I Love You Female Characters Who Make Selfish Choices They Know Will Be Bad For Everyone. I Love You

“No Sabbath laws apply where life is in danger.”

— Mathia ben Heresh, Mishna: Yoma 8:6

Some of you have never worked with an editing program and think that making gifs and edits takes like two seconds and it shows

Hey there! It's totally cool if someone wants to turn your content into ai. Take it as a compliment! Remember, it's a fandom, you don't own it and we all share and create together, so it's fair for people to have different opinions about your work. No need to get upset, it's all part of the fun and diverse community we have here! Just let others have what they find satisfying.😊

I understand your point. But no. It's not. I'm a part of a community, the exchange of ideas with other human beings is expected. I don't get a say with what other people do with my characters but I'm kind of responsible for what is done with them regardless and to just reduce everything to... Train an algorithm to replicate what I do? The things I make? That's just. It's soulless. I get not everything I write appeals to everyone. That's fine. But you don't get to remove me from the equation of my work. It's not a compliment. Death of the author doesn't fucking apply when I'm right here. I guess I can't stop people if they do it privately but seriously, please. Please think of what you're saying. Because the implication that the author can be translated into AI and removed from the process is just horrific.

This may be arrogant but the reason anyone would like my takes at all is because they come from my heart, head and hands. Remove that and you may as well just use an AI trained on the canon material and leave me out of it.

White Fangirls: I love when the male lead ends up with the girl next door or his childhood bff

*Girl is Black*

White Fangirls: um ... the girl next door thing is so cliched.

White Fangirls: I love when the male lead pines over the girl and she's oblivious

*Girl is Black*

White Fangirls: She's so CRUEL. Why doesn't she see he's in love with her? She's a bitch.

White Fangirls: I love when they go from partners to lovers. It's my favorite trope.

*Girl is Black*

White Fangirls: Why can't they just stay friends. Not every relationship is romantic. Ugh!

White Fangirls: I love when the female lead is more than just a love interest. I love when she has her own storyline and can kick ass.

*Girl is Black*

White Fangirls: Why do they focus on her so much? [Other white character] is so much more interesting.

White Fangirls: I don't understand why there aren't more strong female leads.

Me: *looks at all the strong Black female leads on TV*

Me: What about -

White Fangirls: There's just no strong, three-dimensional women on TV to root for. Sigh.

Let me clear this up for you:

Since no one seems to understand. Time to rant. 

CONCEPT OF KARMA

I absolutely hate how western practitioners have twisted the meaning and bastardised it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely rooted in my roots and I’m not an extreme traditionalist but people using the concept of karma by first misunderstanding its foundations and then using it to justify horrendous shit is unbelievable. Which then, leads to people trying to divorce karma from its associations.

Okay, let’s just break it down. Idk how they just reduced Karma as “what goes around, comes around” & treated it like a cause and effect deal, because it isn’t. Using Karma to justify suffering and oppression was NEVER it’s original purpose. Looking through Hinduism & Vedic teachings, Karma is a law that human in the centre of responsibility, in every way, shape and form. There is a reason Karma is tied with Saturn (Shani), the God of Karma, Justice and Retribution, and ANY astrologer can tell you how Saturn operates in similar principal. Karma doesn’t teach people to shut up & suffer because they deserve it. Karma says that the cycles that exist are created by and through humans, their suffering & good fortune accordingly and by virtue, it is in their hands and will alone on how they want to cultivate their actions.

It DOESN’T discount systematic oppression.

It DOESN’T tell you to sit on your hands and suffer because it’s your fault.

It DOESN’T tell you that you’ll get good things after suffering.

What Karma does is present you with the situation of your life, then waits and watches what YOU choose to do with it, how YOU work or manage it. Ultimately, being tied to Saturn, it expects you to take responsibility on creating your own situation.

And no, I’m not saying this in the way that the way people are, and how they’re suffering is because they somehow “were a bad person in their previous life, etc etc”, I’m saying that it acknowledges that people have different situations & personal suffering, yes, a LOT of things in life are fundamentally difficult but you need to understand, the planets or the gods didn’t create suffering on such a global scale, it was ultimately humans/men themselves that perpetuated and continued the cycle of suffering, and it is, ultimately, in our hands to make it better or worse. Karma treats everyone equally this sense, but it is very difficult to understand this if you don’t realise that the concept of Karma is deeply tied with cycles, especially as Hinduism treats time as a cycle itself, and often times people really can’t and don’t have the knowledge of comprehending anything but their own/current life while they’re alive. 

Karma isn’t an immediate slap in the face (unless you have those placements that make it so) as you know, the GOD OF KARMA is literally called the slowest/slow moving planet and is symbolised by a tortoise, the effects of your Karma accumulate and thus it usually manifests in the various cycle of lifes. I understand that western practitioners or those growing up with largely Christian themes/society can’t understand because we don’t have a definite “end”, the only “end” that comes from cycles of reincarnation is through burning the ties of Karma and liberating the soul. There are three types of Karma:

1. Sanchita karma, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved. 2. Prarabdha karma, that portion of sanchita karma that is to be experienced in this life. 3. Kriyamana karma, the karma that humans are currently creating, which will bear fruit in future.

There are some things in life you can’t control, there are also things in life that you can control. Karma is a continuous cycle until you achieve moksha, which is the ultimate goal of liberation.

Hinduism/The Vedas has recognised and understood the way the Law of Karma works, that’s one of the main reasons Dharma was made one of the aims of life, the act of good deeds, performing proper responsibilities & personality that ultimately gears you towards attaining (good)karma that will make it easier for you to pursue the other “Purusartha” aka aims of life, and of course, the path towards liberation in general.

From this perspective, we see life as fundamentally connected with everything, including people, action, deeds, nature, planets, the universe etc etc, Karma is just a law that explains one part of such. Astrology has always been one of the main tools used to deeply study the bond between the planets and a human existence (soul & body), one of the main reason Karmic Astrology exists is because the intrinsic ties our existence has with different elements of life, and of course, the soul that has & will be going through everything. Now that you’re in the end of this post, I hope you never misuse the concept of “Karma” because I’m going to arrive there with Saturn to slap a bitch.

                                               It’s good to be uncertain.                                             Because uncertain means…                                                   you’re still ‘human’

In the Mishnah, Rabbi Yosi makes the radical statement: “androgynos bria bifnei atzma hu / the androgynos he is a created being of her own.” This Hebrew phrase blends male and female pronouns to poetically express the complexity of the androgynos’ identity. The term bri’a b’ifnei atzmah is a classical Jewish legal term for exceptionality. This term is an acknowledgement that not all of creation can be understood within binary categories. It recognizes the possibility that uniqueness can burst through the walls that demarcate our society. The Hebrew word bria (created being) explicitly refers to divine formation; hence this term also reminds us that all bodies are created in the image of God. People can’t always be easily defined; they can only be seen and respected, and their lives made holy. This Jewish approach allows for genders beyond male and female. It opens up space in society for every body. And it protects those who live in the places in between.

Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla and Reuben Zellman