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waitmyturtles · 3 months

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Love For Love's Sake: unorganized musings on an utterly brilliant show

TW: suicide, suicide attempts and ideation among LGBTQ+ youth

I love that @lurkingshan clocked early on, before my heated two-day binge of Love For Love's Sake, that I would NOT be able to write meta on this show right after I watched it. It's been five days, and all I have are just loose mental strings. Everyone has had such amazing input and theories and thoughts into this incredible show. What I said to @bengiyo while I was watching it was: I'm not entirely sure I'm following everything, but this show is still hitting every high point of my dopamine cycle, which means it's GOOD, and maybe making sense, somehow.

In any case, I don't think I can write meta on this show, in part because I don't know if there are any concrete conclusions I can come to about this show -- which I think is an inherent part of its brilliance. I'm just in awe that we, as BL fans, got this show in the genre we love, complete with stellar acting, gorgeous cinematography, phenomenal writing, all of it. (I'm back a lot on iQIYI right now, ready for my KinnPorsche OGMMTVC rewatch, and I'm noticing that LFLS is just eating by way of numbers. Fucking WELL DESERVED.)

All I want to do is just share some instinctual feelings about where my mind was landing a couple days after I finished watching LFLS. This is the scene I've been thinking about the most right now.

I don't have a theory as to the "reality" of the ending of the show -- if Myungha is alive in "reality," is alive in an alternate universe, is reincarnated, or if what's shown at the end of the series is a kind of heaven. I love that there's no real way we can interpret that.

What I love about this scene that I've screencapped -- and thinking about the elusive and inconclusive meanings of the ending -- is that, truly, theories about fate and destiny ARE indeed theories. Myungha's grandmother believes one thing, and Myungha believes something else. Sunbae is able to play around with.... something, with time, with fate, with our dependence on technology, something, to make something happen to Myungha that gives him a happy ending with Yeowoon somewhere, sometime, in some wrinkle of time.

Going back for a second (I told you these thoughts were unorganized), something that hit me deeply about this show were the great number of themes it touched upon. This show touched upon:

Suicide Homophobia Bullying Self-acceptance Self-love Familial abandonment Familial abuse Substance abuse Intergenerational trauma Elder hierarchy and respect (both in families and in society) Pre-destination Christianity (stay with me for a sec) Buddhism (same)

and probably many more that I'm missing.

I couldn't help but think of Lee Sun-Kyun's recent suicide in South Korea -- even though this show was likely produced well before that incident. Nonetheless, it had me thinking about what suicide means in South Korea, considering the ever-growing presence of Christianity in that country, with 23% of South Koreans identifying as some kind of Christian. The show also had me thinking in general of sins, and of fate, in Christianity.

Just thinking out loud. Korea produces fewer BLs than we'd expect from that national entertainment powerhouse. Efforts to cancel Seoul Pride last year were made in earnest by pro-Christian forces -- but Pride won out.

As same-sex orientation so often is, suicide is also discouraged in Christian circles. We can see, literally, how homosexuality is discouraged in South Korea vis à vis Pride. I'll assume the same for suicide in South Korea, despite the many celebrities in the recent past that have met that fate publicly.

What does South Korea feel about the suicides of young people who might be queer? The percentages of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among South Korean LGBTQ+ youth are high.

We can see and feel the palpable message from LFLS that self-love, despite how oneself, and society, might feel about an individual's sexual orientation, is well worth fighting for and celebrating. But Myungha, in some reality, is still dead. And death will be his eventual fate anyway, as will be the fate for all of us.

If Myungha found self-love, AND love through Yeowoon, and found a happy ending in happiness, somewhere, somehow, then -- any Christian judgements about same-sex orientations and suicide are moot, regarding Myungha's fate.

But Myungha also reveals, vis à vis his grandmother, the Buddhist spin on fate. He mentions that she believes in reincarnation. He mentions that she believes in doing good in this life, so as to have a happy life after reincarnation.

And he refutes that. He says -- no. Predestination of any kind is not right. I believe that one can change their lives NOW, in the present, for a happier fate and future, NOW. Otherwise, why even bother trying?

And Sunbae hears that, and constructs a world in which Myungha COULD find a path to a happier ending, simply by working on finding love for himself and unto himself -- in part, though a partner that Myungha relates to deeply at the start of the series. (That Yeowoon might very well be the EMBODIMENT of self-love that Myungha discovers -- yes, that may also be "true" of the show's ending. Whew.)

You know what I love about this show? I love that this show just absolutely CHEWED UP those predestination theories that we get from our generations past, from the spiritual practices that we may have grown up with -- from the indirect, unspoken, unconscious ASSUMPTIONS we may have about life and death. This show iterated that being either in "the" or "a" now, a present, and being willing to change oneself (which I've often written about as being THE hardest thing you can you in your life) can have great, long-lasting -- even eternal benefits and consequences.

I love that this show says: you don't have to rely on all the structures and expectations that lead one to behave the way that they do. We might always expect to be a group of schoolboys who'll bully another for being gay. But -- did we expect one of those bullies to BE gay? The show said, we can also very much turn that on its head, even though it might cost someone some bruises.

Within the absolute truth that all humans will die one day -- what other absolute truths do we have? Man. I need a vacation, some..... stuff, you know what I mean, I need TIME to contemplate that.

This show said, no absolute truths today. Everything is up for grabs by way of how we'll love and accept people, and this show examined ALL THE WAYS, good AND bad, that people are loved and accepted, from total rejection by a parent, to unconditional love from a partner, with a slipper-bearing and loving grandma in-between.

It's been... what, five days since I finished this show, and I CANNOT stop thinking about it. It's just brilliant. These thoughts were messy, but it's meant to be, because I just -- this show, I just can't with how brilliant this show was about all of the inconclusiveness of it that still told such an amazing story.

#love for love's sake #love for love's sake meta #love supremacy zone #love supremacy zone meta #myungha x yeowoon #yeowoon x myungha #lee taevin #cha joowan

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gayleviticus · 4 months

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I didn't really notice this before but it's interesting how in the dispute over whether Jesus is casting out demons because he himself is on the devils payroll in Matthew 12 - there's the famous bit about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which lots of people get hung up on (and understandably so, esp if you struggle w scrupulousity and OCD - very inflammatory thing to put in the Bible @ God).

but Jesus then goes on to talk about good and bad fruits, and this line struck me: "Either make the tree out to be good and its fruit good, or make the tree out to be rotten and its fruit rotten; for the tree is known by its fruit."

you can kinda sense his frustration here. "make up your minds! either I'm doing something wrong or I'm not; can we not try to claim that I have some evil hidden ulterior motive that makes all the good things I'm doing secretly bad."

now sure, there are circumstances where people can do or support good things for bad reasons (nazis using anti Zionist sentiment as a dogwhistle; terfs making a song and dance about feminism - altho id argue neither of these groups are particularly 'doing' good things just hijacking them, but there are also just homophobic conservative churches that do run soup kitchens and food banks and yet that doesn't counterbalance the bad they do) or do bad things for what they perceive to be good reasons. but seems like what Jesus is talking about is again his old maxim of judge trees by their fruit; don't decide a priori that since X person is wrong therefore everything they do is tainted with wickedness.

