Dragons Before Dudes

“God is under the rubble in Gaza. He is with the frightened and the refugees. He is in the operating room. This is our consolation. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.”

– Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, in his sermon “God is under the rubble in Gaza.”

I made this painting of the manger scene created by Rev. Dr. Isaac’s church, Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, with the Christ child under the rubble (original image here).

Full sermon • An interview with Rev. Dr. Isaac about the installation

#Merry crisis

José y Maria, by Everett Patterson.

December 2023: "In Bethlehem, the city of Christ's birth, Lutherans lit advent candles around a nativity surrounded by rubble, as God's children in Gaza still are today. God sent his only Son to be with us in times of doubt, fear, and grief. God is with them in Bethlehem, He is with His children in Gaza, and He is with his children under the rubble."

Photos and text from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

Sometimes self-care is, actually, NOT getting onto the computer and little treats and watching youtube videos. Sometimes those things are self-care, but sometimes they're also avoidant behaviors.

Sometimes self care is waking up and just. Fucking getting in the car. And driving to the bank. And the store. And buying the cat litter. And changing the cat boxes you've been avoiding because your brains been stuck in a hole. And picking up the trash you've been piling up. And getting a load into the wash. And mowing the lawn before the village council sends you a formal complaint and potential-fines warning.

Like its hard and annoying to do because it sucks. It sucks so much. But if I don't start working on this pile of bullshit I've let build up because it stinks and i was stuck in deer-in-headlights mode, I risk letting it turn into fuckery. I do not have the patience for fuckery that I once - foolishly! - thought I had.

It really does seem that getting too deep into niche shipping fandom absolutely kills some people's media literacy. Like, I was reading this interesting anon post on Nancy's blog [X] about following a rewatcher going on about bi lighting and expecting a romantic HEA from fucking Supernatural and it sent my brain off on a tangent.

I mean, I remember thinking literary interpretation in school was so fucking absurd when it got to the point of analyzing a goddamn autobiography and waffling on about the author remembering the grass in the spring being green when they moved as a symbol of rebirth. As absurd as I still think interpreting on that level is? It did work thematically, because the interpretation matches the surface level of the story - that was when the character's life started through a period of growth/rebirth. Did they intentionally mention the grass for the symbolism of the color green, consciously or unconsciously? Fuck if I know (or care, tbh).

The problem with the way hellers (and other similar conspiracy shippers) try to use this kind of interpretation is that they ignore several majorly important factors that apply when you're talking about an open canon rather than a closed one where you know the ending. When you do this with a story that's finished, where you know the whole picture? Even if you're so openminded about what the story could have been despite all genre conventions and other outside information that your brain is on the verge of falling out and rolling away down a hill? You can filter out the noise of potential symbols and meanings that do not match that finished, overarching story. And there is a lot of fucking noise, because our brains really, really like to find patterns whether they exist or not - but most random details are not intentional symbolism, and most symbols do not have one single definitive meaning. With any sufficiently large text (which SPN definitely is), you could pick out enough random symbols and meanings to point to literally any-fucking-thing you wanted as a possibility - but without knowing the end that's no more an indication of what direction the story is actually heading than any other randomly chosen set of symbols and meanings.

In the above example, let's say you don't know anything about autobiographies in general, that author's life in particular, and stopped reading at that chapter to try and predict what'll happen next. Aha, the grass out of the window when they moved in spring was GREEN! Well, yes, that might symbolize growth and the character's life finally starting on a new positive path now. But green can also symbolize naivety and/or hope, and that could have been a brief shining moment of good possibilities before things went even more to shit. Hell, it can also mean jealousy, where maybe it would turn out their best friend who stayed behind got an opportunity they missed because they moved. Not only are those not the only possible symbolic meanings of the color? The author might have also just decided to describe the grass out the window as green because grass is generally fucking green in spring, yo. A major part of the reason someone can sit and pontificate about the ~*deep symbolic meaning*~ of that passage without potentially being obviously hilariously wrong is that they DO know where it ultimately leads and have tossed out the interpretations that explicitly don't fit the story.

What the shippers in question try to do is insist they know what the ending HAS TO BE ... because reasons. As such, every single symbol they find which could potentially signal that ending must be doing so, despite any number of other possible meanings ... because reasons. Naturally the symbols that they find are actually meaningful symbols as opposed to every single other random detail in the story with potential meaning ... because reasons. Then we reach the end of the story and they're oh-so-shocked that because reasons ... isn't a real basis for anything, actually. HOW COULD MY AMAZING INTERPRETATIONS HAVE BEEN SO WRONG WHEN I CHERRY-PICKED THEM SO CAREFULLY? CONSPIRACY! HATE CRIME! WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! There was never any basis for their assumption they knew those symbols were legitimately symbols with significance, let alone their assumption they knew the ending - other than their own fixation and entitlement.

