#‘you have an English Bible and aren’t even Christian’ i don’t care! I want to be able to read the Icelandic one! I want to read what

[beneaththetangles]

The Curious Incident of the Christianity in the Fictional Setting

Relatively few fictional settings feature Christianity. There are a variety of reasons for this—some good and some…not. Even in the isekai stories of C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy), where the God of the Bible is recognized in other worlds, the inhabitants of those other worlds don’t actually practice “Christianity” as we know it.

However, I’ve encountered a fascinating exception that I want to share.

Christianity—actual, literal Christianity—exists within the world of 86–Eighty-Six. The recent anime adaptation of this light novel series was good enough to pique my curiosity about its source material. I’ve now finished all seven of the volumes currently available in English, and along the way uncovered a striking amount of evidence suggesting that Christianity is present in the setting. Of course, anime and other works contain countless references to Christianity that are best inconclusive, so we’ll need to discuss those, too.

“Now let me be clear,” the story of 86–Eighty-Six doesn’t take place in our world. The technology, psychic powers, and ethnic groups with all sorts of fantastical hair and eye colors are enough to establish that. The story and setting are unmistakably inspired by real history, but it’s not our reality.

We all know that the works of fiction on which this blog focuses (Japanese anime, light novels, manga, and video games) liberally appropriate words and symbols from Christianity without intending at all to say anything about Christianity. Neon Genesis Evangelion is one famous (or is that infamous?) example, but it’s far from unique. Anime has given us more evil popes that than the most fervid of Protestant demagogues could possibly have imagined, and yet such stories are just using the word “pope” to denote a religious leader, and rarely if ever do they intend to say anything about the actual Roman Catholic Church. In these works of fiction, we must take care not to read too much into the mere use of words or symbols associated with Christianity. This is especially true when it comes to book, series, or chapter titles, which can get really meta and not have any bearing on the reality within the fictional setting.

Another kind of inconclusive reference to Christianity comes through idioms. If a present-day English speaker wants to talk about a benevolent passerby who stops to help someone in need, there’s a good chance they will refer that individual as a “Good Samaritan.” The phrase comes from a parable of Jesus recorded in Luke 10, but it has evolved beyond its origins into a widely used idiom, one that any English speaker might use without implying anything about their religious beliefs. Similarly, the exclamation “jeez” was, historically, a euphemistic reference to Jesus, but I’d argue that it has lost that meaning and today is just a sound that signifies surprise or annoyance. Consequently, when we run across such idioms, we must ponder whether the translators intended to evoke the religious connections of such phrases, or were just using the best English expression available, which coincidentally had a religious origin.

With that said, let’s start with some of the weaker, more circumstantial pieces of evidence in 86–Eighty-Six. The story makes references to churches and priests, but those are dime a dozen in fiction. A chapter in one volume bears the title “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel,” the name of a venerable Christian hymn associated with Advent and Christmas. But as noted above, chapter titles can be super meta and don’t prove much. There is a book called the Bible within the setting, but that’s hardly unique. For example, the world in Ascendance of a Bookworm has a holy text about its pantheon called “the Bible” that bears no relation to the Christian scriptures. The idiom “to bear one’s cross” shows up, but see above about idioms. All of these are interesting, but not necessarily significant.

However, there are some surprisingly specific Old Testament allusions in 86–Eighty-Six. Someone references a story involving seven days found in “Genesis.” There exists the concept that humans are made in God’s image. There’s mention of the “mark of Cain.” People are aware of a story, found in something called “the Old Testament,” about how humans tried to build a great tower at Babylon, and God responded by causing them to speak different languages. Finally, a character says “Let us die with the Philistines,” thereby paraphrasing the Israelite judge Samson. Of course, since all these examples come from the Old Testament, technically they only imply the existence of the Hebrew scriptures, not necessarily the New Testament and Christianity.

But wait, there’s more! While many fictional settings have pseudo-Christmas events in early winter, 86-Eighty-Six goes a step further by informing us that the setting’s early winter holiday isn’t just a winter festival or solstice observance, but a “holy birthday.” Separate and apart, characters have heard of an individual called the “messiah” who lived thousands of years ago. This “messiah” reportedly said “Man shall not live by bread alone.” There’s also a story in which he encountered a demon that identified themself as “Legion.” While not explicitly stated to be the same person as the aforementioned “messiah,” someone called the “savior” died by crucifixion. And there is a “Revelation” that contains mention of seven seals, and of a dragon with seven heads.

Just one more thing: references to other fictional works. You might not think a work of fiction containing in-universe allusions to real works of fiction would indicate much about Christianity, but… A character thinks something they witness is “a scene cut straight out of Salomé,” referring to a play by Oscar Wilde. A play about the martyrdom of John the Baptist. It doesn’t make sense for such a story to exist without the New Testament. (Yes, technically, John the Baptist does show up in the writings of Josephus, but it’s a fairly cursory mention. And besides Josephus also mentions Jesus, so…) Similarly, there’s a direct quote from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Moreover, the source of the quote is cited by title. Dante’s epic poem is steeped in Christian thought; there’s no way such a work could possibly be known to anyone within the setting of 86–Eighty-Six unless Christianity also exists. Neither of these references to fictional works is technically a direct mention of Christianity, but the fictional works themselves are ones whose existence strongly implies the presence of Christianity and the New Testament.

Volume after volume, the in-universe references to Christianity keep piling up. The story isn’t casually borrowing vocabulary or symbolism inspired by Christianity. It’s not just using idioms that coincidentally originate from the Bible. These aren’t “meta” references that don’t necessarily imply anything about the setting. I find it unfathomable that details within this fictional world could “coincidentally” overlap with Christianity to this degree. Just as we have terms for groups of animals (e.g., a “flock” of birds, a “pride” of lions, etc.), I believe the correct term for a group of coincidences is a “pattern.” And the pattern here indicates that 86–Eighty-Six is a rare case of a fictional setting that contains Christianity.

[everything-laito]

What do you think that Yui did different that didn't made Laito feel tediousness, other than being supportive and being able to break his walls? I know that she is the surrogate of the player so her writing is limited, but I never found her that unique, of the few characterisation given to her.

Ooooh! Interesting question, anon! This will be fun. 

Ok first of all, Yui’s character has quite a bit of characterization and development to her. Yes she’s the “surrogate” character, but compared to other otome games like Mystic Messenger, she has enough writing to her to be treated both as the player character,  but also as a character on her own. 

You are entitled to your own opinion, and I’m not here to change that despite me disagreeing, but I am going to list some examples of unique Yui related characterization. If you’re talking about her in the anime, she’s completely watered down and is written very poorly. As always, rant under the cut!

Before I get into the specifics of her character with Laito, one of the big things about Yui’s character at first is definitely her relationship with religion. She’s a Roman Catholic I believe, which is a pretty strict denomination of Christianity. I don’t practice a religion, but I do have some Catholic friends and my family is Methodist, so I do have some brushes with that specific religion. Catholicism these days are all over the place, sure it’s more strict (from what I’ve heard) compared to other Christian denominations, but some people who are Catholic these days are more lenient and just take the Bible with a grain of salt. That goes for all denominations of all sorts of religions; there’s a lot of conflict with what’s “right” practice and what’s “wrong.” However I’m just talking about Catholicism now from what I know. 

We do know that Yui was brought up in a pretty strict area. It’s canon that she wanted to be a nun as well. She was prepared to be devoted to her god for the rest of her life. In Laito’s chapter, she still continued to pray to god and to ask them for help, despite all the awful things Laito has put her through. The reason why I believe she can be a character of her own and not a surrogate character is this niche characterization given to her. I’d say most people playing DL aren’t Catholic, so putting in specific writing stuff such as that doesn’t make her a typical “surrogate character.” 

Yui’s an extremely strong female character, and her religious belief definitely gives her strength, and many people in real life also gets strength from their beliefs as well. Again, I’m not sure how that works personally, but I do know it gives most people some kind of optimism, and you can extract that from Yui’s reactions.

Yui doesn’t break easily because of her optimism and caring nature. She doesn’t feel too alone in the Sakamaki mansion because she has her god, so it doesn’t make her despair easily. I know I’m talking about one niche characterization given to her, but I’ll be talking about more as I continue with Laito in the picture. 

Laito definitely has a corruption kink. He projects what Cordelia did to him on poor Yui. He’s attracted to Yui’s innocence and says this in Limited V of HDB in Dark 07:

“Haa…Such an innocent smell of someone who does not know what it’s like to be defiled yet. Say…Become more and more dirty until you’ve fallen. Show me that side of you who has genuinely surrendered themselves to me.” (Limited V edition)

A motif I’ve come across Laito’s route is him telling Yui that he will make her “fall.” I use my translations from @/dialovers-translations, and at the beginning of Laito’s route, she makes this T/N to this quote:

Laito: The pleasure that comes from falling. (4)

Vee: (4) The verb 落ちる or ‘ochiru’ used here literally means to fall, such as falling from a building, etc. However, it can always be used to refer to ‘falling’ in the sense of giving in to lust or any other vice. (Think of English expression like ‘fallen angel’) 

Laito references this many times throughout his HDB route. He claims a couple of times that he likes to take his “sweet time” tainting Yui. He’s taken a liking to her because of her purity. I believe Yui probably reminded Laito of himself. I elaborate on this even more in this analysis as well. 