blasphemy of the Holy Spirit happens when people see God at work doing good things and decide, in order to preserve their preconceived ideas about the way things are and what's good and bad, to call good evil.

and I think the reason that's an 'unforgivable' sin isn't necessarily because it's a particularly heinous one, but because it fundamentally warps your ability to interpret the actions of God. If you see God's goodness and mercy and grace at work in the world and decide well actually that's the Devil - how are you supposed to ever break out of that and truly recognise God? it's like when someone is hyped up on flat earth, creationism, anti vaxxer, protocols of the elders of Zion conspiracy theories; they've kinda destroyed their ability to even consider any alternative simply by loudly insisting any counterpoint is propaganda, any evidence to the contrary is fabricated, science itself is a hoax. blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the same; people have destroyed any external benchmark (such as the harm and suffering being created) for judging their interpretations of scripture and faith.

and I can't help but think a bit on queer christians (as usual; I need to start finding other topics to get on my soapbox about), bc when we offer the fact that gay relationships or gender transition cultivate love and joy and peace and kindness and goodness, we get very much the same answer as Jesus' critics gave. "Pff. It's the work of the Devil." People a priori reject the good and life giving things we find in queerness because they don't want to deal with the implications of that. and so we get people insisting that bad trees can bear good fruit.

now in fairness they often do try for consistency and insist that actually this good fruit is a hollow lie and truly LGBTQ people are suffering underneath from living against God's will. but I think this view is losing its power bit by bit bc people understand it's asserting ideology over reality. it's a hard sell and not an intellectually serious position. either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad

#queer christian #gay christian #christian #christianity #religion #bible #lgbt christian

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silvermoon424 · 2 years

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It really, really hurts my heart to see what Christianity- especially American Christianity- has largely turned into. Because if it actually followed the teachings of Jesus it would be one of the most progressive religions out there.

Jesus was a brown Jewish man who had ideas that are radical even today, let alone 2,000 years ago. He was an ally and friend to the marginalized, to all people who society scorned; he regularly associated with lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors (who were hated back then), and other groups who society scorned. I have no problem believing that if Jesus were around today he would stand with today's marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC Americans.

Jesus also preached against things like greed and the commercialization of religion, famously saying that it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven. The only time Jesus lost his shit was when he saw people commercializing a Temple by turning it into a marketplace; he was so outraged by this disrespect to God that he basically threw shit around and drove the merchants out.

Jesus also said to rend unto Caesar what is Caesar's (basically saying pay your taxes and obey the laws of the land). He said that people who make a big show of praying publicly are hypocrites, and (as demonstrated in one of my favorite parables) that poor people who give up a bigger share of their wealth to a good cause have done more than rich people who donate a proportionally much smaller amount of their wealth even though the rich people have technically give up more money. Jesus was very big on emphasizing the morality of the poor and downtrodden, who in his eyes demonstrated more virtue and nobility than the upper class of society.

And then, 2,000 years later, we have people who claim to be followers of Jesus practice things like the Prosperity Gospel, which literally claims that the richer you are the more God loves and has blessed you. And if you're poor, that's because you're sinful (oh, but if you give the pastor some money, that'll go towards your good deeds and God will find favor with you. I pinky swear).

Rich Christians may donate to charity, but only if it goes to "the right people" and they vote against policies that would alleviate poverty on a mass scale. Discrimination and outright hatred against LGBTQ+ people is fucking rampant because of a couple of throwaway lines in the Old Testament, when as I said above Jesus himself would have embraced the LGBTQ+ community. I could easily make this post twice as long by just listing out the ways today's Christians are not Christlike but I think everyone on this site already knows it.

Christianity can and has been used as a force for good. A great example is during the Civil Rights movement. A lot of organizing went on in black churches, and MLK himself was a Baptist minister. Another example is the Quakers, who had a deep religious opposition to slavery and so played a vital role as abolitionists in both the United States and Great Britain before slavery was abolished. Churches hold fundraisers and donation drives all the time, and in rural areas of many countries they are often the only lifeline their members have.

I wish so badly for Christianity to become largely known for being a tool of collective action, comfort for the marginalized and oppressed, and a force for good instead of the tool of oppression it all too often is now.

EDIT: @prismatic-bell and I had a discussion about this post here about how the story of the money-changers is actually antisemitic in origin, which I had no idea about. I'm leaving the original post unedited but I encourage people to read our exchange.

#rant #politics #leftism #christianity #religion

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esoteric-chaos · 2 months

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What is Ancestor Work? Breaking it down and how to start + extra's

TW for death and sensitive topics in this post. Especially when we get into the category of ghosts. You have been warned. The appropriate tags have been placed below.

What is Ancestor work?

Ancestor work is venerating and working with well, you guessed it. Your ancestors. Why do we want to work with them though? Creating relationships with the known and forgotten dead can lead to many great things for yourself such as learning how to break generational curses and cycles. Creating these meaningful and loving relationships with those long since past has been one of the most heartwarming parts of my practice.

I find it is important for people of all ancestry to work with and honour their ancestors. There is much to heal and grow from. We learn through mistakes of the past and some of those mistakes we have to heal from for cycles to be broken.

Who are our Ancestors?

Just who are your ancestors though? According to Honouring Your Ancestors by Mallorie Vaudoise they are your Blood Ancestors, Lineage Ancestors, Affinity Ancestors, Saints, Spirit Guides, Ghosts or Related Spirits.

Blood Ancestors are exactly how they sound. They are the ancestors you find within your family tree that goes all the way back to the beginning of when humans first came around. This goes into the known dead who are ancestors we know of and can be traced back. These ancestors are easier to work with as we have a direct line to them. The unknown dead are unknown ancestors that we can't trace back. Perhaps we only have a name and know nothing about them or maybe we know they existed but have no information at all. This happens to be the case for most of us learning our family tree.

Lineage Ancestors are ancestors we gain through partnerships like marriage, adoption or even initiation such as in a closed society. Examples include religions like Wicca or any religion which needs initiation.

Affinity Ancestors are those who share your cultural identity or even something you are talented in. For example, you are fluent in the arts and you are an artist or musician. You may see a famous passed-on talented artist to venerate as an ancestor. As someone who's LGBTQ+, we can look throughout history and choose to honour and venerate famous LGBTQ+ figures in history as our ancestors as well. In times like this, it is important to venerate and honour these figures in life for strength and courage to move forward.

Saints are found in many cultures. A single example of a saint from a Christian and Catholic point of view is a Christian or Catholic who has passed on and performed miracles before or after death. Then they were elevated to sainthood by the church (This is all from a standpoint as my family comes from a Catholic and Lutheran background). There are also folk saints who are venerated in a specific region or location because of something that was done within that region. Then we have pop culture saints. Pop culture saints for example are people who have influenced or have done things for a group of people that we resonate with deeply. While they do not perform miracles they are venerated as significant to that group.

