#my opinions are secular

[hartenlust]

okay i have from now till like . 4 pm maybe to write like 500 words on various definitions of secularization and write the beginning of my paragraph on lingering religion also among those who describe themselves as non-religious. maybe ill write something on cultural christianity thats always fun especially considering its christmas

[cheesetheory]

Gotta love those philosophical thought experiments that are just like: "What if we made some ridiculous and/or baseless assumptions about how the universe might work which just so happen to produce a weird and spooky outcome, and then acted like it's indicative of reality. Wouldn't that be fucked up? 😨😨😱"

[doctorwhoisadhd]

narrows eyes. hwait a minute. relistening to stella spendens midnightburger... and the tenor/bass choir in the background of terric telling clementine about alchemy...... is NOT period accurate

[tenofmuses]

Free Witchcraft Resources for Beginners

A couple months ago I made a post shouting out the fact that witchcraft doesn’t require any money to get started (or to be practiced, for that matter), and I had a few people ask me about what they can do that’s free, especially as a beginner, so I wrote up this post. I was lost and broke when I was getting started with my craft, and it was really difficult to find tips for beginners that weren’t just “buy these things!” I’m hoping this will be useful for people who are looking for a place to begin.

So. You’re interested in witchcraft and would like to find out more. Maybe you keep seeing those “crystals/herbs/books/etc. beginner witches should have” posts, and you’re frustrated, because you want to begin your practice, but don’t have the money for those supplies. I was once in that spot, and even now that I’m five years into my practice, I have rarely purchased any of the supplies witchtok deems to be fundamental. Here are some places you can begin instead. Let’s get started!

Info continues below.

Foundations

By foundations, I’m referring to things that aren’t explicitly witchcraft, but that I have found very beneficial within my own practice.

1. Before anything, I recommend asking yourself a simple question: why do I want to practice witchcraft, and what do I hope to get out of it? You may not know for sure yet, and your answer will likely change over time, but having some intentions going in can be helpful when you’re in the early stages of research. When I was starting out, I felt very overwhelmed by the amount of info out there, so if you have a bit of an idea of what you’re specifically interested in, that can be helpful to get you going.

2. Meditation: not all witches meditate, but a lot of the skills you develop through meditation can be helpful within witchcraft. You can try out secular meditation (apps like Balance and Headspace, as well as Insight Timer—the former has a mix of secular and spiritual meditations), or you can find a witchcraft-specific guided meditation on YouTube. For neurodivergent folks out there, I recommend looking into active meditation, which I’ve found to be quite beneficial for myself.

For me, it’s always important to remain grounded when I’m doing any spiritual practice, and meditation is a good skill you can work on to help with that. I also find that having a background in meditation can be really helpful later down the line when/if you are attempting visualization and/or astral projection, witch’s flight, and so forth.

3. Journaling: another thing that isn’t specifically witchcraft-related, but is an important skill to harness, on my opinion. To me, it’s crucial to be in touch with what I’m feeling (especially when it comes to doing spellwork), and journaling is one great way to do that. If you’re stuck and don’t know where to begin, look up witchcraft (or general) journal prompts on here or somewhere else. A lot of the ones that come up will be shadow work, which can be intense, so only do what feels comfortable for you.

I’d also like to note that automatic writing/drawing is an entirely free option if you’re interested in communing with spirits or deities. Essentially it involves getting into a trance-like state (usually in a dark room only lit by candlelight or similar—this is to avoid distractions) with a piece of paper and pen, and you write or draw everything that comes to your head without thinking about it. And then you go back and see what sort of messages you may be receiving. It’s a bit hard to explain and I’m not very experienced in it myself, but it’s something worth looking into if it sounds interesting to you!

4. Look at what you have, instead of what you don’t: a lot of beginner witch resources will list specific items that you should have, without really explaining why. And without that knowledge of how/why having an item is important, you might find your Must Have crystal sitting unused on a shelf somewhere. So instead of focusing on the items you want or feel like you should have, look at what you do have. Are there plants or herbs in your house/yard that you feel drawn to? Do you have a collection of cool rocks and stones? How do these items make you feel?

For me, a large part of my craft is my belief in Animism (the belief that all living things have innate spiritual qualities, like a soul, spirit, or specific energy) and this can play into the way you interact with the natural world if it’s a belief you also subscribe to. Try and feel the presence of a plant to see if it gives you any specific feeling. It does? Great! Now you have a correspondance for that plant. And it’s even better than the correspondances you’ll get in a book because it’s based on your own personal connection and intuition. That’s what is most important.

5. When in doubt, use your intuition. You might find a source that says cinnamon should be used for protection. Another will say it should be used for abundance spells. What matters the most is what you think about an herb/plant/stone/colour, or whatever else you may utilize. I recommend to start keeping a list of what you associate these things with. It can take awhile to build up a personalized list, but once you have one, it’ll be a lot more useful than what a correspondances book says to do.

6. Scour your pantry and get cooking: are you wanting to try out a spell but you haven’t bought the ingredients? Look in your pantry. You may be surprised by how many commonly used witchcraft herbs you find in there. And if you have been starting to associate certain herbs or spices with specific feelings or energies, that’s a great way to get started with creating your own spell.

You can do a spell in many ways, but when I was starting out, one of my favourite ways was to incorporate a certain herb or spice into food I made. Say you’re making a soup and maybe you want a bit of protection, so you add some ground pepper with the intention of that pepper protecting you as you stir it into the soup. Same goes for any other ingredient you’d like to use. A little intention goes a long way!

7. Dedicate your actions, time, or energy: if you’re interested at all in working with deities, ancestors, and other spirits but don’t have the time/space to build an altar—or maybe you aren’t sure how involved you want to be with this part of witchcraft—you can devote an action to the entity. This can be simple. For example, when I worked with Apollo, I would use taking my meds and vitamins as an act of devotion to him. This is an offering. And offerings can be anything you want them to be. They don’t have to be expensive or fancy!

It’s also important to note that you do not need to work with deities or spirits to be a witch. You don’t even have to believe in them. Many witches are atheists or don’t work with any deities at all. But for those who are interested, simple offerings can be a good place to start.

8. Practice energy work: in my view, energy work is the most important skill to learn for your craft, since so many things build off of it. And with energy work, you don’t need to spend any amount of money on it. All you need is yourself, your intuition, and anything else—I mean that quite literally, you can practice feeling the energy of other people, pets, trees, buildings, foods, socks, your favourite pen, and whatever else you think of!