I mention in that analysis that Laito takes a liking to Yui because he considers her as a challenge. Not only does he take pleasure in making others “fall” to make himself feel better about himself and more powerful (I’ve said this before but he’s a typical bully), but he also gets bored easily. Laito mentioned how he’s never met a girl like Yui. She’s stubborn and sticks to her own morals, and it takes a bit of time to make her completely give up her own morals and fit them to Laito’s. It takes until the Ecstacy prologue for her to ask herself if she has a right in praying to them anymore. It’s also mentioned how someone has never survived this long into the awakening before. Either the process is too much for the girls, or the brothers just get bored and find the sacrificial bride a nuisance. 

On top of Yui continuously being caring to Laito (I don’t mean not standing up for herself, because she definitely does that; although it doesn't faze Laito) and entertaining to him, there is the mystery of her blood being Cordelia’s. Obviously we know the answer to that, but Laito didn’t, and he found it more peculiar as well. Here’s another post in regards to that as well that someone else wrote. Yui’s also smart, and although Laito has power over her, she continues to try to outwit him and stick to her guns. She does that a lot in MB from what I remember, although I can’t think of specific examples (if anyone has any, please lmk!). By then in MB, she kinda knew how Laito ticked mid route, and was able to get her way temporarily by tricking him. 

This kind of went all over the place I apologize, I just love Yui and her character. It breaks my heart at the end of Laito’s route with her saying she doesn’t deserve to believe in her religion anymore and the one thing that got her through most of Laito’s character was crumbling. I’m not even religious like I mentioned and that even got me in the heart. It’s scary how someone can do that.

I hope I was able to answer (and if this mess made any sense haha) but if you have any further questions or need more clarification, don’t hesitate to reach out, anon! 

[aloisofmissouri]

A Journal Entry

July 20th, 2021

11:44pm

Trigger Warning:

 Sexual Assault, Self Harm,Mental Health, physical health, and occasional swears.

Dear Reader,

I’m only eighteen but I have experienced a lot, and so have many other teens I know. I know at least four of my classmates have been raped at some point in their life. And who knows what others may have been through and I never knew. 

But I’m not writing to share their story, unless they decide that they want their story told. As of now, I am writing to share my story. 

So, let's start with my earliest memory.

My earliest memory is watching Elmo and Little Bear from my crib in the living room when I was probably a toddler. I don’t remember much, other than enjoying the cartoons. It was happy and innocent. One of the few childhood memories I can look back on and smile. 

I was really young when I was first raped. First raped, you caught that part, right? Yeah, I wasn’t raped just once, but multiple times by one man. The man I had grown up calling my father. The man on my birth certificate. I’m not exactly how old I was when it started, but if I had to guess, I was probably in the first or  second grade when it went past the occasional groping and lewd comments. 

Near the end of third grade, my mother decided to take me and my sibling to live with our grandmother. But that didn’t last long.

We ended up moving back in with our mother and abusive father when I was in fifth grade. I didn’t want to but my father manipulated me into doing so. He threatened to place a restraining order on my grandmother when I wanted to stay with her. 

Things were miserable and the abuse continued. But luckily I was able to go back to my grandmother by sixth grade. But I still had to deal with what happened.

I believe my grandmother meant well, but she use to tell me not to let people know what had happened to me. She said that no one would want to be with someone who was raped because a lot of people view them as used or damaged goods basically. 

My grandmother was a bit emotionally damaging, though I know she more than likely didn’t know that she was being so. I have reason to believe that she has dementia and possibly a personality disorder. 

I remember her saying that I shouldn’t wear plaid or spotted clothing because it would make me look bigger than the broad side of a barn. She also told me to stay away from bright colors because they would have the same effect. I refused to stay away from plaid though, I kept that jacket from middle school until junior year when I could no longer zip it. But it took me a long time to wear bright colors, and it is still hard. I also have a hard time feeling comfortable in my own skin, and not just because of the occasional comment about my weight from my grandmother, but also because of the abuse I had dealt with from my father. I spent the majority of school always wearing jeans, jackets, and dark clothing. I didn’t feel comfortable wearing shorts. And I’m still getting used to wearing them. 

I had to go to court in middle school. Someone had apparently turned my father in for what he had done to me (I was living with my grandmother again by then) and we still do not know who reported them. I wish I could thank whoever turned him in. 

Sadly, they only gave him three years despite the evidence. And he was only going to have to serve one and a half years because of the amount of time spent in a jail cell waiting for court that kept getting rescheduled. He died of stage four lung cancer though before he was half way through his time.

My freshman year I finally realised I had anxiety and that there was something definitely wrong with me mentally. By my sophomore year, I was self harming and in counselling and diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, OCD, and Anxiety. By junior year I was on a lot of medication thanks to a pill happy psychiatrist. And I was miserable. But thankfully, I found a new psychiatrist who quickly helped me get cut down to just one pill. Near the end of junior year, I quit self harming. And I also finally started to get a bit of control over my mania and my depression.

I have a Google Doc somewhere that has over 150 pages of poetry, and the majority of it is about depression, trauma, and anger. And they were all written during middle school and highschool. Writing poetry helped me then. Now, I don’t really write poetry anymore. I have only written a handful of poems within the last year. And they were mostly in Shakespearean English because I thought it would be fun.

I believe I might have religious anxiety. I don’t remember the technical term though. I grew up going to Baptist Churches and had a heavy christian influence. But sadly, Christians aren’t quite as christian as they are supposed to be. 

Due to being constantly worried about sinning and about being too filthy and being damned to hell, my depression and anxiety got to me from a different angle. I kept breaking up with everyone I dated if I feared we were getting too close. I would either feel like I wasn’t good enough or I would fear that we would have sex and I would be damned. I also hated myself for my sexuality, though it took me a long time to figure that out. I supported my LGBTA+ friends but when it came to myself, I couldn’t accept myself. 

When I self harmed, I would do it because I felt filthy and had this urge to scratch my skin off my body because I never felt clean. I never hurt myself too severely, just scratches and shallow cuts on my wrist and my thigh. But I still found it hard to quit. It became far too easy to always turn to the blade, regardless of if I was feeling filthy or if I was dissociating or if I was having a panic attack. 

Despite what had happened to me, I’m finally starting to become me. Even though I am still discovering who I am. I quite self harming, I don’t have quite as many panic attacks or nightmares, I lost my virginity, learned I am demisexual (leaning a bit towards asexuality though) Panromantic and Nonbinary. I also discovered I have some other health issues outside of my mental health. I am apparently allergic to alphagall, peanuts, and wheat. Thankfully I just get slightly sick if I eat those things though, but it is still a bit annoying when those things are basically in everything you like to eat. 

I also found out that the reason my menstrual cycle has always been so irregular is because I have cysts. Originally I thought I had PCOS but now after some ultrasounds, it is looking like Endometriosis. I have cysts on my uterus and my ovaries. The doctor told me that my insurance should cover the surgery if I were to get a total hysterectomy. 

I never really wanted to give birth so that part of this doesn’t bother me, my fear is that there will be issues from the surgery. And it has also spurred some identity issues. But so far, I am sticking to they/them pronouns. Even though my family still calls me she/her. But I haven’t really come out to them. They know I’m not 100% straight, but who wants to sit down and explain to their grandmother (who dropped out of school in eight grade to care for her grandma, has a flip phone, and just a few years ago decided to accept the lgbt+ part of her family) that I’m nonbinary? I barely manage to explain to my mother (highschool dropout because of pregnancy, has a touch screen phone and understand some things of the current century) that there is more than just straight, gay, and bisexual. I explained to my mother the other day what omnigender and nonbinary is. Had to explain transgender to my mother when I was a junior and introduced her to a friend of mine who was afab but went by he/him pronouns. 

I suppose that despite all the shit I’ve been through, at least my mother doesn’t give two flying fucks who I like. When I told her that I thought I was pansexual in middle school, all she did was ask me what that meant. Then she just nodded her head and went with it. Same thing when I decided I was Wiccan in middle school. She even bought me a pentacle necklace and every book (mostly fantasy) that mentioned witches. I no longer identify as Wiccan, I mostly just stick to animist. But my point being, my mother didn’t throw a fit when two of her nine kids came out as gay. Even if she does identify as a Saturday Adventist, she supports us. She even listens to me ramble about mistranslated things in the Bible and my views on theology. And my rants about Supernatural. Though she did laugh when I spent about an hour crying after the Supernatural second to last episode of season 15. She did listen to me rant about Castiel and the plot lines and everything. Though I had to keep explaining some of the characters to her. 

Despite the things I’ve been through, I managed to graduate high school, survive my severe depression and anxiety, and now I am thinking about possibly applying for Law school and going to college. And I now also have the confidence to do what I want and wear what I want. Though I still feel all nervous about asking out a girl I’ve been friends with for about three or more years. I’ve now made the excuse to wait and see if she mentions not being completely straight. Oh, and she now has a boyfriend too so yeah, gonna have to wait a bit.

Until next time,

Alois 🐧

[dailyaudiobible]

10/6/2021 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 6:16-8:7, Colossians 2:8-23, Psalm 78:1-31, Proverbs 24:26

Today is the 6th day of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I am Brian, it is wonderful to be here with you today. As we continue our journey and settled into this 10th month of the year, as we continue our journey through the book of Jeremiah and the letter to the Colossians. We’re reading from the Common English Bible this week, Jeremiah chapter 6, verse 16 through 8 verse 7.