Spirit Guides are elevated ancestors who have decided to walk alongside us on our journey. They are not usually connected to us by blood or lineage, however, in some cases, they are. In many cultures, you see the concept of a "court". Which is a group of guides. I refer to my ancestors, guides and deities as my spiritual team personally as I am not involved in such cultures that use courts but still am among the belief that I have a group of close guides on my journey as do most others without encroaching on that culture's significance.

Ghosts as Mallorie Vaudoise in Honouring Your Ancestors I agree with their description of ghosts. Some spirits are burdened by the realities of what they went through during their living days. Some call it spiritual disease or they simply lack the power to aid. The spiritual disease of their burdens causes them to act irresponsibly. A lot like Mallorie Vaudoise I too was told ghosts still roam this plane due to unfinished business and they seek resolution through the living for now they feel powerless or they wish to still seek what they started. This can be a grey area for things like passing on murder victims, abusers, children, and relatives. When you are getting into spiritual work it is very important you have strong boundaries and protections. If you do not want to help a spirit move on since you do not identify as a working medium. Do NOT let them step on you. Assert your boundaries, banish and protect. It is not your responsibility to handle the business of otherworldly concerns just because you are a practitioner. If you would like to help a spirit move on, praying in their name to help ease them into the afterlife is a great way to do so to give them strength. May I repeat though, not your responsibility if that is not your focus point.

Related spirits such as land spirits, house spirits and non-human ancestors.

Land spirits are spirits which reside on the land you live on. They can be humans, plants or animals that were born, lived or passed on that land. Honouring the spirits of the land is very important. The land has gone through so much grief and colonization, rebuilding that relationship to take care of the land in turn they will take care of you.

House spirits are arguably land spirits. They reside on that very same land that you do. Proper acknowledgement of the house spirit itself (spiritual upkeep & physical cleaning) and the spirits that live within that old home. They can be from the materials that the foundation of that home is built on or other lesser-known entities. Try speaking to what's in your home. You'll be surprised by what you find.

Non-human ancestors. Through evolution, we have evolved from animals through a series of evolutions before that. So what makes you think we cannot have animal ancestors? Try doing some deep diving into evolution and doing some work with those animals or organisms. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Building your Ancestor Altar

Now that we have what an ancestor is out of the way. How do we build our altars and reach out?

Let's dive into how to make an altar space. We can add some simple tools such as fire, water, an altar cloth, pictures or representatives of ancestors like human skulls (please not real ones obviously), any holy images that bring personal power, offerings and methods of communication.

Fire aids in symbolism in prayer across cultures. If you cannot have real candles on your altar because your altar is within an unsafe place to do so, electric candles are excellent.

Water is said to represent the medium through which the spiritual energy passes. Have you ever felt really dehydrated after a spell, working or spiritual contact? So have I. You can only imagine how dehydrated your ancestors must feel. Leave them an offering of water and maybe even a snack in honour. Remember after veneration to hydrate and fuel yourself too.

Altar cloths are not just there to look pretty. They represent the hard work of our ancestors weiving and working with cloth over the years. Their beautiful craftsmanship is never forgotten. A simple piece of cloth on the altar is a great representation of all of their hard work.

Pictures or representations of our ancestors act as an anchor to connect with them. When I am working with the known dead I'll place photos of them and their names, birth dates and death dates along with a few notes on the back of their photo. With the unknown dead I'll use statues or skulls in place of them. My mother who recently passed is a good example of this. I placed her photos, and ashes, along with some things she may have liked on her little corner.

Holy images. Maybe your ancestors were religious and find comfort in religious imagery. Even incorporating your family's patron saint on the altar might bring them some joy. Do what feels right for you and them.

Offerings. Leaving them offerings such as water, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, and food. Anything you personally love especially as a sweet little treat. I find something you have a hard time parting with like that last piece of candy to be a great offering or that dish you're cooking that's been within the family for years.

Dedicated pendulum, tarot or any other method of communication so you can communicate with them efficiently.

What can I do with my Ancestor Altar? How to work it.

There are many ways you can work with your ancestor altar. You can use it as purely an act of prayer and veneration or you can use it as both for veneration and working.

Leaving oils, charms, bags and other spiritual items on the altar overnight to bless and give an extra kick or even some mundane items.

Incorporating them into a spell working for prosperity, blessings, healings, protections, etc.

Active working to break generational trauma and curses. Working through breaking cycles and helping them heal.

Turning to them for guidance and direction through divination from the tools in their space.

Aid in spiritually cleansing myself and my space from any negative influences.

How to reach out?

Reaching out there are many different methods. There are methods through prayer and divination for example. Many different people from different cultures and religions will have different ways of reaching out and praying. I never actively practiced any religion growing up so I adopted prayer through a folk catholic perspective from what my ancestors practiced and used my tarot deck as an adjacent. There's wrong way to pray. We pray from what feels right to us and from what is respectful.

Conclusion

There's no right or wrong way to work with your ancestors except for building a practice solely on gain. By gain, I mean getting them to do things for you. It is a relationship you are building. If that is not what you are seeking then ancestor veneration is not for you. It's the same for any relationship spiritual or not. Relationships freely flow between each other with mutual aid. Not everything is purely transactional. Keep things respectful and everything will be okay.

To close out I'm sure everyone is wondering "Do I have to work with my ancestors who did awful things?" the answer is no. We have to heal from and acknowledge what happened. Move forward with purpose and do the work but we absolutely do not have to go anywhere near them. Spirits are not all-knowing and not all have done the required work. I will echo a previous statement of mine. It is not your responsibility to handle the business of otherworldly concerns just because you are a practitioner.

If that person has not changed and grown in death. Move on and grow from the experience. While not everyone will agree with me I believe it is important to work with things when you are ready. A newer practitioner will not be prepared to work with such heavy energy. It will have to be worked with one day to heal but do not throw yourself in if you are not ready or maybe you just aren't equipped to do it and maybe it is someone else's journey in your lineage, not yours. Do not be hard on yourself if that is the case. Not everyone is built for that or ready. Be kind to yourself, that's what your ancestors want.

Extra's

Ancestor Oil

Need an oil for communication, veneration and one to work with your ancestors for all purpose? I got your back.

What you'll need

A clean and cleansed jar

Frankincense - helps in hardships, divine connection

Peppermint - money matters, underworld symbolism

Rosemary - protection, remembrance

Rose - raising spiritual vibration, love, symbol of blood

Lavender - Grief, dream work, relaxing

Myrrh - Spirit communication, psychic power, grief

Allspice - Awaken ancestors, drawn in favour

Coconut carrier oil - Moon, emotions, divination, spirit

You can either do the folk method or the hot method. You can find my post on infused oils here to learn how to make infused spell oils. I suggest if you are an animist or someone who wants more power from your oils. Speak to the herbs kindly, treat them less like an ingredient and ask them respectfully for their aid and the purpose they'll have in your oil. Use intention. The same goes for the Coconut oil.

You can sub any of these, however. Try to keep within the theme of the ingredients. Some of these are herbal allies so they will work differently for me than you. Do what feels right.

Blessings!

