#no one is just Normally Culturally Religious and it's WEIRD | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

impybutt · 1 year

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Sezak had never seen a leather jacket before. What cause would someone ever have to wear another's skin? It struck him as alarming, to say the least.

Exposure risk wasn't something he or many others ever considered: His people were designed for efficiency, just like the rest of the spacefaring races. Or, that's what he assumed. It's common knowledge, isn't it?

Genome mapping is just the norm, and entire civilisations have been curated from raw materials, Sezak's included. It's far more energy and resource efficient than terraforming, in any case. That's what it takes to reach the stars: curated efficiency.

No one ever did it just by trial-and-error, did they?

But here was Suri, a Human, wearing the skin of... what did she call it? Some other kind of mammal, he forgot the name. Something absurdly simple. Anyway, apparently this is just normal for Humans!

"But why?" Sezak asked, incredulous. "What's the point?"

"Well, these days thanks to climate control and artificial atmosphere, it's mostly a style thing. But you know, early humans back on earth, why would you just leave a perfectly good skin to rot when you could wear it for protection?"

"Protection from what!? Under what circumstance are you finding an unused skin?? Wait-- is this another religious thing? I've heard that Humans have a lot of those, and they don't always make sense from the outside."

Suri looked confused (or constipated? Human faces are deceptively complex, it takes a long time to learn how to read them), and seemed to be studying Sezak for a moment. Her eyes darted over his synthetic clothing briefly, with its cultural flairs and decorative adornments, all carrying the signature texture of replicated matter.

Then, with sudden clarity, "Oh! Humans weren't curated, mostly we're organic."

Well, that's just absurd.

Sezak muffled his involuntary 'kek-kek' with a quick apology, covering his mandibles.

"Pardon me, that means your entire lineage came from raw evolution. That takes billions of years, I find it very unlikely."

"Yeah," Suri was nonplussed. "The leather is a throwback to when our ancestors had to survive in the wild. We hunted our meat, then used what was left for tools and clothing. It's actually a pretty proud part of our history; Earth was habitable, but definitely not easy."

Now it was Sezak's turn to look constipated, which never happened because his people weren't curated with such a terrible design flaw.

"So humans just bumbled their way into space on their own, like a larva figuring out how to fly? All... clumsy and inelegant, and... Messy? Without any outside help? Without any climate-matching!? Is that why you have those absurd suits!?"

"Yeah, it's also why our bodies just malfunction in weird ways for no obvious reason," Suri looked a little too amused at Sezak's undisguised horror - not that Humans are essentially raw nebula mobilised by a star's age of convenient mutations, but that they exist in such a state of volatility with no apparent qualms about it.

"Oh great wells," Sezak breathed, reeling from his new perspective. "So many of you wear leather. Hold on, is that why Vikram is always visiting the health centre?"

Suri's eyes crinkled, and she bared her teeth -- in a laugh, okay. Sezak recognised the 'kek-kek' noise humans make in thrill, though theirs is a more glottal 'hach-hach'.

"Yes, Vikram has auto-immune issues. Which means that sometimes, his immune system will attack his own body depending on the irritant. Or weather. Or his cortisol levels."

Sezak stared at Suri for a long time, trying to figure out if she was pranking him.

"I think I have a lot of reading to do," he muttered, incredulous.

"Start with the human eye, it's an absolute mess. Do you know how little it takes to detach a human retina?"

"WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS"

#hfy #humans are space orcs #sci-fi #writing prompt #prose #short story #this premise has been rattling around in my head for a while #that humans are the only space-faring race without a tailored genome #and all the other aliens are freaked out by it #seriously it takes under 4 minutes for me to get sunburnt #yet somehow my genes have survived

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fagcrisis · 3 months

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pondering time. i was raised buddhist right and i consider myself religious despite the fact that i rarely practice anymore. and there is a couple of reactions ill encounter in lefty/anarchist circles when mentioning that im religious

one is that they immediately assume im christian and get mad at me for it, the other is weird apprehension, and there is also the "im not religious im spiritual" type of person. and all of these people when i tell them i was raised buddhist, will tell me that oh, that doesnt count, buddhism isnt a religion its more like a philosophy

which betrays such a fundamental misunderstanding of what religion is, because they all base their idea of religion on the type of western christianity (catholicism in hungarys case) that they grew up with. i dont like this arguement because first of all buddhism does still have like, mythology and fucking whatnot and also its a fucking orientalist ass attitude to have towards any religion

but also like the spiritualist bit annoys me as well, bc theres this weird thing of like, oh well its fine to believe in crystals and self care and do tarot but as soon as it has history and u were raised with it it sucks and is bad actually. its a really weird like, individualist approach to what religion actually is

this post doesnt have a point im just kind of vaguely annoyed at people. u cant just stop at "guys im so edgy i think god is evil" even christianity is so varied and practiced in so many different ways by so many different cultures that you cant condemn it as a whole. also be normal about religious people maybe

#galléros fecó naplója

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djuvlipen · 10 months

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It's so hard being a Romani lesbian. It feels contradictory at best, unthinkable at worst. You are raised with the explicit goal to become a wife and to have children one day. I can't remember the first time my mother talked to me about marriage, but I remember being around 6 and being told that I will have a wedding one day, that it will be the most important day of my life and that I would make my family so happy. Growing up I'd constantly, almost daily hear about having children and having a boyfriend and getting married some day. It was always one of the most important topics of conversation. Your relatives - even your female relatives - don't seem to think you can make decisions by yourself, for yourself. Everything you wear, everything you say, everything you do is about appealing to men. When I was 5 I asked my mom if I could wear a dress to go outside because it was very sunny and she just told me I wanted to dress that way because I was in love with the male friend that I had. If you want to wear jewellery, if you wear "revealing clothes", that means you want to flirt with a man. This is not even an inconscious, internalized mindset: it is very overt and I was explicitly told that anything I did was because I was in love with a man - a classmate, a friend, a neighbour, an adult family friend (yes, even if I was 8), a male relative. I felt disgusting anytime I wanted to dress the way I wanted because I felt I was inviting men to have sexual thoughts about me.

As a Romani little girl you are groomed to accept relationships with men, especially older men. When I was about 8, my then 15yo sister invited me to her bedroom and showed me condoms and told me that I would need them one day. When we were 12, my female cousins all had boyfriends. My female cousins usually got their first serious relationship at 14-15yo. Two of my cousins had their first kid before they turned 17 (one was with a 28yo man). And this is seen as normal and you're weird for criticizing them. Any heterosexual intercourse is seen as good, as a positive value. The majority of my Romani female relatives sided against another relative of ours who had been raped by her stepfather. My mother and my sister also sided with my abuser and told me that I was being unfairly mean to him because he is my stepfather and I should be nicer, actually.

When I was 12, I had never had a boyfriend. All my other relatives, both male and female, started piling on me. We had family gatherings almost every couple of weeks, and the conversation would always somehow land on me. I was told I was weird, I was a dyke, I was probably a lesbian, my mother usually said she didn't want me to be some ugly dyke but she would also say that I was so mean to her for not coming out to her. This was discussed among my relatives while I was in the room. My mother usually pressured me every couple of nights to tell her if I was a "dyke". Because even though my group doesn't practice child marriages anymore, it's still the norm for Romani girls to be in serious relationship with (older) men when they are in middle school, and you are the weird one for not fitting that norm.

When gay marriage was being debated in my country, I was in middle school and my mother's favourite joke was about a gay teenager committing suicide. It was a joke made by a stand-up comedian and she would listen to it once in a while when driving me to school.

