#on a tangetial note

[biblically-accurate-butch]

do you think it can ever be too late to convert?

The Catholic middle school and high school I went to, along with family problems, drove me away from Christianity. It's been about 6–7 years since I abandoned the faith. Also, the Church in Poland is really anti-LGBT, so there's that. The fact that I’m autistic, and that back then I didn’t feel “the presence of God,” didn’t help.

Lately, I saw Jesus Christ Superstar and hyperfixated on it so much that I’m actually considering coming back. Maybe it sounds silly, but it really moved me. I’m sure you’d understand if you’re familiar with some of the songs.

Besides, I’ve always felt like “I wish I was religious — it’s probably much easier to deal with things when you have that kind of support.”

Sorry if I seemed like I was oversharing or being weird.

Hello,

I do not think it is ever too late to convert! However as an autistic queer, I have somethings I would like to assess.

Hyperfixation is not a bad thing, I was hyperfixated on the work of Dante before I reverted. However, if you are interested you should discern your interest. For decernment on this I would perhaps recommend that you soft launch this. That is, before diving right back into Catholcism, you try visiting a high mass of a more accepting rite | Episcipal/Lutheran, first or perhaps maybe even methodist but that's if the first two are not avaliable . It wont be exsactly the same but it will be safer over all and more inviting. I suggest looking at a church's website before going. See if they are a Sides A, B, X and Y (A and B being the most common) , if you are unsure of what that means take a little google deep dive, be weary of sources, do not listen to AI summaries: DO THE WORK IT IS A VIRTURE. Im sure Ready for Harvest has a video about A vs B on yt, very good source!

Take things with a grain of salt. If you do find yourself back in Catholic spaces, note that although it has evolved and is more progressive than lets say 10 years ago, the head Father of the Chruch might not always be. It might take a while to find someone who is progressive. I always say start with churchs affiliated with college campuses; newman centers, catch a vibe: what are they saying, who do they pray for, are there any visbly queer people around/working in ministry, what ministries do they have? This is a long process and you might feel outcasted but remember: God is yours too, and no one can take that away from you.

Being consistant, joining small groups but laying low, this is always a good way to get to know the general vibe of the community. There will always be conservative Catholics but young adults [21 - 35] seems to be a little more progressive however, in particular the younger young adults [19-25] seem to be a little split. So just be careful, listen to the things people say or joke about but always remember queer catholics are real and theyre out there! Now, I am not sure how finding them differs between big cities and small towns but I wish you the best all the more!

Do not be discouraged by the lack of precence of God, it is very.. non tangetial. It varies across all people. It is more of a poetic, abstractual way of thinking. God very rarely literally speaks to people. God is also not very literal in the sense that you can see or touch or smell ( I guess except during the Eucharist but that's not what I am referring to). It's about taking your thoughts, feelings, worries or unexplainable daily occurances and pondering them, sorting them phillspohically according to the scriptures and church fathers or writings of the saints. When something awakens some feeling of enlightenment or resonates with you in a way that reveals something about your problem or about life or your emotions, people tend to refer to that as God speaking. So God does speak to us because we all have the ability to think, ponder, decern and cross reference with the Catholic teachings of scripture and catachism. How do we tell the difference between our own thoughts and God's "voice". Well the truth is no one really knows but there are ways of sorting your thoughts to understand which revlations are from God and which are from the accusor and which are from our own wants (St. Ignatious has some really good teachings on decernment reguarding this).

Overall TLDR: Start with Progressive Churches with High Mass (Episcipal, Luthern), Google before visiting, Visiting Catholic Churches associated with Universities could be more progressive but not always, look for newman centers, listen to what people pray for, what minteries are they interested in, join a small group but do not come out right away. As an autstic person it is probably more fruitful for you to think of God more philsophically and poetically rather than literal and tengentable if the latter draws you away from God than towards him.

Hope this helps!

[nerbulent]

it relly sucks that there are like rules and it's why it's really fucking hard to order coffee and shit but not for me i fuck like a horse in another horse in heat anyway

if you create a short written nft-note (comment to you fuckholes) my web3 metasberseb horse novellas that says you didn't like it in any way or fthought that anything tangetially related to it was bad or even neutral or anything other than "yeah it's super good i want more i have nothing else to say" except you can't say you want more and if you iollate anyhing i said then i will delete all of my super crypto hodse books and it's your fault also you misspelled a word in your comment

[murfpersonalblog]

I've been active on Tumblr for over a decade in dozens of fandoms (some with literal teenagers/children fanbases), and never got blocked by people just for pointing out what is in canon. That is, not until the IWTV fandom started drawing lines in the sand, under the guise of wanting to curate "safe" spaces and other such toxic positivity.

Full transparency: Showmey0urfangs blocked me months ago, over discussions about Loustat's gender dynamics. I never block blogs (except bots, ofc). But I was forced to block them once I realized I could no longer engage with their posts--which I actually love! I actually like their blog and still think they have a lot of good things to say, even if we disagree with each others' takes on Loustat as gender coded characters. I even bookmark Fangs' fics on A03. So my opinions about their hit list are to a certain extent colored by my experience with them.

