I Write Shit

#CLOCKED

Rosemarie wasn’t ready

Rosemarie got dragged by Target.

(not so) Breaking News: I’m sad again and everyone’s tired of hearing about it

the face of a bird who fully understands what he did and will do it again.

sometimes things are tough but look at this bun

why is bob short for robert

how does one get ‘billy’ out of ‘william’?

How in hell do you get “Dick” from “Richard”?

you ask him nicely

you ask him nicely

i have been waiting for yEARS FOR THIS POST TO COME BACK YOU DONT UNDERSTAND

There’s a kid in my class named Richard Hunter

Dick Hunter

My mum once had a client named Richard Cox

me a few months ago: i wish i had consistent emotions and passions instead of flaking on everyone and everything

my brain: ok cool. heres smth good that you’ll feel very consistently and passionate about for months on end

me: oh yes, finally, sign me the fuck up

my brain: it’s naruto

me: what

my brain: believe it

“Bisexuals don’t belong in the LGBT community” ohhh ok I guess the B stands for ‘bitch’ and that’s where you fit in, gotcha

I was explaining bi and trans erasure/phobia in the gay community to my mum and she was outraged and burst out “WHAT DO THEY THINK IT STANDS FOR? LESBIANS, GAYS, BICYCLES AND TRICYCLES?!” and I don’t think I’ll forget that until my dying day.

I know it’s ridiculous, but the “person carrying an absurd and improbable number of weapons must remove them all (to the bewilderment of those around them)” trope is still one of the best tropes of all time.

Sometimes I drink too much vodka or eat 3 servings of macaroni and cheese in one sitting, but by far the most unhealthy habit I have is comparing myself to others.

This is one of my favorite things I’ve ever read on tumblr

Americans have literally no banter

idk what country this is coming from but we’ve probably beaten you in a war at some point

I’m American

Civil war

#America: “ill kick anyone’s ass. I’ll kick your ass. I’ll kick your dogs ass. I’ll kick my own ass”

draw women in post-apocalyptic world settings with armpit hair, leg hair, bushy brows and pubic hair ya cowards,, draw brown women/women with dark thick hair with arm hair and happy trails and sideburns and mustaches i’m sick of seeing silky smooth soapy clean make up wearing post apocalyptic dolled up women next to stinky sweaty crusty men with dirty nails and sweaty clothes and sweaty greasy hair and 3m long ugly beards

or, if you must depict women maintaining that shit, at least be interesting about it. I can actually buy someone shaving/putting on makeup if that’s their way of coping, something they do to tether themselves to the past or an ellusive feeling of normalcy. So show me the EFFORT put in, yeah? Show that woman risking a zombie horde because she spotted a fucking tube of scarlet lipstick and christ she hasn’t seen that color in five years but it’s what she wore on her first date with her now-dead husband. Show me the girl who is quietly starting to fucking lose it but covers it up with fanatical commitment to her appearance because if she gets these eyebrows right, maybe no one will notice how she stares at things that aren’t there. I find it completely plausible that some women would go to incredible lengths to maintaining their appearance, because they’ve been socialized all their lives to caring about it, because it’s a part of their identity. So show me how that part gets negotiated with once the world has gone to hell.

Catch me in your local bunker doing a smoky eye with the ashes of my former life.

One of the visual images that still sticks with me is from the 2000 TV show Prairie Quest, when modern people simulated homesteading in the 1870s. They all got kind of bushy and hairy as they dealt with an extremely limited supply of clean, warm water or good soap.  One of the women hated the feeling of hairy legs while she slept, so as an act of love and care, her husband had her prop her legs up on the kitchen table while he carefully shaved her legs with a hunting knife.

… that is honestly fucking adorable and kind of hot and I am totally stealing it for a post-apocalyptic setting.

One of the great things about Mira Grant’s Newsflesh is it thinks through these details and makes them part of the story.

“The Emperor Claudius has died from poison!”

Agrippina:

person of color: hey wouldn’t it be cool if angels were represented as brown or black more often–

edgy whites who went to a week of bible study 15 yrs ago and regurgitate all their Superior Knowledge from textually inaccurate all-caps tumblr posts written by supernatural fans: um…… ACTUALLY :) angels don’t look like HUMANS they look like ELDRITCH NIGHTMARES™ that MELT YOUR BRAIN OUT so stop giving them skin colors :) try a few animal heads instead :) don’t forget the eyeballs :) 

But it’s true?? That’s why they’re always saying “do not be afraid”. Some of them have three faces on one head?? It’s in both Old Testament and Revelations.

i mean, this is my favorite of all subjects so why not chat about it a little. sorry in advance for the essay you didn’t ask for, but i’m getting a lot of smartasses on this post telling me the Edgy Whites aren’t wrong. so let’s go:

1) even if it was true (which it’s not, i will get to that) this wouldn’t be an adequate reason for criticizing or derailing poc who are trying to subvert the association of divinity/purity & whiteness. you know the idea of the aryan race came from the myth of divine whiteness? you know how all fantasy elves are pale slender & white, thanks to j.r.r. tolkein’s prevailing white/christian influence? so if you see poc trying to reframe this, let them!

