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betterbemeta · 5 months

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Not to navigate a nuanced topic or anything but you all understand that 'having a fetish for' is different from 'fetishizing', right? And that being sex-positive doesn't mean that everything's a free-for-all?

'having a fetish' is something that exists within the person who holds it. It's not inherently bad or good to have a fetish. Societal norms define what even is a fetish. A culture that doesn't associate breasts with sex will find a fixation on breasts to be weird, etc.

But 'fetishizing' something is to project over other people's bodies, forcing them to bear or play out those inner beliefs you hold. The fetishization of bodies can be system-wide, bigger than a single person, and often is. It is a form of violence that deletes the agency and personhood of the fetishized body in favor of how that body can be possessed or controlled.

The reason I am bringing this up is that while statements of desire are like... allowed... maybe understand that we all participate in power dynamics on the internet that may not be instantly apparent. Even if you create sexual art, write poetry, openly express your desires to your friends, which ARE all normal... you (probably) wouldn't in real life go up to complete strangers unsolicited and state, AWOOGA! I want to be choked by a redhead tonight! When this does happen in real life, it usually is considered to be sexual harassment, or creating an atmosphere of sexual harassment. Even if you're not talking directly to the redhead you're thirsty for.

And like. There's a difference between "I'm sexually excited by this art, the fat woman in it looks hot," however you want to say that, and getting followed out of the blue from a blog that contains posts like, 'I want to feed her until her belly pops' which is about control of the bodies of others, for sexual gratification. Anybody ethically engaging in that type of play would be doing so with mutual consent, it would be a kink scene and not fetishization of bodies that just exist out in the world, neutral of what someone wants from them.

Before you post or add tags, or follow on your kink side blog, think, am I putting this into a space where everyone's mutually consented? Is it a statement that would be protected by social freedom of expression or would it be considered an unsolicited sexual advance by a reasonable (see: not a homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic) standard? If it came in a large volume, (like, hundreds of messages and not just yours), would that context change?

I'm anything but the sex police; I want everyone to be as nasty as is safe for them to be, but. Typical netiquette doesn't cover this stuff, how power can turn what's normally private and none of anyone else's business into someone else's business in a big way.

#still having a normal one on the fat vampire post everybody

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nikkisticki · 8 months

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You think there’s an American coup shortly on the way????

Wow that was fast

yeah? I could sit here and spend a lot of time explaining the full length of my actions and thoughts, but the short version is that during the 2016 election I began to notice substantially more racists and bigots being all the more extreme and realized that something bad might be happening, so I spent several years as a side project examining, communicating and trying to deradicalize people who have been drawn into the far-right hole.

Incidentally, in hundreds of conversations I think I succeeded maybe six times

Irregardless, I can tell you that there's a substantial chunk of Americans who have been radicalized to such an extent that there's no turning back; these people will believe whatever they are told and are absolutely frothing at the mouth, ready to kill if given a "morally righteous" reason, and consume media which exclusively feeds them further radical thought (the amount of active popular grifters has gotten so large they are forming their own fucking companies made of several layers of huckster). They will never stop believing this crap as it's become inherent to their Idealogy, effectively a building block of their soul.

As well, Qanon followers didn't just magically go away. While a large number of them have learned to not actively reveal their hand and more have simply decided it was a psy-op, they still entirely believe that a cabal of deep state pedophiles are blah blah blah blah...

This is a substantial base on top of your standard "Republican/Conservative" who doesn't know what fascism is and doesn't care as long as their guy wins, cause they might TAKE OUR GUNS! As the first coup has shown they are willing to do whatever they are told if their blood is running hot, even if they are all incompetent idiots.

Trump's nailed to a wall, he can't escape this many indictments, something will get him...unless he becomes the president again, which he could even from jail! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the polls are going UP for him as he gets more indictments.

He openly intended to take over America, he's not magically decided against it since then and there's a great deal of rich twats who'd love for this to happen, so do you think it magically stops here? I don't.