And I am so lucky because my family isn't even very traditional. They aren't even religious. Most Roma are very intense about religion. In my country, there are a lot of Evangelical Christian Roma, who told me that lesbian Roma should be murdered, should be ousted, that gay Romani teenager should be beaten by their parents, should be thrown on the street, that lesbian Romani Holocaust survivors should have been killed. All under the guise of "culture". Because a lot of those people have a "let it be" attitude when it comes to non-Romani LGBT people, but they don't extend that attitude to their own kids.

And then I talk to antiracist and "progressive" Romani activists, usually male, usually straight, who tell me that "being Romani is about being raised with Romani culture and embracing and respecting that culture", but what does that mean for LGB Roma who are constantly being bullied and abused by their own family and community? Heterosexuality lies at the core of Romani culture and LGB Roma won't be free until we start challenging religions and the patriarchal and homophobic bias engraved in Romani culture

#roma #lesbian tag #homophobia #rape tw #incest tw #i fucking hate those evangelical christians lol #original post

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olderthannetfic · 9 months

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/724781513472868352 I resonate with this on a deep level. I get told at college all the time that I don't look LGBT+ (they refuse to say queer, respectability politics is a helleva drug), I don't act it, no queer person is into my major or my hobbies, and it's weird that I'm queer but not into astrology or dressing more aesthetically ("are you a cottagecore or a dark academia gay?" I'm neither I'm a me) or playing Pokemon because outgrowing Pokemon is for cishets. People talk about gays/LGBT+ not being able to drive or do math or sit normally and then act like I'm some kind of ridiculous weirdo for not laughing at what they assure me is a true statement that does not apply to them or to me. People encourage me to experiment with my style or hair and "come out of your shell". I am informed I need to listen to certain musicians because all LGBT+ people are into them. It's weird that I'm not. It's even weirder I don't like The Owl House or hate Steven Universe or keep up with Heartstopper like the good queers do.

Basically it all boils down to, "Why can't you be more normal? Why can't you be like us?"

Because I'm not. My dad is a Pashtun Muslim and my mother is a Bukharan Jew. I have lived in the Deep South half my life and Wyoming the other half. My media interests are unrelated to queer rep and wholly based on liking the plots of things. I grew up on oldies and TV shows like Starsky and Hutch that my parents loved, pirated and played on repeat. I don't believe in astrology, I'm not a witch and I'm not an atheist with a Christocentric worldview who assumes all religions are Christianity Lite. I don't listen to the correct musicians mostly because I discover music entirely by accident and have a mishmash of genres and bands in rotation. Pokemon fell off and I'm not into it. I would sooner die than dye my Pashtun red hair that people made fun of me for as a kid. I like wearing button downs, clean shirts, nice jeans and my Magen David. None of this is incompatible with being queer. No one is going to kick me out of a gay club for not having played Pokemon Violet or listening to Tracy Chapman or trusting in science over crystals for healing.

And I really hate that after years of being avoided and pitied in high school by jackass backwards rednecks for being weird, I got to my dream university, the university in the most liberal city in Montana, and get the same fucking treatment.

Commenters like the one anon mentioned remind me of all the people who act like I'm doing it wrong. What is 'it', in that sentence? Living my life. Being queer. And when it crops in fandom - and I've gotten it sometimes for writing queer characters who are like me, Southern and into uncool shit and not sharp dressers and religious - it just makes me want to start screaming.

I am queer. I am not incorrectly queer. I am who I am and therefore, because I am queer, that is a correct way to do queerness.

Some gripes about Gen Z are overblown but this weirdly narrow view of what queerness is allowed to look like or be is 100% as awful as other generations say it is and it's fucking exhausting to live through. I don't have to sit differently in order to be doing queerness right or be unable to drive. I exist and I am queer and that is all I need to do and be.

I wish fandom was different from real life. I wish it was more open to the reality that queer people have a multitude of backgrounds and lived experiences. We're facing enough shit IRL, can't we just have one place where we're NICE to each other?

As a 40+ queer, I'm laughing myself sick at the current crop of "required" queer interests.

In my day, it was oldschool cis gay male culture for the men (think being obsessed with Bette Davis) and But I'm a Cheerleader and Dykes to Watch Out For for the women or something.

Not that you have to like any of those things either. It's just hilarious how clueless people are about what's a temporary trend that will probably be different in 5 years.

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mychlapci · 4 months

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bit of a set of weirder headcanons but i think the autobots are fucking freaks when it comes to sex. like the cons are all rough and tough with each other but kinky interfacing comes with a level of trust in your partner that only the autobots have with each other

i feel like public interfacing is relatively accepted among autobots. you go to get your morning fuel in the canteen and sunstreaker has bluestreak pinned against the bulkhead. average fucking tuesday. oh the medibay is having a slow day with few patients, ratchet has first aid warming his spike as he's going through datapads, keeping one servo firmly wrapped around aid's waist as he squirms helplessly. command meetings have like, a 50% chance to get derailed by prowl's chestplate accidentally popping open to reveal his fat tits and jazz just starts sucking on them and then ironhide smacks optimus' panels and oh god there's an orgy now

kink nights just being a common thing among the autobots. mechs can sign up to do scenes with certain partners or just sit on the sidelines and watch it all go down.

a few of the decepticons end up defecting and they get a weird sense of culture shock with how common it is to see interfacing since in con culture that's stupid slag that only softies participate in. actually i think the decepticons would have a completely separate culture regarding interfacing. i think they would be kinky, but they wouldn't consider the bonding/emotional effects of interfacing unless they're real sappy. like interfacing is to blow off steam after a battle, not for having fun with your comrades

drift joins the wreckers and hot rod gives him the best head of his life and then when they cuddle up next to each other drift just has to fucking sit there wondering why no one in the cons cuddled after fucking because this is actually really nice. he gets bent over a table the next morning by blurr and then kup shoves his spike into drift's intake and oh primus drift is having a religious experience now with how well he's getting pounded

i'm going to beam the image of ratchet walking around the ark with his tits fully out and a pair of pretty golden chains pierced through his nozzles and a few particularly handsy bots reach over and tug on them as he passes.

-burnt ice anon

YES. i've seen some instances of “public sex normalized in cybertronian society” and i am LIVING for it. I like the culture shock aspect of it being only autobots who are so open-minded.

A recently defected decepticon just trying to fit in and adapt to the new way of living and they were wholly unprepared to just walk in on people fucking all the time. They walk in on Prowl in his office chair with Jazz slowly grinding against his spike, the sound of his valve gushing is so loud and yet Prowl just keeps on typing away on his data-pad, only occasionally wincing in pleasure. They go to the med-bay next instead but Ratchet's got First Aid sitting on his spike, and it's still weird. They're sitting in the canteen and someone just starts melting right next to them, overloading silly around a remote control vibrator while their partner watches from across the table. Optimus regularly getting jerked off under the desk during high-command meetings, he's pretty sure his side of the desk is completely stained with transfluid from below. Also thank you so much for the image of Ratchet walking around with his titties out. I bet you everyone's sick that day, and absolutely need to be admitted to the medbay and see the doctor right now. He spends the day smacking away wandering hands, though he's only playing hard to get.

hrghhh kink nights with different themes. They get to vote on them weekly. Sometimes a volunteer gets chained and strung up and used repeatedly throughout the night, repeatedly checked up so they're sure he's alright. Sometimes there's pet-play, bots on leashes being told to “go play” with the other pets (i really want to see Sunstreaker for pet-play night… Sunny letting Bluestreak put a leash on him, gritting his teeth the entire time because he's being treated like a domesticated turbofox and it's humiliating and yet it feels so damn good… Sunstreaker rubbing his valve against someone else's, while his owner coos encouragement at him). Or you have simple orgy nights, where people can just blow off steam having sex with anyone. Glory holes in the bathroom that are frequented regularly. Wrecker orgies that shock Drift to the very core but they're fun and he can't complain. And the aftercare is peculiar. They never had anything like that back in the decepticon order.

