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collecting-stories · 3 years

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One Sunset - c. 08 - JJ Maybank

Summary: Your birthday keeps getting closer.

A/N: Two more chapters to go!

You Are Ok Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

✰ Oh, my love, she waits, so long overdue ✰

The baby, Hope, the youngest, so far, of your sister’s six children, was propped on your hip. Clingy, she pressed her face against your collar, head tucked in your neck as you bounced just slightly from foot to foot. She‘s been crying when Esther handed her off, a passing comment that “there was something different about you” as she rejoined the conversation your older siblings were having. You carried Hope outside when the fussing started again, threatening to interrupt your father’s reading from the bible before dinner. She wasn’t the youngest of all the babies there, Jubilee’s son took that honor, being just three months, but Hope was the most restless.

“You used to be like that,” your mother teased, coming out to bring you a bottle for Hope as she squirmed in your lap. You’d settled with sitting under the tree in the yard, letting your niece tear through the grass.

“Destructive?” You asked, looking up through the sunlight to her.

Ever since JJ had mentioned the possibility of leaving you had been thinking about what it would look like when you were gone. Knowing what was in store if you stayed, you had given leaving your mom and dad a lot of thought anyway. It would be just them in the house, plenty of grandchildren to take care of but just the two of them at night when everyone else went home. You would miss it, but it was these moments, so rare now that you were the last left in the house, that you would miss most of all.

“Restless, unsatisfied.” The adjective stung when she said it, as if she resented the trait even in a baby. “The minute you were steady on your feet, you used to take off.”

“Maybe I was just curious about everything around me?” You suggested, that bizarre fear that she knew something settling in your stomach. It was the same queasy feeling you used to get when you were little and you would lie, certain your mother would know.

She nodded, though it was not in agreement, “and what does the bible say about that?”

“And he said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the father hath put in his own power.” You replied, all too familiar with the warning verse that your mother had kept taped to your bedroom mirror as a child, a reminder that your curiosity was as much a sin as anything else.

“That’s right, we don’t need to concern ourselves with other, worldly things.” She replied.

“I don’t think Hope is concerned with anything other than appreciating God’s creation,” you joked, an attempt to lighten the mood, as you looked down at Hope sill pulling at the grass and then staring in wonder at her dirty hands.

“I’m not talking about Hope, I found a…very revealing outfit tucked under your bed along with a sweatshirt I’ve never seen in the house before.” She said, playing her cards. She did know something she wasn’t letting on, just as you had suspected. It was better than you thought, something you could play off easily.

“They’re Kiara’s. She wore the dress on Sunday and I told her it was too revealing for church so she came in and changed. And the sweatshirt is her…boyfriend’s, she had it with her.” You lied. The dress was the one that JJ bought for you. For almost three weeks, since he’d first suggested it, you had been packing and unpacking a duffel bag, certain that you wanted to go but then unsure at the same time.

Your mother’s observation of you was probably right, you were restless. They had raised you the same way they raised your siblings and yet, nothing about the church seemed to comfort you. It made you discontent just exist in the space sometimes but you had always assumed it was because of some deep fault of your own. Some sin you weren’t consciously aware of that ensnared you. Restlessness would follow you forever, it felt like. But then you’d never felt restless with JJ or Kiara or Pope. You never felt like you were trying to fit into something that wasn’t made for you.

“I didn’t realize she had a boyfriend.” The tone was back, the disapproving one that silently conveyed the underlying meaning of her sentence. If your mom had known, she would not have let her hang around.

“He’s very religious too. I think he goes to a non-denominational church,” you lied, pulling Hope’s dirty hands away from the hem of your dress.

You had come outside with Hope because you wanted to be alone. Her crying was the perfect excuse to separate yourself from the rest of your family but then your mom had followed you out here, determined, it felt like, to deny you any moment alone.

“Your good with the kids,” she ventured, “It’ll only be a couple of years before you’re having little ones of your own.”

“That’s what Esther said when she handed me Hope.” You replied lifting the baby with you as you stood up. There was no point in trying to hold onto your attempts at relaxation. Babies had been all your mother wanted to talk about since Timothy’s visit to the house. She couldn’t stop herself from mentioning your future imaginary family. “How did you and dad know you wanted to have kids?”

“We prayed and fasted and the Lord answered us by giving us Faith and I knew then that he was telling me to leave my womb in his hands.” She replied as you fought the urge to roll your eyes at the response, “How many kids you have is something you’ll have to talk about with Timothy but God will guide you.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” You shifted Hope in your arms as she babbled, her dirty hands gripping your cardigan.

Maybe JJ lying to you should have been the push that you needed to embrace this idea of Timothy and Zambia and the twelve children he was probably going to expect you to have. It should’ve put you back on the path of the Lord, that “most righteous” path, as your father called it during Sunday service. But you couldn’t bring yourself to just close off the part of you that loved JJ so much that you considered running away with him. He had lied but you couldn’t bring yourself to believe that all of it was a lie. There were parts of it, you were certain, that had to be true. You had been thinking about him since you left John B’s.

“What if...” you chanced, beginning to walk back to the house with your mom, “what if Timothy isn’t who I’m meant to be with?”

“Why do you say that?” Your mom asked, stopping. She didn’t look surprised or even bothered by what you thought sounded like your usual restlessness.

“I just think...what if I’m not a good enough wife?”

“You have to pray, and have faith in the Lord and in your husband that they will guide you down that path and help you to learn how to serve your household.” She answered.

Hope started fussing again and your mom took her from you, proclaiming that it was most likely time for a feeding and heading back inside with her. She called over her shoulder for you to check the church, the light in the nave was on. You wanted to thank her for the moment alone but then she might’ve stuck around and questioned you further.

You walked to the church, pulling the old wooden door open and heading inside to turn off the lights in the vestibule. Your father was known to forget and leave them on and you were sure that your mother thought sending you was some subtle way of telling you that you needed to reconnect with Jesus through prayer. You weren’t so sure that was what you needed but you would take the moment alone that you had been trying to get the first time you went outside.

Before you could hit the light switch you noticed the familiar army green backpack leaning against one of the back pews. You hadn’t seen JJ since you left John B’s house but that was his backpack, sitting in the middle aisle. There wasn’t any reason for JJ’s bag to be in the church but you walked toward it anyway, curious as to its existence in that space at that moment.

The bag, you quickly discovered, was not without its owner. JJ laid there on the bench, asleep, from what you could tell, his lip split and a horrifying bruise under his left eye. You knelt down by the edge of the pew, brushing his hair away from his face so you could see him better. Just the sight of him had your heart pounding.

“Oh my god, JJ,” you whispered, laying your hand on his arm. “JJ.”

He groaned, shifting on the pew before opening his eyes slowly, a smile gracing his features as he saw you there in front of him, the cut on his lip bleeding slightly at the motion. “Hey Ace.”

“JJ, what happened?” You asked, moving to sit next to him as he sat up. Maybe you should have been more apprehensive with him, considering what John B had told you, but all you could think about was the bruising on his face. You’d seen less noticeable bruising before that JJ had always brushed off and maybe it was unrelated but your mind was drawing connections as you looked him over, noting the large purplish mark peeking out from the arm of the cut-off shirt he was wearing.

“Nothing,” he swore, shaking his head and shifting away from you slightly. “I’m sorry, I just needed to crash for a few hours.”

When you reached for him again and he moved back, you felt an ache. He looked battered and you didn’t care about what sort of bet he made, all you wanted to do was hold him and tell him that for the last few days you had been thinking about him. “JJ, please, tell me what happened?” you asked, taking his hand in yours before he could stop you.

“I fucked up everything.” He replied, leaning back against the pew and closing his eyes. “I didn’t...I should’ve told you about-”

Despite Pope’s attempts to reason with him, to remind him that the last person on earth you probably wanted to see was him, JJ couldn’t stop himself from moving forward with his original plan. He had offered you a way out and, whether you wanted it with him or at all, he was going to come through on that promise. He loved you and maybe it was selfish but he couldn’t stand the thought of you going to Tennessee.

JJ almost never went home but he did a few nights after you had run off, after Kiara told him that you’d come to see her, he went back home again to get the keys for his dad’s boat. Luke always kept the keys on him and JJ hadn’t actually been on the boat since he was a little kid. The first time he had smoked weed when he was twelve and his cousin took him on the Phantom for a joy ride down the coast to buy some specially cut stuff from a friend of a friend. He had let JJ smoke it on the way home and the probably broken rib that he’d suffered the week before suddenly didn’t hurt half as bad.

He wasn’t stealing the keys for a joyride this time though. He was stealing keys to get you as far away from the Outer Banks as he could. Pope had reasoned that you hadn’t really ever made up your mind and that by now you had probably definitely decided not to go off with some guy on a whim, but JJ had to believe you were still leaning toward going with him.

“Hey, look who finally decided to show up.” Luke chided, sitting at his work bench. If there was anything that JJ knew about his father, it was that Luke could sit in front of his work table all day and nothing would ever actually get done.

“I’m only here to grab some stuff.”

If he said nothing, it caused an issue. If he said something, it caused an issue. JJ had spent enough years in his father’s home to know that it didn’t matter what he did, if Luke was in a mood then there was nothing, he could do to avoid it. And usually, he would just make his visit a short one but he needed that key and that key was hanging off his dad’s neck.

It took Luke a couple beers and a trip down to Barry’s trailer before he confronted JJ’s return home with more than a snide remark. It started off with shouting about the electric bill when he tried to hit the light switch in the living room and realized that the darkness was unescapable. And that, of course, like all the other bad things that existed in his life, was JJ’s fault.

“How many fucking times I gotta tell you to do something before you actually do it?” He screamed, a string of insults following that would stay trapped in JJ’s head for what would arguably be the rest of his life. The rage was just what JJ needed though, his dad was erratic, distracted, and close enough that when he shoved JJ against the wall and tried to choke him, the key was in reach.

He had the key and when he finally got his dad off him, he ran for the door, grabbing his bag and running through the woods. Still not talking to John B, he knew there weren’t too many places for him to go. He stayed on the beach for a while but then moved on, heading to the one place he knew he wasn’t technically welcome. JJ had seen your family’s cars in the yard and had ducked into the church, falling asleep on one of the pews.

It wasn’t like you could’ve contacted him, you had no phone and you couldn’t exactly get away easily during the day and maybe that was what made it so easy for him to convince himself that he wasn’t beyond forgiveness. He needed to talk to you, had wanted to for days now. He needed to explain things to you, make you understand that he did love you and the bet was stupid, a mistake that he wanted to take back more than anything in the world.

“JJ, I don’t care about any of that right now,” you said, brushing hair away from his face. “What happened?”

He sat up a little, pulling the makeshift necklace out beneath his shirt, the keys to the Phantom hanging there around his neck. “I got the keys.” He replied, “I don’t know if you even would still want to go, but I got the keys.”

“Is that how this happened?” You asked, eyes still on his bruised face and not the keys he was holding up.

“It doesn’t matter-”

You cut him off, “it does matter, JJ-”

“No.” He insisted, “no, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want you to base anything on feeling bad for me.” JJ had spent his whole life trying to make sure that nobody felt bad for him. Sympathy, charity, pity, it was all just fake and he hated it. He did everything he could to be sure that no one ever knew what kind of father Luke was because he never wanted them to look at him like he was broken.

“I don’t want you to hurt.” You admitted, kissing his cheek.

JJ didn’t protest the affection, though he wanted to laugh. Here he was with you worrying about him, telling him that you didn’t want to see him hurt while he had hurt you. For days he felt like he had been plagued by that moment, replaying the way you looked at him when you asked him if John B was telling the truth. Kiara told him to give you space and Pope told him to take things slowly but all he wanted was to be with you again, to make everything right.

“You shouldn’t even want to talk to me right now.” He said, rubbing his hands over his eyes.

“My propensity for forgiveness might surprise you.” You teased, then shrugged, “I don’t think that you lied to me about...about being in love with me,” you chewed on your bottom lip as you spoke, “I mean, I hope not-”

“I wasn’t.” JJ replied. “If Sarah hadn’t bet me to ask you out, I wouldn’t have, but everything else was real. I know I should’ve told you...I just, didn’t want you to look at me the way you did after John B told you. Everyone else already looks at me that way, I didn’t want you to. I’m so sorry.” It seemed like the only logical thing to say to you.

The door to the chapel creaked open and JJ slid down to the floor as you stood up, moving down the aisle to keep whoever it was out of the church. Your dad stood there at the entrance, holding the door open with his foot as he caught sight of you. “There you are, your mom sent me out to find you, she said she asked you to turn the lights out here.”

“I was,” you replied, moving closer to him, “I just, stopped for a moment to sit in prayer.” An easy lie, one your parents were always all too willing to believe.

He nodded, “do you need another moment? Some fellowship?”

“No, no, I’m okay.” You promised. “I’ll be right there.”

The door swung shut behind him as he stepped back out of the church. You knew he’d be just on the other side of the door, waiting for you to turn off the lights and follow him in for dinner. Knowing the limited amount of time you had, you ran back down the aisle to where JJ was just standing up.

JJ’s eyes went wide as you grabbed his collar and quickly pulled him into a kiss, “I have dinner with my family, come to my room tonight?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “yeah okay.”

As you left him you flicked the lights casting him in darkness as he dropped back down onto the bench, a small smile etched on his face. He’d come to the church because he needed to be close to you, especially after his encounter with Luke. But JJ had honestly thought that things between you were irreparable. Knowing they weren’t felt better than he could’ve imagined. Like he was floating above clouds. Stupid to think maybe but he didn’t care.

