#too much cultural appropriation

[solvicrafts]

Personal pagan thoughts

There's this attitude that's circulated in the broader pagan community for quite a while that like... you either have to be a reconstructionist following one single pantheon or a fluffy woo neowiccan. Obviously not all pagans think that way and in more recent years I've seen more and more people step away from that mindset.

BUT

When I was in my early teens going from studying pagan cultures academically to kind of gradually starting to pursue paganism as more than just a niche interest, I was absolutely inundated with pressure to just PICK A SIDE and nearly 20 years later it's still an issue for me.

I've always felt this pressure to just conform and pick a side and be done with it. Put myself into a neat little box as un-offensive in design as possible and all that.

And the truth is I just can't do that no matter how hard I try.

And that's actually the main reason I don't often talk about my beliefs on here. Because while I've used "Hellenic Polytheist" as a label to describe myself and while it is more or less accurate, there's also so much more that goes well beyond that.

Basically... my beliefs and practices are messy. That's probably a big ADHD brain thing.

And I didn't start feeling okay with that until roughly this past year, when I finally started letting go of that pressure to fit into a neat label.

Are the Theoi particularly thrilled that I also have a budding relationship with a few deities outside their pantheon? Eh, probably not, but the feeling I get from them is that they're not terribly fussed about it. At worst I imagine them being like "yeah okay fine you can take my follower out to dinner just make sure you bring them home no later than 10."

Are the Theoi absolutely trembling with rage because I occasionally dabble in my own form of ~magic~ (but without that woooooo special K nonsense)? Nah, at worst they just think it's silly.

Do the Theoi give a shit that I sometimes incorporate imagery and themes from some of my favorite fictional settings into my practices? Again, probably not; those spider lights look damn cool on my shrine and as sad as it is that my khernips bowl broke this year, the spider-webbed replacement bowl is JUST as useful and pretty.

People act like the only legit pagans are the ones that are super serious all the time, NO FUN ALLOWED and like... yeah, okay, I'll admit that pagans can be reeeeaally cringe, but you know, I think it's okay to be a little cringe once in a while as long as you still remain grounded in reality (as in: crystals are not a substitute for modern medicine and sometimes that thing you think is a sign from a god is actually symptoms of a gas leak or something) and don't make a point of being an asshole, so what? Be cringe.

Maybe there's ONE TRUE RELIGION that has all the answer. Maybe NO religion has the answers. At the end of the day, none of us truly know. So why not have fun?

[myriadsystem]

Any lovely witchy friends out there have advice for reaching out to a deity?

[doedipus]

a large amount of time I've been spending on -untitled undefined scope original fiction project- since the last time I posted about it has been trying to develop the protagonist concept I came up with last summer or whatever into like, a character that would feel real and era appropriate.

it's fun research to do. naturally a lot of the details I assigned to her are things that I already think are cool, so it's been a lot of fun trying to trace her traits back through the relatively recent past, getting reminded of how much things have changed, or where the gaps in my intuition are, and then doing a flurry of reading to get a sense for exactly how someone like her and the people around her could have happened and what her life was probably like leading up to her present day. hopefully this results in some good good verisimilitude.

[mama-mera]

okay you know what? I think it's time for me to take advantage of the release of the Percy Jackson series to talk a little about the relationship between the Greek and Roman gods, because I have a feeling that we're going to have a new generation of people who are convinced that the Romans "stole" the gods of the Greeks and... um, I feel the need to talk and analyze this thing with you. Because the matter is much more complicated than you think

Like SERIOUSLY, the pjo fandom and Greco-Roman mythology enthusiasts in general need this chat.

First of all it is important to understand how the Italic populations came into contact with Greek culture, and who the first Romans were.

Southern Italy (Sicily, Calabria, Campania and Puglia) was colonized by the Greeks since the 8th century BC.

Like any colonization, the local population had to adapt to the culture, religion and language of the colonizer (in Italy there are still two dialects coming from ancient Greek. Griko in Puglia, and Grecanico in Calabria). Every part of the territory considered Magna Graecia (Megàle Hellàs) presents archaeological finds relating to the Greek colonies, and with them also temples dedicated to the gods. (So much so that in Sicily, at the beginning of spring the Antesphorie (or antephorie) were celebrated in honor of Demeter and Persephone, for example).

The entire Etruscan pantheon was strongly influenced by the Greek one. The indigenous deities were joined by the Hellenic ones, creating a new religion.

But still: who were the Romans? The legend of the foundation of Rome refers to Romulus and Remus, but from an archaeological point of view the Romans were probably the result of a mixture of Latin, Sabine (plus Samnites and Sabelli*) and Etruscan peoples. The latter influenced the initial Roman Pantheon the most. Just think of the similarities between the Etruscan goddess Menrva/Menerva and the Roman goddess Minerva.

The same applies to Maris and Mars, who among other things share holidays in March (a month dedicated to them moreover).

Unfortunately there is not much information on the Sabine and Latin ethnic group, but it is known for certain that Etruscans had contact with Magna Graecia, and the Greeks in general, so their culture was never unknown to the Romans.