#valveplug #yes yes yes i love public sex

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rongzhi · 1 year

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kind of a hot take and maybe a bit offensive and blasphemous: confucianism was? is? kinda... off putting,, i find it weird that this guy existed in a point in time irl, and now we've come to think of him as a god figure?? he was real, and was probably a normal dude who got some different ideologies that people supported, and then now there's a religion. it's sus, not like muhammad from islam or moses from the bible, we have no tangible records that those people existed at all, or if they were of real people they dont have dates and times or documentation besides the scripture. perhaps this is something unique to china in the sense that their religions kind of have dates and that existence is not just confined to religious scripture if you know what i mean?? laozi, the founder of taoism, possibly exists in some accounts, and in others he is immortal, but its possible to think the guy existed.. idk sorry if this makes no sense to you.. i'm not even going to open the can of worms that is cultural minorities and their religions that i do not have the authority to even speak of knowledgeablely?? china is a melting pot of socio-cultural stuff i couldnt possibly understand without actually being there and i acknowledge that as an agonostic diaspora with one lone braincell that blasts rasputin all the time

actually wouldnt it be funny if elon musk started his own religion like confucius or whatever i think that would be funny i wouldnt call it a religion itd be a cult and an mlm simultaneously

This took a hot second to reply to because I went down oh so many an unnecessary side quest. But is it really a reply from me if I don't talk about something else instead?

I am going to put this in the nicest most neutral way possible because a) I got nothing going on at this particular time, and

b) to your credit, I feel like you could hear yourself in your head sounding dumb as hell but just decided to hit snooze on those alarm bells and sent me this ask instead of turning to google first:

confucianism was? is? kinda… off putting,, i find it weird that this guy existed in a point in time irl, and now we've come to think of him as a god figure??

Confucius (Kongzi) did not start a religion. Confucianism is a school of philosophy first and foremost. He may be somewhat mythologised as a major historical figure, sure, but his primary influence is that of a philosopher and as the "father of Chinese ethics". He is revered as a great thinker, not a god. Comparable example: Socrates.

Confucianism is not a religion the way you might be thinking about it. There may be folk religion/religious practices that go into it, as Confucianism in Chinese society is heavily blended with aspects of folk religion, Buddhism, and Daoism, but Confucianism is not like Christianity where the namesake was/is deified by its followers.

In fact, fun fact, this was so much so the reality that was a point of criticism against Jesuit missionaries in the Ming Dynasty and perhaps a contributing factor (in addition to fundamental culturally-based world view differences) for why the Jesuits failed so hard at converting the Chinese masses to Catholicism/Christianity; they would try to explain Jesus in terms of Confucius teaching, and in turn, Confucius, which those who rejected the Jesuit teachings found incredulous.

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Side note time! when it comes to Confucius and what he said about religion/spirituality，he's often quoted as saying "敬鬼神而远之", "respect gods and demons/spirits from a distance", which, fun fact, Matteo Ricci (Jesuit missionary) uses in an argument to piggyback off the Chinese understanding of spirits to explain the Holy Spirit (i.e, the more important spirit to be worshipped who, unlike ancestor (spirit) worship, is the key to salvation) in his book "The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven", written in Chinese. He points to the quote by Confucius as paradoxical because Confucius confirms the existence of spirits and encourages ancestor worship but also says to distance spirits, which, from Ricci's POV makes no sense if the point of ancestor worship is to curry favor with the spirits.

故仲尼曰：「敬鬼神而远之。」彼福禄、免罪非鬼神所能，由天主耳。而时人谄渎，欲自此得之，则非其得之之道也。夫「远之」意与「获罪乎天，无所祷」同，岂可以「远之」解「无之」而陷仲尼于无鬼神之惑哉？(source, 581) So Confucius said: "Respect gods and demons/spirits from a distance". Happiness, position, and longevity and absolution [of sin] can only be handled by God. Yet contemporaries flatter [the spirits of ancestors] to obtain their [favor], but this is not the way to do it. This "from a distance" and "when you sin against Heaven, [there is] no one to pray [to]" are the same. How could "from a distance" and "there is no [gods and demons/spirits" trap Confucius in [the puzzle] that there are no gods or demons/spirits? (^rough translation)

What I feel he takes out of context is that in the source of the idiom, Confucius is responding to a student who is asking him what the meaning of knowledge/wisdom/intelligence is. His full response is "务民之义敬鬼神而远之可谓知矣", "The meaning is to serve the people. Respect gods and demons/spirits from a distance—this could also be called wisdom". Confucianism generally holds that ancestor worship and similar rituals are necessary to society but that religious fanaticism and superstition should be discouraged. To Confucius, worship to spirits based on etiquette (which is respectful) are important to creating a stable and peaceful society. Devout belief/zealotry/fanaticism and indulgence in gods/demons/spirits/superstition is profane, so one should keep their distance and stick to rational respect for spirits (ritual). This is how Confucianism can actually be compatible with Christianity, although from Ricci's standpoint, he sees contradictions in Confucius because to him, ancestor worship to curry favor rather than worship to god IS the superstitious behavior and is blasphemous in the face of his god.

Fun food for thought aside, if you're wondering: Jesuits mostly got for milked for hundreds of years for their knowledge of things relating to science and math, which the Chinese considered as being part of knowledge that was once known but then lost in earlier dynasties due to political instability. Then ironically their favor began to decline when the Manchus instated the the Qing dynasty and in an effort to obtain more support from their Han subjects, adopted Confucianism philosophies more strictly.

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Basically, most of your vague questions here could probably be cleared up if you read up more on what Confucianism actually is and what its relationship to Chinese society is.

I can understand how this might be confusing if you are diaspora but grew up agnostic and only have the vague framework of, let's face it, Christianity in western society to base your understanding of religion off of, but I don't think it's thaaaaat unique to China for historical figures to be mythologised, either as the center of religions, folk religions, folk lore/legend, philosophies, or religious philosophies. Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus of Nazareth, for example. The Catholic saints. (Edit: also, Muhammad did exist historically and there's decent evidence to suggest that Laozi did as well, though these were not their birth names most likely).

#text #answered ask #also elon musk is already basically a cult of personality #and unless he finds a magically unscathed new scripture in a burning tesla i don't see him becoming a religious founder any time soon #long post #孔子 #religion #additional fact i forgot to add but won't edit in bc it's not that important: not only did manchu adherence to confucianism cause #the decline of jesuit influence，the pope of the time banned ancestral worship by chinese catholics which eventually led to the expulsion of #jesuit missions in china #and the decree wasn't reversed until like 200 years later #so they basically played themselves

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terulakimban · 1 year

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The “cultural Christianity” stuff is making the rounds again. And what I think a lot of people who object are missing about that designation is that you have to actually leave a culture to not be part of it anymore, and even then, it will still shape a lot of how you first react to things.

I’m American. I have spent, collectively, a grand total of four months (rounded up) outside the US. My parents were born here. My grandparents were born here. I am pretty definitively culturally American, for all that literally no one in my family identifies as “American” before they identify as “Jewish.”

I can say American culture sucks. There’s a lot about it (yes, I know there’s more than one. Yes, they can be quite different. Yes, there can be a great deal of tension between them. No, that doesn’t necessarily make that much difference from the outside. Yes, that is quite relevant to the extended metaphor I’m going for here) that does. What I can’t do is say I’m not actually a part of it. I’m a citizen. I’m surrounded by other Americans at pretty much all times. I’m not emigrating, I’m not making a point of immersing myself in specific local expat communities as a cultural immersion thing. I’m certainly not “from no country.” I definitely don’t have a more objective sense of American culture than someone who isn’t American and is living here reluctantly. I may have a more in-depth sense of it, but there’s no way they don’t have the basics down, because it is fucking everywhere, and they are constantly running into people who are trying to make them assimilate into it (further) in some sort of attempt to help them be normal. And they, unlike me, have a sense of what it looks like in comparison to something else.