Once you get to know the energy of the things around you, you can more effectively utilize them as tools within your practice (this builds off of the intuition point I made earlier).

For example, as a child I lived in a house that was surrounded by cedar trees. It was a place where I felt very safe. To this day, when I see or smell a cedar tree, I feel safe and protected. You can read this any way you’d like—to me it’s both a spiritual and psychological phenomenon—but this is one example of sensing energy.

As a witch, you can practice that skill and use it to get to know the tools you’d like to use within your own craft (the things that connect to you personally, not what you’re told you should connect with). This isn’t an easy skill by any means, so if it doesn’t come naturally to you, that’s perfectly okay!

For more on this subject, I recommend two books: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer (more on animism in particular) and Psychic Witch by May Auryn (lots of exercises to practice working with and sensing energy).

Where to Go for Learning

After you’ve thought a bit about some of the above, or skipped it altogether if it doesn’t suit you, you’re probably wanting some good resources that will actually tell you how to do the witchcraft thing. But before that, I want to reiterate again that this is your practice, and you should only do what you are interested in. So take what you want and leave what you don’t.

I’m going to point you in three primary directions for learning good information: books, podcasts, and YouTube.

But first, I want to issue a massive disclaimer for the YouTube information (and some books, for that matter). You should not have one sole source for your information. Books that have bibliographies are always the most trustworthy sources. And even though I trust the information coming from the YouTubers I’ll mention—especially because I’ve read similar information in several witchcraft books—don’t take their word at face-value. Be critical of what you’re told. Believe what you believe. This is a skill you’ll learn over time. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but it will get easier to discern what’s good info vs. bad info, over time.

Before you get started, I highly recommend watching this helpful video by HearthWitch with info on how to vet your witchcraft sources: link.

Books

In my view, books are the Best source of information, period. Anyone can publish an article or video online, but not everyone can publish a book. So there tends to be a bit more reliable info in witchcraft books.

As far as knowing what book you should begin with, there are lots of lists out there for beginners, and I recommend just looking at one of those lists and picking what sounds interesting to you. Take what you like and leave what you don’t.

Most of the YouTubers I’ve listed below have videos recommending books for beginners.

If you’re interested in British folk witchcraft, I started out with Folk Witchcraft by Roger J. Horne and it was a brilliant beginners guide that I recommend to anyone who is interested in that branch of witchcraft.

As always, while you read witchcraft books, be critical of the information you are presented with. Unfortunately, lots of witchcraft books (especially the classic ones) can be rooted in concepts like bioessentialism, colonialism, and racism. My recommendation is to not take any author’s word as gospel and to use your critical thinking skills when reading witchcraft books.

Where I live, books are EXPENSIVE. And when you’re just starting out in your practice, you might not have the money or ability to go out and buy a book just yet. Maybe you’re still unsure if witchcraft is right for you. Or maybe you’re in the “broom closet.” Whatever the reason, here are some free places to find books.

1. The public library: a bit obvious, but a great resource to look at, because you never know what your library might have. Libraries are the best. And entirely free!

2. Library apps like Libby or Overdrive: especially helpful if you don’t want to bring home a physical witchcraft book, or if your branch doesn’t have any copies of what you’re looking for. You can also get some audiobooks on there.

3. Archive.org: aka the web archive. Entirely free and entirely legal, this works as an online library service where you can check out a book for a bit of time right from your computer. Sometimes you can download PDFs as well. I’ve found a lot of my favourite witchcraft books on there, so if you have a specific title in mind, search it there.

YouTube

First, as a bit of a caveat before recommending you to watch YouTube videos on witchcraft: in my view, books are the best source of information for any witch, as they are able to contain a large degree of nuanced and research-informed information. But books aren’t a simple solution for everyone, and I’ve learned a lot from informed YouTubers over the years (in fact, like many witches, I was first exposed to witchcraft via Harmony Nice on YouTube!).

I’m including a list here of witch YouTubers that I personally recommend because I have found that their content aligns with information I have read in books and other research-informed sources over the years, and because I find them to be generally reliable.

I want to note here that this list is rather biased, as I tend to watch witchcraft YouTubers whose practices mirror my own in some ways. So most of these practitioners have practices informed by European folk witchcraft, and are not very diverse as a result. If any practitioners have further recommendations to add on, especially for practitioners of colour and practices that are different from mine, please do so!

My recommendations:

ChaoticWitchAunt: folk witchcraft, specifically in the Italian tradition, some great beginner content, info on working with saints and spirits.

TheWitchOfWonderlust: death magic, spellwork, great beginner content, lots of excellent info on working with spirits.

HearthWitch: truly a well of information on British witchcraft, beginner videos on any topic you can think of, q&a livestreams, and there’s even a video on vetting witchcraft sources that I really recommend for beginners.

The Redheaded Witch: folk witchcraft and folklore, spirit and ancestor work, daily witchcraft ideas, some beginner videos.

TheGreenWitch: such an excellent resource for herbal/green witchcraft, videos on spellwork, ingredients, tools, and more.

Mintfaery: lots of beginner information, videos on working with the fae, nature witchcraft, and lots of fun witchy days in the life.

Ella Harrison: German folk witchcraft, great beginner resources, including some more niche traditional craft topics like witch’s ladders.

The Norse Witch: info on Norse witchcraft and Heathenry, Norse paganism, and some content about astrology.

simplywitched: lots of great everyday witchcraft content, pagan witchcraft, more vlog style.

Warrior Witch Nike: witchy book reviews, paganism, deity work, some astrology content.

Mhara Starling: the place to go for anyone interested in Welsh witchcraft and folk magic related to Wales.

Alwyn Oak: lots of witch’s guides, especially relating to sabbats (those popularized in Wicca), forest witchcraft, gorgeous videos.

Ivy The Occultist: chaos magick and lots of interviews with practitioners from a variety of paths/backgrounds.

Shadow Harvest: personal day in the life witchy content, some videos looking at working with dark goddesses and deity work in general.

Note: some of these YouTubers have written their own witchcraft books geared towards beginners, so if you enjoy their videos and want to learn more, check those out.

Podcasts

The Astrology Podcast: not specifically witchcraft, but if you want to learn about astrology in detail, this is an excellent place to begin. Link goes to YouTube.