Commentary:

Okay so, we’re reading in the 2nd chapter of the letter to the Colossians in the New Testament. And, what Paul lays out today is our reality and in describing that reality he’s kind of coming against some other behaviors that have been taught, like this is what will lead you to righteousness. So, he says don't let anybody judge you about eating or drinking, or about a festival, a new moon observance or sabbaths. These religious practices are only a shadow of what was coming. Don't let anyone who wants to practice harsh self-denial and worship angels rob you of the prize. And so, what is the prize? The prize was described today. Literally, I can't say it in another way that's better, or teach it, like Paul teaches it out of this letter exactly as it's intended to be received, so I simply want to reread about five verses while highlighting this is supposed to be the reality, we live in. This is supposed to be what normal looks like to us. And so, Paul says “See to it that nobody enslaves you with philosophy and foolish deception which conform to human traditions and the way the world thinks and acts rather than Christ. All the fullness of deity lives in Christ's body. So, all the fullness of God lives in Christ's body. And you have been filled by Him who is the head of every ruler and authority. In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision not administered by human hands. The circumcision of Christ is realized in the stripping away of the whole self, dominated by sin. In other words, that was cut away and discarded, the self, dominated by sin. You were buried with Him through baptism and raised with Him through faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead, because of the things you would done wrong and because your body wasn't circumcised, God made you alive with Christ, and forgave all the things you had done wrong. He destroyed the record of the debt we owed with its requirements that worked against us. He canceled it by nailing it to the cross.” Oh, that is our reality. And it's not like we have encountered these concepts in Paul's writings, but here it is laid out concisely, we aren't who we were. Things have changed. We have changed. In fact, so much so that who we were is well, dead, no longer existing. We have been resurrected into a new life. Again, this is kind of, I mean it's a mind blowing, let's not, let’s not take that off the table, its mind blowing. But it's also essential Christian teaching, like 101. It's the basic understanding. But man, if we could get the fundamentals, if we could get the basics down, because if we look at this and this is the reality, then why don't we live like this is the reality? Like, that’s the question, right? If this is the reality and we’re now living in reality than what are we doing, besides living in a false reality that is considerably less then what the good news offers us? On one hand, we can make this really encouraging and bolster ourselves and rise up, and yeah, we’re going to do this, but on the other hand, this is not really just about us. This is how the world will know, this is how Earth's people, who do not know Jesus will come to understand. We have been entrusted; we’re supposed to be living this reality. Anything less is just less.

Prayer:

And so, Holy Spirit, come into that. We confess that we have elected to live less, more of the time, then is easy to admit. The letter to the Colossians tells us that the fullness of God is in Christ, and we are filled by Christ who is the head of every ruler and authority, that's hard to get our mind, it's so big and so good, it's hard to get our minds around. And yet we choose to ignore things like this when there, they change everything. You change everything and we just try to moderate that which essentially makes us live less than You've offered. And we don't want to do that anymore and we need to not do that because we are the light of the world, a city on a hill, the salt of the earth. And so, come, Holy Spirit, not only let this message transform our own hearts and encourage us but give us a sense of purpose and understanding about why this reality has been offered to us in the first place. Come, Holy Spirit into this we ask You to lead and direct us and guide us. Lead us into all truth. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here, so be sure to check that out. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can check it all out with the drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. Places like the Community section which is well, that's where different links are to get connected on social media, provided social media platforms are up and running but it is also the home of the Prayer Wall. The Prayer Wall is there and available day or night, no matter where you are in the world and no matter what is swirling around in your life, you don't have to be alone, which is one of the things that we worked so hard around here on as we come around the Global Campfire, to know that we’re not alone. Just that one thing, that one piece of knowledge, even if it's just knowledge that we’re not alone is so helpful sometimes when we feel nothing but alone. And the Prayer Wall is always there and so you can always go and ask our brothers and sisters to pray for us. We can also go and pray for our brothers and sisters. And that's how works right, we give and we receive and we give and we receive from one another in so many different ways, so don't be a stranger to the Prayer Wall.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this mission to continue to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered to anyone who can hear it, anyone who will listen anywhere on this planet, any time a day or night, and to build community around the rhythm, as we call it the Global Campfire. This rhythm, the next step forward together. If that is meaningful to you, then thank you for your partnership, we wouldn't be here at all, if we weren't in this together. So, thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And of course, if you have a prayer request or encouragement; certainly, the Prayer Wall is a place to go but you can also hit the Hotline button in the app, that little red button up at the top, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hey everybody, Tony the Narrator here. Just a big shout out to everybody just to let you know that I’m praying with you and for you. I love all of you but yeah. Quick prayer request if possibly; my Mum’s come down with COVID for the second time. She's had both of the Oxford shots and she still come down with it and she's got a cold at the same time and it's really, she's, she's going through it, bless her, she's going through the ringer. She actually got it in November 2019 before we all knew what it was. So yeah, it was, it was, she was one of the very early cases and she picked up a new version of it so, if I could just, please beg your prayers over my mum. I’ve already told her that your all praying because I know that I can trust you guys in DABC. I’ve told her that she's got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Christians around the globe praying over her right now because time is irrelevant when you’re speaking to the Lord and she also said to say thank you and she said all that’s lovely, which is very English thing, don’t worry.  And so, yeah, please hold my mom up in prayers she’s going through it and this is a really beautiful opportunity for me to be able to share the gospel with her and to let her know that actually she's got a Jesus who is caring for her. So, guys, I love you so much. I'm going to be able to share the gospel with my mom because of you and I love all of you. You’re all mine.

Hello beautiful family this is Susan calling from Albuquerque. I just wanted to lift a couple people up in prayer. The first one: Mark the teacher in Australia, he called about his brother who's been missing in the Outback for a couple months now and can’t imagine how, how worried you must be. I'm just kind of speechless. I can’t imagine. And the other is Bonnie from Virginia who has managed, who came here from another country and I'm assuming it's from a culture that, where women are thought of as no less important than dogs. And I, you came over here and managed to escape from a very big abusive situation. Oh, my goodness, you are so courageous and I'm so grateful you are here, there is no accident you came here and we're just all loving you and supporting you and I just wanted to say that and I'm so glad you called in. So, Father I wanted to lift up Mark and Bonnie today and we come together because Your family we love you very much and we love Your children and our brother and our sister. Please encourage Mark. Please help him find his brother-in-law. I know that they're terribly worried and they need peace of mind, please comfort this family and help them find an answer very soon. And Bonnie, please continue her recovery from this abusive marriage. I'm all out of time now. Love you all.

Good morning my DAB family. This is Judy from Georgia. This message goes to Victoria Solider. Victoria, I'm so sorry my sister to hear about your brother passing. May God comfort and keep you in His care and comfort the rest of your family and give you the strength to get through this time of mourning. We’re all praying for you my dear. Have a great day everyone. God bless you all.

Good morning Daily Audio Listeners all around the world and here in the United States. This is Maurine from Alexandria. I want to call myself Dr. M, because that's how many people refer to me. So anyway, I wanted to let you know that I am so grateful to all of you for your contributions, for your prayers and I want to say a quick prayer for everyone today, Sunday. For your healing, for your deliverance, for God's peace and for God’s protection in your life. For all those who are suffering from COVID, I pray for God's healing. For all those who have lost their loved ones, I pray for God's comfort. For all those who are finding strength in the word of God, may you be strengthened in every area of your life. Father, thank You so much for my brothers and sisters all over the world. Thank You so much for this place where we can come together to pray and to study Your word. May Your divine presence strengthen, encourage, provide, protect and heal. In the name of Jesus, by the way, thank you for such a beautiful, beautiful time together daily. And we ask that your blessing continue on Brian and his family. Lord, we love You, we bless You, we worship You. In Jesus name. Amen.

Good morning everybody, it’s Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower calling. I just want to lift up Victorious Solider in prayer today and her family, over the loss of her loved brother. Dear God, dear God, I am so thankful that her brother has been saved and is enjoying the benefits of his faith here on earth. I am joyful that his heart and soul and mind and body are with you, right at this time. But for those left behind God, it's hard. And I pray Your arms of comfort about each and every one of them and that You would strengthen them and guide them and lead them through this hour of grief. I pray dear Lord that You would especially bless Victorious Soldier with leadership she needs in guiding this family through this terrible time. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

[giftofshewbread]

Is The Time at Hand?

One can almost physically feel evil’s powerful pull at the godly restraints imposed by Heaven’s Love and wisdom. Wickedness exerts its mesmerizing influence on this generation from its high places, inducing an insanity that can only be defined as the reprobate mind given in Romans 1:28.

Those of us fifty years of age or older can but blink and wonder at the upside-down world as it continues to descend into a madness of sorts. Those younger, for the most part, don’t seem to notice the deliberate deconstruction of all we of the 50-plus generation recognize and by which we are vexed.

I refer to such developments in America as the following.

* Disdain for human life in the form of abortion.

* The slaughter of babies in their mother’s wombs doesn’t seem to matter to more than half of our numbers. The younger generation –the baby-producing ages—especially don’t seem to notice and care. (And I realize that there are those who do care about the unborn among this age. But they are in the minority, and a significant minority at that.)    