JJ’s muscles tensed as you traced your fingers beneath a nasty purple bruise that stretched across his stomach to his side. You leaned over him, hovering like a ghost in the stillness, and placed a kiss just over the discolored skin, eliciting goosebumps over his skin.

He stayed camped out in the chapel until the lights went off in the house and your family left for the night. There were too many smaller units these days to accommodate everyone when they came home to visit but your father was friends with a local motel owner who always gave him a good deal. JJ had tried to stay alert and awake but he’d fallen asleep, getting up later when the lights were off and sneaking across the yard to your window, knocking and hoping that you answered. That you meant it when you said you still believed he loved you.

Your parents were asleep down the hall from your room and he knew that trying anything would be risky and dangerous but being back in your room again since the last time, since he’d slept with you, it was almost as if a switch went off for both of you. He climbed through the window and was already grabbing at your waist, pulling you into a kiss as you led him to your bed.

He breathed out apologies and “I love you’s” between kisses, making sure that he took every opportunity to remind you both how sorry he was and how much he had missed being close to you in the few days apart. JJ had tried to tell himself that if you chose to stay with your family, he would be okay and understanding and he would force himself to be but he knew that he was lying to himself, if things ended between the two of you, he wasn’t sure how he would cope. Maybe that was unhealthy but he really didn’t care at all.

“I was thinking, we could go to Florida,” you said, keeping your voice down as you sat on the bed, JJ’s shirt keeping you warm. He was laying on his back, covers pushed down to his waist, one hand behind his head and the other resting on your thigh.

“Why Florida?” He asked.

In all honesty it wasn’t that Florida was anything particularly special it was just that you were trying your hardest to think of anything to say so you didn’t start crying. When you’d seen him in the church earlier you had almost lost it and that was with only his face visible. The bruising on his stomach and sides made you feel ill. “I don’t know, I’ve always wanted to go to South Beach.”

JJ grinned, hand squeezing your thigh, “you on a topless beach? Yes, please.”

“How about I conquer a two piece before I attempt going topless?” You joked, taking his hand in yours.

“I don’t know, you look pretty hot...” he said, moving his other hand from behind his head and grabbing the hem of your shirt to pull it up passed your chest. You swatted his hand away, stifling a laugh. The sound of it made him smile though it didn’t quite meet his eyes, that flicker of sadness still there behind them. There was nothing he wanted more than being here with you but he couldn’t shake that gnawing feeling of guilt that settled in.

“What’s the matter?” You asked, registering the change in his demeanor before he was even fully aware of it himself.

“Nothing, I-” he sighed, shifting around to sit up in bed, “I should have told you. About the bet, about my dad. I just...I know, under the surface, I’m not the most likable person. I’m loud and I smoke too much and I drink too much and I’m not that smart and I just...really wanted you to like me. So I didn’t say anything. And I know that’s not an excuse-”

“JJ,” you cut him off, “I was mad that you lied and didn’t tell me about the bet but that doesn’t change the way that I feel about you. And it doesn’t change the way I know you feel about me.” It was hard to explain, it had been hard to explain to Kiara when you had shown up crying at her house, but you didn’t think that JJ was lying to you about the whole of your relationship. He said he loved you and you believed him, there wasn’t a single moment that felt unreal to you in that sense, whether he had asked you out because of a bet or not. “You said you only asked me out because of the bet but everything else was real and I believe you.”

“I don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

“Stop trying to sell yourself short.” You replied, leaning forward to kiss him, “it won’t work.”

Before he could answer you, the floor creaked and the you both looked toward the door as footsteps sounded down the hall. The light by your desk was still on and the footsteps came to a stop outside your bedroom door, a knock sounding, followed by your dad’s voice. “Ace, you awake in there?”

You pulled JJ’s shirt off, grabbing your nightdress and putting it on as you got off the bed and went over to the door. “Yeah, hold on!” You were thankful that the door opened in, obscuring the twin bed from view. “Sorry, I was having trouble sleeping so I was just up reading some verses.” You lied.

“Hmm,” your dad nodded, easily convinced, “what were you reading?”

“1st Peter, 4...uh, ‘and above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.’ Just felt like something I really needed tonight.” You replied.

“That is a good one,” he contemplated, “I told your mom I’ve been a little stuck on the sermon for this coming weekend...it’s a big one, with Timothy’s family visiting and your birthday. But maybe I’ll put some focus on that verse, see if the Lord speaks to me about it.”

“I’ll pray on it as well,” you promised, twisting the doorknob in your hand as you waited for your father to decide to head back to bed.

“I’m just grabbing some water, do you need anything?” He asked, looking toward the kitchen.

“No, I think I’m gonna call it a night,” you replied, stepping forward to give him a hug, “love you, see you in the morning.”

“Love you too Ace,” he said, leaving you and heading to the kitchen.

You shut the door to your room, blocking out the rest of the world again and nearly jumping when you turned and found JJ standing right there beside you. “My dad could’ve seen you,” you whispered, pushing him away when he tried to wrap his arms around you.

“He didn’t.” JJ replied, voice low. His hand darted out from his side, grabbing the front of your nightdress before you could get away, using the leverage it gave him to pull you back to the bed. He flicked the light off on your desk lamp on the way to the bed, sitting when the back of his knees hit the mattress.

“What are you doing?” you asked when he started to pull the nightdress over your head again.

“Undressing you.”

“JJ,” you fought a smile, biting your bottom lip, “you need to go...that was way too close.”

He pouted in the dark, letting your nightdress fall back into place as he laid his hands on your hips. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I can walk to Heyward’s in the afternoon?” You offered. “Timothy and his family will be here on Wednesday...”

“When’s the party?” He asked, trying not to let himself dwell on the actual question, were you staying or were you going?

“Saturday evening...I don’t know what to do.” You admitted. It was leaving home either way but one of those included the possibility of never speaking to your family again.

“It’s your decision. I love you, either way.” JJ promised.

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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 3 years

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Answer asap (I feel bad saying that, but I'm stuck). Do you have any resources for dating/not dating non-christians? A dear friend of mine told me they care for me, and I feel the same for them, but... all the resources online warn again and again not to date non-christians lest they endanger my faith. I feel like going forward with this would be ignorant at best and would set us both up for heartbreak. And I fear my fear itself would lead to me trying to convert them. But I still care for them.

Hey, anon! Thanks for reaching out -- the rhetoric among many Christians against interfaith relationships, particularly with the argument that they’re “unequally yoked,” is something I haven’t addressed in years, and have been meaning to discuss again.

Little disclaimer at the start that this stuff is so contextual, and it’s personal -- I don’t know your life as well as you do, or this friend of yours like you do. Maybe what i say doesn’t fit you and your situation.

_____________

To begin, I firmly believe that interfaith relationships can be and often are truly beautiful, holy partnerships. (This includes relationships in which one or multiple members identifies as an atheist / otherwise doesn’t ascribe to a particular religion.)

When both (or all) members are respectful of one another’s beliefs, and find as much joy in learning as in teaching their partner(s), their unique perspectives can deeply enrich one another. You can bear good fruit together that glorifies God and nourishes others.

This being said, you definitely want to at least begin working through your worries and fears before starting to date this person. If you enter the relationship overwhelmed with fear or guilt about dating them, it’ll bring a lot of resentment and angst. The rest of this post points out things you’ll want to reflect on and read up on before entering this or any interfaith relationship -- and offers resources that can help.

_________

Interfaith Partners: Always “Unequally Yoked”?

I’m sure you’ve seen a certain phrase on those websites you mentioned, drawn from 2 Corinthians 6:14 -- “unequally yoked.” I’m going to end this post with some alternative ways of interpreting this verse, but what Christians who advise against interfaith relationships take it to mean is something like this:

Just as two animals yoked to the same plow should be of equal strength and on the same page so that one doesn’t do more of the work, or get tugged away from the work by the other one, two partners should also be of equal “spiritual” strength and on the same page when it comes to their faith...

And of course, these people will say, a person who is Christian is definitely spiritually stronger than any non-Christian -- and a non-Christian might just pull them away from The Way, getting them to skip church or prayers or even stop being Christian entirely.

But there are a lot of assumptions there that don’t hold true in every relationship, right? First off, who says every Christian is necessarily “spiritually stronger” than every non-Christian? To claim that is to assume that non-Christians don’t also have access to spirituality or to the Divine -- which I’m going to push against throughout this post.

Furthermore, the assumption that a non-Christian partner will definitely harm your own Christian faith doesn’t have to be true, as I’ll get to in a second.

So yeah, keeping these assumptions about an interfaith relationship being inherently “unequally yoked” in mind, and with a plan on returning to this phrase at the end, let’s move on to specific things you should think about before entering an interfaith relationship.

______________

Must a non-Christian partner “endanger” your faith -- or can they enrich it?

If being open to learning about how our fellow human beings perceive the world, humanity, and the divine “endangers one’s faith,” perhaps that kind of faith was not made to last. Perhaps it has to give way in order to birth a new, deeper faith -- a faith that is bold enough to wrestle with God as Jacob did; broad enough to survive questions and doubts and times of grief; and wise enough to perceive the Spirit blowing wherever She will (John 3:8), not only among Christians.

If your partner truly respects you and your faith even if it’s different from theirs, they’ll do what they can to help you be the best Christian you can be -- or at the very least, they will give you the space and time you need to go to church, pray, etc. And you will do the same, helping them to be the best Muslim, Buddhist, or simply person they can be.

I highly recommend asking this friend of yours before you start dating what their thoughts are on your being a Christian, and/or on Christianity in general.

Is it something that makes them happy for you? is it something that makes them deeply uncomfortable? or something that they don’t have strong feelings one way or the other on? .

How “involved” would they be open to being in your faith? Would they be interested in going to church with you, as long as they could trust you weren’t trying to force them into anything? Would they enjoy talking about your varying beliefs together and how they impact your lives? Or would they never ever want you to bring up Christianity (which I imagine for you would be a deal breaker)? .

Be open and honest with one another about what expectations you each have about things like boundaries around discussing faith, about time and space you each want for practicing your faith, etc. As you seem aware, it’s better to get all this clear before you start dating, to avoid problems later down the road!

For an example of what such discussions might look like, I found this story from Robert Repta, a Christian man married to a Jewish man. Their union, he says, has included working out what it means not only to be gay persons of faith, but also persons of two different faiths:

“Ultimately, what happened was that in our struggles to find ourselves, we ended up growing closer together. We both supported and challenged each other. We began asking each other bigger life questions and talking about religion, God, science. Both of our lives were evolving, and what started to happen was that we started seeing the similarities in our core beliefs more than the differences. Some of those beliefs even evolved along the way.

We both believed in God. We both believed that God is love. We volunteered together. He would occasionally come with me to church, and I would occasionally go with him to the synagogue. Eventually, I could see that the common thread between us was unconditional love. The same unconditional love of God.”

_____________

On pressuring a non-Christian partner to convert -- assumptions about Christian superiority & fearing for their afterlife destination

It’s really good you recognize that it might end up being hard for you not to try to get this person to convert! Before dating them, you should keep reflecting on this and decide whether that’s something you can let go of or not. If it’s not, then you’re probably right in thinking this relationship won’t work out.

It would be highly disrespectful to this person you care about to pressure them to become a Christian in order for you to feel okay about being with them. (And for more thoughts on how evangelism and conversion as carried out by many Christians isn’t what Jesus had in mind, see this post.) Doing so would imply a lot of things, including that you don’t think they’re a worthy or equal partner unless they make this big change, that whatever beliefs or ideologies they currently hold are inferior to yours, etc.

In order for your interfaith relationship to go well, you would need to come to understand non-Christians as being equally made in God’s image, equally worthy of dignity, equally capable of doing good in the world. You’d have to come to believe that there is much of value within their own religion / ideology that you as a Christian could learn from.

Let’s bring in our lovely Christian/Jewish couple from before: as his relationship with David developed, Robert discovered that

“God is not conformed to this world we live in; God does not belong solely to the Pentecostals or the Baptists, to the Jews or Gentiles, to Muslims or Zoroastrians. Two of the most profound self-identifiers God calls himself in the Bible is “love” and “I am.””

Here are a few resources that can help you explore the idea that other religions are as valid as Christianity and also have much wisdom to bring to the world:

I highly recommend you check out the book Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor to help you explore how you can be a devout Christian and learn from and form mutual relationships with persons who are not Christian. You can check out passages from the book in my tag here. .

You might also like my two podcast episodes on interfaith relationships (in general, not romantic ones, but the same material applies) -- episode 30, “No One Owns God: Readying yourself for respectful interfaith encounters” and episode 31, “It's good to have wings, but you have to have roots too": Cultivating your faith while embracing religious pluralism.” You can find links to both episodes as well as their transcripts over on this webpage. .

There might also be some helpful stuff in my #interfaith tag or #other faiths tag if you wander around. .

Simply getting to know whatever religion this friend does belong to (or what ideologies and value systems they maintain if they’re atheist / non-religious) can also be super helpful. Ask them what resources they can think of that can help get to know their religion as they experience it. Attend worship service (virtually works!), seek out folks on social media who share their religion, etc. I bet you’ll find a lot that you have in common -- and hopefully you’ll find some of the differences thought-provoking and enriching to your own understandings of Divinity!

I’m guessing a lot of your worry stems from the assumption that non-Christians don’t go to heaven. If you believe that not being a Christian leads to hell after death, it’s very hard to view non-Christians and their beliefs as equal to your own!

That Holy Envy book discusses this genuine fear many Christians have on behalf of non-Christians, and how to let it go. .