#witchcraft #witch #electic witch #witchblr #paganism #ancestor work #ancestor veneration #ancestor altar #ancestor magic #tw murder

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a-very-tired-jew · 4 days

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Which Group to Belong to?

A consistent issue that myself and other queer Jews seem to have struggled with since 10/7 is this question of which group do we belong to? What do I mean by this? Many of us queer Jews belong to Leftist Progressive Queer spaces. We've been members of them for a long time. However, our identity is not solely a queer individual, but also a Jewish one. Many of my friends and acquaintances will tell you that they are a cis gay man, a transbian, an agender enby, and so on...but every Jew in these spaces will tell you some form of "I'm an (identity) Jew". Myself? I'm a pansexual nonbinary Jew. That is how I've always identified. My identity is not limited to either one, nor is it solely limited to them. However, in my own personal experience I have noticed that this dual identity does not completely mesh with the rest of the people in these spaces who come from a culturally Christian background or other such oppressive religion that doesn't recognize them. Judaism is perceived solely as a religion that is comparable to the thing many left behind to become their true self.

Yet you can still be a queer Jew without the religious trappings if you find them not pertinent to you at the time or even oppressive. We do have incidents of bigotry and hatred in our community towards LGBTQ+ individuals that may lead them to leave behind the religious aspects and/or community. They may never come back or practice again. But they are still a Jew. So the question is, where do we belong? The queer communities give us the support that we seek as queer individuals, and the Jewish community gives us support as Jews. But we are both, one does not exclude the other, and each one is more specialized to support us in a particular way than the other is. However, many of us are now having to deal with the loss of the former as these spaces become more and more antisemitic. As they spew more and more hatred towards our ethnicity and our people. As they demand a pound of flesh from us while shouting blood libel in our faces. These are often people we cried with with, had moments of sheer joy, and all the little moments that make up the beauty of life. Now tainted because they can't see us as anything more than a "genocidal Jewish Zionist monster". I have seen some Jews sacrifice their identity to simply be a queer individual and withstand the wave of hatred. They're one of the Good Ones after all, and thus the hatred is not towards them. But that's the problem...as soon as they're no longer perceived as Good then the hatred will be directed at them. Sacrificing the Jewish part of themself to simply be accepted is the same thing many of us did prior to coming out. We hid and/or sacrificed our queer self to be accepted by the larger heteronormative community. We withstood that hate in silence until we could no more, and then we spoke out. To see this behavior replicated within spaces that should know better is absolutely appalling. We shouldn't have had to sacrifice and hide ourselves when we were younger and we shouldn't have to now.

#jumblr #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #queer antisemitism

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geneeste · 2 years

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https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/us-publics-trust-in-scientists-reverts-to-pre-pandemic-levels/?comments=1&post=41332618

It’s wild how on the nose this comment is:

Comment text in image:

“I really wish reporters would do a better job on this topic. Republicans don't 'distrust science'. Republicans, as they are made up today, are primarily concerned they will fall out of the dominant culture (white christians) in the US and that other cultures will continue to get acknowledgement and respect in policy decisions. Understand that almost all policy decisions - and this is true pretty much everywhere - have a cultural element to them. France's headscarf ban isn't based on science, but on armchair sociology which is part of their culture. Same for tax rates which feel too high or low, but aren't based on some hard math economic model, and so on. 18 as an age of consent is a number pulled out of the air (should be higher for some people, maybe it could be lower for others), as is a 40 hour work week, 21 to drink, 65 to retire, etc. and what we consider 'good' or 'bad' are largely cultural. Eating dogs and horses is 'bad' but pigs are as smart as dogs.

Republicans don't distrust science. But because Republicans are losing the culture war pretty profoundly (I know recent court decisions would suggest otherwise, but the public is increasingly accepting of the things they think should be illegal) the thing they *really* fear is losing cultural authority - the ability to veto other cultures. They lost the ability to veto the LGBTQ community as Americans are increasingly accepting of gay and trans people. Black media increasingly stands alongside white media. Latino and asian media are making gains as well. Disability communities are also making headway. All of these other cultural groups are gaining influence in how the broader community see them, and as a result they get more of a seat at the policy table. To Republicans, all of these gains represent a loss of cultural veto power, which is why the overt racism and antisemitism are ramping up - they are pushing harder against a trend that isn't going their way. They say they are being replaced, but they aren't. They just have to survive a multicultural space like everyone else for the first time in 400 years. This is why they get pissed off when the green M&M isn't sexy any more - *they didn't get a say*. It's a bit of culture that changed which they didn't get a say in, and that's both terrifying and infuriating to them. They're *supposed* to have cultural authority.

Science is a difficult category in this environment because sometimes is favors your cultural instincts and sometimes it doesn't. But when your cultural foundation for lawmaking (white christian culture) is being eroded any scientific view that undermines your cultural instincts feels like a threat. But the real threat is when that scientific view arrives when you are out of power. See, there's nothing that prevented Trump from leaning into the science when Covid broke out, and Republicans would have lined up behind it, because it wasn't the science they opposed, but *who was setting the policy based on that science*. If Trump put his weight behind it, they'd be on board, because it preserves their authority by branding it as a Republican policy - and that really what they want. Because Fauci (not a Republican) was pushing against Trump, because Trump instinctually opposes vaccines and decided that Covid was bad for his polling, that's what made the science toxic to Republicans. Fauci and Democratic officials in states, and then Biden, setting the policies was what mattered. There was a hot minute there where Mike DeWine in Ohio was pulling in the right direction but Trump got in front of the whole thing.

This is also the dynamic behind the election denialism. They don't believe the election was stolen because of evidence. They believe the election was stolen because if it wasn't, than a loss by 7 million votes by the president that has fought harder for that white christian culture (I mean, opening fire on a Black Lives Matter protest in order to hold up a bible at a photo op is pretty fucking on the nose there) and presumably had that culture most strongly aligned behind him would be evidence that they have fallen into the minority permanently. If white christian culture was dominant numerically, they should have won that easily. It's the inability to accept their minority status that *requires* the election be stolen, because the alternative means that the whole game is up - 400 years of slavery and genocide and a civil war to preserve that cultural dominance is finally lost. Maybe just barely, but lost all the same.

My point is that Republicans aren't anti science, but science will be sacrificed as just another pawn in the culture war if that's what is required. If you aren't explaining *why* this is happening, then you are somewhat insinuating that it's the fault of the scientists and leaving the readers to wonder why some scientific views are embraced and others aren't, and the answer has nothing to do with science or scientists. It has everything to do with the messenger and what the science says about their message. I know that seems to over-politicize the topic, but you put 'partisan' in the headline, so you were willing to open the door, just not walk all the way through.”

#us politics #Republicans are cultural minorities now and it’s freaking them the fuck out

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anamericangirl · 6 months

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The most frustrating part of the discussion about drug shows, LGBTQ, pedophiles, and kids is how quickly leftists will change the subject to religion.

1: This drag queen who does a reading hour was found with CP on his computer.

2: There are pedophiles in churches too!