Books and Broomsticks: all kinds of good info, especially pertaining to folk magic, witch guests invited on to share more about their own practice. Link goes to Spotify.

Southern Bramble: A Podcast of Crooked Ways: a variety of witchcraft related topics, interviews, and discussions, often revolving around folk magic and traditional craft—interviews show different traditions. Link goes to Spotify.

New World Witchery - The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft: what it says on the tin; various topics and conversations through an American traditional/folk magic lens by the author of the (amazing) book with the same name. Link goes to Spotify.

Salty Witches Podcast by Cat & Cauldron: traditional witchcraft through a modern lens, another podcast that has a wide variety of topics covered. Link goes to Spotify.

—

As always, if anyone has any additional (free!) resources to add onto these ones, please do so.

Good luck to all of the beginner witches who are embarking on their spiritual journeys, and I hope some of these tips have been helpful! :)

-Em

[hero-israel]

I think there needs to be a reckoning about how so many white (passing) American secular/nonpracticing antiZionist Jews can say "Not in my name, Israel doesn't speak for us!" and then think they can speak for Israel. How so many of them can have a limited familial connection to Israel, have such a disdain for Israelis, Israeli culture and society, and Israel as a concept, and then have the gall to act like their opinions matter?

I see their attitudes be described as fear, but to me it strikes me as more than just fear. A lot of them, I suspect, have incorporated antiZionism as a fundamental part of their Jewish identity. It's not just a disagreement, they're not just saving face. Take away the Goyim and talk to them privately and they still believe what they believe, and express it in the same way. They hate Israeli Jews.

And Israel is only going to become less Ashkenazi (aka less "white") as time marches forward. The bad faith hysterical Israel bashing and condescension is only going to look more and more like Orientalism, and frankly, racism.

I think it's very possible that calling something antisemitic can't just be a catchall term when this chicken comes home to roost. I think if there aren't already, there will be distinct forms of antisemitism, some that only Diaspora Jews face and some that only Israeli Jews face. And if this is true or will end up being true, it's pretty important that we not speak over each other's experiences. To do that we have to recognize these experiences and respect them. Do some Israeli Jews disrespect the Diaspora experience? Yes, from what I've seen. Is it nearly as vitriolic and is it growing nearly as quickly as the disrespect for the Israeli experience among antiZionist American Jews? Not even close.

All this divisive language to say: sometimes when Israelis say "so and so is antisemitic!" in the context of antiZionism, they're talking about themselves, their experiences, the stakes for them, and not Americans. So maybe we should all learn to stay in our lanes sometimes.

A lot of Israeli Jews disrespect, or at least are unable to grasp, diaspora existence, particularly when it comes to Americans. I can't even count the number of times I read Israelis say "Why are you American Jews so upset about Trump? Don't you see how good he's been for Israel?" Which is the worst damn argument a person could possibly use - it feeds into both left-wing and right-wing antisemitism, while ignoring that American Jews live HERE and are at risk from Trump's fascist cult and general lawlessness. And it is bad FOR EVERYBODY to have "pro-Israel" become the position of stroke-babbling grotesque racist criminals, and also for America to be too focused on anarchic decomposition and Yugoslav-style street warfare to be able to support Israel like it traditionally has.

And because turds of a feather flush together, Netanyahu wants ALAN DERSHOWITZ to be Israel's advocate if the ICJ case proceeds. I knew Netanyahu was a senile failure undermining all the strengths he had ever built for the country and this is just the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae. Alan Dershowitz is the ultimate stereotype of a Boomer who was kind of useful in the 1980s-90s and became awful and embarrassing now, Trump is surrounded by them (i.e. Rudy Giuliani). Your grandma in Florida remembers Alan Dershowitz for writing "Chutzpah" and being tough and quick-witted, and everybody under 40 knows Dershowitz as a Trump cultist and Epstein fuckbuddy. Big "Vladek Spiegelman can only compare his artist son to Walt Disney" energy. There are surely thousands of lawyers better-suited for the role, just off the top of my head I'd prefer Eugene Kontorovich and so should anyone who is more aware of the world as it actually is than how it was in 1994.

I say all that to parallel your original point, not to contradict it. Yes, the American Jews who performatively loathe Israel are by and large just an Extremely Online phenomenon of the most college-town bubble-protected, least observant, least affiliated, and least aware of non-Ashkenazim. It is not so hard for American Ashkenazim to stay protected from antisemitism as long as they totally unplug from their Jewish identity and any public-facing aspects of it. Can't be killed in a synagogue or JCC or kosher store if you never go in, head tap.

[mindblownie2]

I think there's definitely something to Dankovsky not being entirely what you'd expect from a character like him, or not what he maybe would like to appear as - that is, him not really being that cold, calculating, purely "logic"-driven archetype at all; that he is actually so emotional and impulsive. I think it's also interesting how he can actually believe in the supernatural - there's the dialogue option in marble nest letting you say you believe in God, but especially in classic I think that's canonical, he talks about the soul, invokes concepts like providence or fate in ways that don't seem entirely just as figure of speech, he can very quickly turn on a dime and believe in Clara's healing powers or Artemy's traditional medicine or the Polyhedron's magical properties once he sees what he deems sufficient evidence, and he also has that line about "knowing there are things beyond our mundane perception". and you know what, I don't even think that's so contradictory. first of all, there are nowadays and there especially have been in the past, with less secular societies, plenty of scientists who also held some kind of religious beliefs. I think it's to a certain degree reconcilable when it's applied to different spheres of life - some things are relegated to spirituality, but where there are cold hard facts, you follow these; it doesn't inherently make you a hypocrite. also in the game, the thing he takes most umbrage with is not spirituality, but superstition - the kind of unreasonable and dogmatically held beliefs that lead people to, oh I dunno, say, burning innocent women for witchcraft instead of listening to experts? which you know I think is kinda fair actually? like I keep harping on about that but fellas I'd be mad too. anyway my point is, depicting him as a reddit atheist is in my opinion definitely a mischaracterisation.