Now. Let’s say I decide I hate America and everything it stands for and I don’t want to live here. But my family’s here, and I’ve got positive memories. I don’t have the money to go somewhere else. So rather than actually leave, I develop a deep fixation on another country. Maybe it’s based on a shallow understanding from stereotypes, maybe it’s a genuine respectful interest. But surrounding myself with a bunch of other Americans while we go on about... I dunno, how much we love England and tea does not erase how we’ve spent our whole lives being American, and it certainly doesn’t erase how we’re still living in America. Let’s say I take it a step further. Let’s say I actually emigrate somewhere. There’s two extremes. Either I fully immerse myself in my new country. I learn the language, I participate in the culture, I genuinely try to immerse myself. Or, I feel uncomfortable because things are weird and different and not quite what I’m used to, so I surround myself with a bunch of other American expats, and we spend all of our time talking about America. Maybe we talk about how much we hated it and how awesome we are for leaving it and how much it sucks and how everyone who’s there is terrible. Maybe we talk about the good things. But we’re still centering our existence around America.

But even in the first of those options, where I genuinely try to acculturate, there’s still going to be things that pop up for the rest of my life where those initial few decades of life in the US will shape my expectations. Maybe they’ll be small things “oh right, sales tax is listed on prices here.” Maybe they’ll be big things “excuse me, what just happened in parliament?” But I will always have that American lens with me. Even if I hate it. Even if I found it traumatizing. That’s not a moral judgement on me, it’s just how formative life experiences work. I can become not-American. I can’t become never-American.

Cultural existence in a religious framework -any religious framework -works the same way, because religion both has and shapes culture. When I bitch about the omnipresence of cultural Christianity, I’m not calling anyone who is culturally Christian bad. I’m complaining about the pervasiveness of Christian hegemony. When I complain about culturally Christian atheists (which I only ever do in the context of specific behaviors by specific people), I’m not saying “these people are terrible and unredeemable,” I’m saying “there is a very clear pattern of people taking the step of saying they dislike Christianity but then trying to enforce Christian hegemony by claiming the parts they like are secular, thereby effectively coming across from an outside perspective as a continuation of the general attempt at forced Christianization.”

If you hated the Christian family you grew up with and everything about them and Christianity but like Christmas and want to celebrate it, that’s fine. Genuinely happy for you you’ve got something you enjoy! Have fun! Nog your eggs! Deck your halls! Call it Festivus and put up a pole instead of a tree! Do an anti-Christmas where you decorate with Halloween decorations in Santa costumes and celebrate with spooky stuff! But that doesn’t make it secular. It makes it you finding the one bright spot you had in darkness and hanging onto it. I sincerely respect that -it’s difficult to do. The thing is, I’m not in that darkness, and you trying to insist everyone have that light of yours comes across as yet another person shining the interrogation light of “why can’t you just be normal like me” in my face.

I don’t want Christmas. I want freedom from it. “Everyone can have Christmas” in response to “I don’t want Christmas” doesn’t come across as a friendly offer to share. It comes across as an aggressive attempt to force assimilation specifically on people who say they’re actively fighting it.

#longpost #Silamy likes to ramble

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sophieinwonderland · 23 days

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r/systemscringe's self-proclaimed "Tumblr Lore Historian" spewing mass amounts of misinformation

Why? Why can't you coordinate alters like this?

It's pretty well-known that alters can communicate internally. Everyone with even a basic understanding of DID is aware of this.

And researchers have had alters voluntarily switch in an fMRI machine!

There is neurological proof of DID systems being able to control switches!

"I don't know if this is possible or not but I don't like you talking about your experiences with your own mental illness in a funny way."

(Is this even about DID? I don't know if it's from a good plural culture blog or an anti-endo one. I'm just going to talk about it as if it were about DID.)

Also... this is actually about a negative experience. Sure, it's presented in a lighthearted way and is intended to be humorous... but it's not a good or positive experience.

And this makes the whole thing feel ableist for far more reasons than just the normal pluralphobic ones. This seems aimed at policing people with disorders of all kinds being able to joke about their own disorders!

Because to these ableists, even joking about negative aspects of your disorder is somehow glamorizing it.

The only emotion these people think you should be able to express towards your disorders is self-loathing.

And WHY WOULDN'T THIS BE POSSIBLE?

All they're describing is one alter waking up and turning the alarm off, and someone else fronting later.

Having multiple alters who switch throughout the day is the defining characteristic of DID!

Do you know anything about DID?

Yes, yes. You're ableist and hate people with disorders making jokes about them. We established that above.

More importantly, have you opened the DSM? Because alters of gods and spirits isn't that weird!

Yes, DID systems form alters based on religions! You should know this!

What is your obsession with Hazbin Hotel?

Again, religious alters are common enough experiences that they're literally described in the DSM itself.

Yes? That sounds like what they're describing.

Why not?

We already established in the beginning that some systems can control who is fronting. This has been proven for a fact with fMRI scans.

So why wouldn't a system be able to turn things into a game to see who could do their tasks the quickest?

Maybe. Maybe it's because you're a bitter person who hates people ever enjoying themselves and being happy. 🤷‍♀️

I think if you're scrolling through and getting irrationally angry at people not being miserable, you should actually analyze why you're feeling that way before you make posts making fun of them.

(Also, the tone here isn't "funny." It's excited at actually being recognized by a friend.)

Oh? Why don't you prove it then?

Like you said, you're not a professional!

So cite one! If you think alters can't form that easily, back that opinion up with someone who actually does know what they're talking about!

"I'm just someone who knows..."

No. You don't! You haven't studied this. You aren't relying on information from anyone who actually has. You're confidently shouting your uneducated and wrong opinions about a disorder you've demonstrated time and time again that you know NOTHING about, based entirely on what you've heard from other equally uneducated people on the internet!

I think we can tell the difference between a fictional character we have control over, and something that is completely autonomous, regularly interacts with us directly, and has autobiographical memories of those interactions.

Also, while there are many disorders that can cause voice hearing and seeing a doctor is a good idea if you can, it's worth noting that voice hearing in children is more associated with DID than psychotic disorders.

90% of DID systems start hearing their alters before the age of 18, compared to 28% of schizophrenic people with maltreatment and 38% with maltreatment.

But of course, having people in your head also isn't a disorder, and if you think you have a sentient voice in your head that isn't yours, you can check out my test to find out:

Notably, your average writing character should NOT be able to pass this test.