1: I'm aware of that. If there was a pedophile priest I would bring it to your attention too. I'm not talking about something that happened years, or months ago or any hypothetical pedos who still haven't been caught. I'm talking about what was reviled this morning.

2: You Christians are always demonizing poor LGBTQ people, making them look like they're after your kids. Deal with pedophiles in Churches first!

1: First of all, it's not only Christians who have problems with kids being taught LGBTQ and Drag Queens. Those things are obviously sexual. Talking about who you prefer in bed. Talking about changing your privet parts. ''Feeling'' like another gender. It confuses kids! That's why there is so many LGBT youth who later regret transitioning. Second of all, we are dealing with all kinds of pedophiles everywhere at the same time. There is no ''deal with it first''. There always be another one of these people. If we're only allowed to talk about pedophiles in LGBT spaces after we deal with pedos in Churches we will never get to talk about it. And even if by any chance we did succeed there would be no telling because of all the hypothetical pedos that can still be there. Also, why do you only bring the Christian religion? What about other religions that don't support LGBTQ? And what about religions that practice marriage between children and adults, actually, plain to see pedophilia?

2: So you're not only homophobic but also racist!?!

1: Religion is not a race!

2: Here, I found an article about a pedophile priest just a day ago. I will vandalize local Churches which have nothing to do with this guy.

1: What? Why? How will it help? If you're worried about children being abused why don't you just observe people around them and look for something suspicious?

2: The unfortunate truth is there always be pedophiles where kids are. Predator follows its prey. I don't think they go out of their way to work at a senior home instead of a school. Speaking of which there is much more pedophile teachers. Will be just as passionate about getting rid of them from schools as you are about getting them out of Churches?

1: I don't want to get rid of them from the Churches. I want Churches and Christianity gone.

2: By that logic, should we get rid of public schools?

1: I don't care about logic. I care about feelings, MY FEELINGS regarding hating anything Christian and loving anything ''progressive''. I use children to guilt trip you into agreeing with me.

A pedophile is a pedophile! Stop protecting them because they belong to your group! It makes that group look terrible.

That's a pretty solid break down of the problem here. Instead of just acknowledging the pedophiles in their own group when they are discovered they just deny, deny, deny and immediately just turn it onto christianity for some reason and find a news article about someone child molester from a church as if that makes a point against the pedos in their own camp.

And the thing is we're not even denying that some people in the churches are pedophiles. There are pedos everywhere and what we need to do is remove them, not act like they aren't there or just shrug and go "well I found one in your group too!!" Uh good job?? Let's get rid of them both.

Instead of trying to find who has more pedos we should just be able to unite on expelling them. Not denying the problem and trying to shift the focus elsewhere.

#anon #answered

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truthdogg · 4 months

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I think it’s important to look at stories about hypocritical politicians in terms of how that hypocrisy is wielded.

Clearly, here, these two have built their reputations on attacking both open-mindedness and LGBTQ people as being a negative influence on children. So it’s only fair to see this scandal as them getting their just desserts for their crass general assholery.

But it’s also important to note that this scandal means almost nothing to their supporters. Hypocrisy has an entirely different meaning to conservatives. They tend to see such different standards of behavior as a birthright that’s under attack.

Hypocrisy is the point of conservatism. It is the point of white supremacy, of bigotry, of xenophobia, and of fiscally conservative policy.

If you see yourself as a rightful ruler, and your privilege as fully deserved, then this isn’t hypocrisy, it’s what you are due. Some conservatives will have a problem with the moral issues at play here, but most will not. They will see a powerful white couple who (simply by their wealth, whiteness, and social views) define our culture’s ideas on morality, and therefore are not required to follow them.

#us politics #republicans #conservatives #there is nothing respectable about conservatism #stop pretending that there is #moms for liberty #moms against liberty

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odinsblog · 19 days

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Jesus God Lordt please give me skrenth 🙏🏿

PLEASE

I am trying sO damn hard rn not to fucking explode on my great aunt but she is insistent on carrying on a “religious” conversation that I’ve told her that I don’t wanna discuss any further. That’s YOUR fucking hang up, not mine. I left her house, she calls me. I ended the phone conversation, and now she’s texting me

I try to always respect my elders, but …… whew boy do y’all make it hard af sometimes

We very literally have an extended family member who did hard time in prison for hiring a hit man to murder someone, and everyone still invites them to family gatherings because all is forgiven, God’s graces and all that fucking kumbaya bullshit—but another family member who is (gasp!) gay got y’all permanently bent outta shape????

Mind you, the person who hired the hit man was never contrite, never repented, never apologized, never even said, “My bad. I’m sorry, that was wrong of me,” and everyone just regurgitates some bullshit about “don’t judge” or “God forgives” ….. but a lesbian—a blood relative—who has lived an EXTREMELY fucking exemplary life is beyond forgiveness, is shunned, not talked about and isn’t invited to any family functions???

This right here is why people learn to hate or reject religion completely. The rank hypocrisy

And this is coming from me, someone who had two grandmothers who were both preachers; and a mother who is a preacher; and from someone who was raised in the Pentecostal church, and as a kid, who had to go to church every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and twice on Sundays until sports gave me an excuse to not go

JFC I am sO fucking heated rn

I refuse to knock religion writ large because I am aware that not all religious people have these homophobic + transphobic beliefs. I know this because I have personally met them, and they are more than a few. And that’s without even getting into other non-American religions. And I’ve also met plenty of deeply racist, misogynistic, homophobic atheists in my brief 39yrs

And note to white people: you don’t need to be religious for that fuckery. White supremacy doesn’t need a church structure to make it happen. Just look at Wall Street and Silicon Valley if you doubt me. They’re hardly dens of religion or Christianity

And Black evangelicals don’t got nothing on their white evangelical counterparts. I just personally hate it that sO many Black people—my people—get suckered into respectability politics via religion. It’s got some of my elders stuck somewhere between subservient Chicken George and Uncle Ruckus mentalities

And they can’t even see it

That’s the sad, frustrannoying part

Anyway, maybe I’m just being a little weird, but I will gladly take an LGBTQ person over someone who attempted to have someone murdered in cold blood

#a post about me #odin rants #homophobia #transphobia #lgbt #lgbtq

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artist-issues · 2 months

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Hello there! I saw your post about undertale and I might be a little confused. Are you saying that it's not wrong to engage in media like undertale that portrays LGBT as good, as long as we make it known that it's a sin? I personally enjoy Undertale (minus the sin), because of the fun characters and the idea of showing mercy when possible instead of fighting. I've seen some really good insights from your blog and I admire that! It's actually helping me with ideas for me to start writing. God bless you!

I'm so happy to hear from you, and to hear all this! You know, anything good I've said is good because of God, in spite of me.

What I meant was, if you're a "public fan" (a streamer, a fanartist, a fanfiction author, any kind of influencer or content creator, etc.) I would make it known in everything you put out that the thing you're a fan of is incorrectly labeling sin. It's calling something sinful something "good," and so I'd say if you're a Christian, your role is to point to Christ. And if you're pointing at something that says the opposite of what He would say, (like "LGBTQ+ is good") without calling it out as a lie, you're kind of doing the opposite of your role. You're becoming just another flashing sign pointing people to a piece of work that, however enjoyable, is lying to them.