I have no problem following blogs who I sometimes disagree with, or blogs my mutuals don't get along with. Debate makes for good conversation and building critical thinking skills--if we only ever converse with people we agree with, how do we as a community/fandom actually acquire that oh so precious media literacy everyone keeps bragging about, instead of just feeding one anothers' silos and echo chambers?

I avoid online drama that has nothing to do with me. I wasn't included on Fangs' hitlist. I remember seeing some of the posts they cited, and also recoiled from the harsh language used, but since it was personal beef that had nothing to do with me, I minded my own business--especially since in a lot of them the people they were referring to were never specifically named/tagged. It was a lot of inside remarks, whom only those in the know would have any context for. Which especially let me (as an outsider) know to stay out of it--as most of the fandom obviously did too, since these posts barely have any notes.

But with that hitlist, IMO it is in bad taste to go around painting huge swaths of creators or blogs in the fandom as dangerous horrible people (and including their mutuals/friends as guilty by association and also subject to public censure!), just because your clique doesn't get along with them. The situation (as it were) definitely could've been handled better. All of those pics & posts could've easily been published without including people's names and A03 accounts.

It's one thing to call out people who have personally attacked you, or sent messages/comments to your account that harrassed you, personally. Like: "hey, this is what XYZ personally did to me specifically," and let people form their own conclusions. Or let your friends speak for themselves and give their own sides. But taking it upon yourself to sift through allllll these people's accounts to tell the entire fandom to block a whoooole list of people en masse--AND those only (tangetially) associated with them even if they never did anything to you--is just wild.

The Block feature enables you to sever yourself from people and blogs you want nothing to do with--so if you're trying to avoid/reduce further beef, how are you improving the state of the community by increasing hostilities and drafting in the rest of the fandom to pick sides in fandom wars, weaponizing your platform to go after people they don't even have anything to do with? Can anyone be safe in this "safe space," if you yourself suddenly decide you don't like/agree with them, and sic the whole fandom on them in a public hitlist? Just block them and move on! Why take it to this level, except to start problems and encourage outsiders to do the same?

Since its inception the VC/IWTV fandom has been a toxic predominately white community that already vilifies black fans & creators--that hitlist just gives both sides more ammunition to keep the hostilities going, rather than encouraging any move for better understanding, cultural sensitivity, respect, and best practices.

I honestly don't even know where to start. I have never in my entire life seen so much drama and bullshit from one fandom in my entire life; and the fandom is small as hell at that. Do you know how sick and twisted you look compiling a list of people who speak out against the racism, homophobia, etc. in this fandom and telling everyone else not to follow them? Mind you, most of these accounts have Black people behind them. You scream and yell about how Black people aren't a monolith and claim you're for Black people and yet, most of your targets are Black. I don't understand how you can have so much vitriol for people who simply disagrees with you. I could understand if it was something groundbreaking, but you're mad at people for saying things about a main character that are true. But because you don't agree, it's a problem. And then, you go on to target people who include these themes and such in their writing, sending anon asks and such, to cause an even bigger problem. What's the matter? Is it jealousy? Don't you have a group of people on here who you can talk to? Go cozy up with them and get them to read your stuff. I don't get hits or kudos on my stuff either, but I'm not making it everyone else's problem. I want you to do some self reflection and do better overall because this ain't it, boo. You're literally the root of a lot of people's problems on this app and it's honestly sad. Let's get ourselves together.

[the-abdicated-flesh]

I could write something witty and vaguely shitposty, but today is about to become tomorrow and I’m tired, so yes hello, as previously mentioned, I am not dead, and I wasn’t actually gone for that long, but it’s been so long since I provided you guys with actual content, partly in due to the fact

I am writing! Like a lot now. Not a lot by some people’s standards, and it’s not that I wasn’t writing before, but I have set myself a daily quota, and am now keeping a tab for the work completed each day, because it makes me feel accomplished, to have a receipt.

And also, I am consuming a lot more content (read; fanfiction) than I have in awhile, this is not a bad thing, it just means I’ve been filling my spare time with things I like and haven’t been awarding myself pockets of nothing in which I craft tumblr posts. This conveniently segues into my next point,

I am writing fanfiction again! It’s been a few years, I mostly dropped it when I starting writing original fiction, but while reading someone else work *cough cough* it was mushrooms and magnets by starcross on ao3 I’ve posted about it before, if you like Resi8 stuff you should go read it*cough cough* I had an idea for a fic I realized I wouldn’t mind reading, and that further, I wouldn’t mind writing, which leads us to now.

