Hey ho, have you seen The Creator (2023) yet? Unsubtly about US imperialism, but also really moving, aesthetically stunning (Greig Fraser as DP, oh yeah) and John David Washington killing it in the main role. I was surprised by how much there was to love. xoxo

I fucking LOVED The Creator and kept trying to write something about it here but never managed to collect my thoughts. But yeah what a fucking movie, oh my god. I feel like it kind of got buried by lack of publicity but tbh I am not that surprised because it's one of those movies with politics that make you think how the fuck did they get away with making this.

Gareth Edwards, like Villeneuve, is a director I've been paying attention to for a while now, ever since his 2010 movie Monsters, which was a really impressive low-budget sci-fi with effects that just looked seamless and interesting things to say about borders and the human cost of militarized responses to disastrous events.

And then he did Rogue One and pulled off something very impressive, which is to take one of the most famous sci-fi weapons of our era--the Death Star, a metaphor for nuclear weapons so iconic it has become a symbol in itself--and made it actually fucking scary for the first time in the history of the franchise. And he did it by turning the camera around.

Because the thing is that before this point, we had only ever seen the Death Star from the point of view of the people firing it. The idea of a planet-destroying weapon is intellectually horrifying but we didn't really ever feel it. Because for that we need to see the weapon from the point of view of its victims. It's such a simple but radical shift in perspective, and I feel like Gareth Edwards took that idea from Rogue One and then made it into a whole movie with The Creator.

The Creator, for those unfamiliar with the premise, is about a near-future counterinsurgency war in which the US military is hunting down various forms of AI/android/robot beings. It also features a space-based super-weapon that is eerily beautiful but goddamn fucking terrifying. It was mostly shot in southeast Asia and heavily evokes Vietnam War imagery (as the ending of Rogue One did as well); it is probably about as close to "Vietnam War movie but you're rooting for the Vietnamese" as it is possible to make in the American studio system. The protagonist is still an American soldier (who defects and "goes native" fairly early in the movie) but making him a Black disabled veteran was certainly a Choice. And yes it's John David Washington and he's great in it.

It feels facetious to say The Creator is Reverse Terminator, because it's much richer than that, but it's also kind of fucking true. For the entire movie, the characters are just running for their lives from the implacable and overwhelming destructive force of the US military which is just crushing everything in its path.

The movie does a lot of things that you simply do not see in most American war movies, but the one that stands out to me the most is that in every scene of war violence there are civilians, including children, fucking everywhere. It really threw into relief for me how often American war-action movies create these empty video game environments for soldiers to run around in, where any actual people who might live in the place where the war is happening are at best props and at worst completely absent. (Alex Garland's Civil War, in addition to being terrible in every other conceivable way, is a particularly bad offender at this.) The Creator does what really should be the bare minimum of taking time to showing that these are people whose homes and lives are being destroyed and it is shocking how novel it seems. (There's a line that plays in my head all the time where one of the AI characters says something to the effect of, "Do you know what will happen to the humans when we win this war? Nothing. We simply want to live.") I will also say that this made it a very intense watch in late October 2023 in particular, but it is fiction so we get a very satisfying and cathartic ending. And yes it is an absolutely gorgeous movie, the VFX are mind-blowing, and I found it quite moving.

Queer people of faith, how do you enrich your spiritual life without sacrificing your identity?

As a bi transmasc enby, I have struggled for years trying to find my place within a spiritual community. It has been very, very hard. I have that drive to connect with God and know the spiritual world, yet it is incredibly difficult when more conservative/traditional religious types yell about how sinful people like me are just for existing.

I might be just throwing this out into the void here. But it is worth a try

This is so cute omg

Doodle of soup I did at school

It is Soup’s birthday! He is two years old now!

$15 Emergency DigitalCommissions

Hi all!

I am opening emergency commissions due to very high costs of therapy that I am struggling to keep up with, and also need funds for a binder to support my mental health. An artwork with basic shading is $15. I can also do simple sketches for a donation below that :)

To order a commission, message me here or on Discord (JesseKestrel) with your details. I will update you every step of the commission's progress, and aim to complete each one within a week.

My Ko-fi gallery features examples of my digital work. I specialise in birds and dragons but can draw most animals also. Any and all contributions are much appreciated, including reblogs!

