times, and after seeing that there was no confusion among the faithful, he left the abbey.

So, sure, there's no fuckery about "a tolerant stance" because the JP script is more coherent with, well, the general script, it's more like Seteth finally stopped being so strict and became a tidbit more lenient.

And yet...

What are those "doctrinal reforms in line with the times"???

How did he change the CoS' doctrine, sure, it was to be "in line with the times", but what was changed?

This ending basically tells us - something Seteth also says in Nopes' expedition lines or in his Tea time lines? - that he doesn't agree with the doctrine (whatever it is he doesn't agree with) and since Seteth is a playable character who can be supported, his PoV is obviously biased as in, for the player, Seteth is the kind guy so if he says the CoS' doctrine needs reformation, he won't reform it to put some "might makes right" rule, but obviously reform it for the better.

What is that "better doctrine"?

This ending can be obtained in all routes where Nabateans aren't hunted to make a world "for humanity", even in SS where Rhea'n'Billy work together to make Fodlan prosperous and miraculous so... in all routes, the Church is reformed.

Houses wise : the Church is always reformed/needs reformation/did BaD things we never saw -> which serves to make it more "shady" and pretend to have "earl grey", because if the Church always needs reformation, then Supreme Leader targeting it isn't completely unjustified and nonsensical, right?

But when Nopes drops FE16's framing a little bit and we see, maybe for 15 seconds, the CoS do stuff... well, even if Seteth mentions "not agreeing with all tenets", from what we see and hear about the CoS, his doubts don't have the same weight since, hey, we witness the "help other if they need it" tenets, "don't impose the CoS' values on people who aren't from Fodlan" tenet, "we will repay our debts" tenet, etc etc.

Is this the part of the doctrine Seteth disagrees with? This doctrine needs reformation?

Tl;Dr : Church BaD which is why Supreme Leader's war isn't completely nonsensical and why the self insert of this opus can rightfully become God and run the show better than anyone who was there before, but we will never show us what this "BaD" entail, we just are told about it.

In turn, this creates Earl Grey and the "morally grey masterpiece uwu" reputation this game has - Agarthans have no place in this Earl Grey masterpiece, that's why some people try to come up with reasons or justifications to explain why they aren't that worse than the faction the game uses a piñata despite showing us all the "not BaD" things they do.