#syscourse #sysblr #multiplicity #pro endo #pro endogenic #actually a system #psychiatry #psychology #writing #reddit #r/systemscringe #hate group #hate groups #systemscringe #ableism #ableists #sanism

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vriskabot · 2 months

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do you have any davris headcanons?

i saw this ask the instant it came in and i could not believe my EYES. trust when i tell you ive been typing FURIOUSLY in the meantime okay. okay headcanons. -dave has always been a little genderweird and vriska putting makeup on him when she was bored one night unlocked his third eye and now he cant stop putting red shit all over his eyelids -vriska has also always been genderweird and you can see where im going with this. -she steals his clothes ALL the time -he pretends to hate it when she gets her disgusting $5 perfume stink all over said clothes but you know he loves that shit (and she knows it too) -flaming bisexuals -once theyve been together for a while they are THE most "i am going to have the longest silent conversation with someone across the room you have ever seen in your life" -they both think they can read each other like a book but in truth its only about 60-70% accurate -the inaccuracies are always funny as fuck though and 9 times out of 10 its some entirely off the wall MADNESS due to their upbringings they think is entirely normal. the conversations that directly follow these revelations are legendary amongst the extended crew and every single one thats happened in a public memo has been screenshotted by basically everyone they know -speaking of which. i dont think they dm for basically anything ever. they either have conversations right in the GC (sometimes in the middle of other conversations, which karkat fucking HATES, especially when they flirt with each other) or they speak in person/over the phone. no in between -they flirt with each other all the time and its disgusting but its incomprehensible to literally everyone else. vriska tells dave she found some gnarly roadkill and sends coordinates and dave is like "babe stop not in front of everybody" -she used to send pictures too but that got shut down real quick and now thats really all she dms him for -i dont think vriska likes it for the same reasons dave does but he did absolutely get her into the weird and wacky world of vulture culture. dave likes the wet specimens the most but vriskas a fan of bones and taxidermy -speaking of which. this is more vriska/troll-centric but i love the idea of vriska being able to eat bones. dave gets the same schoolboy "oh my god this is so cool" kick out of it every single time -im well aware that music is a time thing but i genuinely cannot comprehend a world wherein vriska is not a music girlie. this definitely did a lot of the heavy lifting in The Early Days because when youre emotionally constipated sometimes you gotta let a song do the talking FOR you -vriska 100% introduced dave to crunkcore and he got way more into it than she ever did. he listens to 3oh3 religiously -dave samples vriska on his tracks all the time because she CANNOT shut the fuck up. he also likes taking pictures of her but even after years together he still kinda keeps those to himself and gets flustered when she finds one -man i just really love the idea of them being fucking obsessed with each other. they rag on each other ALL the time because thats just how they feel the most comfortable being affectionate but at the end of the day they snuggle up all soft and quiet and just enjoy being with somebody who understands how hard it can be to even allow that to happen in the first place -they ARE super casually affectionate with each other though, even in group settings. i dont think theyd like grand pda like kissing or saying 'i love you' in public but personal space just doesnt really exist for them. they hang off each other and sling legs over laps all willy nilly -they also stim on each other. dave likes to play with her hair while hes talking and vriska likes to play with his hands/fingers when shes bored this post is so LONG i could keep going for days. please always ask me about davris, especially if youve got more specific questions!!!

#homestuck #dave strider #vriska serket #vriska #davris #davevris #we8comic #ironies in the fire #q+a with vel #Anonymous #SORRY I KINDA WENT OFF #please everyone talk to me about davris For Ever

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jarenka · 1 year

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In "Vader lives" plot I really like to see him interacting with other people. These interactions may vary widely because of person's experience with Vader and their stance on high-ranking imperial defectors. I don't think there will be a lot of people thinking that Darth Vader can change his mind and become a good person. There are people who think that Vader is too dangerous to live and Rebellion should execute him for their own safety. There are people who think that Vader's crimes are too serious to be pardoned even in exchange for crucial information about Empire. There are people who think that it's more important to have this crucial information about Empire than to properly punish Vader. There are people who think it's really useful to have such a famous Imperial as a defector (they are very disappointed that Anakin don't want to parade around in Vader's suit and talk about his defection in media).

I think former Imperials will be even more hostile to Anakin than regular rebels who didn't suffered from him directly. I think a lot of them have a mindset "I served Empire but at least I'm not like all these Truly Evil Empire Fanatics like Tarkin, Vader and so on". Also I can also imagine their anger over the fact that Vader is very civil with rebel now, he can interact with people without terrifying and killing them! Why can't he do it with Imperial military.

Also, Anakin trying to live normal life, there are a lot of things he can do again and have fun. He was angry and miserable for 20+ years. Now he can watch holodramas/go to the theater/draw/cook/whatever. People around him either don't believe that he likes painting and doesn't plan to lead former Imperials, or think think he is lying about being Darth Vader. Also people expect him to be super religious in a very weird way. Whatever their culture have as "this creepy and really intrusive person from a religious cult".

Once Rebel Alliance Intelligence even send to Anakin one of their agents in disguise of former Imperial officer who wants Vader to join them to fight Alliance. They want to know if he can be convinced to follow this path. For their total surprise Anakin pretends to know nothing about Vader. He is like: "Wtf? It's a joke? I am just a regular cargo pilot. Vader died on the second Death Star, everyone knows it". He was so convincing that agent started to question his own sanity. After it Anakin hit agent on the head an carried him to local militia or whatever they has. He genuinely thought it was an imperial officer.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #darth vader #post-ROTJ AU

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ofstormsandfire · 2 months

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yharnam archaeology??? 👀👀👀

hi I forgot that the blog I was rbing that from was a blog I followed for bloodborne stuff LMAO

okay so. this is heavily inspired by

Me being an anthropology student (who got into it because Cynthia pokemon is an archaeologist and I adore her, I took one (1) class and then got really invested, the important thing is. Archaeology go brr)

Me taking a very interesting class this semester that focuses on paleopathology, which is as my professor put it "the study of ancient suffering" but realistically is figuring out whatever you can from human remains. Whereas archaeology as a whole is about human culture from material remains, which can be actual bodies but can also be other things like pottery and building foundations.

Me teetering on the brink of being way too into Bloodborne for my own good despite not normally being much of a horror fan or a fan of particularly grimdark things. I Don't Know What's Different About Bloodborne. (it's probably that I'm a lesbian and I like lady maria, sue me)

Anyway. I got to thinking one time after class. That archaeologists would be SO FUCKING CONFUSED BY YHARNAM.

I'm tentatively placing Bloodborne as somewhere in the nineteenth century based on general vibes (according to my dad and his deep passion for weaponry of all kinds, a lot of the things in the game would have been derived later, but tbh if I lived in a place that constantly had to deal with people turning into horrifying beasts I think I'd innovate the hell out of things to get better weaponry so I didn't die too) and this theoretical au would be set in the modern day. so it's been a Hot Minute since the game ended and I think I was considering Yharnam Sunrise as the ending for. Reasons.

There's this group of researchers who end up heading to Yharnam, bankrolled by some rich heir or something who's got more money than sense (he dies or possibly turns into a beast from stupidity very early on) and possibly they're the last in a bunch of groups who went there and died because even hundreds of years after the horrors there are still So Many Ways For It To Go Badly? Undecided on that front, I'm still trying to figure out what (if anything) would actually be preserved.

Highlights of my vague plans:

The team finds Gilbert's journal. They all get really attached to Gilbert because that just kind of tends to happen. Which is unfortunate because they know damn well he probably didn't survive very long after the last page in his diary, but they didn't find a body, so...?

It takes a while for them to realize that the very canine skeletons have human DNA. At which point everyone is just. Very fucking confused. And also are realizing that maybe all those writings about the beast plague weren't actually about rabies (which does not leave a trace on the skeleton, fun fact! I wanted to do my project on rabies but I had to pick a pathology that had an effect on the skeleton. Alas)

There are so many arguments over who that grave behind the Hunter's Workshop belongs to. SO MANY. (I personally think it's very likely that is Maria's, but the team won't have any way of knowing that! If the headstone is unreadable by game times it's not gonna be any more readable centuries later!)

You determine whether something is bone by licking it. Someone finds an Amygdala skull and somehow, through the sort of stupidity that only happens in horror movies before people realize they're in horror movies, someone gets dared to lick it. This results in a very horrified Insight increase and the revelation that the weird fucking thing is made of bone. Also, that Amygdala's ghost is interested in the team now. Oops. This probably will go fine, right...?

What the FUCK are they going to think of all the statues of Great Ones. Probably (reasonably) that they are statues portraying something with great cultural significance to Yharnam, and possibly religious significance. Less reasonable is the fact that Great Ones... actually exist... and that SOMEONE is going to get enough Insight by the end to see those Amygdalas. Possibly the whole team tbh.