* Disregard for formerly moral principles.

* Marital status means nothing to a growing percentage of America’s population. Statistics bear it out. Sexual activity outside of the marriage bond is as common as any other entertaining, social activity.

* Embrace of homosexuality as more normal than heterosexuality is now the “enlightened” view.

* The norming of same-gender sexual relations has over powered today’s culture in a brief time. If one doesn’t embrace the social construct that biblical      prohibitions are no longer relevant and that it is perfectly normal for men to have sex with men and women with women, then it is the one holding such an outmoded view who is the great sinner, not those who are “enlightened.”

* Welcome of new thought in adult-children sexual relations is a growing reality within progressive ideology. –Thus although there is no realization that such thought is not new at all, but is as ancient as every civilization that has lived and died.

* Such organizations as the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which was not too long ago seen as among the most disgusting and perverted of groups, now are considered acceptable under growingly lenient circumstances. It all depends upon whether such relationships as adults and children being sexually involved are “consensual”–which in itself is as reprobate a concept as any that could be devised, in this writer’s view.

Thankfully there are Christian and other groups organized against this pedophile movement to normalize such filthy and evil activity. But it is a satanically driven trend that will not be stopped as mankind devolves ever deeper into total depravity.

Even public libraries and schools are becoming ever more involved in this movement to bring adults and children together in this unholy way.

Dolly Madison Library in Fairfax, Virginia has invited preschoolers, babies and toddlers to attend ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ to celebrate ‘Pride Month.’

“Celebrate Pride Month by attending Drag Storybook Hour cosponsored by Fairfax County Public Library and The McLean Community Center. Registration required. All Ages.”…

The event will take place on Saturday, June 26 from 10:30 am to 11:15 am.

Event planners invited “babies, toddlers, preschoolers and school age children.”…

The Fairfax Republican party slammed the library for inviting young children to Drag Story Hour in celebration of pride month.

***[Ang, Source: Virginia Library Invites Preschoolers, Babies and Toddlers to Drag Queen Story Hour to Celebrate Pride Month, by Cristina Laila, Gateway Pundit, June 25, 2021]***

And the powerful tug of that luciferian hand, pulling this generation farther from godly restraint, manifests in the arena of commerce. All who want to live under a more moral society and culture are increasingly marginalized by the wicked forces of earthly, financial power.

Amazon, which is on track to be America’s largest retailer next year, launched its charity program Amazon Smile in 2013. The company has banned multiple conservative organizations since then, because it relies on the anti-conservative Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to decide what groups qualify for the program.

WORLD News Group reported in 2020 that “Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council (FRC) and the American College of Pediatricians” are not allowed on Amazon Smile. Alliance Defending Freedom was reportedly removed from the site as well. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, and The Satanic Temple are all free to collect donations from the program.

The AmazonSmile program is fairly simple. “Shop at smile.amazon.com and we’ll donate 0.5% of eligible purchases to your favorite charitable organization—no fees, no extra cost,” the website explained. However, Amazon will not let just any charity into the program. “Organizations that engage in, support, encourage, or promote intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence, money laundering, or other illegal activities are not eligible to participate. Amazon relies on the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Southern Poverty Law Center to determine which registered charities fall into these groups,” AmazonSmile’s about page said.

***[Source: From Planned Parenthood to Satanism, AmazonSmile encourages shoppers to donate to some extreme charities — at least 216 different groups. But multiple prominent conservative groups aren’t even allowed to participate, by Kayla Sargent, NewsBusters.org]***

We know, of course, who are the “intolerant” in today’s definition of the term. Christian organizations, in particular, are not allowed to participate in the charitable largesse of the beneficent Amazon money masters.

The transgender  curriculum is becoming ubiquitous throughout the nation’s public school systems. Children in grade school are taught that God’s Word, the Bible, is wrong. That they can be whatsoever gender they wish.

And as parents begin to catch on to this type of hellish inculcation and attend school board meetings to protest, the school officials in some cases are contriving ways to obfuscate their nefarious doings.

The following news link brief on Rapture Ready News frames this attempt to deceive.

Teachers told to give fake curriculum to parents who complain of ‘indoctrination’ Amid complaints from parents that their children are being “indoctrinated,” a Missouri school district official is advising English teachers to create a fake curriculum and keep the real one hidden.

Another such brief on a link further emphasizes the satanic tug at the knot teeing this generation to the last vestiges of its moral moorings.

Planned Parenthood sex-ed flyer telling 11-year-olds they could have sex, as long as the partner isn’t older than 13, distributed in WA public school A flyer telling 11-year-olds that they can have sex, as long as the person isn’t older than 13, was distributed earlier this week to students at Stewart Middle School in Tacoma, WA.

All of this means that the stench of these end times must be singeing the nostrils of a Holy God. It is more than appropriate to ask if this is not that time He forewarned of in the one book we are promised His blessing if we read and heed. Is that time at hand?  

“And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” (Rev. 22: 10-21)

–Terry

[issuesinwels]

This is a list of issues I have with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). They are why I don't want to go back. Points 1-8 deal with God in general. Points 10-25 deal with doctrinal issues. Points 27-61 deal with other various issues in the church.

1. NO PROOF THAT WHAT THEY ARE TEACHING IS TRUE, YET THEY ASSERT THAT THEY ARE TEACHING THE TRUTH AND KNOW IT TO BE TRUE. This is self-explanatory. If you know it to be true, where is your proof, actual proof with evidence? Responding with "I know Jesus died for my sins because the Bible . . ." is not actual evidence of truth.

2. THE EVIDENCE GIVEN TO SUPPORT THEIR "TRUTH" DOES NOT DISTINGUISH THEIR GOD FROM ANY OTHER. Intelligent design of this world, a so-called "personal walk with God," the feelings and emotions one has about God, one's success in life, and so on do not provide evidence that WELS is the one true church among many others in this world. There have been numerous religions, past and present, Christian or not, whose followers could all assert the same. Today there are some 4000 religions in the world (obviously some very minor but also plenty of relatively major ones), and you can find plenty with many many followers of the same social status, and they can all assert the reasons given above, so WELS really can't give these reasons with the expectation of proving that they alone are right. Furthermore while on topic, without any actual proof that WELS is correct, you must either accept that all religions are simultaneously true or that at least the overwhelming majority are based on lies, misplaced beliefs, and erroneous assumptions. So what is more likely, that WELS teaches nothing but the truth or that they have problems with their "truth"? The proper inference from all the existing religions and variants of Christianity is that man has made it that way and has therefore made up religions. Additionally, reading the Bible or other holy book to "gain faith" or become a deeper follower is not unique either. Almost every religion teaches this.

3. THE BIBLE IS NOT SELF-AUTHENTICATING. Anyone can write a religious book about actual places and historical events, but the inclusion of such does not make that book true. Just look at Islam, Mormonism, and Judaism, to name a few. Furthermore, even if some of the events of the book did take place, religious followers and leaders of all sorts are clearly willing to die for a lie. A very clear example are the leaders of Mormonism. So is Mormonism now the most correct religion because their leaders "wouldn't die for a lie"? Of course not. Leaders of religions are willing to die despite knowing that they have lied to their followers due to the power it gives them over their followers and to maintain importance, not to mention that the followers themselves may turn on them in drastic ways if they admitted that they were full of crap. Please be prepared to tell me how Mormonism is not the most correct religion if you disagree.

4. THE BIBLE IS NOT INERRANT. There are a ridiculous number of problems with so much of the Bible that to say there aren't issues with it is intellectual dishonesty. It's all over the internet so I don't really need to repeat it here. For starters, if you don't see any issues with creation in Genesis, the Tower of Babel, or Noah's Ark, you have turned your brain off. I dare you to critically examine the Bible and search into this on the internet. Biblical inerrency is an easy way for the church to deflect questions and dissent and maintain control over followers. Biblical inerrency is not about what the Bible says, it is more about what WELS says the Bible says. Guess what, other churches have different contradictory teachings and also see the Bible as "inerrant," so the assertion that WELS's doctrine is true or most correct cannot be because they teach the "inerrant" word of God.

5. A SIMPLE EXERCISE TO PROVE A POINT. CAN YOU DO IT? WELS asserts over and over that they teach the truth and that they know their God to be true because the holy spirit works through them, they connect to God in prayer, their baptism makes it so, and so on. Now, I think it would be a terrible mistake for you to ever try explaining to another WELS lutheran why you believe in God, other than repeating the same old WELS jargon like I listed above. However, I think every WELS pastor and lutheran should have to do an exercise. You could even do this during Sunday school. Write down on a sheet of paper how you know that you are teaching the actual truth to your congregation and/or why you know that your religion is the correct one and how you know God is real, with actual evidence. Then make photocopies and give them to other members of your church and to members of the general public to see what sort of response you get. To how many people do you think you can prove that what you claim you know is true is actually true? How do you think people would respond to your list of reasons? Most people would be unwilling to do this and it would be embarrassing for pastors. I bet you cannot differentiate yourself from followers of other religions who would say generally the same things as you, and to do so you could only rely on the same jargon listed above. You don't know for a fact that any of that is true, it has just been programmed into you.

6. IF WELS HAD REAL PROVABLE TRUTH EVERYONE WOULD GO TO CHURCH THERE. Self-explanatory. You can't know what you can't prove. If you can't know it, it isn't a reliable "truth." People aren't dumb and realize there is no way WELS can actually prove what they claim to know as true. That being the case, people aren't rushing into, or care to know about, WELS churches.

