Here we go again.

"I'm so disappointed and upset, I found out this awesome creator is a pedophile!"

Damn, that sucks. They got caught assaulting a kid?

"No, nothing like that."

Oh, so you mean they were sexting a kid online, or being a creep to one at conventions or something?

"No, not that I know of."

Right, sorry, you must mean they were outed as belonging to that creepy man-boy-love group that treats pedophilia like a healthy sexuality.

"No, and I've never heard of that, that's gross!"

It's super gross, yeah. Though really, if you're concerned about pedophilia, you'd think you'd have heard of the biggest group of pedophiles in the modern world... But anyhow, this creator; let me guess, they went on the record somewhere advocating for lowering the age of consent, or saying the children can consent to sex with adults, or something like that?

"No, not that either."

Well, I'm stumped, that's the usual list of creepy pedo behavior. Did they come out to a therapist and it got leaked or something?

"They wrote a bunch of fanfiction shipping underage characters!"

Oh. I see.

"Isn't it terrible?!"

I'm very sorry for you. But hey, while we're discussing disappointing creators, did you know that George R. R. Martin is a serial killer?

(This script is deeply unrealistic because the people who claim to be against pedophilia will always be screaming loudly about the fanfiction in the very first line, you certainly don't have to pry it out of them, but it's not like having this conversation would make any of them notice the problem with their performative freak-outs anyway.)

Pagan stuff.

I keep starting to type out a post about this, but it's SO MUCH.

How do I put the complete-yet-ongoing transformation of my spiritual life into words in any sort of coherent way?

This is at least 17 years worth of slow travel, and another year of...I don't even know what to call it. Tumbling off a cliff, possibly. I'm not sure I've landed yet, either?

That said, two links:

The Dragon's Teeth
A personal-journey zine that covers some tiny slice of what I've been experiencing.

The Call To Arms
A discord server dedicated to Hellenist paganism in general and the worship of Ares in particular.


Yeah, uh... Like I said, it's been a bit of a journey there.

You do not have to follow Ares to join the group. But it is adults-only because I cannot even with trying to moderate something that gets so easily into heavy and dark topics while having kids present. :3

Anyhow, yeah. A little over a year ago I was putting together my first altar, now I'm running a group. Admittedly that latter is because there is shit all for Ares out there. The "most hateful" god continues to be so, I guess. (That's from the Iliad. Zeus said it about Ares. Oof, dad, A+ parenting there. But a lot of us can relate, can't we? That's part of the appeal.)