Here’s a post with links to other posts describing the belief that many faithful and serious Christians hold that non-Christians don’t all get whisked to hell. .

And a post on the harm done by fearmongering about hell. .

Finally, a little more on the academic side but if you’re interested in some history behind Christian views of hell that can help you see that there really is no one “true” belief here, check out the links in this post.

_______

Reinterpreting “unequally yoked”

I said we’d get back to this, and here we are! While the easiest to find interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14′s “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” is that it argues against interfaith marriage, there are other ways to read this text.

I adore this article I found on the passage from a Christian minister who is married to a Hindu monk -- “Unequally Yoked”: How Christians Get Interfaith Marriage Wrong.” Incredibly, Rev. J. Dana Trent writes that when she and her now-husband dug into 2 Corinthians 6:14 to see what it was all about, she found that

“An ancient scripture meant to deter us from getting involved with each other actually brought us together. Our core beliefs in God became the focus of our study and relationship, not the issues that divided us.”

She also explains that biblical scholars say this verse isn’t even specifically about interfaith marriage -- which becomes clear when you read the full chapter surrounding it! It’s more general -- about the hazards of “working with” an unbeliever.

And what exactly is an unbeliever? Paul and other “believers” of these very early days of Christianity had a different definition than we might today -- an “unbeliever” wasn’t synonymous with “non-Christian,” because Christianity hadn’t even solidified into an actual religion yet! Instead, a nonbeliever was "anyone exposed to but was not faithful to Christ’s teachings—someone not characterized by devotion, love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness.”

In other words, if a person in those early days was told about the good news of Jesus that entailed things like liberation of the oppressed and love of neighbor, they didn’t have to “become a Christian” to accept that good news. And thus, Rev. Trent continues,

“Today, my husband’s deep Hindu faith has taught me to dig deeper into what Jesus would have me do. Perhaps Paul might have even considered me an “unbeliever,” as I claimed to be a baptized Christian, but my life did not inwardly and outwardly reflect the Gospel. Since marrying Fred, I re-attuned my life to Christian spiritual practices: spending more time in contemplative prayer, practicing non-violence through a vegetarian diet, limiting my consumption, and increasing my service to others.

Much to many Christians’ dismay, it took a person of another faith—a seemingly “unequally yoked” partner, to strengthen my Christian walk.”

Isn’t it beautiful to hear how this relationship between a Christian minister and Hindu monk has born good fruit for both of them? They help one another become the best Christian and best Hindu they can be, respectively. They are both so deeply committed to faith -- that doesn’t sound like an “unequal yoking” to me.

______

Whew, this got long! But it’s a big topic, and one I hope you’ll take the time to explore. Bring God into it; bring your friend into as much as they’re comfortable. And feel free to come back and ask me more questions as you go.

If anyone knows of other articles or other resources that explore the good fruit that can come from an interfaith partnership, please share!

#interfaith relationships #unequally yoked #progressive christians #interfaith dating #Anonymous #relationship tag

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gallavichy · 3 years

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So I have a thought about the steam room and orgy scenes this episode that is, I think, a slightly different take than either of the extremes out there (Gallavich would never! And Shut up, it’s totally fine).

My general take is that they decided on whatever they did this ep TOGETHER. So they’re being safe, sane, and consensual. I also think that the steam room and the party gays are both isolated situations that don’t suggest ANY sort of future problems or infidelity.

But narratively speaking, I think it’s also worth looking at how the world of Shameless codes these things. Yes, this is hard to do because of serious issues with homophobia and racism in the writing, general inconsistency in the writing, screwing with the show Bible when when necessary (or not 😡), and retconning whenever the fuck they want, BUT, there is the realm of the world if this show, and it’s worth looking at.

- This show does not define true love, lasting love, and meaningful love as something built on fidelity and monogamy. I’m not saying that it promotes polyamory, but I am suggesting that we have been presented with couples whom we are supposed to believe love each other deeply...and very few of them have had perfectly closed relationships. And this is not just for gay couples! Think about Helene and her husband, Kev and V in their throuple, etc. so WE might see airtight monogamy as something we want, but the show has almost never presented us with that as an option.

- The shameless piece of Shameless means that the writers will often if not always subvert the fandom’s desire for sweetness and romance if/when something sexy and scandalous can happen. It’s not always infidelity, but it’s often something we wouldn’t want for the couples we like. Kev and V acting out master and slave stuff on the internet?? V’s MOM?? Lip being monumentally stupid in all of his relationships? Lip lying to Tami constantly this season? Steve being married when he shows up after S1? Most of Gallavich seasons 1-5?

- The show is about family and survival and loyalty (not romantic loyalty, necessarily, but the I-can-count-on-you-no-matter-what loyalty). What we’ve been shown in s10 and 11 with Gallavich is that they ARE these things for one another. They are family, lovers, AND friends. While I think the show fucks up in a lot of ways, I think it’s been clear about this.

Okay, and then lastly - they lived happily ever after is a hard claim to stomach if a couple hasn’t been shown to face the hard questions when the show concludes. Showing us that they can go to the steam room or an orgy and end the night together singing Gaga and Ariana in the gross Gallagher bathroom is the reassurance we need that their marriage will survive all the random stupid shit that might come their way. It’s also important to note that even though he’s a dumbass, Ian is better at relationships than all his other siblings. Seriously. Except maybe Liam!

all great points here! ♥️

i really don’t want to talk too much about this because i’m not one to engage in conversations about ~controversial aspects of episodes as i have genuine troubles with articulating big thoughts to the point that it stresses me out. however! i do just want to mention a few things and preface it by saying that my general thought is that people are allowed to feel however they want about this--particularly the fans who’ve been around since the beginning and who feel like this is a less-than-desirable turn of events after the degree to which they’ve followed this relationship. i get it.

but i also want to say that while i understand some of the extremes to the interpretation of this, i also think it’s important to note (and may make others feel better?) that what’s happening between them is not polyamory and does not suggest romantic or physical disloyalty with permission. i’m reading it as a kink, more than anything. they’re each other’s one and only. but just like adding toys to their bedroom activities, they’re open to adding a guy or two to the scenario whenever they have the desire and opportunity, which i don’t imagine will be frequently, just as i don’t imagine they get out the ballgag more than a couple times a month, if that. i just can’t make myself view this in any way as them being open to sex with other people. they’re clearly jealous. their “who knows what might happen...” is enough to get mickey to agree to making gay friends with ian and ian to agree to stay for the dinner party. they absolutely don’t want their husband to have sex with other people in any capacity that isn’t a scenario in which they’re like, together in a steam room with two other guys or taking part in an orgy in which, let’s be honest, they probably made out with each other while receiving blowjobs or while they side-by-side topped other men. it’s a partnered activity and just a fun new way to enjoy sex and the physical bodily pleasures with the man they love.

to address your ask (sorry for basically hijacking it lol), i do agree that the show certainly doesn’t seem to present to us many instances of strict, as you say, “airtight monogamy.” but unlike the other examples--helene and her husband, the throuple thing--ian and mickey’s situation doesn’t even feel like that. idk. i guess i just tend to view this as them occasionally having adventurous sex that, no matter if there are other guys in the mix during the act, is always about them in the end and is ultimately still sex with each other. i think they’d go mental if they were to like, split up and each pick up a guy to take to two different locations. they’re way too possessive and jealous for that. to your second point, i do think they tend to subvert our desires when it comes to characters’ sex lives--mostly as evidenced by the kinkiness discovered this season--but yeah, idk, this whole scenario in 11x07 was sweet as hell to me. they love each other so much and that, to me, was palpable, regardless of how many guys were in the equation.

i feel like this doesn’t address your ask at all and was, instead, me just going on tangent after tangent, but again, i tend to do this and it’s why i suck at responding to very thoughtful asks like yours. ♥️♥️♥️ anyway, you’ve made great points here and i absolutely agree with them as valid commentary on the show, i just personally don’t fit ian and mickey’s sex life into that based on how i view their arrangement in the first place.

#<33333 #likelife19 #ask gray

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on-maars · 3 years

Text

Home It Is, Then

Alright, I gifted this fic for @evanbucxley because that help my life (be worth your while) series was a rollercoaster of emotions and I absolutely loved it. I wanted to contribute to the Religious Guilt Eddie Diaz idea and here’s my work :)

It’s not that angsty, quite soft at times even, if you want to take your mind off things before that finale.

Hope you’ll like it!

READ ON AO3

When he was a little kid, Eddie used to go to Church every Sunday.

Along the years, it became a ritual. A ritual Eddie didn’t really dare to cast doubt on. This was just it. It was just the way he was raised and so Eddie continued going without objecting, without asking questions. And boys did he have some.

At first, it was simple questions. Simple questions with easy answers. Answers Eddie was taking for granted.

What does God look like? Why did He create people? Why can’t we see Him? Did He have any friends? Does He ever get lonely up there? Were there dinosaurs in the Ark?

And for a while, Eddie was happy. He was satisfied with the answers. They made sense. They were logical, and if his parents and the different priests said so, then they also had to be true, right? But then Eddie grew older, and as he grew older, the questions became more complex, more intricate, filled with confusion, wonder and doubt.

How can I trust what the bible says is true? If there is a God, then why is there so much suffering? Isn’t the chaos of the world a sign of God’s absence?

His brain was filled with them. His brain was filled with questions and hesitations and Eddie didn’t know how to make sense of them. It didn’t help that the answers were not that easy anymore. They were vague and confusing and Eddie needed clearness, he needed stability and he needed control.

And Eddie’s not so prejudiced as to think that every Christian believer out there is deemed to be narrow-minded and intolerant but that was just another aspect he could have added to the list of things that used to make him uncomfortable about the religion, how some of the most faithful members of his Church used to act, used to judge other people for being the way they were.

It wasn’t rare for Eddie to hear some disturbing comments here and there. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t insistent. But it was there. It was weird allusions in sermons, hurtful insults in the school playground, remarks flowing in high-school hallways. Eddie couldn’t get them out of his head, and it just brought about a new series of question.

How can a loving God send anyone in Hell? How can someone be seen as ‘less than’ just because of the way they love?

Eddie didn’t like these questions. He didn’t like these questions and he liked the answers even less. And so he did the only thing that appeared to be the most sensible at that time. He started distancing himself from the religion, started skipping a few masses, a few Sundays, until his absence from his church became something more permanent, more constant.

Eddie left without looking back, practiced his faith privately, buried these questions somewhere far, far, in the back of his mind, and never really thought anything of it again.

That until he settled in Los Angeles. Until he met Buck.

And then the questions came back. They came back slowly, and then all at once.

The first time it happens, it’s small. So small Eddie barely notices it.

They’re in the car. They both finished a 24 hours shift and Eddie is so tired it’s a chore just keeping his eyes open. His head rests gently on the window and his mouth slowly turns up at the edges when he realizes Buck’s been driving very gently and avoiding the holes on the road to make sure he can sleep on the way home.

He’s not sleeping though. He can’t. There are so many things he still needs to do, doing the laundry, helping Christopher with his homework, tidying the living-room that is slowly becoming a battlefield filled with Legos bricks, books about space (Christopher’s new obsession) and cars. He needs to take care of everything. He needs to take care of everything before his parents come and visit this week-end.

This was supposed to be a surprise visit – they said. We want to see our grandson . And Eddie understands. He understands his parents’ need to see his son. He understands their obsession in trying to help him. He knows it comes from a place of kindness and generosity but he can barely keep it together on a good day, he doesn’t even want to know how he would have reacted if his parents had decided to show up unannounced.

And that’s why he can’t sleep. That’s why he can’t sleep and needs to be sure that everything is taken care of before his parents show up. The last thing he wants is to give them more reasons to complain about his lifestyle and continue to think that Christopher will be better off without him.

Eddie sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers, glancing towards Buck. His eyes fall on his best-friend’s arms and that’s when it happens. Just like that. There’s no warning, no sign, and it hits him like a tons of bricks.

He wants to hold his hand.

He wants to hold Buck’s hand.

He wants to intertwine their fingers together and rest them on his thigh.

He wants to hold it so bad it makes his own hand itchy.

But he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Because that would be weird, right? That would be crossing a line. We’re just friends – he thinks. And just friends don’t do that. Sure, they hug each other, sometimes. They hug each other, they laugh together and they’re here when the other needs it but they don’t hold hands. They don’t hold hands.

“You doing okay, Eds?” Buck says and his voice is so soft Eddie almost hates him for it. Because his chest suddenly fills with warmth and Eddie doesn’t understand where it comes from. He doesn’t understand where it comes from and that scares him. And so he doesn’t mention it and pretends it never happened.

“Yeah.” He says, but his face betrays him. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just lots of stuff to think about. With-”

“With your parents.” Buck finishes with a knowing smile and Eddie can’t stop himself from smiling back at him. Because it’s his best-friend, right there. His best-friend who always knows what’s going on inside his head, his best-friend who sometimes even understands him better than he understands himself.

Eddie nods and suddenly Buck parks his car next to his house. He wants to move but his body feels like cement. Every single one of his muscles is as heavy as lead and he barely has time to register they’ve made it home that Buck is already opening the passenger’s door, unfastening his seat-belt and guiding him towards the house.

It’s quiet. Christopher is not home yet. He’s still at school and Carla is taking him home today. Eddie takes off his shoes and throws them away, sighing at the mess around him. He’s about to lean down to start picking toys but then he can feel Buck’s hand on his waist and his whole body freezes. And he doesn’t know if it’s something that Buck always does, he doesn’t know if it’s something that is completely normal in their relationship and that he’s only freaking out since his weird awakening in the car, but the thing is that he still freezes. His entire body tenses.