If you were to play strategy and try to determine the possible outcomes of 2024, there's only a few I can think of

1) Trump wins > mass riots > civil war

2) Trump wins > coup > civil war

3) Trump wins > further irrevocable damage to the American political system > Civil war but down the line (unlikely)

4) Sleepy Joe wins > Trump throws a coup > Wins (Probably unlikely as the military would be forced to back the bag of bones currently pretending to be not racist (Biden) )

5) Sleepy Joe wins > Trump throws a coup > loses

6) Sleepy Joe Wins > Democrats/legal system actually do something useful and stop Trump from committing a coup > America is still on the brink of collapse (where's it's been for years)

7) Sleepy Joe Wins > Trump goes to jail > 2028 sees a new strong man to replace him as Trump's chosen candidate > See above but replace Trump with their name

There's a functional rot in America that just isn't going to magically go away even if Trump is arrested, there's no stopping the The right with their S.C majority while the Democratic party is functionally no better and only marginally less inclined to upset cis het whitefolk (if your not white, they don't care about you beyond performative gestures). They won't ever change (there's a reason why MLK said Moderates are the biggest hurdle to equality), so here's an obvious spot in history for any old bigot to take the stand and try to "Make America Great Again"

Largely speaking, I'd rather there's no violence, but I'm also not some fool who errantly believes that America is "too great and strong " to split and fall into chaos. The country has been radicalized towards Christo-Fascism and there's no stopping it unless people play legal hot potato and keep offices from being filled by them until they all die of old age and Covid...

Oh and that's not going to happen because part of Qanons movement has been to convince people to infiltrate government (mostly local, but you've got senators and congressmen who are connected to it all the way down to infiltrating the positions of election officials) and attempt to aid their president, when the time comes. This is on top of the countless corporate ghouls who currently have political power that are directly paid and bought for by rich white conservatives.

Ideally, Trumps coup is a thousand bigots getting arrested/shot...but the cops don't like siding against their own, do they?

edit: btw irregardless of what happens there's nothing anyone can do besides prepare as the legal system is useless and the only solution would be mass riots and the near entire removal of all politicians from federal and state positions, which I'm all for!

So don't worry about it too much, it won't help anything.

#All of this hot air has to go somewhere #The Propaganda Machine has been radicalizing people for over two decades now and we are watching the Overton window slide into the grave #Incidentally I recommend owning a bug-out bag and maybe figuring out your best route out of urban dense environments #Whatever happens will happen #As an example theres a fringe chance someone assassinates Trump and then sparks a mass civil war #Or Trump calls in the Russian Military to help out (extremely unlikely)#We live in very interesting times (and im so tired of it)#I would be very happy to be wrong

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rokkr-witness · 4 years

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Primordial Thurs: Ymir and Surtr

So this project started because quarantine has been keeping my kindred apart, so we’ve been doing zoom meetings to discuss some interesting themes in Norse Mythology. I haven’t cited all the references used for these but I hope I got enough of them. This particular work is going to talk about several important concepts, them being Chaos, creation and Destruction and how those concepts are represented by the Primordial Thurs Ymir and Surtr. I will say I’m not a scholar, and a good portion of this is UPG, take it or leave it.

Ymir

Ymir is the first of the giants in Norse mythology, he dates back to the primal times before Odin, Thor or any other God existed. He is created when the fires of muspelheim meet the ice and rime of niflheim in the ginnungagap, the void. He’s representative of the first shared Ancestor, but also the first “consciousness” to come out of Chaos. When referring to consciousness we do not mean sentience here. Thematically, Ymir is the personification of the chaos before creation, which is also depicted as the impersonal void of Ginnungagap. Both Ymir and Ginnungagap are ways of talking about limitless potential that isn’t actualized, that hasn’t yet become the particular things that we find in the world around us. His name means Screamer so connect that to birth, not just the birth of the womb but also the birth of the universe (the Big Bang).

According to Snorri Sturlson Ymir was suckled by the cow Audhumla for his nourishment, but whether this is a Christian literary device or not has been debated. It may be that Audhumla, who also licked Buri out of the ice, was introduced as a way to present a dichotomy in the myths, that being Buri, Ancestor of Odin as Good and lawful, and Ymir, primordial chaos as inherently Bad and therefore deserving of destruction. But we’ll get to that.

