J-drawings - J Drawings

The strange thing about growing up in conservative Christianity and then leaving it behind is that there are a lot of secular/progressive spaces that engage in similar thinking while sincerely believing their ideas are counter to conservative ones. So I thought I would just make a list of things I was taught within conservative Christianity, the stuff that was either the core of our beliefs, or the social dynamics that we created. Some of the language I use is specifically either scriptural, or Christian-speak.

This list isn’t to say “stop thinking this way.” This is actually intended to simply be informative because sometimes social justice spaces assume, “we are crafting our ideals in opposition to conservative ideals therefore whatever we think surely must be the opposite of whatever they think,” without ever seeming to know that their language and ideals look and sound the same.

So, let’s begin:

Sin-leveling: x is bad, and y is bad, and all bad things deserve an equal reaction

Sin-leveling part 2: because all things are equally bad, there’s nothing wrong with inverting the consequences. Hurting others becomes acceptable (because it’s no different than doing something distasteful), doing something distasteful is unforgivable (because it’s no different than doing something harmful)

Avoid all appearance of evil: if I assume that your behavior looks wrong, then you are wrong, even if further context would say otherwise. You should avoid doing anything that others would see as wrong because you are not allowed the benefit of the doubt or to defend yourself.

Sin by association: x company contracted with y company. Y company engages in something sinful, which means x company approves of said sinful thing which means if you purchase from x company, you are condoning, supporting, and have actually committed the sin.

Think only on what is good: or as the pastor of my old church liked to call it, “garbage in, garbage out.” Whatever ideas, thoughts, words, arguments, stories, pictures, books, movies, songs, friends, love you put in your head will create the desire to become that. If you want to be good, you must avoid any bad thought because you will “slip” into wanting it and then be unable to stop yourself from being it. (For example, type into google “is secular music” and click on the autocomplete of “a sin”)

Language as an in-group test: if you do not describe your life, experiences, and beliefs with the exact same vocabulary and in-group speak, you are either not really one of us, or you’re someone who hasn’t thought through their ideas as deeply as I have.

By any means necessary: Also known in the ex-Evangelical world as “lying for Jesus.” If my words create the necessary beliefs and actions in others, then it doesn’t matter if I am exaggerating, saying half-truths, or using manipulative language, because I’m saving others and helping them do what’s right.

Touch not God’s anointed: any critiques of those our community trusts, critiques of those we’ve deemed “the good ones,” are actually people trying to sow discord and disunity to destroy our community and their voice should be silenced because they must be lying.

Judge not lest ye be judged: A scripture that we throw at people when someone says our leadership is abusive, a scripture we cry is being taken out of context when we want to harshly critique someone ourselves. 

There’s more, lots more, but this post is already fairly long. Once again, though, this isn’t intended to be combative. I just want people to know the actual social dynamics that a lot of us grew up with in conservative Christianity communities, so they know when sometimes they’re sharing those social dynamics, not countering them.

“What is significant about fan fiction is that it often spins the kind of stories that showrunners wouldn’t think to tell, because fanficcers often come from a different demographic. The discomfort seems to be not that the shows are being reinterpreted by fans, but that they are being reinterpreted by the wrong sorts of fans - women, people of colour, queer kids, horny teenagers, people who are not professional writers, people who actually care about continuity (sorry). The proper way for cultural mythmaking to progress, it is implied, is for privileged men to recreate the works of privileged men from previous generations whilst everyone else listens quietly.”

— Sherlock and the Adventure of the Overzealous Fanbase by Laurie Penny  (via basilandtheblues)

people are like "if you put crabs in a bucket they can't escape because they keep pulling each other back in, this is called crab bucket mentality and describes why people don't help each other" and never acknowledge that crabs do not naturally occur in buckets, a human with more power had to put them there

Learn to Knit With Scales

So you want to make something with scales too? Well you're in the right place!

GUYS I’VE FOUND A VERY IMPORTANT WEBSITE FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN KNIT WITHOUT INJURING THEMSELVES!!!!

kirby has eaten trees meta

Tom Holland does Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on Lip Sync Battle

“One of the simplest ways to make the audience like a character is to show him liking other people. One of the easiest ways to make the audience care about a character is to show him caring about other people. We care about Harry Potter in no small part because he cares so much about his friends. It’s impossible to imagine Harry seeing Hermione get hurt and feeling anything but horror and guilt, no matter how terrible a fight they might have had beforehand. Katniss is by design a more prickly and “difficult” protagonist than Harry is, or than Moss seems intended to be, but we care about her from the start because we see how deeply she loves her sister and her willingness to sacrifice herself to protect her. Bad writers, though, often make the mistake of thinking that you make a character likable by showing that other characters like him, and make the audience care about him by showing that other characters care about him. This tends to have exactly the opposite effect. At a certain point the reader starts to wonder what’s so great about this guy that everyone is showering him with praise, and starts actively wanting to see him fail or be told off.”

— https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/325399.html?thread=1869956375#cmt1869956375 (via pitviperofdoom)

me, rewatching my favourite media for the hundredth time: it’s about the comfort. it’s about the nostalgia. it’s about lacking the necessary emotional bandwidth to take in and process new things in this year of our lord 2021