Not because he doesn’t like it. Quite the contrary. The only thing he really wants is to lean in on the touch and feel his best-friend’s strong arms around his back.

“Hey, none of that.” Buck says gently. “Go to bed. Take a nap. I’ll tidy everything, do the laundry and prepare something to eat for you guys.”

“Buck, you’re tired too, I can’t ask you to do that.” Eddie disagrees but his body is already swaying. Fortunately for him, Buck is here to catch him and one second later, Eddie’s chin is resting on his shoulder, unable to stop himself from breathing in the scent of what he guesses is smoke and Buck’s aftershave.

“You’re not asking.” Buck answers. “I offered. I’ll be gone when you wake up.”

“You can stay.” Eddie remarks. “Christopher’ll be thrilled.”

“Is he the only one who’ll be thrilled?” Buck asks, and Eddie can hear the hesitation in his voice. “If I stay, I mean.”

“I’m always happy when you stay.” Eddie admits, too tired to even register the words coming out of his mouth.

“Alright. Then I'll stay.”

The second time it happens, Eddie’s in denial.

He’s sitting on the couch, Buck by his side. It’s been a long, hard shift and they’re all trying to make the best of the few restful minutes they have. The alarm hasn’t rung out again yet and Eddie is silently praying that it won’t until he can get home to Christopher.

Eddie tries to hold back a yawn as he sweeps the room with his eyes. Chimney is slumped on the sofa, his phone in his right hand and a small smile on his face. There’s only one person who can make him smile that way. Maddie.

Hen is also seated, but at the table. There is a book placed in front of her but from the way her eyes keep checking at her watch, Eddie knows he’s not the only one hoping for a calm, uneventful end of shift. Bobby is nowhere to be seen but the door to his office is ajar, meaning he’s most certainly inside and taking care of the boring, administrative part of the job.

And then, there’s Buck. Buck, strangely focused on a book about space Christopher recommended to him a week before. His arm is wrapped around Eddie’s shoulders and Eddie would be lying if he said the way Buck’s fingers absentmindedly trace small patterns on his chest isn’t comforting. It is, and Eddie almost wishes he’d never stop.

I don’t want him to stop – he thinks. And here it is again. That feeling. That weird, gut-wrenching sensation. He doesn’t understand it. And he’s not sure he even wants to.

Because he knows, deep down. He knows that the reason why he always feels so safe and comfortable whenever Buck is around isn’t so far-fetched and out of reach. It’s a pretty obvious reason, really. It’s simple. Easy. But Eddie’s not quite sure he’s ready to face all the consequences and the intimate and personal soul-searching questions that come along with it.

And so he stays silent and says nothing, still hoping that if he denies it for a considerable amount of time then that feeling will just go away on its own.

But then, Buck slowly extricates himself from his embrace and Eddie straight-up whines at the loss of physical contact and suddenly there’s nothing more he wants but for the ground to swallow him whole.

But Buck doesn’t judge him, oh no. And that may be the worst part. The way his best-friend always seems to be gentle, cautious, soft when it comes to Eddie. This time isn’t any different. A small smile slowly creeps on his face and Buck turns his head around, presses a small kiss on his hair, his right hand on his chest.

“Be right back, Eds.” He says, and takes a few steps towards the stairs.

Eddie sighs and only realizes his eyes are closed when he hears the small snort coming from Chimney. He opens them again and finds his friend watching him with a knowing expression on his face.

“So have you told him, yet?” Chimney asks. His tone is teasing and Eddie frowns.

“Told him what?” Eddie inquiries, his voice fragile. He doesn’t want to go there. Not yet. Not here.

“You do know he’s only waiting for you to acknowledge what’s already there, right?” His co-worker asks and that’s all it takes for Eddie’s breathing to become ragged, erratic.

Suddenly, the room is smaller. The room is smaller and Eddie’s pretty sure he’s going to suffocate if he stays here any longer.

“Hey, wah Eddie I was- I was kidding. I just thought that with the way you were acting, maybe you’d-”

“Chim.” Hen warns him and takes a few careful steps towards Eddie.

“Eddie-”

“I can’t do this.” Eddie cuts in. “I can’t do this, right now. I’m sorry.” He says, and goes down the stairs as fast as he can.

Once outside, he starts crying.

The third time it happens, it’s more earth-shattering for Eddie.

He’s in the locker-room. He just came out of the shower and he's slowly getting dressed, satisfied when the comforting fabric of his civilian clothes touch his skin. It’s always been therapeutic for him, slipping on his clothes after a long day at work. There’s nothing quite like it. It feels like coming back home. He can finally let go of all the things he’s seen during his shift and focus on the other parts of his life. His son. His friends. His hobbies.

He loves his job, wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. But god only knows how much he needs the breaks sometimes.

He’s putting on his jumper and is about to do the same with his shoes but that’s when he sees him. Buck. His friend seemingly only got out from the shower and he’s walking towards him with only a towel covering his waist.

And Eddie should be fine. He should be fine. He’s seen his friend naked a thousand times before and it’s no news to him that Buck is good-looking but this time is different. This time, Eddie’s all hot and bothered and finds himself daydreaming about pining his best-friend to the locker and kissing straight on the mouth.

“Enjoying the view?” Buck teases him, and Eddie wants to huff out a laugh. He wants to tease him back like he always does but he’s incapable of pronouncing the slightest words. How can he? How can he while the part of himself he’s been trying so hard to conceal all those years threaten to burst out of him and expose his heart to the rest of the world? He can’t.

“I need to go.” He says. Because right now, the easy way out is to flee. Again.

“Eds, I was only kid-”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Buck.” He cuts in, rushing to put on his shoes and take his bag. He slams the door of his locker and locks himself in his car, driving until he’s back home, safe.

The fourth time it happens, it’s during a conversation Eddie has with Hen.

It was supposed to be a simple conversation. They were both seated at Bobby and Athena’s table, exchanging small talks and jokes in-between.

The 118 all decided to gather together to celebrate Chimney’s birthday and everything was going great. Everything was going great. Hen was telling him all about Denny’s experience in eighth grade and how this one was thrilled at the idea of seeing Christopher again tonight. Everything was going great, that’s why Eddie doesn’t understand why he finds himself blurting out these next few words.

“When did you realize you were into girls?” Eddie asks, and instantly regrets saying them. But it’s too late, now. They’re out in the open and he can’t take them back. And from the way Hen looks at him with a soft expression, she’s just happy he’s finally brave enough to open up.

“I’ve never really had a grand awakening like you can see in movies or series.” Hen says. “I guess it was just – always there. In a way. When I grew up, I could see that while all my friends were talking about boys, my attention was just more focused on girls.” She adds, keeping her voice low. She knows how important and new that talk is to Eddie, and she wants to create a safe space, a safe place where Eddie is free to voice all his fears, all his worries.

And Eddie’s grateful. He’s just not so sure if he’s ready to move forward with that conversation, nor if Bobby and Athena’s house is the most suited place to do that.

“Why do you ask?” She eventually asks, giving him the choice to retract or to dig in a bit deeper.

“I just-” Eddie starts but the words get stuck in his throat once again. “I-” He tries again, and fails a second time. He bites his lower lip and closes his eyes fiercely for a few seconds, trying to muster enough courage. In vain.

In the end, he realizes he doesn’t need to say anything. His eyes do it for him. They fall on Buck who’s seated on the ground with Christopher and Denny, seemingly very engrossed in whatever game they’re playing. It’s sweet – Eddie decides. His best-friend has always been so good and comfortable around kids and Eddie still remembers him saying that he probably would have ended up being a teacher if it wasn’t for his vocation as a firefighter.

Buck seems to feel his gaze on him because the next second, this one looks up and offers him one of these smiles. One of these soft smiles that makes Eddie feel all warm and at peace. He wishes it could stop. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t and against his better judgment Eddie finds himself smiling when his best-friend mouths “ you okay? ” in his direction. He nods, and lowers his eyes down.

“Eddie.” Hen starts, her tone carefully controlled. “I’m pretty sure he’d be ready to wait a lifetime if you’d ask him to.”

And it’s supposed to be comforting words, Eddie knows that, but it only fills him with even more unease and anxiety.

How much time does he still need? How much time until he realizes there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way?

Having the possibility to ask him such a huge thing doesn’t mean he should.

The fifth time it happens, it’s Eddie’s fault.

They’re in his kitchen. Christopher is away having a sleepover at one of his friend’s and they have the house to themselves.

Eddie is slowly stirring his Abuela’s chicken soup while Buck is seated on the counter, teasing him and guiding him through the recipe with that bossy tone of his.

And Eddie? Well Eddie is done for.

“Are you planning on helping me or not?” Eddie asks, rolling his eyes at his friend when Buck leans over to make sure Eddie is following the recipe to the letter.

“Nop.” He smiles. “I quite like seeing you all flustered.” He adds, and there’s an implicit meaning behind his words that makes Eddie’s heart flutter. And he doesn’t understand what pushes him to say what he answers next. Maybe it’s the way Buck looks at him. Maybe it’s the accumulated unresolved tension that seems to linger in the atmosphere whenever they’re together. Maybe it’s just another one of his boosts of confidence.

“Oh yeah?” Eddie dares saying after a few seconds, raising his eyebrows in a suggested manner. Buck seems surprised. He opens his eyes wide but then a soft smile stretches his lips and his face softens. Eddie knows what it all means. He’s been friends with him for three years and he has quickly become an expert when it comes to Buck’s silent communication.

It’s an invitation. An invitation to finally acknowledge the elephant in the room and to take their relationship to the next level. And Eddie’s not sure if he’s ready. He’s not sure if he’s ready but then Buck spreads his legs a bit more apart than they were a few seconds ago and Eddie’s common sense goes up in smoke. He surges forward and slips in-between Buck’s legs to crash their lips together.

It’s not gentle. It’s heated and it’s desperate and it’s filled with a sense of urgency. And Buck doesn’t waste any second to kiss him back with just as much vigor. He cups Eddie’s cheeks with his hands and brings him closer, biting his lower lip to demand access to his mouth, which the other man just accepts. Their tongues fight for dominance for a while, a battle that each of them are more than happy to participate in. Buck hums slightly against his mouth and Eddie is pretty sure it’s just another one of his very vivid dreams.

Except that it’s not. It’s very real and Eddie’s hands are everywhere. On Buck’s shoulders, on his neck, on his hair, on his waist. It’s everywhere and Eddie suddenly struggles to breathe. He’s breathless and panting and the next thing he knows, tears are rolling down his cheeks. They’re still kissing but it doesn’t take Buck more than a minute to realize he’s crying. He cradles his chin gently and breaks the kiss, wiping his tears with his thumbs.

“Hey.” He says.

“I’m sorry.” Eddie starts. “I’m sorry, I just-”

“I know.” Buck only answers, and it’s like his eyes are piercing through his very soul. “I know.” He repeats, sealing their lips in another kiss. This time, it’s gentler, softer, and if Eddie’s right hand slips underneath Buck’s shirt and wraps itself around his waist, well then nobody needs to know about it, only Buck. Only Buck, who smiles and just throws his shirt over his head, discarding it on the floor.

Buck is still seated on the kitchen counter and when their lips connect again, Eddie places his hands on Buck’s thighs, moaning against his lips when his friend runs his hands through his hair, pulling down at his locks.

And this would have been fine. This would have been fine if Buck hadn’t moved his arms from his hair to his waist, bringing them closer until their crotches touch. Because then Eddie is suddenly hit with the realization of what they’re currently doing. He’s kissing his best-friend. He’s making out with his best-friend and he’s obviously undeniably turned on. His body jumps with surprise and as if electrocuted by his touch, Buck’s hands suddenly disappear from his body, giving him space.

Eddie takes a step back as if struck by lightning, watching his best-friend with his mouth agape. Buck is staring at him, too. His hair disheveled, his cheeks red and his lips swollen. Eddie doubts he’s in a much better state and the panic is suddenly boiling in his chest. It’s not a light stressed feeling he often has when he’s on a call, oh no. It’s a full blown panic attack that makes his heart’s beat go faster until it’s the only thing he can feel, a deep and earth-shattering anxiety that makes him feel dizzy.

“I need to go.” He blurts out.

“Eddie, wait.” Buck says, catching his wrist with his hand. “You don’t need to go. We can talk about it. Whatever you need.”

“I-” Eddie starts but his eyes start watering again. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I need to go.” He repeats, rushing outside.

There, he walks. He walks, ignoring the way Buck is still calling out his name from the porch. He walks and walks and walks, and ignores how the rain pounds harsh against him, soaking him to the bones. He walks until his steps lead him to Bobby’s house. It’s quiet. The house is silent but there’s still a light on in the living-room and that’s what pushes Eddie to knock on the door a few times. His gestures are slow and weak and for a moment, Eddie wonders if someone heard him but then the door is being pushed open and Bobby’s there, watching him, his eyes filled with confusion, and worry.

“Eddie? What are you doing here?” He asks. “Everything okay?”

“I- I kissed Buck.” He blurts out.

A flash of understanding crosses his Captain’s eyes and he moves to the side to invite him in. Eddie takes a few steps inside and ignores the way Athena looks at him with compassion before disappearing in their bedroom. Because he doesn’t want compassion. He doesn’t want pity. He wants to understand. He wants to understand what’s going on inside his own head.

“Does he know you’re here?” Bobby asks. “Buck. Does he know you’re here?”

Eddie shakes his head, watching Bobby sighs as he takes his cellphone from his back pocket, most likely to send a quick text to Buck and puts an end to his endless anxious thoughts.