There is going to be so much arguing over how the fuck to cite shit. How do you cite some guy who supposedly disappeared centuries ago and is still hanging around in another dimension that you honestly aren't sure how to leave But You'll Worry About That Later, The First Hunter Is A Primary Source!!! How do you cite a ghost. How do you cite hallucinations and visions.

Possibly the Doll sneaks onto the team by pretending to be a survivor of a previous expedition, because tbh I think the Moon Presence can do what it wants and I think it would be VERY interested in these new bitches rocking up to Yharnam after a while. And, y'know, that goes fine until someone finds a picture of her. Or of Lady Maria. (Or until they reach the Abandoned Old Workshop, depending on the situation and if there's another version of said doll there to be found.)

Every. Single. Member. Of the team. Has some connection to Yharnam. Almost none of them know this originally. They will find out. Rip to Rom the Vacuous Spider's great-great-grandniece who discovers the hard way (finding Byrgenwerth's paperwork) why she was the first in her family to graduate uni, just not the first to attend it.

(Notable exception to this rule is the person who is convinced that his great-great-great-probably a few more in there-grandmother is Lady Maria. This gets very funny when the descendant of the player Hunter trips into the Hunter's Nightmare, which still exists due to said player Hunter poking their head in and wisely dipping immediately, and who manages to prevent a bossfight by blurting out "oh shit you're Jerry's great-grandma!")

(There may be lesbianisms involved. And some light necromancy. Idk I like Lady Maria a lot and I got enabled too damn much and I think it would be very funny for the group to return to civilization with an extra person. Or two.)

In summary, I have no plot (yet) apart from archaeology and being way too invested in the game, but I really want to write this someday once I actually finish said game. And also I'm having a grand old time coming up with characters to put through the Horrors. The archaeologist is named Cynthia Parker and. Well. If you remember the superhero identity of a certain character called Peter Parker, you might be able to figure out who she's distantly related to.

Other ideas include: player Hunter descendant, someone very distantly descended from a Cainhurst exile, and Jerry who is 100% certain his great-several-times-great-grandmother is Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower and is 100% wrong about that. Jerry is the single party member with no actual connection to Yharnam and we love him for it.

Thanks for the ask I'm incredibly flattered that you were intrigued enough to ask about this from my tags given that I followed you for your BB fics :>

#I swear I'll write this someday #bc it's hilarious #yharnam archaeology au #askbox #paranormal-potatoes #bloodborne #fanfic things #writing things

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retkotevidjamsadevojkama · 8 months

Text

Being Serbian and not religious is complicated enough, but being queer on top of that is even more complicated and that's concerning.

You see, Serbs have a very unique history and bond with religion. Serbia was under Ottoman rule from the middle of the 15th century up until the begging of the 19th century which is a long long time. Being a part of Ottoman empire meant that they wanted to assimilate you and there were many awful things they did due but i won't go into that rn. What was weird about Ottoman empire compared to other oppressors was that they never banned different religions. Obviously your life would have been easier if you became muslim but it wasn't like they killed you for not doing that as Romans did. So Serbian people became very close to the church and it bound all of the folk customs and holidays to itself and saved them which is a great thing and I'm so thankful for that but nowadays it's impossible to separate them. Every aspect of culture is somehow made christian and Serbian people have accepted orthodox christianity as a part of their national identity. You can't imagine how many people I've met who were confused about how can someone be Serbian if they're not christian. And most of them don't even believe in God or what christianity preaches, it's a national identity for them. They can't imagine what Serbs actually are beyond the religion and it's sad.

Other important thing is that all of the holidays and customs are pagan. They have been pagan and then Serbs got christianised in a quick way which means that they just masked the paganism in chriatianity and called it a day. There's practiced whichcraft in Serbian orthodox christianity and people refuse to call it that because it's a normal christian thing for them. There's prayers, healing watter and oils, plants, various rituals for various days (not just Easter and Christmas but even those are completely different than how other christians celebrate them), there's days where you don't work or do certain things so that you don't get God angry, there's future predictions by looking in a cup or reading in the coal or hot iron and various other customs and beliefs. And no one accepts them as anything but chriatian.

So yeah separation of religion and nationality is crucial for Serbian people to move forward but it's also very hard to do and it's beneficial to the government so no one is doing anything about it. Nationalism is unfortunately on the rise among Serbian people and obviously christianity is also. There's people who are ready to fight for "holy places" and Serbian (read christian) values. There's diaspora that's trying to reconnect with their nationality and they just fall into christianty and nationalistic propaganda and it's awful. Most of these people are cowards so I have hope they won't do anything stupid as starting another war but it's still concerning. When your national identity is so strongly bound to christianty a threat to christian beliefs is a threat to your nationality and you already know who falls into that "threat" category.

Also, pagan slavic spaces got infected by fascists and white slavic supremacist? It's like what happened in nordic pagan spaces. I know I know it makes no sense for south slavs to be fascists when ww2 fascists targeted them but you have to understand that these people aren't smart enough to understand that and are egoistic enough to twist things to better suit their beliefs.

That's why queer Slavs and queer folk art and queer history of slavs is so important and even revolutionary in times and places like these. And of course this post is not against christians. One of my favorite things are loving non bigoted christians, especially if they are queer themselves.

#serbia #serbian #balkan #slavic #history #slavic history #christianity #orthodox christianity

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utilitycaster · 6 months

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Hi, first religion anon (NOT the same as the second religion anon). My main complaints are with TUC (mostly s1 but the ‘Jesus is real’ thing in s2 really bothered me) and the way that Laudna and a few other characters engage with the gods on CR. I have 0 complaints with Sam, I think his engagements with religion as both Scanlan and FCG are fascinating. I think things like ACOC and Kristen on D20 are done fine, but when they move outside of Christian allegories they tend to stumble. I know Brennan and Ally have philosophy backgrounds and Emily has a religious studies background, but frankly I’m not super confident in American universities’ ability to make people deconstruct Christian hegemony, and things like Emily using the phrase “Judeo-Christian” aren’t super encouraging to me.

thanks for clarifying, I was wondering about the second anon bc I was like "the first anon came in being fairly normal even if I don't agree and this feels...bad and also just a hunch but it feels like it's coming from a Cultural Christian who is not American. (also I did get your follow up question and I want to answer that one separately bc I think it's a good but separate point).

I know it's not terribly popular to say but being weird about the term "Judeo-Christian" feels like one of those things that Jumblr and other people in Jewish Millennial/Gen Z spaces online made a big deal about and I'm like "uhhhhh this was a thing my actual Jewish middle school teachers said sometimes; it's not the best term, no, but it was the go-to term in a lot of contexts until quite recently to the point that yeah, Emily going to school in the 2000s would probably hear it even from Jewish profs, and so it's not so much a red flag as a sign that she graduated before 2010."

I also honestly don't mind Jesus being real in TUC 2; at some point if you've decided all other mythology is real why not Christian religion. It feels, in a way, far more Christian-centric to treat Christianity as something that cannot be incorporated, as too real, as compared to say, Norse or Greek myths or Golems.

I will say that I agree that Ally and Marisha do tend to be a bit more limited in how they engage; I actually don't mind Laudna's frustrations with the gods from a "I think this comes from Marisha's personal feelings" perspective more so than a "could we...actually explore this as a throughline rather than a bunch of random-ass statements." I do think that Ally does tend to pull from their own experience; understandably so, but yes, it's very different than my experience as someone not raised Christian let alone strictly so.