Just to finally drive the point home about how absurd it all is? In my original autobiography example, we're talking about an autobiography of a famously successful person. Any remotely savvy reader can make pretty reasonable guesses from the genre conventions of autobiographies, that person being Known Name successful, and context in the surrounding text about how important that move was going to be to the author's life to be such a focus - and therefore what things in the surrounding text might be *cough* reasonable symbolic signposts. There's still some potential to be wrong about the particulars of that moment, but it's a more educated guess about where the story is likely to go because of everything you know about the protagonist and the genre.

Similarly, any remotely savvy watcher who has some familiarity with horror fantasy as a genre, who spent fifteen seasons watching a show where everyone fucking dies and two brothers are obsessively and intensely brothering each other to the exclusion of all their other relationships every episode, from every single premiere through every single finale? Nevermind anyone who also basically ever heard the showrunners and stars talk about it? Is not going to reasonably think, oh, hey, this is totally going to end with the single central relationship of the show indifferently separating to turn into a fluffy HEA romcom with random side characters. Even if you take off the ending of that sentence which is "because I totally found a bunch of secret clues in food and lighting that told me so".

It makes no fucking sense on a micro interpretation level of symbolism and signposts, and it makes no fucking sense on a macro interpretation level of genre and overarching themes. But, like, they really wanted it, so who cares about that? Um, all the rest of us who actually liked the show for what it was, not an entirely different thing we tried to convince ourselves it would eventually have to be ... because reasons. Especially anyone who gives even half a shit about how decent storytelling in media actually works.

I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.

Time to drop some links again.

– https://searchmysite.net/ Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.

– https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.

– https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)

– https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines A list of academic databases and search engines.

– https://tineye.com/ Reverse image search alternative to Google’s. Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)

We never should have been saying "just Google it" anyway. Navigation of the Internet has never been a natural skill people were born being able to do. At some point, we all had to be taught how to use technology and utilize its intuitive design. Not everyone gets taught that or has access to the resources to learn about it. Plus, Internet companies can claim they provide high-speed connections without ever having to prove it bc the US government currently doesn't have any rules about exactly what constitutes "high-speed". So Internet access is just above nonexistent in many areas. I work with the public in a rural area, and many families don't have computers. It's just too expensive. Computer skills aren't universal yet, and I'm tired of us acting like they are.

Y'know, I started to type out a massive post about how sad and frustrating it is that every USAmerican southern character in anything is presented as ignorant and uneducated and "dumb" and even hateful, how there are people here with degrees and careers and incredibly complex skills that took years to develop and learn, and then I realized, fuck that-- yeah, there are a lot of people with no or little education down here. We're fucking poor. A lot of us just can't afford college. A lot of us have to get jobs instead to support our families. Some people dropped out of high school to do that. And you know what? They're still human beings who deserve to be represented as whole, real, functional people and not flat archetypes.

Like yeah, I could talk about all the talented and smart people who came from down here, but the "simple," the disabled, the uneducated down here don't deserve the way the media depicts them, either! Because the bulk of them are good people who just got dealt a bad hand because we are so pathetically poor down here. And yeah, that includes the addicts. We have a lot of addicts down here. And that isn't our fault, either. when you're dealt the worst possible hand and no one wants to help you, everyone regards you as being trash, you're gonna cope however you can.

Everyone wants to write us off and present us in media as pretty much just. nothing people, but there are many, many people here of all walks of life who deserve respect and who need help that they aren't getting BECAUSE nobody shows us any fucking respect, and the way the media depicts us consistently does constant, DEEP damage to the way the rest of the country views us. It isn't fucking fair and it isn't fucking okay.

I'm tired of my family's accent being used as shorthand for "this character is a dumb, useless hick, and nothing more." Yeah, we got a lot of dumb, useless hicks, and I love them to death and they have hobbies and families and histories and don't deserve the way writers fucking treat them as throwaway gags or convenient villains.

Part of this is intentional propaganda to push division between the rural working class poor & other marginalised workers, especially immigrant workers.

If ppl think poor rural working class ppl in the south are inherently ignorant, they will write them off as such, which will cause animosity towards other marginalised communities.

People who like Elsie Dinsmore do NOT interact, but also DO get therapy

wait what’s wrong with Elsie Dinsmore? I vaguely remember reading some of the books when I was younger, but I don’t know if I read a different version (abridged maybe? the life of faith series).

All I remember is that I thought it was creepy that she ended up marrying her father’s best friend, and that they should’ve let her marry the nice sickly boy (Herbert?) even if he was going to die

I read / listened to the original books, not the life of faith versions, so I have no idea what was cut out, only that it had to be a lot. The life of faith books are significantly shorter lol. I don't remember all the incidents, but there are a lot of messed up things that happen in the original series, her marrying her father's best friend being only one 😬

Even the life of faith versions were traumatizing thanks, and one of the first signs I got of my messed up relationship with my own dad.