Athena comes back from the room with a fresh towel and a pair of sweatpants and an old jumper, probably belonging to Bobby. Eddie thanks her silently and locks himself in the bathroom, discarding his clothes in the laundry basket. He sighs and dries his body as much as he can before getting dressed with his captain’s clothes. He comes back in the living-room and rubs his wet hair with the towel.

“Sit down.” Bobby tells him, pointing at the chair. Eddie complies and looks down at his hands, his fingers twitching. He closes his eyes and bites his lower lip to hold back the sobs that threaten to rack his body any second.

“I kissed him, Cap.” He repeats, his voice weak, his eyes staring at Bobby, almost pleadingly. Pleading for what, he doesn’t know, but pleading all the same. “I kissed him, and then I- I freaked out. I freaked out and I left him there all alone and I just fled.”

“Why did you freak out?” Bobby asks, his eyes filled with understanding.

“I don’t know!” Eddie exclaims, huffing out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know, I-”

“Is it something he did that made you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Eddie instantly answers. “No, he was- it’s Buck, Bobby, he just- as soon as he saw I was starting to freak out, he just stopped. And I started it. I kissed him. Hell I wanted to kiss him.”

“Were you scared?” Athena intervenes. “Because it’s okay if you were, Eddie." She adds, and then speaks again, more carefully: "This is- This is new to you, right?”

“No. I mean yes.” He says, closing his eyes fiercely for a few seconds. “It was just… I’m not new to the kissing game obviously, even if it was only with… Only with girls. Why would a guy be any different, though?” He asks, mostly to himself. “I don’t understand why I’m so- Am I being homophobic?” He opens his eyes wide, panic clearly shown on his face. “Oh my god, I am, aren’t I? But I don’t-”

“Eddie.” Bobby cuts in. “You’re not being homophobic. Or maybe you are. But not in the sense you’re thinking of.”

“How many senses are there in being homophobic, Bobby? Either you are or you’re not, this is ridiculous.” Eddie snaps. Bobby marks a pause, looks at Athena for a few seconds and speaks again when she nods.

“Eddie, have you ever felt any different around Hen?” He asks, and Eddie shakes his head. “Did you ever view her any differently just because she’s attracted to girls or because she’s married to a woman?”

“No, of course not.” Eddie instantly answers.

“And what about you?” Athena asks.

“What about me?” Eddie repeats, confused.

“Have you ever viewed yourself differently because you’re attracted to Buck? Because you’re attracted to a man?” Athena adds, and Eddie’s breath catches in his throat.

For a few seconds, a deep silence settles in the room. “I- I guess.” He admits. “Yes.” He adds, more confidently. “I just- The way I was raised, it- it was very traditional. It’s always been that way and it- it doesn’t let you much of a choice.” He explains. “My parents, they- they weren’t homophobic. I mean, I don’t think they were. Not outwardly, at least. Not on purpose. But- there just never was any option for me. I was- I was just supposed to be straight. Everything else, it- it didn’t matter. It didn’t exist. Not really.”

“Eddie, you probably internalized a lot of homophobia throughout the years. Even without knowing.” Bobby says carefully. “It only makes sense that it’s so hard for you to accept the fact that you like another man. That you like Buck.”

“I don’t like him.” Eddie shakes his head. “I- I'm pretty sure I’m in love with him.”

Athena smiles. “This boy makes it hard not to fall in love with him.” She adds, and Eddie huffs out a laugh, wiping the tears with the sleeve of his jumper. Bobby’s jumper.

“Right?” Eddie nods knowingly. “He’s bloody annoying, though. And stubborn as hell. And god, sometimes he really can be a pain in the ass but it’s-”

“It’s Buck.” Bobby finishes for him, smiling.

“Yeah.” Eddie nods. “It’s Buck.” He adds. “God, I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

“Nah.” His Captain only says. “I think you’re okay. I mean from the…” He says, taking his cellphone in his hands. “15? No. 16 messages I just received from him, I’m pretty confident in saying that you’re already forgiven. He just worries about you.”

“Of course he does.” Eddie complains, lowering his eyes. “As I said. Bloody annoying.” He repeats, quieter, and this earns him a few laughter from Athena and Bobby.

“You want to be with him, right?” Athena asks, and Eddie’s pretty sure that’s the easiest question he’s been asked in his entire life.

“Yeah.” He answers. “Yeah, of course I want to be with him.” He admits. “I’m just scared. Anxious. Embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?”

“I’m a grown man, Athena. I’m a grown ass man and I- I'm pretty sure I’ve always known, deep down, that I was- that I was gay. Or at least I think that I knew. I was just trying to convince myself that I wasn’t. And I- God I almost did it. I almost did it. And I- Besides that, I’m just bad at- I’m bad at this relationship thing, man. I’m not sure- I’m not sure it’s for me. Maybe it isn’t. And Buck, he- he just loves so freely, you know? So freely and so… So openly. How can I compete with that? He’s going to get sick of me. It’s just a matter of time.” Eddie goes on and whirls his head around when he hears Bobby snort.

“Eds, Buck’s like my kid and trust me when I say that he would never get sick of you even if you tried.” Bobby says. “Eddie, he loves you and Chris to the moon and back and nothing’s going to change that. You’re it for him.”

“The amount of times we had to sit through his rants about you guys.” Athena rolls her eyes. “It’s actually quite sickening. How much he holds the both of you dear to his heart.”

Eddie runs one of his hands through his hair. There’s only one thing left to do. He stands up and is about to reach for his cellphone when he realizes he’s left it on the kitchen table. He bites his lower lip and sighs at the idea of Buck pacing back and forth in his living-room, worried sick about him.

“I should probably go back there, right?” Eddie asks, and there’s a few knocks on the door at the same time.

“Pretty sure he beat you to it.” Bobby remarks and he doesn’t need to walk towards the front door that this one is already wide open and Buck comes rushing in the living-room, his eyes wide, until he catches Eddie’s gaze and only then his entire face softens.

His eyes shuttle back and forth as if performing an internal scan of Eddie’s face, making sure he’s not hurt, making sure he’s safe. Eddie smiles softly at him and he nods.

“I’m okay.” He says.

“Thank god.” Buck breathes, crossing the few feet separating them with a quick step to engulf him into a bone crushing hug. He lets his hand run through his hair a few times and Eddie closes his eyes, burying his face in the crook of his neck.

“Sorry I ran away from you like that, I- I freaked out.” He admits and only smiles when Buck presses his lips against his hair.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” He says, his teasing mode switched to standby mode. And that’s another thing Eddie loves about him. Buck always knows perfectly well how to act around him, when to push him, when to tease him and more importantly when to stop. This is one of those moments and Buck is aware of it. There’s not the slightest tease in his tone, not the slightest hint of amusement, only comfort.

Bobby and Athena are both gone and Eddie is grateful for the privacy they both decided to give them.

“So you’re good, yeah?” Buck asks.

“Yeah.” Eddie answers. “Yeah. All good.” He adds, smiling when Buck’s hands cup his cheeks once again, pecking him on the lips.

“What’s going on then? How can I help?” Buck instantly asks, his brows furrowed with concern.

“Well as stupid as it sounds, I just freaked out because- because of the ‘guy’ thing.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’m your gay awakening?” Buck says, and his teasing mode is back on, which only makes Eddie laugh, rolling his eyes at him.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to say.” Eddie smiles.

“Well, it’s not stupid.” Buck adds softly. “Far from it.” He insists. “If you need time to figure it out, I’m more than happy to give it to you. Otherwise, we can just go as slow or as fast as you want. You pick the pace. I’ll be right next to you, either way. Okay?” Buck asks.

“Okay.” Eddie answers, tracing Buck’s birthmark with his thumb.

“What do you wanna do, right now?”

“Home.” Eddie instantly says. “I wanna go back home.”

“Alright, then.” Buck smiles. “Home it is, then."

Home it is, then.

#buddie fic #9-1-1 #911 #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck x eddie

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star-anise · 4 years

Text

An ask I got recently:

hi so i’m a transmed and i’m not sure if you’ll answer this because of that but i saw your post about transmedicalism and was wondering if you could expand on that? you seem like a genuinely kind and judgement-free person, thank you darling x

My response:

Heh, you call me “judgement-free” and ask for my opinion on a topic I’ve formed a lot of judgments about… I get it though, I’m not into attacking people for what they believe so much as providing FACTS. As a cis queer, my insight into transmedicalism isn’t really about the innate experience of trans-ness so much as using my education and professional experience to talk about social science research, diagnostic systems, and public health policy.

This ended up really long, so the tl;dr is, I think transmedicalism as I understand it:

Misunderstands why and how the DSM’s Gender Dysphoria diagnosis was written,

Treats the medical establishment with a level of trust and credibility it doesn’t deserve, at a time when LGBT+ people, especially trans people, need to be informed and vigilant critics of it, and

Approaches the problem of limited resources in an ass-backwards way that I think will end up hurting the trans community in the long run.

TW: Transphobia; homophobia; suicide; institutionalization; torture; electroshock therapy; child abuse; incidental mentions of pedophilia.

So first off I’m guessing you mean this post, about not trusting the medical establishment to tell you who you are? That’s what I’m trying to elaborate on here.

I have to admit, when you say “I’m a transmedicalist” that tells me very little about you, because on Tumblr the term seems to encompass a dizzying array of perspectives. Some transmedicalists believe in what seems to me the oldschool version of “The only TRUE trans people suffer agonizing dysphoria that can only be fixed with surgery and hormones, everyone else is an evil pretender stealing resources and can FUCK RIGHT OFF” and others are like, um… “I have total love and respect for nonbinary and nondysphoric trans people! I qualify for a DSM diagnosis of dysphoria but that doesn’t make me inherently better or more trans than anyone else.”

Which is very confusing to me because according to everything I’ve learned, the latter opinion is not transmedicalism. It’s just… a view of transness that acknowledges current diagnostic labels and scientific research. It’s what most people who support trans rights and do not identify as transmedicalists believe. But I kind of get the impression that Tumblr transmedicalism has expanded well past its original mandate, to the point that if a lot of “transmedicalists” saw the movement’s original positions they’d go “Whoa that’s way too strict and doesn’t help our community, I want nothing to do with it.”.

Okay so. Elaborating on the stuff I can comment on.

1. DSM what?

The American Psychiatric Association publishes a big thick book called The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, called the DSM for short. This is the “Bible of psychiatry”, North America’s definitive listing of mental disorders and conditions. It receives significant revision and updates roughly every 10-15 years; it was last updated in 2013, meaning it will likely get updated sometime between 2023 and 2028.

The DSM lists hundreds of “codes”, each of which indicates a specific kind of mental disorder. For example, 296.23 is “Major depressive disorder, Single episode, Severe,” and 300.02 is “Generalized anxiety disorder.” These codes have information on how common the condition is, how it’s diagnosed, and what kind of treatment is appropriate for it.

Diagnostic codes are the key to health professionals getting paid. If there isn’t a code for it, we can’t get paid for it, and therefore we have very few resources to treat it with. The people who actually pay for healthcare–usually insurance companies or government agencies–decide how much they will pay for each code item to be treated. They’ll pay for, say, three sessions of group therapy for mild depression (296.21), or they’ll pay for more expensive private therapy if it’s moderate (296.22); they’ll pay for the cheap kind of drug if you have severe depression (296.23), but to get the more expensive drug, you need to have depression with psychotic features (296.24).

Healthcare companies, especially in the USA where the system is very very broken and the DSM is written, are cheap bastards. If they can find an excuse not to fund some treatment, they’ll use it. “We think this person who lost their job and can’t get off the couch should pay this $1000 bill for therapy,” they’ll say. “After all, they were diagnosed as code 296.21, and then saw a private therapist for five sessions, when we only allow three sessions of group therapy, and you’re saying they haven’t had enough treatment yet?”

A lot of the advocacy work mental health professionals do is trying to get the big funding bodies to pay us adequately for the work we do. (This is a much easier process in countries with single-payer healthcare, where this negotiation only needs to be done with a single entity. In the USA, it needs to be done with every single health insurance company in existence, as well as the government, sometimes differently in every single state, and then again on a case-by-case basis as well.) Healthcare providers have to argue that three sessions of group therapy isn’t enough, that Medicaid needs to pay therapists more per hour than it costs those therapists to rent a room to practice in, or else therapists would lose money by seeing Medicaid clients. DSM codes exist a tiny bit to let us communicate with each other about the people we treat, and a huge amount to let us get paid. The fact that their existence lets people make sense of their own experiences and find a community with people who share common experiences and interests with them is a very minor side benefit the DSM’s authors really don’t keep in mind when they update and revise different diagnoses.

So when it comes to convincing insurance companies to pay for treatment, humanitarian reasons like “they’ll be very unhappy without it” tend not to work. The best argument we have for them paying for psychological treatment is that it’s economical: that if they don’t pay for it now, they’ll have to pay even more later. If they refuse to pay, let’s say, $2000 to treat mild depression when someone loses their job, and either refuse treatment or stick the person with the bill, then that person’s life might spiral out of control–they might, let’s say, run low on money, get evicted from their apartment, develop severe depression, attempt suicide, and end up in hospital needing to be medically resuscitated and then put in an inpatient psych ward for a month. The insurance company then faces the prospect of having to pay, let’s say, $100,000 for all that treatment. At which point somebody clever goes, “Huh, so it would have been cheaper to just… pay the original $2000 instead so they could bounce back, get a new job, and not need any of this treatment later.”