2) it isn’t true. don’t get me wrong, you can envision, interpret, and portray angels however you want, that’s part of the fun of art and writing and fantasy. i know that a certain post influenced how a lot of people on tumblr imagine angels (again, because people like subverting popularized imagery) but if we’re talking about biblical accuracy, then let’s be biblically accurate. 

more specifically, if someone is going to condescend to poc (or anyone!) about the “factual” appearances of angels in the bible, then they damn better get it right. 

to start with– angels as winged messengers were popularized after the roman catholic church began co-opting greco-roman imagery, and modeled much of their depictions of angels after hermes and eros. so yeah, the image of pale white angels is tiresome and not technically accurate to the bible.

that said, the majority of angels in the bible very likely appeared as wingless humans with occasional supernatural attributes. 

biblical angels are understood by theologists & angelologists to exist in a celestial hierarchy, de coelesti hierarchia, which accounts for nine distinct types. they’re organized in tiers, so to speak. within the first sphere are seraphim, cherubim, and ophanim. this first choir resides within the inner sanctum of heaven; they are the lovecraftian ones tumblr is so big on. 

the seraphim (isaiah 6:1-8 and revelations 4:8, the burning ones, sometimes interpreted as a mass of serpents, multiple eyes, etc.) the cherubim (isaiah 1:5-11 and ezekiel 1:5-13, multiple wings, multiple faces) and ophanim (ezekial 1:15-21′s iconic Wheels™) are all witnessed by prophets. not in visitations, but in visions of heaven. these are THE scary angels, the angels of the guillermo del toro persuasion. 

but, they exist outside of sight from humans, which is why it was exclusively prophets who could describe them. they do not come down to earth to chat with random civilians. they’re too busy with the tasks of the omniscient, and their proximity to god is what makes them so powerful and so otherworldly. (and no, you won’t drop dead just looking at them: only god is said to be that powerful.) 

the second choir– the dominions, virtues, and powers– are typically interpreted to remain unseen and work on the spiritual plane, tasked with more menial things than the first choir, keeping the nonphysical realm in working order. 

the third choir are the ones who move between heaven and earth to serve humans: the principalities, archangels and angels. these are the ones most regularly described in the bible as messengers, guides, and guardians who take on the form of man in order to serve and aide them. almost every mention of angelic messengers or apparitions in the bible is an angel of the third choir. 

(side note: the only angels not accounted for in the celestial hierarchy are the nephilim: the fallen ones who had children by humans, referenced in genesis 6:1–4 and often considered to be demons.)

so if the angels appearing to humans aren’t abominations, why do they scare people so badly? 

the phrase “do not be afraid/be not afraid” is said in variations over 100 times in the bible, not exclusively by angels. most often it’s spoken as an assurance of god’s love and protection. yes, a handful of times it’s said by angels. (matthew 1:20, matthew 28:5, luke 1:13, luke 1:30, luke 2:10, to name some prominent instances.) almost every single one of these, the angel in question is doing just that– assuring vulnerable or frightened people that god is protecting them. 

most notable of these angels is gabriel, the archangel and messenger who appears to mary to tell her she will conceive jesus. let’s look at the context at play: mary was a young unwed woman who would not have been accustomed to spending time alone with young man outside her family. when gabriel appears to her, a strange man in her home, she has every reason to be frightened. gabriel goes on to tell her that she’s going to be the mother of god, and this is when he reassures her not to be afraid, because it will be done through god’s workings. gabriel ≠ an eldritch horroterror. 

the second instance is that of the messenger angel who tells the women of jerusalem not to be afraid, but jesus has been raised from the dead. this angel is described as unearthly, and tbqh he’s dope as hell: “his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.” (matthew 28:5) there’s reason to believe this angel is of the same countenance as the one described in a vision in the book of daniel: “then i lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and beheld a certain man clothed in linen (…) his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.” (daniel 10:5-7) my fave description of an angel in the bible by far, but… still not an eldritch horrorterror. 

in a third instance (luke 2:10), the angelic heralds who inform the sleeping shepherds of jesus’ birth do startle the men, and they do tell them not to fear. but it’s said its the glory of god emanating from them that scares the shepherds, not a monstrous appearance. 

the cosmic fear attributed to visits from the divine is called numinous dread, the terror that fills us when we’re approached by something we have no capacity to understand. numinous dread is akin to what makes people quiver at the thought of ghosts, or the size of distant planets, or the expanse of the universe– something incalculable and unknowable to the point of being frightening. this to me is by far the coolest aspect of angels. the fact that the very scope of their existence can tug and distort the fabric of our dimension, to the point that humans are bowled over by the merest whiff of their presence? it’s why angels who appear human but still frighten people is such an underrated concept.

you know the phrase “every angel is terrifying”? the author, rainer maria rilke, wrote endlessly on the nature of the human and divine, especially in his work the duino elegies. in the full quote from the first elegy, he mused on the vastness of angels in comparison to mortals:

this, to me, is the most succinct and lovely illustration of angels, which doesn’t define them either as monsters or humans– he’s fixed on the feeling of awe that’s inherent to the divine, however it manifests. 

none of this invalidates creative interpretations of biblical angels! it just means you should not be talking down to anyone about their level of accuracy, especially in regards to race.

in summary: YES, some angels are scary looking in the bible. NO, not every single one looks like edgy white tumblr wants to believe. YES, everybody is allowed to have fun with their interpretations and portrayals, go wild. NO, it’s not even remotely acceptable to condescend to people who want to envision them as people of color because, textually, they manifest as humans in the bible, and everyone in the bible was brown and black. 

This is just simply awesome. I really enjoyed this read. Not only is it a wonderful response, but the information in it is so neat. Thank you, Sera!

“don’t let your kids near gay people, they’ll turn gay” oh better not take them to starbucks then or they’ll turn into a fucking latte

“i can’t do that because of my religious beliefs”

okay

“you can’t do that because of my religious beliefs”

not okay