I guess, and this might just be difficult to do as an anon ask thing, that I am looking at this very holistically. I am looking far more at what the GM is doing than an individual player, and I haven't had issues with Matt, Brennan, Murph, or Aabria's portrayal of divine forces. I find that Worlds Beyond Number has been explicitly very not Christian (and indeed, heavily influenced by Shintoism and pre-Christian Irish religion) in how the spirits are portrayed, and while I think Matt does tend to draw a lot from Catholic architecture and imagery and vibes, the way the gods engage with the players does not feel exclusively Christian (notably in Campaign 2; none of Fjord, Caduceus, Yasha, nor Jester's experience feel inherently cultural Christian beyond the fact that Travis mentions he doesn't feel like he can connect with the Luxon because 'it's a shape'). So it means I'm not looking to Ally for example for an exploration of religion that is as accessible to me, but I do find that actual play on the whole feels fine. I find a lot of the claims do feel like they get really hung up on specific details (eg: the Santa jokes in Chetney's backstory) instead of the overall feeling (eg: the fact that many of the deities have a very open, fluid, and at times intellectual form of engagement; the fact that the general message is that suffering is not purifying but rather simply sucks; Melora death domain traditions and especially Caduceus's philosophy which is very much outside American Protestantism; the polytheistic society of Vasselheim.)

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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goldeneyedgirl · 7 months

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I know you have so many projects to work on, but I was just reading that fic you posted here where alice is kind of a witch (??) and jasper kind of kills her in the end (i forgot the title I'm sorry 😭) and I was thinking about how I think that one version of alice fits so much my idea of highschooler human alice and even the way her relationship with jasper starts. And all of that just to say: how do you picture a completely average human high school version of the cullens? Honestly, even as humans, I don't think that weirdos could ever be average.

Hi Anon!

The Dark and the Unknown! I'm actively working on it as we speak (it's being very difficult).

I absolutely love coming up with ordinary versions of the Cullens so I am obsessed with this question. I think any version of the Cullen family as they are in canon is going to be Weird, but being human makes it a little less obvious.

I will say that for me, one of the defining human-Cullen interpretations has to be Midnight Run by Inthemadhouse (tragically unfinished but one of the best Jalice fics online), so that has probably coloured some of my personal headcanons.

Strap yourself in, it's going to be long.

I'm working from the idea the family are Exactly As Presented in canon: Carlisle and Esme adopted a bunch of teenagers who then promptly hooked up with each other, with Edward being the first adoption, then Emmett, then Alice, and then the acquisition of Esme's twin niece and nephew. Obviously the ages of when they were acquired by Carlisle and Esme have to be fudged a little to make this work.

family stuff.

There is 0 chance that Esme and Carlisle (who I'm estimating are in their 30s because it's highly unlikely they would be approved for that combination of kids in their early 20s) would be paying out of pocket for five Ivy League educations plus dorm and books (approx 300k per student for undergrad). Without hundreds of years to build their wealth, Carlisle and Esme Normal Wealthy, not Batman Villain Wealthy.

I think Esme and Carlisle would want to teach a good work ethic, and set the kids up for success as adults. College would be an unspoken expectation because of white privilege and their wealth, but Esme and Carlisle would also accept a post high school plan that was realistic and researched. I also think Carlisle and Esme would be big on community service and volunteering, and not letting the kids just lie around during the summer.

Esme would have a small office/studio to run her architecture/interiors business out of, and she juggles work with running the household, and tries to give the kids more responsibility now that they're getting older. Carlisle would work long hours, but emphasise the importance of family time when he's off work - one of the reasons they go camping so often.

edward.

Edward is very literary and a bit pretentious. He reads the classics and has strong opinions and thinks that a lot of trends and pop culture is beneath him. He's the one wearing sweater vests and button downs to school - with a leather satchel - and his notebooks are all moleskines.

He thinks he's very artistic and spends a lot of time writing poetry and music for the piano, and pining for someone to understand him. He is insanely self-conscious about his appearance - especially his skin - and kind of awkward around his peers. He's not nearly as religiously coded as a human, but is determined to prove to Carlisle that he was worth the hassle of the adoption.

His best subjects are English Lit, Music, and European History. His co-curricular is probably the school play, where he plays piano. He's a nightmare to drag out of bed in the morning, and he tends to be very bossy with his family because he's been with the Cullens the longest. He's closest to Alice, but I see him actually getting along with Ben, Eric, and Angela at school. I think he'd kind of want to be friends with Jacob but try to be cool about it and come off as a snob. Edward cannot stand Rose or Jasper.

Edward would have been attracted to Bella's standoffish attitude when she arrived; the long-suffering thing is something he understands (he lives with four 'siblings' and only two bathrooms). They bond over classic novels and feeling out of place with their peers and whilst they get a little dramatic, they're very happy with each other.

bella.

We know teenage Bella but if she and Edward were humans together? Oof. Bella is starry-eyed over Edward from Day One, but knows how to hide it - she realizes that would put Edward off pretty fast.

I think Jacob and Bella would be quite close from her arrival in Forks, but Bella would be kind of on the fringes of her social set for all of high school. I also like to think that Jacob has his own friends and girlfriend, and doesn't spend his high school years pining after Bella.

I cannot see Bella and Alice being close friends in an all-human universe because Alice isn't starved for friends in this world, and Bella's got less of a reason to get her on side when immortality isn't the prize. I think they get along and hang out but they just don't have enough in common. I think Bella would irritate the shit out of Rose, getting caught asking too many questions about the family around school.

Bella would absolutely get pregnant before graduation. Edward has less religious hangups plus a contemporary upbringing... yeah, Ness was an accident. But Edward would definitely want to marry Bella before they went to college - I can definitely see Edward turning down Ivy League to stay with Bella at a public university.

emmett.

Emmett is sport like Ken is beach. I feel like Emmett plays two sports every season, probably coaches a kiddie league on the weekends, has a summer boy scout troupe, and works delivering pizzas after school. He loves the outdoors, loves activity. His grades are not great, honestly, but he does his best and he passes. He's definitely the student whispering if anyone did the homework and could he just... have a quick look two minutes before class starts. Emmett's one of those people who just has a lot of friends, though he would claim his best friend is either Edward or Jasper.

He's extremely popular because he's so friendly, and he's the kind of kid that adults go "Emmett Cullen doesn't sleep til noon on a Saturday. He's already coached two first grade basketball games and washed his mom's care by 10am." (Esme would look at them, unamused, and explain that she literally keeps two water jugs in the upstairs bathroom: one to wake up Edward and one to wake up Emmett.)

Emmett is also almost always the source of alcohol at high school parties, and makes the best fake I.Ds in the county. Charlie Swan knows it's Emmett, he just has no tangible proof. Yet.

Emmett has very little trauma due to being adopted, and definitely sees being a Cullen as winning the life lottery. He's the heart and soul of the family, and tends to use that to get out of any serious trouble.

I think that Rose and Jasper probably joined the family around age 12ish, and Emmett was probably smitten with Rose from first sight, and made a bit of a fool of himself and annoyed Rose for a few weeks before he relaxed and was just himself. He was naturally accepting of her boundaries, respectful, and the appropriate amount of protective over her when needed. I actually think Rose and Emmett got together after Alice and Jasper, probably around Freshman year. I know it's common that they are the pair that have the on-again, off-again dramatics, but I don't see it - perfect match. Emmett takes jokes about him dumping Rose for a cheerleader with 0 humor and shoots down any female - or male - that tries to flirt with him.

His best subjects are Gym and Chemistry. He's really easy-going and I can see him opting for a state university close to Rose because she has such strong preferences for her education. He gets along really well with the guys on the Res, hangs out there a lot, and is definitely a big brother figure for Seth after Harry's heart attack. He'd probably want to study something like video game design on a football scholarship in college.

rose.

Rose would not be a popular cheerleader. I need that out there. She has no interest in the social aspect, no interest in the culture of cheerleading, and has tunnel vision about her college plans.