When he slept, several other giants were conceived asexually in Ymir’s hermaphroditic body, and spontaneously sprang from his legs and the sweat from his armpits. A man and a woman grew under his arms and a six headed son under his foot. Þrúðgelmir is the name of one son, who’s son Bergelmir is the only one to survive the ocean of Ymir’s blood after his slaying. This is accounted in the book Gylfaginning in the Prose Edda.

There is some suggestion that Buri might have been one of the beings created from Ymir’s body, and by extension so Bor and Bestla, the parents of Odin. I actually prefer this interpretation, because it removes the dichotomy of jotun = bad because they are inherently evil and the descendents of Buri, imposed(cultivated) order, are inherently good. With all beings originating from Ymir you have one source for creation and one "race" for lack of a better term, and it changes the designation of Aesir, Jotunar and vanir to a more tribal understanding, that being the family or group we choose to belong to.

Anyway, Ymir’s son Þrúðgelmir appears in the poem Vafþrúðnismál from the Poetic Edda. When Odin (speaking under the assumed name Gagnrad) asks who was the eldest of the Æsir or of the giants in bygone days, Vafþrúðnir answers:

"Uncountable winters before the earth was made,

then Bergelmir was born,

Thrudgelmir was his father,

and Aurgelmir his grandfather."

—Vafþrúðnismá

Odin, Vili and Ve, The divine brothers then slew Ymir and fashioned the realm of midgard from his corpse. His flesh made the earth, his bones the mountains, his blood the oceans and his brains the clouds. It is also during this creation that the Gods establish Utangard and Innangard by giving the giants the shoreline and using Ymir's eyelashes to build a wall between the rest of the Cosmos and Midgard- the realm of future humans. Through this the tribe of the Aesir, imposes the order necessary for life(as we understand it) to thrive and begins the push and pull between that order and the primordial chaos of the Giants. A push and Pull that ultimately culminates in Ragnarok.

Surtr

And that brings us to Surtr. If Ymir can be considered your primordial Rime, or Frost Thurs, then Surtr is your primordial Fire Thurs. Likewise if Ymir represents the chaos of creation, Surtr represents the Chaos of destruction and the completion of the natural life cycle. Because he is associated with the south (Muspelheim), Surtr is then associated with the idea of fire, which is common in Icelandic Norse mythology. It can be argued that the figure of Surtr was, at the very least, a local figure given over to Iceland’s relatively tumultuous volcanic geography that was incorporated in part into the larger Nordic cycle by Icelandic-born writers, but this theory has never been proven.

His Consort is Sinmora. Less is known of this figure than Surtr himself, save she possesses/is the guardian of the legendary weapon Lævateinn*. Some theories suggest Sinmora as the Same entity as Hela, but personally I find they hold very little water.

Surtr is demonized as a malevolent antagonist to the gods, positioning himself against the world as a whole. And, I want to dispense with the idea, immediately, that Surtr is inherently demonic or otherwise evil. I cannot emphasize this enough.

“If we associate Surtr with the Icelandic writers, an etin with an affinity towards fire and the volcanic landscape of their homeland, then it is easy to see how they could put a greater derogatory emphasis on the being. After all, fire is well attested to being both a savior and a potential threat to civilization, ” Marc, Axe and Plough

It is my understanding that Surtr is in Muspelheim before the worlds are created. Which makes him the perhaps oldest entity in the Northern Pantheon. (excluding some ideas that the Void itself is an entity) Surtr is the lord of Múspellsheimr and the leader of that realm. We do not know when he became the lord of Múspellsheimr, so it is fair to assume that he has always been. That Surtr has always been. This is supported by Muspell, the primordial world of fire, as the primary impetus for the creation of the universe. The interactions between Muspell and Niflheim, within the great void of Ginnungagap was what birthed the universe (Faulkes 1995: 10).