But as far as whether or not YOU are free to "enjoy" Undertale while "ignoring" the stuff in it that's sinful...I think that's up to what Christians call your "personal conviction." Paul ate meat that was sacrificed to idols because HE knew that the idols were just stone and wood, and God had freed him from having to consider that meat "sacred." He knew the difference between what was right and wrong about the meat that had been made for idols, so he was free to enjoy it in the context of that knowledge. (Christians call that "discernment.")

BUT! When he was around other believers, or anyone who would freak out or start to doubt or get distracted from Jesus by what Paul was doing, he did not eat the meat. Because it's always more important to point people to the truth and Jesus, in general, than it is to enjoy something for yourself.

I hope that helps! I would study the Bible about this kind of thing. And also, pray. If you're feeling uneasy about enjoying Undertale, because that sinful stuff is in there, pray about it. See whether or not, good and bad, it's distracting you in some way from Christ, or building up an affection in you for things that have nothing to do with Him.

Thanks for asking! I'm not an expert in these things. Check what God Himself actually says in the Bible about this sort of thing; it's always better than anything I have to say, or anyone has to say.

#Undertale #Christianity #discernment #critical thinking #asked #answered

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cobragardens · 7 months

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Self-Therapy in the Form of an Open Letter to Neil Gaiman and My Fellow Ineffables

Dear Ineffables, and Dear @neil-gaiman

I want to talk about Good Omens for a sec, ok? You are not obligated to listen! But if you want to listen, I have a Thing I need to say. And it's important to me and I have a Tumblr, so you can see where this is headed.

I know Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship, book and show, is primarily about the absurdity and tragedy and miraculousness and contagiousness of being human. I know it's about wanting friendship and cake instead of victory and ashes, and I love that. I know it did not start out as an intentionally or unequivocally queer story, and I know that neither the queerness nor the Christianity is the main theme of S1 or the book. And I think those are all good things: one of the big strengths that makes Good Omens so remarkable and so charming is its lightness of touch.

But Crowley did not start out as a demon, and Aziraphale did not start out as a butter-smooth liar, and they are neither of them the angel the other knew, and there are reasons for that. And S2 starts discussing those reasons, and now Crowley and Aziraphale have shared a very human kiss and have started a more overt phase of their ongoing conversation about what they are to each other. So one of the things we need to talk about is what it’s like to love the wrong person in a world like the world of Good Omens.

And I feel like I have some (very small) amount of expertise in this field. I do not have the skill as a writer to tell you what that was like to grow up Christian and deeply in love with my (also female) best friend in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the evangelical Christian Mecca of the United States. But I did it--or, rather, it happened to me--so I'm the person who has to write about it now.

It was Before Ellen. Homosexual sex was against the law in around half of U.S. states. Only one state (Rhode Island, which I am not convinced actually exists) had a law prohibiting discrimination against LGB people in housing, services, or employment. One U.S. state—my state, Colorado—amended its state constitution to prohibit prohibiting discrimination. Same-sex marriage did not exist. Same-sex couples could not adopt children. Being any flavor of queer could cost you custody in family court of any children you did have.

Queer young-adult novels did not exist. Movies and tv shows with queer characters did not exist unless they were serial killers or dying of AIDS. Safe-sex education did not exist, the LGBTQ section of the bookstore did not exist. Social media did not exist, the Internet was in its infancy (I was typing up papers in AppleWorks on an Apple IIe), smartphones did not exist. Porn was in magazines your friend’s older brother or uncle kept under his mattress.

The guy everybody in school thought was gay got beat up daily. The girls I'm not sure about. I only ever saw two girls/women who were out before I was 28 and met an openly lesbian woman in a university class.

In Colorado Springs, bumper stickers for Colorado for Family Values and Focus on the Family, both headquartered in the city, were common. Crosses and ichthys decals proliferated. There were only a few “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” stickers, but “Marriage = One Man + One Woman," or the same message in Ladies and Gents toilets symbols (with a pair of ladies and a pair of gents crossed out) were a regular sight on the backs of cars every day, every drive, my whole life there.

This was a world where there was one very specific God, who has one very rigid Plan, and whose Agents and Enemies fight each other for the eternal souls of every human being. And every player on the board was clear about this.

I was 12 when my dad and I met two women on a hiking trail and, after we all said hello and they three had chatted a bit and the women had walked on, he asked me if I had "gotten any spiritual witness about them." He told me he suspected they were lesbians.

I was 14 when I burst into tears and shouted at my dad when he spoke viciously of the two gay men who had come into his place of work earlier in the day. He called them “flaming” and “faggots.” I told him we were Christians and we were not hateful about people in that way. I didn’t know what the word faggot meant, not for sure (I picked up the meaning of flaming from his imitations), but I could tell it meant they were people who did awful things, and that he hated them.

I had never seen my dad like that before, hating someone. I had never heard him speak that way about anyone.

I was 16 when I rode in the back seat of our next-door neighbors’ Ford Focus on the way to Bible study and listened to the handsome Christian newlyweds up front discuss how awful it was that gay and lesbian couples were now allowed to adopt children in the state of New Jersey. It was bad, they said, that children could find homes with queer people “because children learn from their parents.”

I was 17 when 2 straight men beat and tortured Matthew Shepard and left him tied to a split-rail fence on the side of a road 3 hours north of Colorado Springs as a warning to the rest of us. A scarequeer.

A joke in poor taste, you may feel, this little pun. It is a pun, but it's not a joke.

One of Shepard’s murderers used the gay panic defense in court. In the U.S. the gay panic defense is one of reduced responsibility: a man cannot be held fully legally responsible for murdering another man if he claims he thought his victim was gay and making a pass at him. Because, under U.S. law, it is considered common for men to go temporarily insane and murder men they think may be gay and making a pass at them. I have rewritten this paragraph five times and that is the absolute least bananas I can make this sound. It is real and it is still a thing.

I was also 17 when Pastor Luis, the head of my church, preached in sermon about a member of the congregation who had fallen in love with another woman. He told us firmly: "She is no longer a lady. She is a lesbian."

He refused to counsel or marry them, services he insisted upon performing for the heterosexual couples among his congregants. He said he told the woman and her fiancee that they and their sin were not welcome in his house of God. He told us, the ones left, that we were not to contact the ejected woman or continue any friendships with her.

It was a small church, only about 60 people. Pastor Luis looked right into my eyes and held the eye contact with me (other peoole turned to look) when he said, "And if you don't agree with that, you are not welcome here either. You can leave now and never come back."

I did. For 10 years after that, I thought God had told Pastor Luis about me. That Pastor Luis had gotten the same "spiritual witness" off me that my dad had gotten off the 2 women we met backpacking. That he somehow knew—that any Christian might know if they listened, if they sniffed carefully enough. The smell of evil, I thought, must linger on me.

I was 18 when I got my first tattoo. My parents were relieved when I told them that’s all it was. "We thought you were going to tell us you were pregnant, or gay," they said.