I vaguely touched on this yesterday when I realized I hadn’t really spoken on here in over a week, but today you get the added bonus of music I’ve started listening to while working on said fic, and a snippet of my waxing poetic because my lesbian little heart still isn’t entirely over Lady Dimetrescu, even while I read my way through an aa hyperfixation

Some European jazz to fit the mood, the mood being Singer!Alcina au that’s not really an au since it happened in cannon, but I’m rearranging some timestamps and also mother catholic guilt choked on her toxic spores and everyone lives non-cult, human lives and maybe I throw out the timeline for some background interactions between certain characters, but it’s my canon and I’ll do what I want with it, but anyway Lady D was a jazz singer in the 1930’s, and I wanted to write about it

Yes I am aware this is French, I’m having a surprisingly hard time finding Romanian jazz from any era, much less the early twentieth century, original composer was Django Reinhardt, good vibes, v pretty, cleans the skin, waters your crops, etc

And for the sneak-preview none of you have been waiting for because I told you about this yesterday and you may not have even care about Resi8, a selection from a little something I’ve been working on, and should I hopefully publish it on ao3, you guys will be the first to know. Enjoy.

A crimson sphere of gaseous fumes dips below a sprawling horizon, bathing slowly-waking streets in red light, unobstructed by clouds. A decisive cut splits the plummeting star, leaving streaks of blood across the sky it used to inhabit, concealed by the cloak of night racing desperately after it. Rolling cars flooded streets flecked with golden streetlamps, rivaled only by seas of people washing down sidewalks, falling into and out of buildings, trams cutting through the city on electric grids. Birds shuffle across rooftops as humans shuffle through their constant lives, the sheer noise of simultaneous human existence drowning out the threads of conversation of any singular contributors. But lower still, as one picks apart glowing street signs of painful intensity, shaped light hanging low over pedestrians, there are rooms shielded from such stimulation, the lights and sounds, struggles of outside existence carefully muted, so as to not detract from the ongoing performance.

In hindsight this is literally just me waxing poetic to set tone, but I don’t have enough content yet to feel secure in giving you all the second paragraph, so here, have what is effectively just prose, that I then segue into a resi8 fanfic. I swear it becomes resi8 related you have to believe me. Alright, keep it crunchity boys, and as always, remain heretical.

[pixelatedlenses]

Changes.

It’s strange to be logging on to here after... who knows how long. (It’s been a about seven months.)

But hey, I’m back and I’m here to ramble about general plans for this blog and a bit of future talk.

It’s strange to be typing on here in such a strange year. But, on the other hand, I’m glad to be able to be here typing. I’m so glad to be here typing. I’m so glad to be -finally- feeling a bit creative again. It feels good to have enough energy to write and blog again: I haven’t felt that most of this year, though... I hardly think that’s uncommon. 

A lot has changed since I last logged off. When I logged off, it was 2019, and the world truly was a different place: now... it’s not. But for the sake of this post, I’m not going to delve into that. That’s another time and another place where I can really parse through my thoughts in a different format.

So, what’s happening to me? Well...

I’m currently in the middle of doing a lot of packing and cleaning and tieing up loose ends. Also, I’m no longer an ALT: as of July 24, 2020, my final contract has ended, meaning that now, I’ll be taking all the skills I’ve gained from four years of living in Japan and doing something new. 

(What that something new will be is still forming, though I certainly want to maintain my Japanese skills and the general skill set I’ve gained from this job. I hope that translation will be a part of my general body of work, as I’m quite dedicated to learning the skill further.)

I’m also now a staff member for @animefeminist, which has been really, really exciting thus far. (I’ll reblog my articles over to this blog in a bit, before I forget.)

I’ve also done some freelance Japanese (JP) to English (EN) translation for Siliconera, which really let me figure out if I wanted to work in translation. (Note: I do.) It was incredibly formative to me starting to envision parts of my future, and will ultimately become part of my... well, like I said, whatever I shape once I’m back in America and can take a moment to catch my breath and think about things that aren’t cardboard boxes, haha.

That being all said, this blog is no longer going to follow my time in Japan, though all that content will remain. It’s important to my overall journey, and I’d hate to scrub years of my life as if it didn’t happen.

Actually, I think I’m going to revive my blog to catalogue my time going forward post-relocation. I’ll still use it for things tangetial to Japan -I’ll still be closely connected to Japan, plus... I’ve got a massive backlog of pictures to share. But I think I’ll primarily use this blog for photography, Japanese study/training, and hobby stuff, but also, for my general life as a Blerd. It’ll be a less professional, more personal version of my professional Wordpress blog, Backlit Pixels.

Essentially, this blog -which now matches my Tumblr handle and also, my Instagram- will be more of an aimless day to day fun space for me to post... when I want. I’m not committing to an actual day to day schedule: I’ll post when I feel like, share pictures when I feel like, link when I feel like. It’s all very freeform and unrestricted because if there’s one thing I’ve learned during my time as a blog, is that schedules aren’t my friend. I like to create when I can.

...All this to say that I’m back and I’m very excited to use this blog again. I’ve got a lot of decluttering to do, a lot of things to rewrite, but... it’ll all come together. I’m excited to share the next leg of my journey with you, and thank you for sticking around to see whatever I do next.

[fixaidea]

On a tangetially related note: when I was back at the office, the lift had some sort of contact failure and would open and close its door on its own accord.

It was especially fond of doing it when I was all alone in the whole building.

Lovely.