Trans healthcare can be kind of expensive, since it often involves counselling, years of hormone therapy, medical garments, and multiple surgeries. Health insurance companies hate paying for anything, and have traditionally wanted not to cover any of this. “This is ridiculous!” they said. “These are elective cosmetic treatments, it’s not like they’re dying of cancer, these people can pay the same rate for breast enhancements or testosterone injections as anyone else.”

So when the APA Task Force on Gender Identity Disorder (a task force comprised, as far as I can tell, entirely of cis people) sat down to plan for the 2013 update of the DSM, one of their biggest goals was: Treatment recommendations. Create a diagnosis which they could effectively use to advocate that insurance companies fund gender transition. Like when you go back and read the documents from their meetings in 2008 and 2011, their big thing is “create a diagnosis that can be used to form treatment recommendations.” So that’s what they did; in 2013 they made the GD diagnosis, and in 2014 the Affordable Care Act required insurers to provide treatment for it.

A lot of trans people weren’t happy with the DSM task force’s decisions, such as the choice to keep “Transvestic Fetishism,” which is basically the autogynephilia theory, and just rename it “Transvestic Disorder”. The creation of the Gender Dysphoria diagnosis, basically, was designed to force the preventive care argument. They didn’t think they could win on trans healthcare being a necessity because healthcare is a human right, so they went with: Trans people have a very high suicide rate, and one way to bring it down is to help them transition. One of the major predictors of suicidality is dysphoria. The more dysphoric someone is, the more likely they are to attempt suicide (source). Therefore, health insurers should fund treatment for gender dysphoria because it was cheaper than paying for emergency room admissions and inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations.

I have spoken to trans scientists about what research exists, and my understanding is: The dysphoria/no dysphoria split is not actually validated in the science. That is, when you research trans people, there is not some huge gaping difference between the experiences, or brains, of people With Dysphoria, and people Without Dysphoria. Mostly, scientists haven’t even thought it was an important distinction to study. The diagnosis wasn’t reflecting a strong theme in the research about trans experiences; that research showed that trans people with all levels of dysphoria were helped with medical transition. The biggest difference is just that dysphoria is a stronger risk factor for suicide. Experiencing transphobia is another strong risk factor, but that’s harder to measure in a doctor’s office, so dysphoria it was.

(I’ve seen some transmedicalists claim that dysphoria’s major feature is incongruence, not distress. And I’ll just say, uh… in psychology, “dysphoria” is the opposite of of “euphoria”, literally means “excessive pain”, and is used in many disorders to describe a deep-seated sense of distress and wrongness. As a mental health professional, I just can’t imagine most of my colleagues agreeing that something can be called “dysphoria” if the person doesn’t feel real distress about it. If you want a diagnosis that doesn’t demand dysphoria, you’d need Gender Incongruence in the upcoming version of the ICD-11, which is the primary diagnostic system used in Europe, published by the World Health Organization.)

2. Doctors are not magic

Medicine is a science, and science is a system of knowledge based on having an idea, testing it against reality, and revising that knowledge in light of what you learned. We’re learning and growing all the time.

I don’t know if this sounds painfully obvious or totally groundbreaking, but: Basically all medical research is done by people who don’t have the condition they’re writing about. Psychology has a strong historical bias against believing the personal testimonies of people with conditions that have been deemed mental disorders, so researchers who have experienced the disorder they’re writing about have often had to hide that fact, like Kay Redfield Jamison hiding that she had bipolar disorder until she became a world-renowned expert on it, or Marsha Linehan hiding that she had borderline personality disorder until she pioneered the treatment that could effectively cure it. Often, having a condition was seen as proof you couldn’t actually have a truthful and objective experience of it.

So what I’m trying to say is: The “gender dysphoria” diagnosis was written and debated, so far as I can tell, by entirely cis committee members. The vast majority of psychological and psychiatric research about LGBT+ people is written by cisgender heterosexual scientists. Most clinical and scientific writing has been outsider scientists looking at people they have enormous power over and making decisions about their basic existence with very little accountability.

And to show you how far we’ve come, I want to show you part of the DSM as it was from 1952 to 1973. It shows you just why so many older LGBT+ people find it deeply ironic that now the DSM is being held up as definitive of trans experience:

302 Sexual Deviation This category is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with coitus, or towards coitus performed under bizarre circumstances as in necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual sadism, and fetishism. Even though many find their practices distasteful, they remain unable to substitute normal sexual behavior for them. This diagnosis is not appropriate for individuals who perform deviant sexual acts because normal sexual objects are not available to them.

302.0 Homosexuality 302.1 Fetishism 302.2 Pedophilia 302.2 Transvestitism […]

Yes, really. That is how psychiatry viewed us. At a time when research from other fields, like psychology and sociology, were showing that this view was completely unsupported by evidence, psychiatry thought LGBT+ people were fundamentally disordered, criminal, and incapable of prosocial behaviour.

My favourite retelling of the decades of activism it took LGBT+ people and allies to get the DSM to change is from a friend who did her master’s thesis on the topic, because she leaves in the clown suits and gay bars, which really shows how scientific and dignified the process was. The long story short is: It took over 20 years of lobbying by LGBT+ people who were sick and tired of being locked up in mental institutions and subjected to treatments like electroshock training, as well as by LGBT+ social scientists, clinicians, and psychiatrists, to get homosexuality declassified as a mental illness. And that was homosexuality; the push to change how trans people were listed in the DSM is very recent, as seen in the latest version listing “Transvestic Disorder”, a description very few trans people ever use for themselves.

Here are a few more examples of how people with a condition have had to take an active part in the science about them:

When HIV/AIDS appeared in the USA, the government didn’t care why drug addicts and gay people were dying mysteriously. Hospitals refused to treat people with this mysterious new disease. AIDS patients had to fight to get any funding put into what AIDS is, how it spreads, or how it could be treated; they also had to campaign to change the massive public prejudice against them, so they could be treated, housed, and allowed to live. Here’s an article on the activist tactics they used. If you want an intro to the fight (or at least, white peoples’ experience of it), you could look into the movies How to Survive a Plague, And the Band Played On, and The Normal Heart.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a little-understood disease that causes debilitating exhaustion. It’s found twice as often in women as men. Doctors understand very little about what it is or why it happens, and patients with CFS are often written off a lazy hypochondriacs who just don’t want to try hard. There are basically no known treatments. In 2011, a British study said that an effective treatment for CFS was “graded exercise”, a program where people did slowly increasing levels of physical activity. This flew in the face of what people with CFS knew to be true: That their disease caused them to get much worse after they exercised. That for them, being forced to do ever-increasing exercise was basically tantamount to torture, so it was very concerning that health authorities and insurance companies began requiring that they undergo graded exercise treatment (and parents with children with CFS had to put their children through this treatment, or lose custody for “medical neglect”). So they investigated the study, found that it was seriously flawed, got many health authorities to reverse their position on graded exercise, and have made strides into pointing researchers to looking into biological causes of their illness.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare but debilitating disease that isn’t researched much, because it affects such a small portion of the population. The ALS community realized that if they wanted better treatment, they would need to raise the money for research themselves. In 2014 they organized a viral “ice bucket challenge” to get people to donate to their cause, and raised $115 million, enough to make significant advances in understanding ALS and getting closer to a cure.

A common treatment for Autism is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), which is designed to encourage “desired” behaviours and discourage “undesired” ones. The problem is, the treatment targets behaviour an Autistic person’s parents and teachers consider desirable or undesirable, without consideration that some “undesired” behaviours (like stimming) are fundamental and necessary to the wellbeing of Autistic people. Furthermore, the treatment involves punishing Autistic children for failure to behave as expected–in traditional ABA, by witholding rewards or praise until they stop, or in more extreme cases, by subjecting them to literal electric shocks to punish them. (In that last case, they’ve been ordered to stop using the shock devices by August 31, 2020. That only took YEARS.) Autistic people have had to campaign loud and long to say that different treatment strategies should be researched and used, especially on Autistic children.

So I mean… I get that the medical model can provide an element of validation and social acceptance. It can feel really good to have people in white coats back you up and say you’re the real deal. But if you get in touch with most LGBT+ and transgender groups, they’d say that there’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to researching trans issues and getting scientific and governmental authorities to recognize your rights to social acceptance and medical treatment.

Within a few years, the definition you’re resting on will turn to sand beneath your feet. The Great DSM Machine will begin whirring into life pretty soon and considering what revisions it has to make. You’ll have an opportunity to make your voice heard and to push for real change. So… do you want to be part of that process of pushing trans rights forward, or do you just want to feel loss because they’re changing your strict definition of who’s valid and who’s not?

3. Scarcity is not a law of physics

One of the major arguments I see transmedicalists push is that there’s only a limited number of surgeries or hormone prescriptions available, so it’s not okay for a non-dysphoric person to “steal” the resources that another trans person might need more. This makes sense in a limited kind of way; it’s a good way to operate if, say, you’re sharing a pizza for lunch and deciding whether to give the last slice to someone who’s hungry and hasn’t eaten, or someone who’s already full.

When you start to back up and look at really big and complex systems–basically anything as big, or bigger, than a school board or a hospital or a municipal government–it’s not a helpful lens anymore. Because the most important thing about social institutions is that they can change. We can make them change. And the most important factor in how much the world changes is how many people demand that it change.

I’ve talked about this before when it comes to homeless shelters, and how the absolute worst thing they can have are empty beds. I used to work in women’s shelters, which came about when second-wave feminists started seriously looking at the problem of domestic violence in the 1960s and 70s, It was an issue male-dominated governments and healthcare systems hadn’t taken seriously before, but feminists started heck and did research and staged demonstrations and basically demanded that organizations that worked for the “public benefit” reduce the number of women being killed by their husbands. Their research showed that the leading cause of death in those cases were when women tried to leave and their partners tried to kill them, so the most obvious solution was to give them someplace safe to go where their partners couldn’t find them. Therefore the solution became: Women’s shelters. When feminists committed to founding and running these shelters, local governments could be talked into giving them money to keep them running.

(Men’s rights activists, the misogynist kind, like to whine about “why aren’t there men’s shelters?” and the very simple answer is: Because you didn’t fight for them, you teatowels. Whether a movement gets resources and funding is hugely a reflection of how many people have said, “This needs resources and funding! Look, I’m writing a cheque! Everyone, throw money at this!” In other news, The BC Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse does great work. People should throw money at them.)

When the system in power knows there are resources it wants and doesn’t have, it finds a way to make them appear. For example, in Canada, the government knows that it doesn’t have enough trained professionals living in its far North, where the population is scarce and not very many people want to live. Doctors and teachers would prefer to live in the southern cities. But because it’s committed to Northern schools and hospitals, they create incentives. For example, the government offers to pay off the student loans of teachers or health professionals who agree to work for a few years in Northern communities.

Part of why trans healthcare resources are so scarce is that for a long time, trans people were considered too small a part of the population to care about. Like, “Trans people exist, but we won’t have to deal with them.” Older estimates said 0.4% of the population was trans, which meant a city of 100,000 people would have 400 trans people. A single family doctor can have 2000 or 3000 clients, so the city could have maybe 1 or 2 doctors who really “got” trans issues, and all the trans people would tell each other to only go see those doctors because all the rest were assholes. And the cracks in the system didn’t really seem serious. A couple hundred dissatisfied people not getting the healthcare they needed? Meh! Hospital administrators had more to worry about!

But the trans population is growing. A recent poll of Generation Z said 2.6% of middle schoolers in Minnesota were some kind of trans. which is 2,600 per 100,000. That’s enough to make hospitals think that maybe the next endocrinologist or OB/GYN they hire should have some training in treating trans people. That’s enough to make a health authority think that maybe the state should open up a new gender confirmation surgery clinic, since demand is rising so much.

Or well, I mean. Hospitals have a lot on their minds. This might not occur to them as their top priority. They’d probably think of it a lot sooner if a bunch of those trans people sent them letters or took out a billboard or showed up by the dozens at a public meeting to say, “Hello, there are a fuckload of us. Budget accordingly. We want to see your projected numbers for the next five years.”

When you’re doing that kind of work, suddenly it hurts your cause to limit your number of concerned parties. Sure, limited focus groups or steering committees can have limited membership, but when you put their ideas into action, to protest something or lobby for political change, you need numbers. If you want to show that you’re a big and important group that systems should definitely pay attention to, you don’t just need every trans or GNC or NB person who’s got free time to devote to your campaign, you also need every cis ally who can pad out numbers or lick envelopes or hand out water bottles or slip you insider information about the agenda at the next board meeting. You need bodies, time, and money, and you get them best by being inclusive about who’s in your party. Heck, if it would benefit your cause to team up with the local breast cancer group because trans women and cis women who have had mastectomies both have an interest in asking a hospital to have a doctor on staff who knows how to put a set of tits together, then there are strong reasons to do it.

Basically: All the time any marginalized group spends fighting over scraps is generally time we could spend demanding that the people handing out the food give us another plate. If you don’t think you’re getting enough, the best answer isn’t to knock it out of somebody’s hands, but to get together to say, “HEY! WE’RE NOT GETTING ENOUGH!”

That kind of work is complicated and difficult! It’s definitely much harder than yelling at someone on Tumblr for not being trans enough. But if you do any level of getting involved with activist groups that fight for real systemic change, whether that’s following your local Pride Centre on Twitter or throwing $5 at a trans advocacy group or writing your elected representative about the need for more trans health resources, you’re pushing forward lasting change that will help everyone.

#staranise original #transmedicalism tw #transphobia tw #homophobia tw #my problems with sj let me show you them

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natsubeatsrock · 3 years

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Should Hiro Mashima die?

My answer is no.