OH MY GOSH I actually loved these books as a kid and didn’t realize how messed up they were until I thought back on them as an adult. Not only does she marry her dad’s best friend, but he starts basically hitting on her when she’s like eight years old!! There was also lots of racism. I genuinely think these books were the main reason I had symptoms of religious OCD as a tween/teenager. I don’t think my parents would’ve let me read them if they knew what was in them, they had just heard heard from other parents that she was “a good role model for Christian girls” and didn’t think twice about getting them for me.

elsie was the WORST

"good role model for Christian girls" elise was somehow both an entirely unrealistic standard of perfection and what every abusive adult hopes their daughter will act like

i'm all for cancelling Elise in 2023, she deserves it

I feel like sometimes people need to recognize that God can't fulfill all the relationships a person needs

Like when people are like I'm lonely because I don't have friends or a partner and other people pop in like but you have God! Like God is great but we're also social animals for the here and now, people are allowed to be lonely and that's a bad thing and can't be fixed just with His existence

Once again, Gnosticism is a tough little gopher to kill. God is a God of means. He accomplishes His will through the material world.

“You don’t need food, you have Jesus!” Yes. The Jesus who made this body and designed it to run on steak and cake and potatoes and coffee and taquitos.

“You don’t need community, you have Jesus!” Yes, the Jesus who said if you love Him, you love the brethren. The Jesus who instructed Paul to instruct us to never say to other members of this body, “I don’t need you!”

Does this mean there might be times He asks us to be content with bread and water or depleted community? Absolutely. But similar to the singleness issue: We do not need to speak of afflictions as “gifts” in order to endure them faithfully. Singleness if you are not gifted with celibacy is not a gift, it’s a trial to endure. No church family is a trial to endure. No Christian fellowship is a trial to endure. By all means, endure them faithfully with a song on your tongue. But you are also permitted (and required!) in trial to beat down the judge’s door like the widow in the parable.

Contentedness and pleading for deliverance are not mutually exclusive.

I agree with almost everything except for the comment about singleness being a trial. Christian community and food are labeled by God as necessities. Sex and marriage are not necessities. Singleness is a permanent or temporary time in which you can develop other relationships, particularly in relationship with God. I can't think of a single time in the Bible when singleness was described as a trial or a negative time - not even close to how a lack of community or a lack of food was described in the Bible.

Everything else is good stuff though.

LOL

We need HOAs or some idiots will paint their house purple or put tractor tires in their front yard.  If you want tractor tires, don’t move to a HOA neighborhood.

I couldn’t even fathom how horrifying it must be to live somewhere there are...purple houses and and yucky stuff in people’s yards. Thank God I don’t have any real problems like that.

listen my Nonna and Nonno live right by a purple house (it’s a nice lilac) and as a kid I was fucking obsessed with it because purple is my favorite color. I’d go nuts whenever we passed by it. Also it had a purple mailbox to match and it blew my mind.

No more HOAs. More purple houses.

imagine trying to control what someone else can do with or on their own property just because you don't agree with their taste in decor

NO MORE HOAs MORE PURPLE HOUSES

Related, becuase I just had to move:  “just don’t move into an HOA” Do you know what a PAIN IN THE ASS it is to find NON-HOA Housing? Very nearly everything in the CO front range that isn’t a rental has an HOA these days!

Short list of the Shit the HOA at my pervious house tried to pull:

HOAs are invasive, bigoted, corrupt and cruel institutions that should never have been allowed to be created.  If you live in and HOA area, showing up at the meetings to tell people what the fuck is wrong with them, Joining your HOA board to protect your neighbors and possibly organize the dissolution of the HOA is one of the best things you can do to protect the marginalized members of your community.

FUCK HOAs AND LONG LIVE THE PURPLE HOUSES AND TRACTOR-TIRE GARDENS OF THE WORLD.

Are y'all telling me this shit is actually LEGAL?

Here’s how to get an HOA to leave you and your purple house tf alone

cant stop thinking about this post. 😔

direct action

HOAs, IN THEORY, could be such a force for public good, and that’s what’s maddening. Imagine if an HOA was like “well we’ve got all these houses and this one empty lot, pay your HOA dues and we can install a community food garden!” or “leave your contact information on the HOA residents-only webpage if you’re willing to be an after-school dropoff for children in our community who may not have a parent at home” or “hi, Sally, we’ve noticed your yard’s gone rather hogwild and things weren’t like that before your husband passed last year, do you need some help? We have some folks in the HOA who can help you with maintenance, no charge.”

Instead they choose isolation over community in the name of a unity that’s in image only, and that’s really, really sad.