7. WELS'S "TRUTH" HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH TRUTHSEEKING. WELS, despite having no real evidence and proof, offers a take-it or leave-it religion with an approach suggesting they have everything figured out most correctly, despite many beliefs and practices so obviously formed on assumptions on top of assumptions. There is no critical thinking unless you want to get labeled and run out of the church. You go to church to be a following sheep who just follows along and serves its master.

8. REAL REASONS PEOPLE ARE IN WELS OR DON'T LEAVE HAVE LITTLE TO DO WITH GOD AND TRUTH. The actual truth is that most in WELS are there, or won't leave, due to one or more of the following reasons: (1) personal relationships in the church, including with family, pastors, called workers, church founders or leaders, MLC and other school connections, and so on; (2) years of financial and labor contributions to WELS; (3) years of WELS programming/brainwashing making life seem like "WELS or nothing"; (4) strong human desire to feel accepted and be a part of a group; (5) considerable time in WELS schools; (6) indoctrination as a child; (7) fear of shunning if you leave; (8) ease of going along with the group once you are in rather than introducing conflict upon leaving and/or questioning the church; (9) personal ties to a German lutheran family and heritage; (10) it feels good to be love bombed; (11) narcissistic tendencies being fed by the church frequently affirming that the followers are the most correct in all the world; (12) difficulty admitting you were wrong all those years, which may be compounded if you have kids; and so on. None of this makes WELS's teachings true.

9. TO SUM POINTS 1 TO 8, WELS CANNOT SUPPORT ITS CLAIM THAT IT IS TEACHING YOU A TRUTH, OR THAT IT IS THE MOST CORRECT CHURCH. The point of constantly telling you that you are being taught the truth and most correct doctrine is to exert control over you, your family, and your finances. It is all about power regardless from where you are hearing it. WELS leaders can simply make things up and assert them as truths in order to control the sheep. Most rational people and groups objectively considering the lack of real evidence would adopt somewhat of a humanist position that allows some flexibility with respect to doctrine. Groups that don't do this despite the lack of evidence tend to be more interested in control of followers and/or "making their doctrine true" by adopting strict and harsh standards and behavior. Emphatic belief does not produce a truth backed by real evidence. Also, it is worth pointing out that if you know everything as a fact about your religion as a truth, there is nothing left for you to have faith in, so in that situation your faith would not be saving you. So by claiming you are saved by faith you have admitted that you don't know whether it is true.

10. THE "TRUE" DOCTRINE HAS LOGICAL PROBLEMS. The problems are met with "god works in mysterious ways" and "no one can really understand this, it just is this way." Is that proof of anything or evidence that the doctrine is correct? No, of course not.

11. FAITH DOESN'T SAVE YOU. Somehow, WELS actually managed to remove a pastor from fellowship (kicked out of the church) for arguing that the Bible says that you are saved by faith. The alternative would have been for this pastor to acquiesce to WELS's acceptance of universal objective justification and universal subjective justification, terms which are found in the Bible the book of...nevermind, those terms are made up and "at least Catholics use them too." If you didn't know, Catholics are basically occupying the lowest form of existence, at least according to WELS. But how funny that WELS will go to Catholicism for support. According to WELS you are saved by this unintelligible standard and twisting of the English language: "you are saved by grace alone through faith alone, but grace and faith are never alone" (a saying which also isn't in the Bible and one that makes faith and grace seem to be wrapped into the same concept). But whatever that means, rather than coming to some agreement about the English language and what this pastor was suggesting, WELS instead decided to introduce faith as some abstract concept devoid of all context and forcibly remove a pastor from serving in the Synod. I am pretty sure (sarcasm) when the Bible says faith saves you it doesn't mean faith that there may be a good harvest next year. Additionally, you wouldn't think that "faith alone," a sort of churchianity standard, would ever truly be considered to ever be "alone" by WELS's own teaching I mentioned above. Despite all of this, somehow citing passages of the Bible explaining that faith saves got this pastor removed, which is extraordinary. This brings up a fun little mental exercise: is "faith alone" really faith? So remember WELS lutherans, be careful what you say in and about church regarding how you are saved by faith because your masters may decide to give you the boot. I feel sorry for the pastors of this church over this.

12. THE RELIGIOUS ROCKET SCIENCE OF UOJ AND USJ. Did you know that regardless of any sins you have committed or will commit, God will always forgive you under UOJ, universal objective justification, which according to WELS is what happened when Jesus died on the cross. Gee what a comfort! That's why it's up to you according to USJ, universal subjective justification, to have faith and live the right sort of life to cash in on this forgiveness, which can only be nullified if you continue committing sins, meaning you have lost your salvation. Yeah that makes literally no sense whatsoever, that somehow all is forgiven but you go to hell anyway. WELS can't really explain it and "God works in mysterious ways" but you can be certain (sarcasm) that they are right about UOJ and USJ. This sort of thing is very important to them, because as explained above they are willing to kick pastors out over it.

13. THE EXPLANATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES NO SENSE. The holy spirit works through you to call you to repentance from your sins, the holy spirit just sort of being around at all times and working through your baptism and when you read and hear the Bible, according to WELS. So try to understand this, the holy spirit is God, who calls sinners to him so they can be saved, and God is all powerful. According to WELS, God calls all sinners and salvation is for everyone, but an individual can deny it or lose salvation once held. But never will a person be credited with his/her own salvation because there is nothing that you do to earn your salvation. However, by not denying the holy spirit you are doing something. And by not sinning, which WELS asserts can cause you to lose your salvation, you are also doing something by not doing something. Why else would a church practice church discipline??!!!!! To change a person's choices! But if you disagree and claim that you are sure that you aren't doing something by not sinning and rather it is God working through you with the holy spirit, then in that case the all powerful God must not have called you strongly enough in the case where you lose your salvation, so salvation from God was for everyone, just not you (yeah okay). Everyone knows it makes no sense but the church is so tethered to history that it can't escape this nonsense. Everybody in the church just goes along with "God is mysterious" and "this is beyond our understanding," which is evidence that people turn their brains off and leave them that way and are happy to just be part of the group. Everyone should do the same exercise from point 5 with respect to the holy spirit. Write down on a sheet of paper the actual things the holy spirit has done and give that sheet of paper to random people inside and outside the church.

14. AN UNBORN FETUS HAS FAITH IN GOD. I am not sure how you (meaning WELS) can say with a straight face that faith is "being sure of what is unseen" and at the same time you are sure that a few-week old fetus may have faith in God. And remind you, the term "faith" is pretty prickly by WELS's standards (see part 11). So by "faith" do you mean the fetus is aware of God or aware that Jesus died for our sins? I don't think anyone really knows what they are talking about with this, yet it is taught.

15. SECOND BAPTISM? According to WELS, baptism is required for salvation, and it doesn't matter what the person baptizing you thinks or what you think so long as the magic words are stated: "I baptise you in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit." Or does it? Some argue that if you thought you were making a show for God at your baptism that you may need to be baptized again. The two positions are incompatible. Also, theoretically an atheist can baptise another atheist by flicking water on the atheist, which is a bit silly. Okay, so why do they do this? Well, WELS most likely wanted to take the position that your baptism is valid so you don't stress about it and they can reassure you. This position allows them to do that. Can you imagine if they took the position that it mattered what either the pastor or baby/person being baptized was thinking? With their approach, baptism becomes a neat little package. Whether this is biblically right or wrong is up for debate but it leads to absurd theoretical situations. It also defeats the position that only a pastor may baptise people, so if baptism mattered so much, a parent should be doing it in the hospital immediately because you won't otherwise be saved according to WELS's own teachings. But do pastors advise this? I have never heard of such a thing from a WELS pastor and doubt any pastor ever would because it makes the pastor and church less important, and they would hate that you aren't overwhelmingly reliant on them.

16. WHO FORGIVES SINS, THE PASTOR OR GOD? So something pretty common in WELS is the pastor saying "as a called servant of Christ I forgive you of your sins." This is interesting considering God has allegedly already forgiven those sins, according to WELS, when Jesus died on the cross or whenever you confess them to God in prayer. I honestly can't say affirmatively why they do this other than to make the church and pastor appear important, comfort people who like to hear it, or they are practicing the Office of the Keys, which is interesting because, according to the rules of the Keys, if they don't forgive you then your sins are not forgiven. Doesn't that sound like fun? So much for God forgiving those sins. The practice of a pastor forgiving sins like this is about power and control. The sheep need me if I am the one sending them forgiveness.

17. FAITH AND WORKS. Faith alone saves (but see part 11!) according to WELS. Faith produces good works. The wrong works send you to hell because the wrong works (sins) nullify any salvation. So what WELS really means here is that a "true, real faith" will save you because it will cause you to have good works. Yeah, none of this makes sense. If the wrong works (sins) send you to hell, then unless you are alive for a tiny fraction of a moment, your works either do or do not save you. They may say that it is impossible for you to have faith and at the same time have the wrong works (sins), but this simply doesn't accord with the belief that you can lose your salvation (meaning you had real faith but the wrong works, too many sins, destroyed it). It is an unintelligible mess, which makes it great for controlling and manipulating people. You would think that all Christians would come to agreement that if there is a heaven, without God's intervention, meaning Jesus dying on the cross and the God who sent him, you wouldn't be able to go there. So yes, literally, you can't save your own soul because you aren't God or weren't Jesus dying on the cross. But of course, we are responsible for our actions whether we recognize that or not. But according to WELS, the holy spirit causes you to read the Bible, get in your car and drive to church, give money to your church, etc., and you can choose to deny the holy spirit in these situations but not accept the holy spirit. It is an absurd illogical position formed on major assumptions, but of course it is worth separating ourselves off from the rest of the world and declaring all others wrong (so we can maintain control over the sheep).