Though, this isn't about actually killing Hiro Mashima. Kinda got you with the title, though, huh? (This was originally going to be titled “Is Hiro Mashima dead?” and released on his birthday. You’re welcome.)

This post is about a widely debated topic of analysis known as the "death of the author." I've talked about this a few different times in passing in a few posts over the years. You could argue that this belongs in my series rewriting Fairy Tail and I considered placing it there. However, I feel that it's better that I keep this detached from that series. This topic concerns criticism of any series. Naturally, being a Fairy Tail blog, I plan on engaging this with the context of Fairy Tail's author being dead or not, hence the title. Still, this is helpful to think about for analysis of plenty of other series.

Again, though, my answer is still no.

Let's start with the origin of this term. The term comes from an essay by Roland Barthes called "La mort de l'auteur". Use your best guess as to what that translates to. I highly encourage you to read the essay as it's pretty short. It's about six or seven pages, depending on the version. There are three main points to his essay.

Creative works are products of the culture they come from and less original than people expect.

The idea of the author as the sole creator and authority of creative works is fairly modern.

The author's interpretation of a work shouldn't be considered the main or only interpretation of a work.

Of these three points, I'm sure you recognize the last point. But first, I want to talk about the other points. I believe it is important to understand the arguments being made as a whole.

The first point should be fairly uncontroversial. The vast majority of creative works use established language, tropes, and elements to create a new thing. I wouldn't go as far as Barthes does in this regard. Not to mention, this is somewhat weird to know considering his third point. However, I agree that creative works should be considered products of the culture and genre they come from.

The second point is a bit trickier for me. To be clear, the point is true. You only have to look at various cultural mythologies as an example. There isn't a single version of the Greek myths. There are several versions and interpretations of the various stories and myths.

Even recent popular fictional characters have had several different interpretations. This is especially true with comics. There have been multiple different Batman interpretations, Spiderman runs, and X-Men teams that fans love. Fans even love and appreciate numerous forms of established characters like Frankenstein's monster and Sherlock Holmes. So, as a consumer and critic of art, I can understand this.

My problem is as a creator of art. I understand this being contentious when it comes to something like religious myths. But, if I create something, I want to get the credit for it. I want people to love my music or writing. But I also want people to recognize me for my skill in crafting it.

This is true even if you hold to the first point Barthes made. Even if you believe that no art is truly unique, isn't the skill of synthesizing the various tropes and influences around a person worthy of credit in and of itself?

Then again, I am not without bias in this. Barthes says that the modern interpretation of the author is a product of the Protestant Reformation. As a Protestant myself, I get that my background plays no part in my view of this. Barthes also blames English empiricism and French rationalism, but personal faith is the biggest influence on me that Barthes lists.

That being said, there's also something Barthes completely misses in his essay. In the past, stories were passed down by oral tradition. As the stories were passed down from generation to generation, they slowly evolved and became what they are known today. Scholars today can gather a general consensus of what a story was meant to be and some traditions were more faithful about passing traditions down than others. However, you can't always tell the original author of a mythological story the same way we know who gave us stuff like the Quran or the Bible.

As time passed, stories were written down. With this, it was easy to share single versions of a story and identify its creator. We know who made certain writing of works even before the 1500s. For example, we have the Travels of Marco Polo and Dante's Inferno and know their authors. We could tell the authors of works were before the Protestant Reformation.

By the way, the Reformation happened to coincide with one of the most important inventions in human history: the printing press. Now you can easily make copies of an individual's works and you don't have to rely on word of mouth to share stories.

I can't stress how important an omission this is. The printing press changed the way we interact with media as a whole and might be the most important invention on this side of the wheel. And yet Barthes doesn't even mention as even a potential factor in "the modern concept of the author"? In his essay about understanding written media? That’s like ignoring Jim Crow in your essay about Birth of a Nation bringing back the KKK.

Now, we get to the final point. The author's original intentions of their works are not the main interpretation. This is understood as being the case after they create the series. Once the work is written and sent into the public, they cease to be an authority on it.

It's worth recognizing how this flows from the other two points. Barthes argued that works of fiction are products of their culture and our current understanding of an author is fairly modern. Therefore, the interpretation of the reader is just as valuable as that of the author. As Barthes himself wrote, "the birth of the reader must be at cost of the death of the author."

At best, this means that a reader can come away with an interpretation of a work that isn't the one intended. With Fairy Tail, my mind goes to the final moments of the Grand Magic Games. My view of Gray's line "I've got to smile for her sake" has to do with romantic feelings for Ultear. I don't know of a single person who agrees with this. Mashima certainly hasn't come out and affirmed this as the right view.

It's good to recognize that a work can have more meanings behind it than the ones intended by its creator. Part of the performing process is coming to a personal interpretation of a work. In many cases, two different performances will have different interpretations of the same work, neither of which went through the creator's mind. At the same time, both work and are valid.

That being said, there is an obvious problem with this: readers are idiots. Not all readers are necessarily idiots. But enough of them are idiots. The views of idiots should have as much weight as that of the creator. Full stop. Frankly, I maintain that idiots are the worst possible sources to gauge anything of note. (At the very least, policy decisions.)

I know this as a reader who has not been alone in misunderstanding a work. I know this as an analyst who has had to sift through all kinds of cold takes on Fairy Tail. (Takes that are proven wrong simply by going through it a second time. Or a first.) And I definitely know this as a creator who has to see people butcher my works through nonsensical "interpretations."

At the same time, the argument Barthes made comes with an important caveat. He also argued that works are the products of the culture and surroundings of the author. Barthes isn’t making the argument that author’s arguments don’t matter.

As far as I can tell, Barthes doesn't take this to mean that those influences are worth analyzing. Doing so would be giving life to the author. However, there should be some recognition that a creative work didn't come to exist out of nowhere. There's a sense in which Fairy Tail didn't just wash up on the shore chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It came to be as part of the culture it came from.

Now, you'll never guess what happened. Over the years, the concept of "death of the author" lost its original intent. Nowadays, people usually only care about the third point. "Death of the author" is only brought up to dismiss "word of God" explanations of work, after its release. I'd venture to guess that most people using the term casually don't know anything about its roots. I honestly don't know how Barthes would feel about this.

I can understand what might fuel this view. A writer should do their best to write their intended meanings in a work. It would be wrong of a writer to make up for their poor writing after the fact. I don't love Mashima's "Lucy's dreams" explanation for omakes. I know Harry Potter fans don't love the stuff J.K. Rowling has said over the years.

At the same time, my (admittedly Protestant) understanding of "word of God" and "canon" is that they have the same authority. After all, the canon IS the word of God. It is a small section of what God has said, but it isn't less than that.

Of course, it's worth recognizing that nearly every writer we're talking about isn't even remotely divinely inspired or incapable of contradiction. This understanding should cut two ways. An author should never contradict their work in talking about it. Write what you want and make clear what you want to. On the other hand, writers can't fit everything they want to in a work. I'll get to this soon, but their interpretation should be treated with some value.

By the way, people will do this while throwing out the other arguments made by Barthes in the same essay. People will outright ignore the culture and context that a work comes from in order to justify their views. Creators are worshiped and praised for their works or seen as the sole problem for the bad views on works.

What worries me most about this modern interpretation of "the death of the author" is its use in fan analysis. People seem to outright not care about the author's intent in writing a story. They only care about their own interpretation of the work. Worse still, people will insist that any explanation an author gives is them covering up their mistakes. Naturally, this often leads to negative views of the work in question.

This is just something I'll never fully understand. It's one thing if you don't like something. If you don't get why something happened, shouldn't your first move be to figure out what the author was thinking? Instead, people move to the idea that it makes no sense and the writer's a hack.

If all of this seems too heady, let's try to bring this down to earth. Should Hiro Mashima die so that his readers can be born?

Hiro Mashima is one of many mangakas who were influenced by Akira and Dragon Ball. He considers J.R.R. Tolkien to be one of his favorite writers. Monster Hunter is one of his favorite game series. He's even written a manga series with the world in mind.

It would make sense to look at Fairy Tail purely through this lens. You could see Fairy Tail as a shonen action guild story. Rather than seeing the guild as a hub for its members, Fairy Tail's members treat those within it as family. Rather than focusing on one overarching quest, the story is about how various smaller quests relating to its main characters threaten their guild. Adopting this view wouldn't necessarily be an incorrect way to engage with the series. (Mind you, I haven’t seen this view shared by many people who “kill Mashima”.)

Though, there's more to Fairy Tail than the various tropes that make it up. If you were to divorce Fairy Tail entirely from its creator, you'd miss out on understanding them. There are ways Mashima has written bits of himself into the series. Things that go farther than Rave Master cameos and references.

My favorite example is motion sickness. I often think back to Craftsdwarf mocking motion sickness as a useless quirk Dragon Slayers have. It turns out that its origin comes from his personal life. Apparently, one of his friends gets motion sickness. He decided to write this as part of his world.

This gets to the biggest reason I don't love "death of the author" as a framework for analysis. I believe the biggest question analysts should answer is why. Why did an author make certain decisions? You can't do this kind of thing well if you shut out the author's interpretation of their own work. Maybe that can work for some things, but not everything.

I've had tons of fun going through Fairy Tail and talking about it over the past seven years. More recently, I've been going through the series with the intent to rewrite the series. I've made it clear multiple times in that series that I'm trying to understand and explain Mashima's decisions in the series. I don't always agree with what I find. However, trying to understand what happened in Fairy Tail is very important to me.

It's gotten to the point that I love interacting with Mashima's writing. I talk about EZ on my main blog. I can't tell you how much fun I've been having. I'll see things and go "man, that's so Mashima" or "wow, I didn't expect that from him." HERO'S was one of my favorite things of last year and I regularly revisit it for fun. It's the simplest microcosm of what makes each series which Mashima has made both similar and distinct.

Barthes was on to something with his essay. I think there should be a sense where people should feel that their views of the media they consume are valid. This should be true even if we disagree with the author's views on the series. But I don't know that the solution is to treat the author's word on their own work as irrelevant.

There's a sense where I think we should mesh the understandings of media engagement. We recognize that Mashima wrote Fairy Tail. There are reasons that he wrote the series as we got it and they're worth knowing and understanding. However, our own interpretation of the series doesn't have to be exactly what Mashima intended. We can even disagree with how Mashima did things.

I know fans who do this all the time. They love whatever series they follow, but wish things happened differently. Fans of Your Lie in April will joke about [situation redacted] as well as write stories where it never happens. You love a series, warts and all, but wish for the series to get cosmetic surgery, or take matters into your own hands.

And who knows? It's not as if fans haven't affected an author's writing of a series. Mashima's the perfect example. I've said this a few times before, but Fairy Tail has gone well past its original end at Phantom Lord (or Daphne for the anime fans). Levy rose to importance as fans wanted to see more of her.

Could Mashima have done that if we killed him?

Before the conclusion, I should mention another way “death of the author“ comes up. People will invoke “death of the author“ to encourage people to enjoy works they love made by messed up people. Given everything we’ve said up to this point, that’s obviously not what should be intended by its use. For now, though, I do think that we can admit that we like the works of someone even if we don’t agree with everything they did as a person. (Another rant for another day.)

In Conclusion:

“Death of the Author” is an imperfect concept, but it’s not without its points. I don’t think we should throw out the author’s intent behind a work. However, we should be able to have our disagreements with the author’s views without killing them.

#fairy tail #hiro mashima #death of the author #i'm back #and what a way to return #i've been meaning to do this forever #fav

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queerprayers · 3 years

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Hi Johanna! :) I'm currently (and have been on and off for a few months) struggling with my view of Jesus' divinity. I have Christian friends who think Jesus = God and friends who think He was just a normal human like us and that's it,, and somehow i feel as if I'm somewhere in between rn? Learning that titles such as "the son of God" were used for normal human leaders at that time really threw me, and also that Jews now and I guess in Jesus' time think the Messiah will just be a normal human, and the "I am" statements in John's gospel were probably not actually said by Jesus but were written by John to kind of describe Him but also John said Jesus was "the word made flesh" not "God made flesh" and like what even is the word exactly??? now I'm thinking there's really nowhere in the new testament that claims that Jesus is God, but then there are things like Collosians 1:15-17 which sounds like it's suggesting it but doesn't explicitly say that Jesus is God...?? So essentially I'm just v confused and was wondering what your beliefs about it all are and why you believe what you believe?? and just really any information or resources you have on the topic would be v much appreciated, thank you so much (also I love your blog!) :))

Hello! This is such a wonderful question that I don't know a ton about, but I love thinking about it and I hope I say/find something that's helpful to you!

I grew up and still identify as Lutheran, so that theology is what I'm familiar with and am influenced by. I and my Lutheran siblings, as well as many other Christians, believe that Jesus was/is fully God and fully Man. Your phrase that you're "somewhere in between right now" makes so much sense to me, although for me it's not so much in between as both! Jesus on earth was born physically, had a human body and genes, ate, laughed, pooped, and died. I believe that, simultaneously, Jesus was God, fully divine. I don't have the words or the knowledge to spout perfect Trinitarian teachings right now (and probably never will), but my favorite description/representation of the Trinity is that God is love, and love is an interpersonal action. So love made manifest cannot be a sole being: God as Lover, Jesus as Beloved, the Holy Spirit as Love. That's only one way to look at it, but even looking a tiny bit into this kind of Trinity theology, you'll learn that we see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three representations of the same God, three in one. This is batshit crazy to many people, including many Christians, and I acknowledge and respect that! It is crazy! Anyway, all that to say that I do believe Jesus is a manifestation of God, but that God took human form and saw through our eyes.