This Idea is one we see regularly, paths of Destruction as paths to rebirth, creation. It is possible that Surtr is a regular arbiter for that rebirth, and has been through the founding and destruction of several universes. What can be gathered from this is something we see regularly in Northern Traditions, the understanding that though things die, life continues, renews and grows.

Natural science does a good way of illustrating Surtr’s importance in this example.

Take Andisols for instance. These are soils that form on volcanic ash and contain volcanic glass and compounds of elements such as Fe, Al and Si. (Ions of those elements, which are released by leaching and weathering of volcanic rock, can form complexes with organic matter; in addition to an andisol’s ability to retain water, this can make for very fertile growing conditions, after it has had the chance to weather, break down and release it´s nutrients. Eruption(destruction), break down, and then growth.

Now let's stop right there for a second. There is very little information on Surtr however there are some conclusions that can be drawn with some mental gymnastics about his role at ragnarok. His role at Ragnarok is to do battle with Freyr, be victorious and cover all the realms with Fire. After Balder will return from Hel and a new cycle of life will begin.

If you look at Ymir as the beginning and Surtr as the end, and both of them in a system of chaotic creation and destruction, then Freyr, the vanic god of fertility and agriculture( one of the ways in which humans mastered the natural world), is the obvious Foe. Freyr represents creation in the system created by Odin Vili and Ve after Ymir’s slaying. To return to the primordial creation you have to remove it, you have to remove everything. And Surtr is the obvious answer to that, an ever present being that sees the same cycle completed over and over. I’d even argue that Balders return to the world of the living is christianized to reflect Christ and maybe a better ending to ragnarok is simply to return to the natural state of the cosmos, Muspelheim in the south, Niflheim in the north and the Void between them.

Conclusion

So i Started this with very little information and so have had to draw a lot of my own conclusions. Some heathens who have also written on this subject, like raven kaldera and his associates, i think over humanize Surtr and by extension Ymir in ways to make the entities more approachable. but i see that for myself as sort of counterproductive. Others like Ljossal Lodursson idk, i just don’t find that his conclusions hold up to my interpretations, that is I don’t support Audumla as an essential part of the cosmos, but that’s my UPG and so i think it’s important to remind everyone that your UPG is yours and you’ll draw your own conclusions through journey work and research. My dissatisfaction with others who follow the path of the jotnar is not a reflection of the validity or quality of their works.

How you choose to incorporate any deity is really up to you.

For myself, I like Ymir for organic inspiration, but I also just sort of feel close to him as I'm a human living on earth, obsessed with the way the universe is held together. If you accept the big bang theory as the scientific beginning of the universe there is a place you can drop ymir in there. Ymir, Screamer, Bang...you get it. I have found if you stare too long at Ymir you sorta fall in and getting out again is rather difficult. I began to feel very unconnected to other parts of my faith, including Loki the longer i stayed trying to connect to Ymir.

Surtr is sorta similar for me. When you want to start over with a clean slate he'd be the one to help you, or rather his is the power you would seek since I'm not certain I could see something omnipresent and everlasting, that is the personification of ultimate entropy as being able to offer conscious help.

I don’t think of them as meeting people or interacting with persons. Try seeing them as simply being, events or states. Powers, elements, eldritch entities beyond sentient consciousness. Like some kind of Norse Jellyfish or giant space Apatosaurus. They just are, they have functions and they are or have fulfilled them.

***

*Lævateinn

Lævateinn is etymologically considered to be a kenning for a sword (Old Norse "damage twig"[1]

Henry Adams Bellows translation:

41. Svipdag spake:

"Now answer me, Fjolsvith, the question I ask,

For now the truth would I know:

What weapon can send Vithofnir to seek

The house of Hel below?"

42. Fjolsvith spake:

"Lævatein is there, that Lopt with runes

Once made by the doors of death;

In Lægjarn's chest by Sinmora lies it,

And nine locks fasten it firm."[3]

Bellows comments that Lægjarn means "Lover of Ill" and, like the name Lopt, refers to Loki

There is some suggestion that the weapon may be the misteltoe used to kill Baldur but this theory has never been proven.