18. FAITH AND CHRISTIAN VS TRUE FAITH AND TRUE CHRISTIAN. Everyone will struggle with sinful behavior for all their lives, or so you hear in WELS churches, but if you were a real, true Christian or had a real, true faith, then you will/won't do [fill in the blank]. There is no standard for who is or isn't a true christian or one who has true faith and all this is just about abuse, control, manipulation, finger-pointing, etc. "Your sins matter a lot more than mine" is what they might as well be saying for how full of crap they are when they say things like this. They say ridiculous things like a true faith means "when you sin you are sorry." So just so you know, as long as you are "sorry" for your sins, you won't have lost your salvation when you commit them. After all, obviously, "everyone sins, but mine are not as big of a deal as yours, and you didn't seem sorry enough to suit me." This is all about manipulation of the sheep. They will go on to say absurd things like being sorry means you don't commit sins any more. Did you get that? And trust me, it really shows, that there are tons of people/pastors in this church who think they don't commit sins any more, despite everyone allegedly being a sinner for life. I have heard that from a pastor's mouth: "you get to the point that you don't commit sins any more." Okay, so now salvation turns on reaching the point at which you don't sin at all? Wait, are you WELS lutherans actually closet methodists in disguise? Methodists believe you can reach a point in life where you don't sin any more. Again, it is all about you being the lesser and worse person than someone else (them, meaning WELS leaders and pastors), which is used to control you.

19. SINFUL TO NOT GO TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY. Mind control. Of course it is sinful to not go to church and they alone teach the most correct and true doctrine (sarcasm). They have to make leaving the church hard because they are sucking resources from you and like to feel important even though they know they have no idea whether they are telling you the truth. Let me put this in context: you are not "saved by grace alone through faith alone" unless you go to church here. Do you see how nifty little tricks like this make your salvation conditional in an attempt to control you?

20. SINFUL TO NOT GIVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY TO WELS. Mind control. You can't take it with you, so give it to us, even though you have a second mortgage and your family needs it. Points 19 and 20 go hand-in-hand. And of course it is sinful to not give your money. They have to wrangle your money out of your pockets. You work hard so they don't really have to, and they like having control over you. Let me put this in context: you are not "saved by grace alone through faith alone" unless you give money to this church. Do you see how nifty little tricks like this make your salvation conditional in an attempt to control you?

21. THE POPE IS THE ANTICHRIST. WELS teaches that the Pope is the or an antichrist. A decent argument can be made that WELS itself and its collective teachings are an antichrist. Don't believe me? So they say you are "saved by grace alone through faith alone," yet at the same time assert that they are the most correct church and they are unsure who else will go to heaven. I guess God stops being God in WELS, because "grace alone by faith alone" turns into "plus a member of WELS or one of its sister churches while agreeing with everything WELS teaches." That sounds like potential first-ballot hall of fame antichrist material to me.

22. DINOSAURS WALKED THE EARTH AT THE SAME TIME AS HUMANS. WELS asserts the view that either dinosaurs never lived (were created dead) or lived at the same time as humans, but living before humans isn't an option. This is part of biblical inerrency because otherwise Genesis makes less sense. There is no real scientific evidence to support the view that dinosaurs and humans lived together.

23. THE PRACTICE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER IS QUESTIONABLE AND IN SOME WAYS SILLY. Closed communion is practiced meaning only members may commune, which is considered to be a form of God giving his forgiveness. Of course it is built on the assumption that wine and blood are present in the wine, and body and bread are present in the bread....yes, an assumption, a guess. This is yet another form of control where the church tries to compel membership with exclusion. They give other reasons, but they basically are pretextual. For instance, the church claims that they have to make sure that a person is not taking the lord's supper in an unworthy manner by not ascertaining that body and blood are present. You would think that a simple instruction before the lord's supper would suffice. Again, what happened to "you are saved by grace alone through faith alone"? Out the window, that's what happened. That isn't enough for you to partake of the lord's supper, but it does save you from eternal damnation, according to WELS. What an extraordinary position for the church to take. Also, there is a belief among many (truly, lots of people) in the church that someone who partakes in an unworthy manner causes the whole group in the congregation to sin. What a bunch of nonsense. Can you imagine if you were held accountable for sin because some random Joe in your church was a little mentally aloof during the lord's supper. How comically (tragically, actually) ridiculous. Lastly, you take wine for the lord's supper and grape juice if you have trouble with drunkenness (this is commonly given as a reason for the grap juice), but they aren't sure whether grape juice has the blood of Christ. The fact that grape juice and wine are available yet the church won't take an actual stance on grape juice being proper is evidence that the church doesn't know what it is doing. Furthermore, they likely don't want to admit that grape juice is sufficient because this wouldn't allow them to practice as the "most correct Christians" and they are still free to criticize other churches that only use grape juice, despite having it available inside their own WELS churches, which is again tragically ridiculous.

24. CONFIRMATION CLASSES. Pastors think that it is important to start confirmation classes relatively early and spend years usually doing them so that WELS's doctrine can "soak in." While I agree that it may take a while to learn everything WELS, it is evidence that the church engages in brainwashing to recruit members because it occurs at a time in life when people are impressionable. Additionally, the fact that it goes on for years suggests that it is not God but the church itself calling members. Again, "grace alone by faith alone" is made relatively meaningless for the sake of making cookie-cutter WELS lutherans. This again is all about trying to control people so they can be used for life.

25. EXCESSIVE RELATION AND REFERENCE TO "GERMAN HERITAGE." At some churches there are songs and services that make direct reference to "our German heritage" and the like. What does this have to do with God and the Bible? The answer is very little and this is evidence of what the church is really about, which is that it is a group/club deeply entrenched in tradition and themselves. Imagine going to church to learn about God and you hear that. It is one of many examples of how church is for them, not you or the world.

26. TO SUM POINTS 10 TO 25, THERE ARE LOTS OF ISSUES WITH WELS's TEACHINGS AND PRACTICES. Strict adherence is required despite so many assumptions and open questions surrounding so many things. This is not the position of a reasonable, healthy church for you to attend. Their alleged source of your salvation "grace alone through faith alone" often gets swallowed and forgotten amongst the robotic practices and beliefs you must embrace to be a member there.

Point 27 and beyond lists various other issues I feel are worth mentioning that I have gathered from my experiences in the church.

27. TOO MANY OF THEIR MEMBERS SEEM TO BE ALIVE TO DIE. The greatest thing that anyone can achieve according to WELS is to go to heaven. And, as they say you are "saved by faith alone through grace alone." So why do anything? Their members seem to have caught on. Additionally, you will often hear in WELS churches that nothing you do really matters, that you aren't really in control, and so on. Combined with the fact they present themselves as the only pure and correct church, this is extremely toxic advice. So people in the church tend to care only about the church, serving the church, the money they can give to the church, and more or less hanging around till they die.

28. CONSTANT REMINDERS OF SHEEP AND SHEPHERD. Too frequently pastors make remarks about how they are the shepherd and everyone in the church are the sheep. This is power positioning and is done to control you. It is used by organizations that tend to be considered cults. Pastors tend to see their church members as below them, their adult kids even. This is not healthy.

29. IN THE WORLD NOT OF THE WORLD. WELS frequently asserts that "we are in the world, not of the world," meaning the world has basically gone astray and they sit on a plane above it because they are God's chosen and most correct people on earth, and they aren't to be concerned with the world but rather their own teachings, meaning God. This is another element of control and programming so that you are conditioned to fear leaving the church and that its leaders may use you. This tactic is typical of cult behavior. WELS truly does otherwise have quite an insular culture, and it isn't surprising given how hard they try to control members. They tend to try to control what people read and watch in movies as well. It gets ridiculous and really over the top.

30. US VS THEM. Every other church in the world that isn't a sister church or teaching literally the exact same thing as WELS is wrong, and this is a near constant topic in WELS churches, whether you are talking about Catholics, Baptists, and so on. Because WELS tells their members that you can't be sure of going to heaven by going to church anywhere else, this is all about control. Yet again, WELS tells its members that it is enough for God that you are "saved by grace through faith," but that isn't enough inside WELS. So obviously, all this stuff is about control over people in the church. Furthermore, WELS will not engage in common prayer with anyone, even other Christian groups professing that you are saved by grace through faith. It is all about control so you can be used.

31. PASTORS ARE "CALLED". Well, what happens is that at a specific school in the WELS factory someone gets a school degree and then is able to go preach the word at a WELS church. I suppose this isn't that dissimilar from many churches but it does beg the question of who is actually calling this pastor into service. Is being a pastor about getting a degree from school? The pastors aren't really produced by some relevation of God but by the WELS pastor factory.