however I was actually gonna talk about the whole "defeating death" thing because it's so interesting to me, people often point out how fantastical, almost mystical it sounds, and he sometimes strikes that tone - "could death be only a whim of the will that has shaped this world" is a fascinating line to me because it essentially implies that the way to attain immortality is to tell god to fuck off, but then at the same time. he is initially skeptical about Simon's immortality, though interested in the claims of his longevity and extraordinary immunity to disease; he says he wants to study tissue samples from Simon's body, which seems to me like looking for a material, physiological mechanism that could be potentially found in or applied to other people (and eventually, out of desperation or fascination or both, he can get into the Kains' whole soul transference/preservation thing, but it doesn't strike me as what he was really looking for before the game. as my friend always says, if immortality of the soul was all he wanted, he'd become a priest instead of a medical researcher). he says in haruspex route that his lab works on medicine against aging; he also notes iirc that death will never not be a thing completely because people will still be killing each other. there is that thing with the reanimated lady, which always struck me as a little off in some ways, but mainly - at the start of the game, he hasn't succeeded in his goal yet, so whatever happened there, he either was unable to reproduce it, or it wasn't what he was looking for either - I mean, the fact that you can resuscitate a person under certain conditions is a great achievement, but doesn't remove the fact that people die, same as, as he says, "doctors defeat death on singular occasions" - you can manage to rescue a person from injury or disease, but it's only postponing the inevitable, so what if it wasn't inevitable anymore? the goal, I think, is so that people don't just die of old age. and the thing about that is - is that really so irrational? I mean especially if you think about the setting, if you think about the incredible, sheer rapid change of the time period from the industrial revolution to mid-20th century, that pathologic sits somewhere in the middle of, is that not something that would appear to people as both fantastical but also within grasp, as taking the witnessed progress to its furthest conclusion? same as people imagined - and correctly so - that the next step from inventing the airplane was inventing a flying machine that will go to the moon, would they not also imagine, seeing the progresses of medicine and the extending average lifespan, that we will exponentially live longer and longer? like we know it's not that simple, and Daniil's goal is meant to be unrealistic, but I don't think it's "unscientific" in the sense that it's based on magical thinking. people don't really shoot for immortality anymore but longevity research is very much a thing and I think that's just essentially what he was doing.

on the other hand, it's funny to me to imagine that him sometimes framing his work in those less-than scientific terms might've been partly what made him unpopular; I think there's more to it, especially regarding his conflict with the authorities I think it's more about him representing "revolutionary" ideals, but with his peers? even what Isidor mentions in his letter, that Daniil's detractors claimed his theories were not scientifically viable - the accusation not being that he's a heretic or a necromancer or playing god, but that he's being unreasonable; and well, if the "groundbreaking theory of human mortality" that he claims to have formulated is in fact "people die because they just let it happen, don't let god or laws of nature dictate what happens to you", well. I can see that.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

thank you so much for that excellent chani post. i've seen some annoying takes on twitter about how not making her totally devoted and subservient to paul makes her 'unlikeable' and i'm like. buddy. i think that speaks more to how you see women. than anything about her. this chani is very dynamic and interesting to me.

i'll be honest and say i've not read the books. this is me speaking from what i've seen of summaries, but i think giving her a real cause to fight for yet also genuinely loving paul gives her an interesting struggle, and also plays into how the portrayal of the fremen (seems to me to be) more diverse and nuanced. as in, the fremen themselves seem to have more of a push-and-pull to them. the clarification of how different fremen believe differently (the south being more fundamentalist) is a very important thing to include in a movie where you can run into the danger of saying that all adherents to a foreign, islam-adjacent (in coding) religion are all fundamentalists. that can (in less nuanced hands) be a pretty irresponsible thing. so showing that there's also more secular/pragmatic/less dogmatic sectors of the culture seems a pretty good counterweight.

so yeah. this is how i processed it as a movie-goer. and having chani represent that aspect (believing in people over prophecy, action over religion) and having stilgar as the humanized face of the southern peoples (showing that yknow, regardless of being fundamenist beliefs, theyre still PEOPLE with the capacity for love, friendship, honor) makes total logical sense. you're not just "telling" us that there's different aspects to fremen culture, you're SHOWING us by showing different characters who represent those aspects, without demonizing either or turning either into a one-note stereotype.

Thank you! I'm not someone who was a long-term fan of the books before the movie came out (I tried reading Dune as a teenager when I was reading a lot of classic sci-fi but found it too boring) but I did read Dune and Dune Messiah after the first movie came out, both because I wanted to know what happened next and because I wanted to have an opinion on how the movies worked as adaptations.

(book and movie spoilers below and also I basically ended up writing a whole essay in response to this)

My single biggest frustration with the book is that after they arrive at Sietch Tabr and Jessica drinks the Water of Life and becomes Reverend Mother...the book up and skips two years of the story and when we next see Paul he's already got Fremen followers who are ready to die for him and he's in an established relationship with Chani. Oh I was SO MAD when I got to this part. I was like FRANK. FRANK!!!! Did you seriously just skip two years of the most interesting part of your own story???

The thing is, even though I know that Frank Herbert's intention was to write a critique of the idea that oppressed people need an enlightened external (white) savior to liberate them...if you don't provide an alternate explanation for what's happening then you end up falling into some Orientalist tropes anyway. And because, in the book, we don't see the process of how your average background fedaykin comes to trust Paul as a military and political leader, there is nothing in the text to counter the idea that the Fremen are a bunch of unquestioning religious fanatics easily swayed to do violence by belief in a prophecy.

My second biggest frustration with the book is that we're given no reason at all why Chani would fall in love with Paul. While she has some memorable scenes, she doesn't have a lot to do as a character in the book, and she's missing from a whole chunk of the end...because she's in the south...because she and Paul have a baby, Leto II, who's then killed off-page when the sardaukar attack the south. (I'm honestly really glad they cut this from the film, because it never seemed to be given the narrative weight it deserved in the book.)

So you can imagine how happy I was when the Villeneuve movies figured out how to address both these frustrations by tying them together. The fedaykin don't just blindly accept Paul because of some prophecy. They come to trust him because he proves himself as a fighter, and because he starts out from a place of genuine solidarity and humility--which it is possible for him to do because he has no structural power over them at that point. And Chani falls in love with him for the same reason, in that heady environment of fighting side by side for a political cause, and maybe for the first time in a while starting to believe that you can win.

I think the Villeneuve movies improve a lot on what's in the book in terms of how the Fremen are portrayed...when we're with the fedaykin and/or Chani and Stilgar. There we see political debates and discussion and the fact that not all the Fremen think the same way. And we also see little humanizing moments of folks just hanging out, celebrating after a victory in battle and just shooting the shit and being friends.