I see Rose having a very type-A high school experience - all her classes are AP or college credit, she volunteers at the hospital in the summer (pediatrics), she runs a study group for STEM subjects because Forks High won't let her start a full-on robotics club, she's a member of the cross country team, and she works after school at Esme's office until she gets a job at a garage. She is utterly humorless about her grades, and she's going to be valedictorian, get into an Ivy League (ideally MIT, but she's flexible) on at least one decent scholarship.

And she makes it all look completely effortless. Meanwhile, she's still got a lot of baggage and trauma from before she joined the Cullen family, she's got a lot of anger, and she's just determined to rise about it without really dealing with it in a healthy way; Esme and Carlisle are terrified she's going to put all this work in, only to burn out before she makes it to college.

She intimidates the shit out of her classmates, and I feel like her closest friends at school would be, like, two other intense overachieving girls. She catches Bella trying to get gossip about the family from other students, and hates her from that moment on because Rose hates feeling like she's not normal. She knows their family is weird, but she wants the world to pretend it isn't.

I think Rose would actually become good friends with Leah Clearwater when she meets them via Emmett, and that she's insanely popular over at the Res with the boys because of her interest and knowledge in cars; between Rose, Jacob, and Sam, there is no car that they cannot get running again. I also think that Rose would stay in touch with Vera throughout their lives.

Rose and Edward hate each other with the fire of a thousand suns; Edward resents that Rose isn't grateful to Esme and Carlisle for taking her in because she should be honored (projecting just a little); Rosalie thinks that Edward is spoiled and has the self-awareness of a shoe-box and resents how treasured he is by the Cullens, but family therapy was just kind of a lot of yelling, so there's a mutual Cold War in the household.

Rose is also the most competent cook out of all the kids, but resents the fuck out of everyone when she's the one that the responsibility of cooking falls to on night's when the kids are cooking. The others learned fast that they had to participate or face her wrath.

Jasper and Rose are close in the way that siblings who have gone through something terrible together are, but their trauma is so different that it's hard for them to always related to the other. Emmett is Rosalie's foundation, her tether, and the person she hears no matter what. To the outsider, she seems like an ice-cold, controlling girlfriend but even when she's researching her college options, she's taking into account Emmett's wants and needs with those decisions. Rose feels so deeply that it makes her vulnerable so she hides it.

jasper.

I feel like before Forks, Jasper would have become very acquainted with drugs to cope with his past, and Carlisle and Esme had to intervene majorly - and that might have been one of the reasons that they decided to relocate the family to Forks. So like, now weed is his one vice to stay calm and get through the day, and he's pretty transparent with Esme, Emmett, and Alice about his smoking because of his previous addiction.

Jasper would be very quiet, and kind of just loom behind Alice at all times - I think 90% of the time, he'd have earbuds in. But he'd have a nasty temper and would definitely get into more than one fight, especially if someone said anything negative about Rose or Alice. And Jasper doesn't pick fights he won't win. He's kind of seen as the problem child of the family by the local gossips, even though Charlie Swan thinks that Jasper's a hell of a lot less trouble than Emmett. Charlie is, of course, totally incorrect as Jasper is the co-conspirer behind the fake I.D.s Emmett supplies, and has supplied a few parties with weed when he's feeling generous.

He absolutely got blackout drunk at a few parties before he quit drinking. He's kind of a sad and angry drunk, so it was for the best.

Jasper pretty much attached himself to Alice from his first day in the Cullen house, and they were definitely the first two to get together - Jasper has simped for Alice since he was 12, and has no plans to stop at any point. She's his favourite person, his best friend, and he's happy when she's happy, so he'll go to Homecoming, to the Winter Ball, to Spring Fling, Prom, anything to make her smile. He'll attend the school play every night because Alice designed the costumes.

At school, Jasper is the perpetual 'so smart, knows the material, puts 0 effort in'; he loves arguing with his teachers, and can turn a class into a three ring circus with minimal effort, but likes to save that for a couple of times a semester. He's the kind of asshole who shows up to finals, gets a perfect score, but hasn't handed in a single piece of homework. He's not really big on making friends, but he kind of does peripherally through Emmett and Alice. He'd argue his best friend is Peter, and they stay in touch for life. But he and Emmett get along great and are as close as bio brothers (even if Emmett cheerfully threatened to beat the shit out of him the first time he got caught with his hand up Alice's shirt.) Jasper definitely goes surfing at La Push and considers it meditative.

He and Edward have a frustrating relationship because of how much attention Jasper's struggles got him from Carlisle and Esme; Edward was jealous of how easily Carlisle told Jasper he was proud of him, and how Jasper was standoffish to Carlisle when he'd just been given the thing Edward craves more than anything. Carlisle also has an interest in history, and he and Jasper have long discussions about that together. Jasper finds Edward immature and spoiled but tries to keep the peace for Alice's sake.

He's most interested in American History and Technology. His co-curricular would be AV Club, but he really only shows up when they're pitching in for the school play. I definitely see Esme and Carlisle insisting he gets a job during the summer, and it would be something like helping run movies in the park during the summer, or working at the Forks Historical Society on Saturdays. He has no real plans for college, but I can see Jasper being one of those assholes who just gets a full ride to a really good school for reasons that are a mystery to everyone else.

alice.

Alice would be the most noticeable weirdo; I can see Alice being an Art Kid, and joining the school play just to design and make costumes, plus she wears a lot of homemade and customized clothing to school, as well as detailed make-up. But she's definitely up for joining clubs and socialising; I can't see her being a cheerleader because of the time commitment, but maybe doing ballet or gymnastics. Maybe a language club? And a photography club?

She's one of those people that just considers everyone a friend; I wouldn't be surprised if Esme and Carlisle had meetings to be like "no, Alice isn't ADHD. She's been tested, she's just high energy." I think she gets along really well with Jessica, kind of overwhelms Angela, and has a kind of Cold War of politeness going with Lauren. She's really welcoming to Bella and enthusiastic about her and Edward, but they don't have a ton in common so it's the odd movie night/sleepover when Bella's over at the Cullens.

Alice would be the peace-keeper between Edward and Rose and Jasper because she can translate Edward's dramatics into something tolerable for the others. She and Rose aren't super close, but they get along okay, and go shopping together often. Alice and Emmett probably have the most traditionally typical brother-sister relationship.

Alice seems a lot more innocent than she is, and that's partially her lack of memories from her childhood. She's very, very protective of Jasper in a subtle way; if he's drinking or getting high, she's staying by his side stone-cold sober, and she's definitely started at least one fight when someone said something about Jasper's scars. I think she'd have a lot of guilt over not being able to help Jasper with his addictions more than she did, even though she was a kid.

She's also the financial manager of Jasper and Emmett's little I.D. enterprise, and is definitely the sneakiest in the family - I think Alice would have a klepto streak as a human, and definitely be the one that knew her way around a lock-pick.

Her best classes would be Art, Economics, and maybe Forensics? She'd have no interest in English Lit or Sciences, but she'd get okay marks across the board - she's highly motivated if Carlisle is offering to pay them for As. She'd be looking at Parsons, Pratt, or RISD for college; maybe NYU. She'd have numerous jobs because Forks doesn't really have the kind of stores she'd aspire to work in, but I figure she negotiates selling accessories online with Carlisle and Esme instead of a traditional job. She'd volunteer to work on all the elementary school, middle school, and church plays.

I thin that's everything? I hope that's what you were looking for anon, but I had such a good time thinking about all this!

#anon #human cullens #meta #alice being the one that will jimmy open carlisle's liquor cabinet for emmett... for a price #rosalie going dead silent in the kitchen and everyone realises she's be left to cook dinner alone and they all sprint into the kitchen #babbling excuses #edward listening to evanescence on repeat for weeks when bella goes to florida for the summer

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