32. SHORTAGE OF PASTORS? Recently there is talk of there being a shortage of pastors. I don't understand. Is God not calling enough workers? One solution raised by some is to offer pastors higher salaries. Now I get it. If pastors are paid more they will feel a greater calling in life to preach the precious word of God, which seemingly would be the most important thing in life to a "true" believing pastor who is truly called by God. Sorry, that doesn't make sense and is a bad look. I guess people will be more worried about your salvation if you pay them for it.

33. GA AND HB. At one time, there was a hazing practice called "GA" at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, the school producing WELS pastors. Some members of the church got together to criticize the practice in a piece called "Time to Spill the Beans," which you can find on the internet. GA was reasonably considered ridiculous by any standard for anyone but especially so for people who are in training to preach the word of God at the "most correct and pure church" on the planet, as it immediately calls into question the character of the people doing it because it involves(d) all sorts of deception, presentations of false friendship, and over-the-top hazing activities occurred. Truly, it is yet again about asserting control over people. Are you willing to be severely mistreated and used by your church leaders? If so, be a pastor (in a way I really feel sorry for some of you). At any rate, GA was sort of a hush-hush deal and pastors weren't supposed to tell anyone about it, but it was so extreme that in good conscience some finally did. If anyone asked, GA was to be denied as happening, which was just flat out lying (these lies are okay with God and not that sinful, just so you know--sarcasm). Now, "GA" has changed to "HB" (and may change again) so that a nifty, cute response may be given in response to the hazing: "we don't do GA." It is truthful but obviously misleading. The point is, I wouldn't want to be any where near or have anything to do with people who are like this, or have any of my family do the same, much less go look up to them as pastors and leaders of "the most correct and true church on earth." Rather than good pastors and church leaders they seem more like a bunch of hypocritical idiots pulling puppet strings as they please. How sickening. But now that you know this, you won't be surprised when you hear about how they deceive, manipulate, and gaslight people in their churches. They learned this behavior when they were being trained to be pastors and the church condones it.

34. GO TO OUR CHURCH OR ELSE. Once you are in, they basically try to brainwash you into believing that only they alone can assure you of your salvation, so going somewhere else risks going to hell. This is another control tactic and one commonly used by cults. It is extremely unhealthy for you. Too many pastors so easily talk negatively towards people who leave the church. They get between families and so on. It's disgusting. Additionally, other churches and their members are constantly criticized. It is as toxic as it can be. And it doesn't matter that the other church also believes you are saved by grace alone through faith alone. It is WELS or nothing.

35. BACKBITING AND GOSSIP ARE PROBLEMS IN THE CHURCH. It is even perpetrated by pastors and church leaders. If they don't follow through, their job could be at risk. What a great place to serve God (sarcasm). This is another commonality with cults. Even if people try to leave the church their pastors will try to make sure anything negative about them follows them. You would never want a friend who treats you that way, much less a pastor who is "shepherding you through life." What a joke. Again, it is yet another example of how the only sins that really matter are the sins of others, and WELS just is sociopathic with trying to control people.

36. LEARNED HELPLESSNESS. Members of the church have been conditioned to seek their pastor's approval for important life decisions and otherwise are conditioned to believe they would be nothing or just lost if not for WELS. You can't do anything good without them, in their opinion. They even go so far as to say that nobody is really any good or can accomplish anything good except through God, meaning WELS. This is another commonality with cults.

37. CIRCLES OF INCLUSION AND OUTERMOST MEMBERS MOST AT RISK OF POOR TREATMENT FROM THE CHURCH AND HAVING LOUSY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE CHURCH. Consider giving a person a tick mark for each of the following if it applies: (1) related to church founders; (2) related to a pastor; (3) related to Martin Luther College staff or administration; (4) related to called worker; (5) related to Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary staff or administration; (6) related to WELS leader; (7) have parents in the church; (8) have siblings in the church; (9) grew up in the church and/or was baptized as an infant in the church; (10) grew up going to WELS schools; and (11) attended a lutheran college. The people most likely to consider WELS a good church have at least one tick mark from this list and probably several. People who otherwise come to the church are relative outsiders and the insiders look at them that way and tend to seem to feel like the outsider will never really be one of them. It really shows. Perhaps after hearing "in the world not of it" for so long people can't help but be prejudiced. I truly believe that the group also sort of collectively wills into existence the poor results in the church shown by these people. Anyway, people who don't have at least one tick mark are the people made examples of, seen as inferior, and so on. Pastors and church leaders would never do that to their own, but the outsiders are the "terrible heathens from the world" and must be approached with extreme caution (sarcasm), and it seems that negative assumptions tend to be formed at the outset towards these people. They are most at risk and I couldn't in good conscience advise them to go to a WELS church for this reason alone. The prejudices and narcissism run deep. A huge problem with all of this is that people tend to see what they want to see, so if someone intently examines you for long enough with an eye to purposefully see you as a bad or untrustworthy person, they will see you through that lens and tend to will it into existence. It is why bigfoot is real. It sets up certain people to have very poor experiences in the church. This is extremely unhealthy and the only ones who really seem to make it are the ones who give gobs and gobs of time and money to the church. Go figure.

38. GRACE ALONE BY FAITH ALONE IS NICE IN THEORY. This is more or less a "feel-good" love-bombing concept in this church. It quickly becomes conditional on a long laundry list of things for you to comply with or agree to, meaning it is used to control people. Salvation is pitched to followers as something that is free from God, but that "free" salvation is conditional on you falling in line as a sheep who does exactly what WELS wants you to. It doesn't help that WELS so strongly and frequently tells its followers that all other churches are in error, with the ultimate take-home message being that you can't be assured that you are saved if you go to church anywhere else. This is just another example of WELS essentially usurping God. To them, they are God (no really, they will literally say that the church is God, no joke).

39. MARRIAGE IS HARD IN THIS CHURCH. If you are married and go to a WELS church and either you or your spouse wants to leave the church, WELS will encourage you to go to separate churches because they argue you aren't assured of your salvation elsewhere. Don't be surprised if WELS leaders, pastors, and/or members try to get between you and your spouse and use other members of the congregation to drive a wedge between you and your spouse. Although the Bible says that no man should separate a marriage, to them, they are God and God is separating the marriage, so they have no problem encouraging one spouse to stay in their church while the other spouse leaves. It doesn't matter if the church you are leaving to teaches "you are saved by grace alone through faith alone." All that seems to matter to WELS pastors and members is that they address their own insecurities by trying to make a power play in someone's marriage. Many times this involves a woman who will not leave WELS to follow her husband. So irrationally, based on the nonsense taught by WELS a family is ripped apart to satisfy precious little WELS egos, to put it plainly, and that family and any kids they have get to suffer the consequences. Also, this assures the church can still get money from that family. Factors can complicate this dynamic as well. If one spouse grew up in the Synod, going to WELS schools and so one, that person has heard all their life how everyone else is wrong and inferior. When this person marries, naturally, there will be an attitude of disrespect regarding anything dealing with religion toward this person's spouse if that person did not grow up in the church. So this will naturally be a harder marriage if the one who grew up in the church cannot mature and overcome programming ingrained and taught by WELS. I know so many people who have one spouse going to church in WELS and you never see the other, and it always tends to be the same story, the spouse still there grew up in the church and/or attended WELS schools, while the other did not. The one still in WELS doesn't have enough respect for the other spouse to leave the church. And it is typically the woman who is still in WELS, but not always. So there is a marriage in which the woman (or spouse) does not respect her husband, which is incredibly unhealthy. However, WELS stamps this behavior with approval and encourages it because they consider themselves more important than her husband. Finally, they will tell each spouse that their relationship with God is independent of the other spouse's relationship with God, making this separation despite the fact that married people are considered to be one by the Bible. It is simply more ammunition to try and legitimize getting between a marriage. This of course is typical behavior for cults because it is about control so that people can be used. Finally, as if this weren't enough, all of this is worsened because naturally a church group will tend to favor one spouse over the other and form negative assumptions about the other spouse (the pastor does this too). It is just a very bad and unhealthy situation.

40. THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE CHURCH. There are plenty of accounts of women who are unhappy with their lack of representation in the church. However, women being held in such low regard also helps WELS assert control over men through the women they are married to. WELS is extremely controlling with respect to women, and by controlling the women, they control the men they are married to. This becomes another mechanism for maintaining power and control over followers and bending them into submission.

41. THE FAMILY UNIT MEANS NOTHING TO WELS AND IS DISPOSABLE AT THEIR WILL. Basically, WELS leaders and pastors have no problem getting between spouses and family members and turning everyone against each other. And they will quote the Bible while they do this and say it isn't really them but God doing it. Let me tell you what it really is all about. It is about satsifying their own egos and insecurities. They get affirmation from wielding power in and amongst your family. Sadly, many people are so brainwashed in WELS that they sit idly by while WELS pastors and leaders tear their families to shreds. This can be done over something as simple as a family member or spouse going to another church that also teaches that "you are saved by grace alone through faith alone." I mean, really, where is your heart at, WELS? And you have the gall to lecture people about their character.