I do wish the movie had extended this to more parts of Fremen society. If there's one thing I could have added, it would be seeing more of daily life in Sietch Tabr. It makes sense that when we're seeing things from Jessica's POV, she is more distant from and suspicious of the Fremen, seeing them as a force to be manipulated, but I wish we had even one or two scenes of people just being people in the sietch. It felt kind of weirdly empty and not particularly lived-in as a place, and I think they could've easily countered this, with scenes from Chani, Stilgar or Paul's POV, and that would have made it hit even harder when the sietch is attacked.

If there were two things I could have added, I wanted more exploration of the people of the south. Why are they more fundamentalist than the Fremen who live in the north? (We get one line about how "nothing can survive [in the south] without faith" but I wanted more than that.) While I think the movie did a fantastic job of humanizing and differentiating the Fremen we see around Paul, when we get to the south it does backslide a little into "undifferentiated mass of fanatics." Surely the people of the south also have some diversity of political views.

I think there are some interesting threads they could have pulled on in terms of how proximity to direct colonial violence shapes people's ideology. Sietch Tabr is one of the closest Fremen communities to Arrakeen, the seat of colonial control. They have probably had to mount some kind of armed resistance for generations just to keep from being wiped out. I can see that producing skepticism of the prophecy ("well I can't sit around waiting for a messiah but I do have this rocket launcher") as well as resentment at the idea of someone swooping in and taking credit for a struggle that you've put your life on the line for, and probably a lot of people you know have died for. There seem to be some generational differences, too, where young people of Chani's generation put less stock in the prophecy, while the true believers are mostly older. I can see faith in the prophecy coming out of despair--when you've been fighting for decades with no change, maybe you draw the conclusion that only an outside power coming to your aid will make a difference. While the people of the south are still under colonial rule, maybe being generally outside the reach of direct Harkonnen violence (the Harkonnens don't even know they're there) makes the concepts of both oppression and liberation feel more abstract and more receptive to being filled in with Bene Gesserit mysticism. It seems absurd to want more from a movie that's nearly three hours long already...but I wanted more of this.

Still, I do think they managed to improve on a lot of things that frustrated me or are simply dated about the book, while keeping the political thriller/war drama/epic tragedy elements that I think are the heart of the story, and in some cases drawing them out more clearly and effectively than the book did. The best kind of book-to-film adaptation imo is one that has a strong point of view in terms of what the story is About, on a large-scale thematic level, and is not afraid to change individual elements of canon in service of telling that story the most effective way possible in a cinematic medium. While there are always things I want more of, I feel like Denis Villeneuve really, really understood the assignment in terms of the overarching themes of the the story and he delivered so fucking well.

[orphee-aux-enfers]

So, I'm asking honestly and in good faith to better understand Orthodox attitudes toward queerness. Suppose you had a son, who is male according to halacha, and he wants to have an intimate relationship with another man (who is similarly male according to halacha). How would you feel about this? How would your wider community feel? Do you think other Orthodox Jews in your community would feel the same in that situation, or is there a spread?

Hi anon. Thanks for the kindness in asking politely, though that should be the bare minimum. Not sure why you're asking me of all people, though. I'm an intersex transsexuel who identifies literally as a "tranny fagdyke". I am married to another transexual who also IDs as a tranny. My wider community absolutely accepts us, but it is still community dependent. So. If my son was also queer, I expect he'd be similarly loved and supported and given free food and hospitality and invited to gatherings and such because we would not be in an unaccepting community. Personally, I've never been shunned at any stage of visible queerness or transness. Maybe I've been lucky. But 7 ish communities is an awful lot for me to feel it's a fluke.

I think the thing people need to understand is that while orthodox Jews at large may not have prior knowledge, or understand, or approve, many refuse to speak out or discriminate due to lashon hara. This means you have acceptance without understanding which is MORE THAN SUFFICIENT for me, especially because the secular world is incredibly hard for me to exist in even if I'm NOT visibly religious, which I very much am. I would much rather be supported by someone who doesn't understand me than outright treated with hatred by someone who uses the politically correct terms of transgender as a slur and calls me a k*** to my face for being a Jew (my experience in secular, queer liberal spaces).

So. Lashon hara. A thing that I think EVERYONE should learn!!!! Because every SINGLE orthodox Jew I know practices it, well, religiously. Including about our trans and queer members of the community. No one chastises as harshly as a bubbe hearing someone call someone names behind their back, to be honest.

Obviously I cannot speak for every community, or even my community's private opinions because I'm ONE PERSON. I've never lived in a New York or New Jersey community. I've mostly lived in Europe, where Orthodox Judaism is often more frequently just... Judaism. It's very unfair to paint all communities with the same brush, based on what seem to me to be minority experiences within an already tiny minority. I understand it's not everyone's experience, but honestly and truly, I know more queer orthodox Jews with good experiences than I know queer orthodox Jews with bad experiences.

[nothingiswrongwithyourarmrests]

@prismatic-bell made a wonderful well thought-out post about cultural christianity.

I think the phrasing of cultural christianity is not ideal, but the concept it's imperfectly describing can probably not be described perfectly.

In my opinion it's more accurate to speak of christian hegemony or christian culture. I live in a christian culture. The christian culture around me affects me and everyone else in my country, because it is so hard to draw a line between culture and religion because Germany was Christian for a much longer time than it has been German.

Participating in german culture means participating in a christian culture, even if we have gotten more laicistic(in the sense of strict religious neutrality) and atheist in practice in the last 40 years. The effects of christian hegemony and christian culture will affect everyone and give everyone a degree of "cultural christianity". Yes, even the members of minority religions.

The prevalence of the USAmerican Film and Television industry is giving a lot of countries "cultural americanism". I am myself participating in cultural americanism at this moment because I am writing about a concept that has been mostly defined in the USAmerican cultural context in my second language.

The Atheist movement today is being dominated by USAmericans, so the Atheist movement defines itself against the cultural context of american majority culture, which is a christian culture. It is also dominated by people who escaped religious abuse and religious trauma, usually from USAmerican christianity. The reactivity of that trauma has become part of Atheist culture, even for those who did not experience religious trauma personally. It's a major problem for the movement that a lot of people counting themselves among it do so out of disgust for religion instead of taking joy in secular and atheist values, and a lot of people that are vocal have not finished truly excavating and examining their own (cultural) biases.