So what does this tell us? That the Italic populations knew the Greek Pantheon, because they had been colonized and/or influenced by the Greeks. The first Romans can't exactly steal something that's already part of their culture.

*Samnites, Sabelli and Sabines were part of the same ethnic group, and although all three groups can generally be called "Sabines", I preferred to specify. At the same time it is not known how involved the Picenes and Irpinians were initially with the birth of Rome, so I have not mentioned them.

[horrorlesbians]

how would you have liked to have seen Silence of the Lambs be written in the NBC Hannibal setting ? I always kind of thought that Clarice would be to Will what Miriam was to Jack lol.

truthfully i do not trust bryan fuller with the buffalo bill plotline. but i would have liked to see clarice in the hannibal tv universe, but tbh i don't think the 3 seasons we got would have room for her. it would have to be within the never to be made fourth season, they did take a lot of clarice's character for will so it would be interesting to see how they changed and developed her. would have loved to see her dynamic with abigail tho

[blakelywintersfield]

I am absolutely begging y'all to realize that "celtic" and "gaelic" are not interchangeable terms

[sysig]

Good kids ♥ (Patreon)

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

man i’m still so hung up on the way that this professor handled music in the philippines. there were Choices made and though i agreed with a few of them, i found most of them straight up fucking baffling and it was disheartening to not feel heard or invited to contribute to the discussion despite this subject matter being uhhhhhhh my fucking lived experience just because i didn’t pay a twenty dollar membership fee to the fil-am org

[willonerdygoat]

Hello, can you explain more about what willowgenic, parogenic and tulupas(?) are, maybe their differences and similarities as well? I've only ever heard about tulupas once before I stumbled across your blog, reading through your blog I can't help but feel lost😅

Thanks for asking! :D

I'll go through the basics from what I understand, but if you want to understand better than what I can say I recommend doing research yourself /nf (not forcing, it's not a common tone indicator so better specify XD)

I'll explain the best I can but can't guarantee quality ^^

They're all very similar, and often particular labels are up to personal preference- similar to bisexual, omnisexual, polysexual and pansexual for example.

I'll explain tulpamancy first, since that's the oldest term and the one I found out about first.

Tulpamancy is the practice of creating tulpas, or autonomous beings that I find are easiest to liken to imaginary friends. They're like imaginary friends, but aren't controlled by the person who made them. (Or aren't controlled consciously, though typically in these communities it's believed that they are their own conscious, separate being, at least to some extent.)

Tulpas are usually created purposefully, and I won't explain how because that'd take too long. There's a lot of tutorials online, or you can always ask how they're created in another ask if you're interested! However, some tulpas were unintentional, like normal imaginary friends that gained autonomy.

The definition I found that's the shortest is: "system that is [usually] intentionally created using thought-based methods. For some, this may also include some metaphysical parts, often in the form of energy work."

Tulpamancy does fall under the parogenic label, (alongside a few other practices), and some tulpamancers use it while others don't. Parogenic also generally describes systems, while not all tulpamancers consider themselves and their tulpa(s) a system.

I personally use the label "paromancy" since it doesn't imply us being a system as much, since I don't like calling us a system for a few minor reasons. It means pretty much the same thing though.

I'm shamelessly copying from the multiplicity and plurality wiki for this, but "A willogenic system is a system that was purposely created, or willed into existence, through psychological or spiritual means. It is a term for purposefully created systems that is not connected to parogenic systems or tulpa systems, due to the controversy of tulpamancy. Due to the nature of the term, it does not encompass systems that consider themselves to have used tulpamancy to create their system."

It's pretty much synonymous with parogenic except that it clearly rejects tulpamancy.

Now's the juicy stuff XD. The reason willogenic specifically excludes tulpamancy is because tulpamancy terminology is often considered to be cultural appropriation.

I don't want to get too into it, if you're really interested in the discourse it should be easy enough to find. Very simplifying it, some tibetan buddhists said and explained that the words for tulpamancy are cultural appropriation. At least one tibetan buddhist said that it wasn't cultural appropriation, and there were some other arguments on the pro-tulpa-terminology side. (If this information is inaccurate sorry, I don't have the time to go looking for this stuff, but it's definitely close to accurate)

There was a lot of discourse on tumblr about it, but from what I hear tulpamancy communities elsewhere didn't really get as much of this discourse there, and a lot of folks aren't aware of it really.

This obviously prompted people to use other terms, as to not do cultural appropriation. Parogenic is one of those terms, but the original definition of parogenic includes tulpamancy, so willogenic was created to totally exclude tulpamancy.