I was 19 when a trans woman at a coffee shop told me about how she'd been fired as a substitute teacher from the biggest school district in the state. She didn't pass, so she dressed as a man when working. One day she made the mistake of wearing a women's button-down shirt (with the buttons on the left, not the right), and someone noticed and complained.

I was also 19 when my boyfriend's parents became concerned that he might be gay. (He had gotten his ears pierced and dyed his clipper cut pink while away at college.) As Christians his parents were against premarital sexual activity of any kind, including masturbation or sexual desire, so my bf couldn’t tell them how he knew he wasn’t gay, and for over a year they wouldn’t believe him. His mother bought some books from Family Christian Booksellers, the biggest Christian publisher in the U.S., about how as a Christian she should respond to her child’s queerness.

Throw them out, cut them off, and do everything you can to make sure your child starves and suffers, said the books. (I read them all.) Hunger and homelessness were the goal, they advised, but any misery you could cause was helpful. Turn other relatives against them, don't let them take their belongings when they go, cancel phone contracts and insurance plans.

When your child asks for help because they can't support themselves, you can force them to leave their beloved and drop their friends in exchange for survival, said the books. They will either eventually see that you and God are right and loving, and repent of their sin, or you will catch them lying to you and sneaking around, which is proof that homosexuality and other sins go hand in hand.

One book acknowledged that cutting them off would endanger teenagers and young adults and leave them vulnerable to rape, murder, and human trafficking (though it called being trafficked "prostitution"). But Christian parents acting in the name of God's love would not be responsible for the harm their kids suffered, it said: the children were bringing whatever happened to them on themselves as a natural consequence of living a sinful lifestyle.

In fact, said the book, being attacked or abused could be good for your children: if they suffer enough they may realize it’s their gayness that has caused all their problems and repent of their disgusting unacceptable love and desire.

In the United States, LGBT children represent 40% of homeless youth under 18. "Family conflict" is the number-one cause of LGBT youth homelessness.

I was 22 when the pastor of my boyfriend’s church received news that one of his congregants was engaged in a same-sex affair. Extramarital affairs were very common in his church—three of the deacons were cheating on their wives with other (also married) congregants, and my bf’s parents had been swingers —but this was the first and only time the pastor ever called a church member to the altar, outed him by described his sin to the congregation (c. 350), and demanded the man apologize to everyone and ask their forgiveness. The pastor told him that if he did not apologize he and his wife and children were not welcome to continue attending.

I was 23 when I heard that same pastor’s sermon on avoiding sexual temptation. Give up affection if it causes you to sin, he said. Scoop out your own eyes, cut off your own hand. He instructed men only to hug other men side-along, one arm around their shoulders, lest a real embrace cause them to feel sexual desire for another man. (No mention was made about how women should hug, or that women might ever feel sexual desire at all.)

I remember listening to this pastor's sermon and thinking, I know something about this man that he does not know about himself.

I was 24 when I went with my boyfriend to Pulpit Rock Church, seeking answers from the sermon they advertised on their signboard about sex and sexuality and gender. My boyfriend loved wearing women's clothes. Transgender and cross-dressing were just starting to replace transsexual and transvestite as the accepted terms for the things he might be. Nonbinary and genderqueer were not words we had. He wasn’t sure yet which thing he was; the thing he was was still, for us, unspeakable.

"Men are created to be men and women are created to be women," preached the pastor at Pulpit Rock. "Men and women are different in a way that can't be explained, and they fit together in a relationship in a divine way. A man and a man or a woman and a woman may love each other, but they'll never have the spiritual connection of a godly relationship that a man and a woman can have. We don't have to understand it, but we shouldn't question it, because that’s the way God made it."

Then he talked about how he and his wife could both make French toast (or maybe it was pancakes), but the way his wife made French toast was female somehow--ineffably--because she was a woman, even though the French toast was the same. My bf and I left in the middle of the sermon.

I was 25 when Ted Haggard, best friend of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson (of “Spongebob is teaching our kids it's ok to be gay” controversy) and pal of George W. Bush (the POTUS who pursued, in his own words, "a Crusade" in Iraq with the U.S. military to fight the influence of demons "Gog and Magog[…] at work in the Middle East"), was publicly outed. Male escort and Mike Jones—whom Haggard hired to sell him meth and give him happy-ending massages—recognized ‘Pastor Ted’ as the leader of Colorado Springs evangelical megachurch New Life Church, a nationally famous preacher who denounced the evils of homosexuality from his pulpit, and Jones, a big damn hero, tipped off the press.

I had heard Pastor Ted preach twice. New Life Church was a lot like Heaven in Show Omens in that it had a lot of open space and bright fluorescent lighting and smiling well-groomed people in it, as well as several giant digital screens floating in the air to either side of its dais on which the face of the straight-passing white man bringing his people the word of God was projected as he spoke. This latter feature also resulted in a slight resemblance to a Hitler rally, but there was more medium-stained oak in play than either Hitler or Heaven would find tasteful.

I was 26 when I acted as an informal lettings agent for one of my landlord's other apartments and the young Christian woman living downstairs asked me refuse shelter to any gay or lesbian people because she didn't want to have to live in the same building with them.

When I asked her how I was supposed to know whether someone was gay, she said, “Well you can just tell, can’t you?”

I was 30 when I came out to my Christian parents. Having read the Christian parenting books, I was hugely relieved when they didn't throw me out of their house, where I was living after college (and a few major depressive episodes and two global recessions). I was relieved that they wanted to continue to have a relationship with me at all, in fact.

"I still think it's a sin, though," my mother gently reminded me. My father has refused ever to discuss it at all.

I was 31 when I moved to the UK. I've spent 11 years trying and failing to scrape a living in the Thatcher-hollowed market towns around Manchester, under the fucking Tories, through fucking Brexit, through fucking May and fucking Boris and that weird little cabbage Liz Truss, in order to stay out of Colorado Springs. I can't get medical care on the NHS and I can't work or leave my apartment bc I can't get medical care and I can't heat my apartment in winter on Universal Credit and I’ve been threatened and assaulted by doctors and raped by a nurse and I’ve tried suicide a few times, and I'm in some smallish danger of dying here in Britain's left armpit, but I am not in Colorado fucking Springs today, am I. So that's something at least.

I was 41 and living in the UK for a decade when a homophobe with Christian parents shot up the only gay venue in Colorado Springs, Club Q, murdering 5 people and shooting 19 more. I'd been to Club Q a few times, on dead nights, when I lived in the city. The shooting was 24 years after homophobes tied Matthew Shepard to a fence and left him dying as a warning to the rest of us.

I never told my best friend I was in love with her.

Instead I had anxiety dreams in which my subconscious warned me I wasn't safe. In one dream, Not Yet appeared tattooed on the back of my hand as I looked at a female classmate who was dating another girl. I had to wear gloves to hide the rainbow that had appeared, indelible, on my ring finger.

My first kiss was with a (Christian) boy.