Seriously following a religion (including secular atheism as a set of beliefs) often involves analysing and understanding it and the culture you are practicing it in, but secularly/laxly/culturally following the religion you happen to be born into or ignoring it does not require the same level of thought and scrutiny and intellectual honesty.

Learning about the history of philosophy has helped me grasp the interconnectedness of culture and religion, and having mandatory religious education (education about religions, not religious indoctrination) in school was a major part of becoming more culturally literate. Whether someone has examined or corrected the biases they absorbed from christian culture /christian hegemony is not determined by their religious affiliation.

I do not want to be cultural christian and would put that label to people who do easter, christmas, confirmation and church weddings without belief. What I am is continuously affected by christian hegemony and living in a christian culture, and I won't be getting rid of all the biases and blind spots of that for a long time, possibly my lifetime.

[queerprayers]

Today is (for many of us) the feast of Christ the King, and I wanted to take a moment to honor that. I was baptized on this feast, and I've always been drawn to it. Originally instituted by the pope in 1925 as a response to growing nationalism and secularism, making it the newest element of the liturgical year, most Lutherans and other liturgical Protestants also honor this day.

I have differing opinions on secular rule/the separation of church and state (and evangelism, for that matter) than the founders of this feast did, but I can appreciate the yearning for more world leaders/political groups/religious groups to recognize our true callings as human beings--to each other, to Love. And I love the concept of combating nationalism with allegiance to a higher power!

"King" has a lot of political implications, and mostly negative associations for anyone like me, so I wanted to point out how the original encyclical describes this title of Jesus's, by quoting Cyril of Alexandria: "Christ," he says, "has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but his by essence and by nature." Today is the reason I'm not a monarchist--there is no earthly ruler that has my allegiance. There is no earthly rule established without force. My allegiance is to Christ, the ruler of the only valid kingdom; to God's house, the only state without lines on a map; to Love which is the universe, the only empire that includes people by embracing them rather than conquering them.

We can only understand so much of who God is. We separate out God's roles; we can only focus on one tiny piece of the universe at once. (This is why we have holidays--to honor pieces of our religion in human time.) The king we are called to serve is only called "king" because that's one of the closest words we have in our language to describe what we're talking about--the old-fashioned meaning of king, one born for the role and called to die for the role. A romanticized meaning perhaps, one that has never been true in any society, one that has caused so much harm, but nonetheless one used throughout centuries to get across one of the ways we approach God--along with "father" and "friend" and "bridegroom" and "creator."

We pray for God's kingdom to come because that's an idea we can understand--we can logically process that a new kingdom coming, a new empire conquering, means everything changes, the rules are turned upside down. We hold this language while acknowledging there is so much more to it. If you can't stomach using these words, if they are filled with violence for you, I encourage you to sit with that truth, consider what it would be like to take earthly ideas and fill them with Love, and also acknowledge you do not have to use this language. We try to hold God with our words and fail over and over. We come to God from our culture and language and time and we squint at the universe. We see in a mirror dimly, for now.

As we encounter earthly nationalism and imperialism and colonialism and warmongering, as we see people claim that their nation-state is chosen by God, we honor power turning on its head today. We see Jesus revealing what kingship, what ruling, what power is when Love is the center of the universe. Jesus, who had more power than any human, fed the hungry, hung out with the oppressed and misunderstood, threatened the powerful without violence, was killed by earthly empire, and conquered death with life.

May we, as members of God's kingdom, under Jesus's rule--by choosing this as our practice--serve the only king who has ever deserved our allegiance. We work to bring our communities and religious groups and, yes, our nation-states, closer to the image God has set for us, but ultimately we know we are creating and navigating human-made borders between things that will one day be one.

You already know what God has asked of you. It's not a democracy but neither is it a monarchy, really--it's something else. Something you have to opt in to, but don't really get a choice in. Something you can run from but never escape. Something that once you see clearly, you'll never be satisfied without. You are technically free to abandon the work, but you would be abandoning the only thing that will make us whole. Call your government representative. Go to a protest. Give money to the person by the side of the road. Read a book. Hug your lover. Feed the birds. Denounce your country in favor of your community and every single human being. You are a citizen of the universe, which is God, which is love. Christ the King, the reign of Christ, means what rules us is Life.

(We look down the road to Advent--to new year, rebirth, apocalypse. "Apocalypse" meaning unveiling, revelation, disclosure. We see in a mirror dimly, and then--thy kingdom come--we see face to face. All at once, awfully, blindingly, daylight after years of darkness. Christ the King says, what if New Year's Eve was a surrender to time and power? What if before you even remembered Christmas exists, you were confronted with the reality of your calling? This is the feast of victory to our God. Alleluia!)

[comradekatara]

Here's a completely random ask for you: what holiday (halloween, valentine's day, national ice cream day, etc.) would each member of the Gaang feel unreasonably strongly about? Can be positive or negative feelings.

oh this is a good question! (i hate so many american commercial holidays so this is a great avenue for me to project my frustrations with us capitalism onto these little guys. and to be clear im just doing us holidays bc otherwise there would simply be too many options and i’d be stuck here forever)

aang: he’s not enough of a hater to dislike any holidays. he’s a big fan of april fool’s day, valentine’s day, and halloween, because he appreciates fun and joy and love and merriment duh

katara: every thanksgiving she goes on an impassioned rant about the historical revisionism of the us empire deployed as a propaganda tool as it continues its genocidal imperialist project and the absolutely sick and twisted audacity of americans to celebrate a known lie in a mockery of the atrocities committed from the past into the present (this one may or may not just have been me, yesterday). every november-december she goes on an impassioned rant about the commercialism of christmas, and how it’s largely a fake holiday devised by capitalists to glorify the sanctity of the nuclear family, and how the supposed “secularization” of christmas is in fact a product of christian hegemony, it’s propaganda and you’re all falling for it because you crave hollow comforts in your cold and dismal life, and instead of attempting to look beyond the scraps you are given under capitalism you all just force yourselves to enjoy a facade of happiness and nostalgia because you refuse to admit that you’re fundamentally uncomfortable in your society!!!!!!!! (this is what i think but wisely refrain from saying because it’s not worth it. katara, however...) also she likes valentine’s day sometimes (depending on whether or not she has a boyfriend). she also has a lot to say on columbus day and the fourth of july of course, but this bullet point is already far too long.