So the differences between them are: -tulpamancy vs parogenic: parogenic implies that it's a system, (but doesn't have to be) and also includes other similar practices. Parogenic as a term also definitely isn't cultural appropriation, while a lot of people consider tulpamancy (the terminology) to be cultural appropriation. -tulpamancy vs willogenic: willogenic also implies that it's a system (but doesn't have to be), and some tulpamancers say that "willing" their tulpas to existance doesn't suit them. Willogenic also excludes tulpamancy, because of the whole cultural appropriation controversy. -willogenic vs parogenic: willogenic clearly excludes tulpamancy. That's about the only difference I know XD

Sorry if any of this is unclear, I was trying to not make it any longer than it already was. Feel free to ask more questions, though I'm not particularily versed in the community/discourse aspects of all of those related labels!

And yeah my blog kind of requires the reader to be familiar with these concepts XD It's too difficult to explain it all the time.

[myname-isnia]

Naming OCs actually sucks so much sometimes, especially when the creators of the source material have no fucking idea which culture they’re drawing from

[pandapupremade]

i promise im working on a s/i for mu qing and feng xin and content of them will come i am simply. trying to make an interesting hairstyle

[ging-is-a-boar]

I bought this Pokemon haori a while back and absolutely fell in love with it...it's kinda lightweight but the sleeves are rlly long on me and keeps off the sun?? Plus the print is really goofy stupid (perfect for me). Now I want to buy more kinda like it but all of them are... distinctly Japanese prints? Which makes sense, but also I live in mortal fear of looking like a weeabo, or something

[princessnijireiki]

idk why I keep stumbling across fundamentalists like this but I just saw a woman say christians can't do yoga?? what do you got against flexibility, sis??

[caterpillarcrypt]

Confession: I kinda like booty shorts…. I think that they’re more comfortable than knee length loose shorts. I like tank tops and crop tops. Like it’s hot out, I want to be comfortable. I am not overly concerned with “modesty” like that.

I wasn’t allowed to dress comfortably in hot weather after I started puberty bc it was “too sexy” for me not to wear baggy, too long, too hot, ill-fitting clothes according to my mother (and the church) even tho I was a literal child, and I wasn’t supposed to “tempt men to sin” or whatever. I grew up with purity culture forced on me and it’s weird to see that kind of thing being praised as feminist now? Same thing with bikinis being seen as bad. I can’t fit most one-piece bathing suits bc I’m too tall. It’s way easier for me to find a bikini that actually fits.

Knee-length shorts are itchy and I have gotten rashes from the hem of those before because it rubs my skin wrong. I used to only be allowed to wear capris and knee length shorts, and it SUCKED. It was so freeing to finally be an adult and be able to buy and wear the clothes that I wanted to wear and that I felt comfortable in, even tho it was seen as “too sexual” or “slutty” for me to have my shoulders showing and wear shorts that didn’t go past my finger tips. Why should I care if it causes a man to sin in his heart or to “stumble”? Why should I care if it makes people think I’m a brain-dead whore? I can’t control other ppl’s thoughts and they’re wrong for thinking it anyway. Nothing inappropriate is even showing. I’m fully clothed, some people just feel like it’s wrong for women to show “too much” skin. I’m not going to wear uncomfortable clothes just so other people are comfortable instead. It’s none of anyone else’s business if I’m wearing a fucking tank top.

Idc that this purity culture shit is coming out of the mouths of women. That doesn’t change anything. It’s still stupid. It’s complete bullshit. Like you wear whatever you want, I’m not going to insist that other women dress how I do. I just want to be left alone about it and I want other women to be left alone about that kind of thing too. It’s like obsessive at this point. Stop defining women by how much skin they are or are not showing jfc.

[the-lord-of-the-things]

I love how, at least according to his hair chart, Micky never did Honest Hearts. Dude really just inhaled poisoned gas while bomb collared, got his brain, heart, and spine took out of his body by robots, and rediscovered his tragic past of accidentally getting his hometown nuked, but noped tf out of that weird racist Mormon shitshow. Good for him

I actually have where if he does do honest hearts, its likely in a lull during the main game, cause it just doesn't really fit with the overarching plot of sorts he has goin post game with following Ulysses' trail and his own past through dead money -> old world blues -> lonesome road I also just do not want to acknowledge the racist shitshow we got in the actual game. Ages ago I saw an excellent post by an indigenous creator on here about how they would adjust honest hearts to be, well, not a racist shitshow, that I unfortunately have not been able to find again or I’d link it here (the jist was make the white legs and sorrows be just post apocalyptic communities and not 'tribes' because they don't have native american origins, and have the dead horses just be Diné (Navajo), as well as give pretty much all the groups more agency away from joshua graham and daniel. As well as just reworking pretty much everything to do with joshua's story because that is just a mess) If Micky ever participated in the story of Honest Hearts, I'd want it to be something along the lines of what was laid out in that post, because the version we got in the game is just so frankly reprehensible wrt to its racism against indigenous people in general and native americans in specific I refuse to engage with it again

[glateias]

A fashion phenomenon that will always piss me off is how Western brands view Asia as a viable market but refuse to acknowledge us as as sophisticated producers and designers.

The Americans who come to the Philippines, learn about our weaving and sustainable clothing practices, and go back to the West to start a “small business” that gets “humbly featured on Vogue for their innovation”… too many times