Made a little profile for my blorbo, this is SFW but I also posted it on my spicy Tumblr :))

needed this :)

another deranged drawing from my demented mind

“In ancient times, the variety of defilements and pollutions were the same for Shinto as in many other cultures throughout the world. A long list would include (but not be restricted to) disease, blood associated with menstruation and childbirth, wounds, death, pestilence, earthquake, fire, leprosy, sores…flaying animals alive or backwards…injuring rice fields and irrigation canals…This list should be modified with an important distinction separating those impurities that are deliberately created and those that are entirely accidental or physiological in nature. Even though these transgression violate a ‘divine’ state of harmony and are therefore loathed, they should not be necessarily thought of as ‘sins’. To Western sensibilities, a ‘sin’ directly affects the individual’s soul like a kind of filthy cloak which only a priest of the church or the direct forgiveness of God intuited by prayer can remove via absolution. The defilements in the above list however, called [罪 ]tsumi, so not affect the ‘real’ person but add thought of as temporary separations from the harmonious interaction of the body, soul, and world. Western preoccupations with virtue do not apply to Shinto conceptions of impurity or purity, mainly because tsumi are not antithetical to virtue or harmony. They are simply a fact of existence afflicting all of us, Kami included, but they can be completely obliterated, with no lingering guilt complexes either…”

—A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine, John K. Nelson

This quote describes one of the reasons I was drawn to Shinto and why I love this faith’s view of the world and human condition.

To add to note, one of the reasons childbirth/menstruation and death are considered impurities beyond the physical excrement given, is due to the fact that they cause mental pain and exhaustion, which are also a form of Kegare(汚れ/穢れ), so it’s not “Ew Gross Blood”, it’s “This thing causes pain and fatigue and therefore causes the individual to suffer during it, that’s not great.” Since some people think it’s solely based on sexist ideology or whatnot.

I was reading this book, so disappointing the author is antisemitic :/

The Essence of Shinto by Motohisa Yamakage is a lot weirder than I thought. The way he repeatedly brings up Koshinto beliefs as if it's a real thing is really proving his lack of knowledge, and then there's the New Age chant he keeps telling people to use that has no historical basis as far as I can tell. I can literally only find New Age and borderline cult websites with this chant.

He also talks about Okinawa/Ryūkyūan religion like it's a part of Shintō...Ugh.

"According to local scholar Brian Burke-Gaffney, the dragon is a traditional symbol of the human spirit, with its cries carried by the eerie wails of the trumpets. "In this sense," he says, "the dance portrays the eternal struggle after truth. Like the human mind striving after peace and truth amid the noise and hardships of the world, the cries of the dragon reach above the clamor of drums, gongs, and firecrackers—its white fangs, bristly mane, and bloodshot eyes lurch through the air, furiously chasing the ever-receding golden ball" (Burke-Gaffney 1987, 7).

Suddenly, the dragon is there among the members of the audience...since it enters from a totally opposite direction as the other performances... one might very well wonder if the beast came from within the shrine or somehow has the sanction of the Kami, since its dipping undulations and fierce countenance appear to be animated by a divine presence. But after all, what other reason is there for dancing before the deities if not to become possessed?"

—A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine, By John K. Nelson

Photo Credit

1, 2, 3

discovered there's a shinto subreddit and I don't think I've ever seen anything with more illustrative cases of trying to cram a non-western spirituality into the framework of western beliefs. even the buddhist and taoist subreddits don't show it quite this clearly

Random question, but are there any good Shinto-related blogs to follow here? I want to find nice devotional art of the Kami-sama but all I get is fandom stuff, which is not what I'm looking for.

I take back that post about losing faith. I never really lose it completely, it just comes and goes and then appears again. It's unstable due to my depression and autism and OCD and stuff. That's something I might have to learn to be OK with.

If you're spiritual, please pray for me (or if not, keep me in your thoughts) My best friend has just blocked me for no reason, and to be honest I'm McLosing it...I'm just not coping. I'm really not.

Hey all, I've decided to leave Tumblr, and will no longer be checking this account. If you wish to contact me,ask for my email address. All the best ❤️

I LOVE HIM

I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS PHOTO HES SO FLUFFYYYYY

Losing your faith is harder than what most imagine it to be. It feels like flailing around in an endless void, because the anchor that once supported you has disappeared. I grew up with religion. It was woven into my very being. To lose it now is almost like losing a person I've known my whole life. It honestly feels like a bereavement. Something has been torn out of my heart, and I know that I'll never get it back.

There is a lot of existential dread looking upon the future and realizing that one day, my consciousness will cease to exist along with my body. There is no afterlife in rationalism. It is true but ultimately so hard to accept. We want to believe that there's more to life than the endless chasing of a carrot on a stick of avoiding suffering. Yet there isn't. Every living being is trying not to get hurt. That's all we're here for. To avoid pain. Religion is one of the many ways we cope with suffering. The truth is, pain is a given. It always will be. However, a God or gods are not. We have no empirical evidence a spiritual realm exists. NDEs and similar experiences can be explained by chemical changes and processes in the brain. (It's all about the brain, isn't it?)

I don't know what to do with my life now. It feels so... empty. Every good thing I do to ease the suffering of others is eclipsed by the harmful actions of those in power. So what should I do, if I cannot meaningfully reduce the pain of animals and people around me, and there is no heaven to live for nor God to appease?