sokka: his favorite holiday is pi day. he does not care for any other us holiday (but he has been known to enjoy a halloween here and there), but he specifically hates april fools because aang insists on pranking him every time, for some godforsaken reason. (he’s just so prankable!)

toph: her least favorite holiday is valentine’s day because it promotes m*rriage, one of her most hated institutions (it’s a long list). her favorite day is taco tuesday

zuko: he insists on celebrating shakespeare’s birth/deathday as if it is a real holiday that anyone actually cares about. and he gets offended when no one else cares. his least favorite holiday is the fourth of july, but not for any political reasons, it just has really bad vibes.

suki: she loves halloween because it has everything you could ever ask for in a single day: dressing in elaborate costume, eating so much candy, and getting really drunk. she’s also one of those people who gets really obnoxious on 4/20, at which point mai is like “you know it’s hitler’s birthday, right?” and immediately kills the vibe. just because she can :)

mai: she has a love/hate relationship with halloween, because theoretically it’s a celebration of the gothic, the liminal, the macabre, the ghostly. but in practice it’s just an excuse for everyone around her to get wasted. she hates christmas more though. santa freaks her out and cloying, forced cheer and merriment is unnerving and infuriating, actually.

ty lee: she dreads valentine’s day every year because she simply has too many suitors and it is very stressful. she likes april fool’s day because it gives her the opportunity to exercise her more devious inclinations. she can prank people so well they don’t even know they’re being pranked; on april first the world is her playground.

azula: she has no real opinion on any specific holidays. they’re petty distractions for mindless drones who require a modicum of frivolity here and there to spice up their otherwise dull, worthless lives. however, she quite likes tax day.

[gatheredfates]

Hi! My name is Sea, and I have an unhealthy obsession with taking on large community projects! This is my Final Fantasy XIV Community Compendium, focusing on linking as many XIV writing/roleplaying discords, forums, events, free companies and resources as I can get my hands on. While the inspired by and predominately tailored for roleplayers, it should have something for anyone looking to engage creatively with the game in some capacity. ⭐

If you'd like to simply check out what the Compendium is all about and miss my waffling below, any of the links on this post will take you there — but this is a handy one! A reblog also goes a huge way to increase my reach and find communities/resources; you're also welcome to share this post with people not on Tumblr who might be looking for communities/resources or have something to add.

Why a compendium, Sea?

In my opinion, the way people engage with fandom and communities has changed. It was once extremely common for people to hop onto the XIV Roleplaying Forum or find people looking for contact on Tumblr, but most of these resources have shifted to Discord. While Discord is great for keeping a community when you have it, the isolation of these communities into hidden, secular spaces doesn’t do a lot to help people find them in the first place and creates an air of loneliness/disconnect for new players or people looking to find specific communities. I don’t believe that a person should necessarily be a part of x amount of servers to find the one that suits them, nor that all communities should necessarily be on Discord — or just plain hard to find. However, while this is currently the standard, I’d like to try and help these communities be fostered and seen in a place accessible to basically anyone with an internet connection. If one community has benefited from this document, then I have done my part.

This is my monthly drive to showcase the Compendium but find new things to add! A lot of the below is already on the document, but I split communities/resources into four distinct spaces:

Large-scale community discords such as the XIV Reddit Discord, Hunts, GPOSE promotions and broad-space roleplay servers that harbour a large number of people and are publicly available to all. These may not have an RP focus but will assist in other aspects of the game.

Free Company & community-focused servers. E.G. an Ishgardian Roleplay server whose mission is to foster a community for Ishgardian characters; an EU server created to help players struggling with timezones. This also includes event discords such as fight clubs, markets, cafes, etc.

Friend/casual servers that have a roleplay element but may be just a group of people looking to find others to hang out and do content with.

Miscellaneous. Likely to be less community servers and more resources such as lore compilations, how-to guides, gposing techniques, boosting blogs, etc. These may get their own dedicated section later.

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here, send me an ask with the relevant information contained on the Compendium, or join my Discord at SEAFLOOR (21+ only)!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. Again, all accessible on the document! 🪸

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads.

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs used to generate RP.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

FAQ.

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[whippersnappersbookworm]

দীনদান (Dino Daan)

There is no god in that temple”, said the Saint.

The King was enraged;

“No God? Oh Saint, aren’t you speaking like an atheist?

On the throne studded with priceless gems, beams the golden idol,

And yet, you proclaim that’s empty?”

“It’s not empty; It’s rather full of the Royal pride.

You have bestowed yourself, oh King, not the God of this world”,

Remarked the saint.

The King frowned, “2 million golden coins

Were showered on that grand structure that kisses the sky,

I offered it to the Gods after performing all the necessary rituals,

And you dare claim that in such a grand temple,

There is no presence of God”?

The Saint calmly replied, “in the very year in which, twenty million of your subjects were struck by a terrible drought;

The pauperized masses without any food or shelter,

came begging at your door crying for help, only to be turned away,

they were forced to take refuge in forests, caves, camping under roadside foliages, derelict old temples;

and in that very year

when you spent 2 million gold to build that grand temple of your’s,

that was the day when God pronounced:

“My eternal home is lit by everlasting lamps,

In the midst of an azure sky,

In my home the foundations are built with the values:

Of Truth, Peace, Compassion and Love.

The poverty stricken puny miser,

Who could not provide shelter to his own homeless subjects,

Does he really fancy of giving me a home?”

That is the day God left that Temple of yours.

And joined the poor beside the roads, under the trees.

Like emptiness of the froth in the vast seas,

Your mundane temple is as hollow.

It’s just a bubble of wealth and pride.’

The enraged King howled,

“oh you sham cretin of a person,

Leave my kingdom this instant’.

The Saint replied calmly,

“The very place where you have exiled the Divine,

Kindly banish the devout too".

--Rabindranath Tagore

[Translated from the original Bengali into English by Sandipto Das Gupta]

This poem by Rabindranath Tagore written in 1307( as per Bengali calendar ,I can't pinpoint the exact date in English calender but it is almost 123 years old) resonates greatly with the current event happening in India. I won't deliante on the exact events because everyone is aware of it and how the government of a secular state is politicising a certain religion to fulfil their agendas. How they are creating division among people by spreading misinformation and hate. You will found enough discussion about that in many beautiful blogs in this platform.( Do check them out) .

