honestly, fantasy high changed the way I see religion for myself. I watched s1 when I was still unsure of whether to leave the church I was raised in, and not only was Kristen incredibly relatable, but her situation was so different.

she MET GOD. in dnd, there is real, true proof of not only the being's existence but also of their deity-hood. Kristen never questions whether Helio/Sol exists, nor if they have the powers they say they have.

In the finale Brennan asks "what is a god worthy of your worship?" and that's what her real question always was.

it's so different from how most people think about religion. in Christianity especially there's so much emphasis on *you* being worthy of God, and not God being worthy of your worship.

after watching fantasy high I asked myself, "if the god I was taught to believe in was real, would I want to worship him?"

and that made it a lot easier to walk away.

Revisited a story that was very important to me as a child, and learned about the author being very vocal about the harm gender roles & stereotypes cause. I thought "oh that's great!" but was afraid. What if she only applied that logic to cis ppl?

I did some searching, and found out that not only does she support trans ppl, but has also spoken multiple times about how important it is to be able to see protagonists outside of the perceived norm. A.K.A., she doesn't see my very existence as wrong.

I let out a deep sigh of relief. I could continue to enjoy this thing that had been so important to me growing up.

But this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Too often I discover a new artist, or even be unsure of one I've enjoyed the work of for a long time up to the present; and I have to desperately search to know if I can enjoy their work. Either I am extremely relieved, or absolutely crushed.

This shouldn't be necessary. I shouldn't be feeling this deep fear that something so important to me, was created by someone who despises my very existence. That I, as a disabled queer femme ex-mormon Pagan witch who was raised like a girl, will be shoved off the emotional cliff of "this person you looked up to hates you for the same reason all bigots do".

I was so terrified that something that meant so much to me as a kid could've shattered me emotionally. Simply because I didn't know if the person who made it hates people like me.

We shouldn't have to live like this.

Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

If you're trying to unpack and heal from Christian religious trauma, a thing you really need to understand (if you don't already) is that you were probably misled about Judaism a lot. Christianity generally tries to paint itself as the self-evident successor of Judaism, and one of the ways it does this is by painting Judaism as Christianity Without Jesus.

In reality, Judaism is practiced very differently from Christianity, and Jews have a very different relationship to their Bible than Christians have to theirs. Just about everything you'll hear about Judaism from Christians is total hogwash - literally, it's Christian propaganda. Christianity as most of us know it was shaped by the Roman Empire's political agendas, and that's a huge reason why it's the way it is.

I love how he finds the words to describe the concepts that float around my head daily ❤️❤️❤️❤️ love him!

I heard this metaphor growing up, and in my case, it backfired supremely, because I went out into my neighbor's backyard where a rose bush was growing, and the one I tested had like 30 petals (it was yellow, but definitely a rose of some kind), and as a very logical lass, I came to the conclusion that you could have premarital sex AT LEAST ten times before your future husband would even notice something was up. Moral of the story? Test your metaphors on the weirdest and most neurodivergent child you know before writing your weird religious propaganda.

So far, chances of KOSA being enacted is 31% according to the site linked below.

Let's get that fucker down to zero, guys!!

Stuff to help us do that is linked here!

The call scripts linked below were originally for Congressional representatives, but now that the bill is in committee consideration by Senate Commerce, you should call your Senators instead and you can use the scripts for them. Also, when calling your Democrat senators, make sure to add that Senator Blackburn explicitly stated in interview that it would be used to "protect children from the transgender." I think it's pretty clear that this is not meant to protect children. It's just going to harm children further, especially trans children.

(Article below with a video of the interview embedded.)

Please help stop this bill in its tracks. Reblog, donate, call your senators, and keep an eye on the bill's chances of being passed. We can't stop now. 31% is still kind of a big number. We need to shrink those chances by a lot more.

i’ve read so much tradcath bullshit the last two years. i can confidently say tradcath men fit into one of two categories:

“protestant-raised and converted to catholicism because of his crippling porn addiction and racist tendencies. reposts crusader and conquistador memes. is hated in his local parish.” tradcath

“catholic-raised band kid who ate his lunches with the religion teacher. smells like mildew. cut off all his friends that came out as gay after high school. now larps as an aquinian scholar and cries after jerking off.” tradcath

Stole this from a friend with permission

"But she gave birth to you, you owe her!"

My mother wanted to be a mother. It was her dream to be a mother. She poured all her energy into being a Good Christian Mother.

She did not want me. She wanted motherhood. I was a side effect of her dream. Once I was old enough to disagree with her, she hated me. I wasn't making her look like a Good Christian Mother. I was loud, disobedient, needy... almost like a child. Not quiet and pretty and grateful for crumbs.

Yes, she birthed me. For herself and her partner. For the people who were already born. Not for me. As all mothers have for all of time. It's not the birthing that makes a mother worth honoring, it's the parenting.

You do not have to stay up and wait. The end of the world is not coming. You do not have to act as a witness. Nothing bad will happen if you close your eyes. Go to sleep. The man called Jesus is dead. The terror of that night was over a long time ago. Humans hurt each other all the time. It doesn't mean anything. There is nothing you can do about it right now. It's late. The world will still be there in the morning.

Go to sleep.

forceful reminder as we come up to easter weekend that you were not born bad. that it is good that you are alive. that you were not born to be evil, or born to die for the cause, or born to be broken.