I knew what I felt for my best friend was effervescent and golden and breath-stealing. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, knew I wanted to live with her in a little house in the Pacific Northwest in the mist and the trees and make her coffee with a Turkish press anytime she wanted it and cuddle her on the closed porch and gripe about the wool in her sweater prickling my arms when I hugged her. I knew her eyelashes made her eyes look like they had stars in them and that she had the lushest curves and most perfect skin I had ever seen, and that when she smiled or laughed the shape of her mouth made something in me ache like tuning forks must ache when they're struck and made to sing.

I never told my best friend I was in love with her because I didn't know those were the words for what I was feeling.

Not until years later, after she had left my life. I had been told (frequently) by a Higher Authority that queer love was disgusting and ruinous and sinful and ugly and twisted and inferior, not this perfect fragile thing as soft and trembling-alive as a bird in my hands. Why would I think this was queer love?

I didn't catch the worst of it. I wasn't chained to a bed or forced to drink water from a dog dish, like the foster parents of the gay kid in class did to him. (The school asked him to give a talk to our class so they'd bully him less, so he told us about his life as the teachers looked on. He was 12.) I wasn't sent to conversion therapy like one classmate. I didn't spend most of my childhood in Bible School like other devout Christians' children; my family read the Bible a lot, and prayed together, but my parents weren't regular churchgoers. I was so, so lucky.

It destroyed me anyway.

The thesis of my essay runs thus, fellow ineffables: A happy ending for Crowley and Aziraphale is necessary.

It is necessary not just because Bury Your Gays is an overdone trope and an act of homophobia in the hands of straight writers; not just because Good Omens has been crafted with such loving care in both book and show incarnations to be optimistic, even sunny, against a backdrop of Orwellian, cosmic, and Kafka-esque horror; not just because casting miracles of the magnitude of David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale happen once a generation and it would be a shame and a waste not to write more magic for them to chew on; it is necessary because, in most places here in Shitworld, there are real people having the experience Crowley and Aziraphale are having, and not all of us are able to make happy endings for ourselves.

We don't have ethereal/occult powers or authorial control, so we need stories to show us how to love and when to fight and why to fucking bother. And the harder those things are to see in this world, the more we need those stories. And the more we need people with influence and audience and privilege telling them, not just all us little Tumblr rats and AO3 and Pillowfort perverts.

Crowley and Aziraphale exist in a fascist universe run by the ultimate Authoritarian—not Big Brother, but Big Father. There is nowhere for them to go, not even their own minds, where it is safe for them to love each other openly. I am completely prepared to believe someone in those circumstances could go 6,000 years without realizing the love they feel for their best friend is the kissing kind of love. I know someone can go a whole lifetime without saying it.

The hosts of Heaven and Hell will take away even the words for love when they can. We need people who don't just wield words but the power of the word spreading the message "There is a way to make this work. There is a way to exist. You can make a new world."

Mr Gaiman, I know from reading some of your other work that a big part of your whole Deal as a writer is an ongoing enthusiasm for the immense, even mystical, power stories have to shape individual and shared realities—sometimes to doom people and lock them into a destiny, but as often to let them escape their fate by imagining and conceiving a new way of living, or of living with each other, where none was possible before.

Hate and hope are the result of the stories we tell each other--I know you know this because I know you know that in saying it I am referencing a story you wrote. Like the hate, that hope only exists if an author says it does. And real people’s hearts, real people’s lives, are made and broken by listening to the wrong stories or hearing the right ones.

Crowley and Aziraphale are your characters, and Good Omens is your story to tell. You have written a setup in which, if you want these characters to be able to love each other, you (they) will have to create a world where that is possible. Please write us a romance. Please put enough sweet in with the bitter that we can survive it.

We have such faith in you because you have shown your readers and your audiences that you deserve that faith. Please choose your phrases wisely. ❤️

#good omens #good omens 2 #human rights #Colorado Springs #lgbtq #writing #religion #christianity #aziracrow #aziraphale x crowley #neil gaiman #stories #ineffable husbands #good omens s2 #trauma #mental illness #tmi #say your right words the goblins said

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a-witch-in-endor · 8 months

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i binged mo in like 2 days omg... i feel like a walking zombie rn how am I supposed to go on AAAAAA my heart is pounding LIKE??? it gave me SOO MANY EMOTIONS CRYINGGGGG this is The Atla Fic Ever

but more importantly, I just want to say that this fic is changing my perspective on religion. im athiest, and quite honestly I've never been able to truly understand religion. I'm a strong believer in science, so religion just has never made sense to me. reading mo though, and connecting with a character who believes so deeply in his religion, and seeing how overall, religion is meant to provide guidance to understanding the world and forming morals, I feel like I've grown a lot of respect for religion in general

it's still hard for me, because a lot of my experiences with religion (or I should say, christianity/catholicism specifically- I feel like I should make it clear that I don't judge people for following religion, I just have never seen/understood the appeal) have been with people around me who are religious and therefore very homophobic or anti-abortion etc. I'm not trying to start political discourse ofc, but experiencing that consistently has not really put religion in a positive perspective for me

but reading mo and taking lots of time to think about religion in general, and how I do have friends who are religious and still supportive of lgbtq+ ppl, or who are even queer themselves, I feel like maybe I've grown as a person to become more open minded towards religion. when someone tells me they're christian, honestly I find myself closing up around them. I don't want to make it obvious I'm queer because I feel like they'll judge or disapprove. but I think that's an unfair assumption to make

I think religion, and how it ties into a people's culture and history, is beautiful. I worry that I'll always be wary around christianity, but I'll continue trying to keep an open mind. I understand now that the original beliefs of a religion and the actions of some of its followers are not one in the same, and that the teachings of a religion can call for peace while some followers ignore this. I realize that I should not judge an entire religion simply because there are some practicers who deliberately misinterpret the original teachings

I know the religions in mo are not quite the same as the ones that I am uneasy around. but nonetheless you've helped me see religion and its followers in a new light. and for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so excited to see how the story continues, thank you for taking the time to write and continue this story for as long as you have, and for helping people like me expand our worldview and become more enriched

Ah, OP, I'm really pleased to hear that it's been a meaningful experience for you. I know a lot of people have complex relationships with religion. In fact, I think anyone who doesn't have some complexity in their relationship with religion is probably a rare specimen.

Powerhouses like Christianity are hugely affected by the amount of institutional power they've enjoyed, and you know what they say about the impact of power. But there are a lot of beautiful ideas there, too. If you're ever looking for a way to encounter more than the political powerhouse of the church, I recommend reading about liberation theology - and specifically (Catholic Priest) Gustavo Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation.

That all being said, I don't want to undermine the fact that there's a lot to be wary of in religious tradition, especially around perspectives on gender, sexuality, and such. It is not my perspective that these things are baked into religion specifically. It's that anything that links us to the what-came-before is going to include the problems of what came before, and religion has a lot to do with tradition, so it often falls into that trap.

I just happen to also rate the part of religion which is also about being in relationship with past and future, about continuous revelation, about liberation and obligation, about living life with consciousness and constantly asking what it means to be human and what we owe ourselves, one another, and God.

Anyway, this was barely coherent, but it comes down to: thank you for sharing. :-)

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