I just want to shed light on the desi side of Tumblr and how it has transformed from a safe haven for Indian people to a breeding ground of so called "Kattar Hindus "

I never really talk about politics or about my own experiences with religion in Tumblr . Maybe because I am scared of my mutuals attacking me ,telling me how I am brainwashed by " Leftist Atheist Ideology" and how I am too westernised to understand the intricacies of our great " SANTAN DHARMA" . I have been part of the Tumblr community for almost three to four years .I remember following the #desiblr and #hindublr tag mostly because I was interested on discussing and sharing experiences with like minded people. Being part of a family which believes on letting one choose their religious beliefs, my idea of religion was a mixture of a lot of things . But one thing was common among all of these , no religion is greater than other and all religions have the same end goal, that is to understand the true meaning of life. So Imagine my shock when I realise that the so called aware people of Tumblr and the #desiblr ( which apprently contained well educated ,genuine and open minded people) are actually hypocrites. Their idea of religion is very much confined within the sphere of Krishna Bhakti and glorification of Hinduism in name of love for god. Their religious understanding don't have place for religious minorities and people with different opinions . They only support and propagate a certain kind of Hinduism, continuously glorifying everything in name of love and respect for their " Santan Dharma" . In the span of these few years I have seen people completely ignoring the stories of people who faced casteism by telling them that they are " brain washed" and justifying casteism in the context of Ancient India ( apprently caste system doesn't discriminate amongst people , because that religious privileged upper caste person didn't experienced it first hand and therefore casteism is a myth )

They are first to criticize Muslim Invaders but love to turn a blind eye on the fascist qualities of their own religion ( one of them even went out of their way to justify The practice of SATI for god's sake and not only that they even ended up glorifying jauhar and polygamy) . They live in their own make believe world of Krishna Prem , Mahabharat fanfiction and desi girl aesthetic . It's ok to love your religion but to be blinded by that love and constantly undermine the experiences and ideologies of other is never right. They claim to hate the fascist qualities of Islam but now have ended up doing the same thing. They will bash you if you dare to tell them that you don't view Mahabharat as a part of Indian History or that you don't like following the superstitious beliefs that are prevalent in name of Hinduism. #hindublr and #desiblr were supposed to be place where Indian people could express and share their own experiences with their religion and ethnicity ,but now it has became the breeding ground of religious extremists who proudly propagate religious hate and constantly try to find absurd loopholes to justify their hatered.

Having said that I would like to point out that not everyone is like that ...I have met so many religious people who had openly accepted different ideologies without belittling their experiences.

I am not a great writer unlike @papenathys and many other people in this platform who constantly tries and does their best to point out the hypocrisies of the people in this platform and show them a mirror to a realities of their religion, but I just want to vent out ...I am sorry if my writing is haphazard and not good enough .I know a lot of people (including my mutuals) will not like this, but I am tired of pretending that everything is perfect in this country, I am tired of pretending that 22nd January was a simple religious occasion not a huge political step just for the sake of election , I am tired of the seeing this constant war to prove one religion is greater than another . I am tired of constantly seeing privileged people mocking and belittling the struggles my community faced in the name of caste. I am tired of trying to pretend that Hinduism and Hindu people fit in the mythical reality Tumblr like to portray , I am tired of waking up in a land where people are so blinded by their love for a figure that may or may not exist that they have forgotten basic humanity. You may try to pretend that the " Sanatanis " are not propagating hatered, casteism, fascism by giving an example from your own privileged life but the reality is much darker.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

hi, what do u you think, if rusong lived, would anything change regarding who is to inherit the sect leader position? like jl's dad just would have been sect leader while rusong's is. or would it be about who has a bigger supporting/is mote popoular within the sect when the its time for one of them to take over?

hi hello 👋 i believe @fincalinde wrote a detailed post about what life probably would have been like for both jin rusong and jin ling, if jrs had lived! i can’t find it for some reason, but i would recommend checking their blog out and giving it a search for anything related to jin rusong.

the tl;dr version of my opinion, tho, is that i don’t think anything would have changed in the order of succession. his personal feelings aside, i think jgy knows that supplanting jzx’s son with his own as heir is nothing but a good way to confirm all of the jianghu’s worst beliefs about who he is, which would inevitably lead to conflict and potentially the loss of everything he’s worked hard to achieve.

i do think it is interesting to contemplate the possibility of jrs and jl as adults trying to navigate the dangers of secular politics together; what would happen if, inexplicably, jrs was more popular than jl at the time of jgy's death or abdication? 😬 someone (who isn't me) should write that fic.

[femsolid]

French TV is just amazing. I don't own a TV so I only watch it when I'm at other people's place and the news channels are simply phenomenal. We're told a 16 years old guy was killed by the police again (and the police didn't call for an ambulance it's a neighbour who did -10 minutes later- because some kids came to tell him what had happened) so the journalist asks a police union representative to give us his opinion which is of course that if you try to run from the police you should expect to be killed. In other news today Marion Marechal Le Pen is campaigning to revive her nazi party because she wants to "protect her daughters from the anti-police riots and the illegal immigrants who rape french women". Think the journalists are going to address this quote? Nope. Then the journalists discuss the inflation in France and how the prices are so high that french people are struggling to feed themselves (in one of the richest country on earth). A journalist gives us a simple solution: we need to be more responsible and stop buying expensive food. Merde alors! Hadn't thought of that. This way the brands that increase their prices will lose money and stop doing so. Duh! Anyway back to the most pressing matter nationwide right now and for the last decades: should muslim teenage girls be allowed an education if they wear a veil? Survey says... non, apparently. A girl was expelled for wearing what she claims to be an opened black kimono but really is an outrageous religious symbol that threatens our great nation's secularism.

Wow. Not only did she deserve to be expelled but it's definitely worth talking about all day on the news. I'm traumatised just looking at this picture. Of course the great debate is back: how can we stop those provocative muslim girls who are obviously on their way towards islamic radicalisation and terrorism from trying to bypass secularist laws by claiming to be wearing some sort of kimono when really we all know it's just a facade and what they really mean to do is scream allah akbar with a machine gun in their hands? The journalists quickly ask a law professor who explains unironically that this outfit is illegal in much the same way that muslim girls who wear long skirts because they can't wear a hijab are illegal. Almost as if it's not about displaying your religion but belonging to a religion instead. Almost as if girls are forced to show their bodies to men. If I ever doubted selling my TV years ago here is the reminder as to why I did.