A thought about Martin Luther's opinion: "Luther repeatedly argues that the basis for attributing divinity to Jesus is that the person of faith understands that Jesus Christ has done for humanity what only God can do" ("Martin Luther: A Pure Doctrine of Faith" by Micharl Stoltzfus, Journal of Lutheran Ethics, 2003).

Whether you think anything Jesus said was Him verbally claiming to be God, He, over and over, places himself in the role of God, forgiving people, healing people, and making promises/interpretations for them. I realized this while watching Jesus Christ Superstar (yeah, sue me)— whether or not you believe Jesus is God, Jesus obviously thought so, or at least thought himself at the same level as God. C. S. Lewis has a great point about this in Mere Christianity.

I think your statement that something was ". . . not actually said by Jesus but [was] written by John to . . . describe Him" is a good point about how we look at the Bible— if one believes that every word in the Bible comes directly from God, then that is God describing Themself as Jesus, so Jesus saying something and God dictating it to John would be the same thing! This isn't a criticism, I was just pointing out that what you believe about the Bible will definitely affect how you look at this— just something to think about! I'm not a Biblical literalist (or whatever you want to call it) by any means, but I do lean towards divine inspiration and the Spirit having a hand in the writing of the Bible, as well as acknowledging that the human writers' personal perspective and prejudices shine through.

Your question "What is "the Word" exactly?" is a great one! John uses the Greek word logos in John 1, ("word," "discourse," or "reason") as a title for Jesus, and it's absolutely beautiful. In the Bible, "the Word" is used to describe something that God has decreed, something that God has said when addressing humans, words that God spoke through the prophets, God's written Word (the Bible), and Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus is referred to as the Word in John 1 and Revelation 19. Jesus is these things! He's something God decreed, He is God addressing humans, He has spoken through the prophets— Jesus is the physical manifestation of God's Word.

Oh, one more thing! It's so interesting to talk about what the early Church believed, but I think it's funny when people use it as a "gotcha" when the early Church didn't believe something, and other people do. Like, was the early Church perfect and right all the time? Why can't the disciples and early saints get something wrong that later people got right? So obviously it's important to learn about early Christian theology, but it's not some pure teaching that we have to get back to— it's proof that we're constantly evolving!

Here are some sources/resources/thoughts on stuff I've talked about!

What are the strongest biblical arguments for the divinity of Christ? (Got Questions)

Was the divinity of Jesus a Late Invention of the Council of Nicea? (Canon Fodder)

The Divinity of Jesus: An Early Christian Debate (Cynthia Stewart, Saint Mary's Press)

The Divinity of Jesus & 5 Reasons it Matters (David Guzik, Calvary Chapel)

What the Early Church Believed: The Divinity of Christ (Catholic.com)

What Does the Phrase "the Word of God" Mean? (Don Stewart, Blue Letter Bible)

Logos (Christianity) (Wikipedia)

Scholastic Lutheran Christology (Wikipedia)

A Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on Faith in the Holy Trinity

Who is God—The Trinity? (Holy Cross Lutheran Church)

The mystery of the Trinity (Delmer Chilton, Living Lutheran)

The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy: Studies and Expositions of the Messiah in the Old Testament by Michael Rydelnik & Edwni Blum

Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus Christ by Gerald O'Collins

Is Jesus Truly God?: How the Bible Teaches the Divinity of Christ by Gregory R. Lanier

I'm not sure that I actually answered any questions— I may have just created more, but that is the nature of theology, I'm afraid. Good luck in your learning and thinking, and may you come to your own idea of how to think about and relate to Jesus— there isn't one right way, don't worry. I'm not even claiming that I or my denomination's beliefs are "right," although I do think they're true. (I like differentiating those.)

Thank you so much for your support of my blog, and I hope you have a lovely day/night!

<3 Johanna

#asks #resources #theology #jesus

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chaoticspacefam · 3 years

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wonder if part of why the swtor jedi-sith conflict plays the way it does with “sith stans” and etc because the sith empire are functionally saturday morning cartoon villains - “murder and mayhem await!” compared to the more, i guess, believable evil of the republic/jedi following good ideals to bad conclusions and justifying war crimes

I'd certainly say it doesn't help things, you're right! I have...a lot of issues with the Jedi and their portrayal (especially in the Legends/SWTOR era), but I also recognise that a lot of that is very personal to me and that another fan might feel differently. Long, ranty post ahead so if that's not your deal, skip this one.

TL;DR: thinking critically about the behaviour of the Good Guys bad, I guess, since they're the good guys and you're obviously not allowed to use your own agency to decide something they do makes you deeply, viscerally uncomfortable. And God help you if you disagree with anything they do and cite personal experience behind your (very justified) avoidance of that rhetoric/teaching, because Bad Things Justified If Good People Do Them and how dare you have different personal experiences and responses. If that's what you do, you're doing fandom wrong /s Also, bad writing choices of the writers themselves that perpetuate toxic, harmful viewpoints and/or stereotypes don't mean anything when said viewpoints/stereotypes are the Bad Guys because...Bad Guys Aren’t Supposed To Be People With Rights, Thoughts and Feelings Too, They’re Just Evil, (cringe)

Disagreeing with someone’s opinions is fine, but if you’re going to deliberately expose yourself to content you don’t like and then attack the person that is making the content because they made it and it upset you when you went looking for it....you are, in fact, the one at fault babes. No one is holding you hostage, you can block tags or unfollow a person (especially me. I really don’t care honest to god, if my posts are not your jam just leave. please.) if you hate what they post so much and are unable to just scroll past things you don’t like to stay for things you do. I’ve done it and will continue to do so, and my fandom experience is happier for it. Also, people are human and sometimes we’re tired and we make mistakes like we miss a trigger tag, and you are within your right to come to the person and point that out, but you are not within your right to threaten them because they made a mistake. Then you’re just a dick.

But I still wouldn't be the one going around (passive) aggressively attacking other fans for disagreeing with my opinions and again, this is based on personal experience, but I've seen a lot more of that stuff from "pro-Jedi" people who seem to be conveniently okay with shit like mass-genocide and cultural erasure because "the Jedi are the good guys and the (OT) Sith are fascists!"

I don't interact with the subsect of fans that do think "the (OT) Empire did nothing wrong hurr durr" unironically (and for good reason, I don't agree with that viewpoint either and the fact that half the time the "defence" of these other fans is "well you're pro-fascist then!!" lmao) but there's a very big gap between the OT Empire which is rightfully a mirror of fascism and dictatorial governments and I do, in fact, raise my eyebrows in heavy criticism and disdain at the writers of the TOR-era deliberately choosing to "justify" the ultimate end being said fascist Empire by making the Sith species (and as always I preface this by saying I am in fact white & therefore know I have priveledge and can only "relate" on a much shallower level as POC fans, but there are places where I do find them more relatable than the TOR-era Jedi which reek of conservative, pearl-clutching Christianity (which I spent way too much of my life having forced upon me by the bible-bashing Evangelists(tm) in my family) to me and I just don't have the fucks to give to spend time fixing something that's honestly traumatising for me to be reminded of):

-heavily Indigenous/POC-coded

-"tribal" and not in a properly-researched and respectfully portrayed sense but in a very deliberate "these people are savage and need to be colonised and "sophisticated" by the More Acceptible (Human) Dark Jedi" even though they had their own society, belief systems, and even had technology - just not in the "socially acceptible, conventional sense" I guess

-perpetuating this by adding slavery and all of that can of worms into the mix too, just to drive home the "evil and bad" prototype ig. I'm not even gonna speak more on this part because it just makes me angry.

-Deliberately giving them more "alien" or inhuman characteristics, which while by itself is not necessarily a bad thing, put it together with all the other things?? Big. Fucking. Oof.

-Were literally exterminated and the survivors selectively bred for ONLY the "bad and evil" traits for not agreeing with the Jedi's beliefs. Their own practises and beliefs were automatically "evil" and "wrong" just because they didn't want to "convert" (sniff sniff, Christianity, is that you?)

A direct quote for those who can't be bothered to click and read the link:

For nearly two thousand years, superstition, loyalty and sympathy were bred out as the two groups interbred, and qualities such as cunning, ambition and affinity to the Force were favored, which shaped Sith society over the centuries.[3][21][22] In the Sith Empire, as time progressed pure-blooded Sith were steadily bred out,[6] resulting in only a few pure-blooded Sith left in the Sith Empire by the time of the Great Hyperspace War.[13] Long after, the true species in the Empire were believed to have gone extinct due to the interbreeding process.

And conversely the Jedi:

-Deny young children contact with their parents, siblings and families from the moment their Force sensitivity shows (hmmmm. )

-Continually and actively support the condemnation and Exile of "imperfect" Jedi, hell, it's even pointed out on Wookieepedia, that any Force sensitive, even those who are not aligned to either faction, but that train with or follow teachings that are not Jedi Approved (tm) is labelled as a "Dark Jedi" by the Jedi Order

Although "Dark Jedi" originally referred to a Jedi who had fallen to the dark side, it could also refer to uninitiated Force-sensitives who received no Jedi training but began their careers under another Dark Jedi. Others were simply dark-side users who did not follow the teachings of the Sith or other dark side organizations.

because "oh noooo you do not follow the way of the Truth and the Light you horrible person how dare you defy The One True Correct Teaching, that makes you the Devil Incarnate no matter what" UGH.

-Continuously push the idea (very heavily) that Emotions Are Bad, which just creates a bunch of emotionally-stunted powderkegs unable to recognise, confront and deal with said emotions (and as I've said, I would know, I was one and maybe still am in some ways lmao) , then blames said powderkeg for exploding because they were never taught how to handle the emotions in the first place.

(Fuck "there is no emotion, there is peace", that's not how people work and never will be lmao)

I don't really know what else to say about this to be honest, because even though I've only been on tumblr about a year now, I'm already tired of this constant "I'm right, you're wrong" finger-pointing between those people in the fandom.

Cause to some of these "pro-Jedi" people it's an unthinkable crime to dare to have a different opinion to them and just want to be left alone, I guess. I've literally been attacked for saying "I don't like the Jedi and find dealing with their dogma too traumatising based on personal experience and trauma from my childhood so I'm going to avoid it but you do you"

I've had American Christians (tm) clap back to that with the ever-wonderful "LMAO bitch you don't have religious trauma, you didn't grow up in the bible-belt, stop trying to be edgy, shut up and go to therapy"

(all of this is sarcasm, for those who need me to spell it out for you. I'm still traumatised by the shit I went through and have to constantly check myself and my own feelings because of the toxic "habits" those teachings tried to push onto me as a child and I have zero tolerance and patience for your (not you, ssalmon, but the royal "you" as it were) victim-blaming abuse apologism "gotchas")

because 1) clearly American Christianity and the bible-belt are the only insidious and harmful subsect of Christianity and it's not like the concept of Evangelism as a whole is inherently toxic, harmful, and traumatising to those subjected to it right 2) Obviously there's a Stated Right Way To Be Traumatised and anyone who falls outside of that (Non-Existent) handbook is "faking it for attention" 3) bold of them to assume that curating my own fandom (and life) experience, and refusing to engage with things that trigger me, isn't something that I literally fucking learned in therapy lmao

Also, I find it funny how these are the people going around attacking people like me, who are literally minding our own motherfucking business, but then claim to preach “love and tolerism” and all this other bullshit. Karen, sweetie, only one of us is going around telling people they deserve to be murdered/stabbed for disagreeing with thier opinion about a videogame and pointing out that “hey, that’s...very yikes maybe don’t do that, step back and calm down” and it ain’t me (true story, this happened a couple of months ago and I don’t wanna dredge the post up because it’s very upsetting to think about) People are allowed to have opinions, and they don’t have to agree with your opinion just because that’s what you think, and the second that you sink to sending people death threats because they don’t share your opinion, you are, in fact, the asshole in that conversation.

It was even funnier because the person in question followed me first, I initially thought they were pretty cool so I followed back, then they threw a massive temper-tantrum and threw a bunch of very upsetting and triggering shit at me without my consent because I didn’t agree with them (I’d even put my opinions in tags on MY blog in an attempt to be courteous and not hijack their post with negativity, in hindsight perhaps I should have made my own post in the first place and I do acknowledge that BUT if that’s all they’d said I would have apologised and moved on, quite gladly, there was no need for them to explode the way they did at me for...making a mistake because I’m a stranger on the internet who didn’t know them & wasn’t a mind-reader and I happened to miss a trigger tag that I didn’t think of at the time lmao)

This post is getting awful long and rambly so I'm going to shut up now, but that's my take on it I guess, I hope that's what you were getting at and if it's not I apologise, I've been taking a huge step back and actively just avoiding any and all major posts related to this discourse as of a few months ago because it just infuriates and upsets me too much, it’s not worth the detriment to my mental health, I’m just here to make friends who are also hyperfixated on SWTOR and have fun vibing and talking about our characters, not get into one-sided morality debates with pearl-clutchers. 🤷

#swtor critical #fandom critical #jedi critical #tw: stabbing mention #tw: death threats #tw: genocide mention #elven rants #elven screams into the void #<< vent-y/ranty tags. block these + any specific faction/character criticals if you don't want to see posts like this #i think i've got all the triggers but if i've missed something just approach me like a normal human being and ask me to tag for it #and i will lmao that's literally in my blog's blurb but Some People can't read ig #🤷#i'd even tag some of this as #purity culture bullshit #because imo that's what it boils down to in essence #''love and forgiveness the only morally good pure way to live hee hee anyone who does not do this exactly is Bad and Evil''#i am begging you to find other braincells purity police. and then actually learn to USE THEM. please

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