Friend of mine bought a small house, an old one in an old neighborhood. She had no idea it was an HOA neighborhood until the day she moved in. They arrived with paperwork she "had" to sign or things would get "complicated", aka do this or we're gonna make life hell for you. She immediately told them no, she has no desire to be part of the HOA, and they about blew a gasket. Went from civil to wtf real quick. They tried sending her violation reports, demanded she pay fines, threatened her, etc. What they didn't know is she's petty and gives zero fucks. She also lives keeping paperwork nice and tidy.

Shit hit the fan when she installed a wall around her property. A 3 feet tall 2 foot wide wall around her yard. Topped with gorgeous iron work with sharp points that make climbing dangeous. Think Addams Family Lite. They tried to stop the construction because she was using the /wrong/ company (a mutual aid group she worked with). Send her fines and fees, and made the mistake of sending a copy of the HOA contract with a forged signature.

Ooooo...it got so ugly! She remembered the HOA post here about that happening to others and, well, the HOA broke up because of other fuckery on top of this. But it was mostly due to her dragging them in court for fraud, harassment, disturbing the peace, trespassing, stalking, and a few other things. She was petty about it too, looked into every fucking thing she could to destroy them.

I was informed that you not, in fact, obligated to sign the HOA contract. It's not a legal requirement. When you look for a home, make sure to ask about the possible HOAs, and look at the details of your homeowner's contract. Sometimes HOAs have that shit written into the purchase. If you see it, change the contract, put your initials and date in the changed sections, and see how the real estate agent handles in. This is legal, btw.

Don't sign the HOA contract, learn the laws regarding yard stuff (did you know you can apply to have your yard declared a wildlife reserve?), and be petty af when the nosy neighbors won't mind their business.

Fuck HOAs, long live the purple houses with the tractor tire garden!

Bat houses are legal to install everywhere in the US, and once installed, many cannot be removed due to the endangered status of the bats which often inhabit them. Check your local regulations.

i know my blog is basically defunct but the HOA forced my family to surrender our dog Emily, which led to her being murdered

so

set fire to the HOA papers and paint your house purple

just had to take a fucking second and close my eyes because i remembered that on the night of november 5th tumblr had convinced me, an outsider, that this was an actual gif of Castiel Supernatural being sent to mega fruit hell

We all learnin’ today ig…

Its from the 1997 movie ‘Spawn’ if anyone was curious

btw this is the actual footage of castiel getting dragged to super hell

two years of venom took him there

okay homies im deleting my tumblr its been real its been fun but to be totally honest this site is sucking my soul and i want to minimize social media presence as much as i can

be more selective in where i show up, ya know??

My discord username is aaaami#3517 so add me on there if you wanna chat! <3 <3 byeeeee

@pechebeche I do wanna clarify that I will miss you specifically because we vibed together about Appalachia, keep fighting the good fight on this abyss of a website, I support you from afar

Women's fashion is like this is too tight in the legs this is too loose in the crotch this digs into your stomach when you sit down this flashes people when you bend over this shows your pantylines to everyone this shows your bra straps this shows the outline of your bra cups this falls off your shoulder if you slouch this flashes people if you ride your bike this prevents you from running this prevents you from climbing this digs into your toes this has no pockets this squeezes your thighs this drags in the mud this is see-through in direct sunlight this gives you a rash if you wear it all day this is comfortable but someone told you it's trashy this makes you self-conscious because it is too tight this makes you self-conscious because it is too loose this stops you from sitting cross-legged this stops you from breathing all the way in this doesn't look how it did on the mannequin this went out of style yesterday this makes you too aware of your body this squeezes so tight it makes you angry this fits so wrong it makes you think you're the problem

14 years and y'all still don't get why aang didn't kill ozai this is genuinely embarrassing might as well just admit that you paid 0 attention while watching the show

Aang's like, entire arc in the show is about the conflict between his duties as the avatar and his personal needs as a kid and an air nomad. You see this with the conflict at the end of season 2 over letting go of his attachment to katara as well: he has to choose between unlocking the avatar state and being a young person who feels friendship and romantic love. In the case of killing ozai, he has to choose between an act of incredible violence that seems to be the only way to save a cruel world (his duties as an avatar), and his air nomad teachings, which say that all life is sacred. Avatar yangchen even explicitly tells him to abandon his air nomad teachings to serve as avatar. However, aang isnt just any air nomad, or any air nomad avatar: as the last airbender, abandoning those teachings is, in some way, letting his culture die - and letting it die in favor of joining in the violence of the war. Instead, he proves to the world that there is a third path, one of compassion and restraint, though, notably, not undeserved forgiveness. By taking this third path, he is able to both fulfil his duties as the avatar AND follow his air nomad teachings, thus overcoming his central conflict.