42. PASTORS CONSIDER THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SPOUSE AND KIDS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SPOUSE AND KIDS. So the pastors (and WELS) teach that WELS is the most correct church and that the church is God. So loyalty to the pastor and/or church is faithfulness to God, which is more important than anything, because your relationship with God is more important than anything. Did you catch that nifty little trick so that the pastor and church each are more important relationships to a person than the person's relationship with their spouse and kids? So your spouse earns money and provides a place for you to live, food for you to eat, loves you, provides emotional support, has sex and intimacy with you, is there with you at all times, shares countless life experiences with you, and loves and provides for your kids, but according to WELS pastors, who threaten you with "give me your money or else you are damned," the pastor and church relationship is the more important relationship in your life than the one you share with your spouse and kids. The brainwashing/programming and mind control runs very deeply in this place. Listen, they know that they don't have to come out and say directly that faithfulness to the church (and therefore the pastor) should supersede loyalty to your spouse. Instead, the pastor will equate being in WELS (or at his church) as faithfulness to God and imply/explain than any other choice would be man-pleasing. The net result heard and felt by the follower in the church is that even my spouse and kids are not more important than me being in this church and hearing this pastor. So yes, PASTORS CONSIDER THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SPOUSE AND KIDS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SPOUSE AND KIDS. How disgusting. Women (wives) tend to be gullible to this advice. How disgusting that a pastor feels as if he is the more important man in a woman's wife in relation to her husband. It is sickening. How arrogant do you have to be as a pastor to watch a wife come to church with her husband and think to yourself that you are more important than him to her? Insanely and ridiculously arrogant (truly sick and messed up). And the pastors/WELS definitely encourage loyalty to them over spouse/kids/family, even though they may not explicitly state it. In WELS you cleave to your church, not your spouse.

43. WELS IS THE POSTERCHILD OF CHURCH DIVISION. Don't pray with other christians, closed communion, ""saved by grace alone through faith alone" isn't good enough if you hear it somewhere else, only WELS'S assumptions about the Bible are absolutely correct, and so on. Also, WELS is the posterchild for making a gigantic deal about the smallest things that cause separation in the church. No one else is ever good enough despite how many assumptions and guesses have been made in WELS's own doctrine. It is all about control and is reminiscent of cult behavior.

44. PASTORS' SINS ARE CUTE OR "I'M A SINNER TOO." Pastors tell stories like this: back when I was 8 years old I [fill in blank with sin]. The congregation collectively chuckles and

considers it cute. Conversely, when trying to control their congregation or fingerpoint, the assertion "I'm a sinner too" will be used to thwart criticism, critical thinking, and self-awareness, but actually it is an empty saying with intent to control the followers while using shame, guilt, and intimidation to bend people into submission. I said it above and will say it again, many pastors considers themselves to be sin free or sin so little that their sins are immaterial. Rarely if ever will a WELS pastor share a sin that is anything other than "cute" and good for a chuckle among followers. But of course, the followers' sins are much more serious and a much different attitude is given toward them.

45. WELS THESE DAYS SEEMS TO BE ALL ABOUT MONEY. There aren't enough pastors being called by God, so we need to pay pastors more so God will call more workers (okay, that's interesting). Favoritism is shown to people who give loads of money--of course, they are the people who believe strongest (sarcasm). People tend to think that "the more money I give the better Christian it makes me and it shows that my faith is stronger than others." Pastors give a 15-minute speech each week and want lots of money for it, without having any other skills to offer to make money. People give more money to be part of the in-crowd of the church. People who don't give lots of money are ignored and/or run off, and additionally negative assumptions tend to be formed against them. Attitudes in the church develop over money given or not given by others. "You can't take your money with you, so give it to us" (nevermind that you have many debts, or you need the money to support your family, but at least you gave tons of money to your church and were part of the in-crowd). Again, "grace alone by faith alone" is enough but unless you give WELS an undisclosed threshold amount of your money, you don't have a "real, true faith." God feeds the birds so you don't really need that much, so give us your money. I could go on. The church can't survive without offerings but too often the focus seems to revolve around money. And you shouldn't confuse humble presentation as not making it about money. You don't have to go to church at a palace for it to be about money.

46. THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF REFUGEES OF THE CHURCH. There seems to be way too many people who have been emotionally and spiritually abused by this church in severe ways who are now seeking refuge from it.

47. THE UNFRIENDLY BRICK-WALL LUTHERAN CURMUDGEONS. There are too many people in this church who seem to be incapable of simple smiling and being friendly towards others, saying hello, and so on. They aren't all old. I said hello to someone with a smile on my face one morning, literally to a person's face with that person looking at me, and the person said nothing in response and didn't change expression. Maybe too many people are unhappy about being at church. Maybe that is just their personalities. I can't really explain it. It just seems to be the case.

48. EXCESSIVE USE OF "WE ARE A FAMILY". In WELS, you have a worldly family and your spiritual family, the church. Some pastors use the phrase "we are a family" seemingly constantly. Can you guess which of your two families is more important, meaning your "real" family? Indeed, in WELS your real family is the church, which erodes your actual family and makes it weak. The weaker you are, the easier you are controlled. This frequent us of "we are family" is typical of groups considered cults. Your actual family matters very little inside WELS unless they are mindless sheep following the church.

49. DON'T WITNESS TO OTHERS UNLESS WELS TELLS YOU TO. Who knew that at a WELS church, once the church reaches a certain number of people the focus is no longer on outreach. I don't think all pastors do this, but you would think if it were so important to spread the word of God, you wouldn't tell people to not do it. I can't explain this.

50. CHURCH IS FOR "GOOD WELS LUTHERANS" NOT ACTUAL SINNERS. Unless you are a walking/talking cookie-cutter WELS Lutheran, you can expect trouble from this place. Also, even though Jesus says in the Bible to bring him the sick and weary, don't expect to find anyone like that in a WELS church during a church service. Those people are run off or simply never invited. They like to keep their churches pure and free from real sinners. What they want are reliable offerings. It is hypocritical and evidence again that church is for them, not sinners and not the world. If they really thought preaching the word to sinners made a difference because the holy spirit has a chance to act, they wouldn't be this way, but they are. Also, if you don't act, think, and talk like a strictly defined WELS lutheran, you stick out like a sore thumb and people tend to avert all attention to you.

51. WELS ACTUALLY CONDITIONS PEOPLE TO BE MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT SINS. Imagine you have a young child and once a week you take an hour or two to explain to this child that "I want you to know deep down that there is nothing good about you, you are a bad kid, you are bad in your nature, you want to do bad things because of it, and you will always be bad." Then during the week you reinforce this 3-4 times. How do think that kid will turn out in life? Would you expect this kid to live a prosperous and happy life, loving his neighbor, being of healthy mind? Or would you expect this kid to be conditioned by these lectures such that the kid has a proclivity to be what you told this kid he/she is, to be and do bad things? Obviously, it is the latter. Parents these days are telling their kids they are the wrong gender and it sticks. Obviously all these "you're nothing but shit" talks will have an enormously detrimental effect. The same is true in WELS churches. You are shamed so that you are weakened and more easily controlled and made to be dependent on the church, because you are nothing good and insufficient if you don't have the church/God (meaning them). So I can't really understand why they tell people they are sinners over and over and then act surprised that these people commit sins. Sociology and psychology would confirm this conditioning. Now imagine with the same kid that as a parent you get upset when that kid acts badly, or you are deeply disappointed when that kid grows up and does bad things. What an abusive relationship. However, this type of relationship dynamic is normalized in WELS. And you can say all you want about this being the gospel truth, it doesn't change anything. Perhaps if you must why don't you try something like this: "the holy spirit rejoices when you are confronted with a chance to sin and choose against it, such things are healthy for you." But I don't think WELS would ever embrace positive reinforcement (which has been shown and is obviously more healthy) because then it would be harder to control people and it would involve confrontation with their history, tradition, and beliefs. Sadly, again, this behavior is typical of cults. Shame them into submission despite the fact that they are what you taught them to be, and using guilt and shame our sheep can be controlled and used for our benefit. And of course all this is made worse by teaching you are forgiven already for your future sins.

52. CHURCH DISCIPLINE. Every church in WELS tends to be different, but at some churches discipline is somewhat common, and of course it tends to be brought by people who are most inner circle (pastors, relations to MLC or WLS, or even relations to church founders), who most likely are aware that everyone else's sins matter a lot more than theirs, or think that others only have sins worth disciplining. Favorites are played and it becomes something to joke about after the fact. If people leave church over it, they get verbally disparaged, regardless of whether running someone out of church is the point of it, and despite the fact that WELS is basically a hate machine to make sure the offender is never clear of the transgression. I once overheard people joking in the hallway at church over people who left the church due to discipline, of course with lots of snickering (read "narcissism"). Church discipline can be a time to make fun of, put on display, and openly harass the transgressor, even using manipulation and gaslighting, making the victim appear mentally ill and be medically diagnosed with mental illnesses they don't have. This is a fun joke and game for them--they do it with smiles on their faces and laugh about it. After this "loving" discipline, they go on to lecture others (the sheep) in the church about their character faults. People spy on each other and pretend to be friends with people to gain information only to turn on them, which is extraordinary. Of course the victims of these things are people on the fringe or that do not have the right church connections, or that basically were at the church to show up and be used only. WELS likely would never do this to one of their own from the right background. It is strong evidence that WELS is a very unhealthy church and is moreso just a God club for playing favorites--of course it is. On this topic, I once saw a man commit the same sin he later took part in disciplining another man for--of course.

53. IT IS NEVER WELS'S FAULT. Do you know of a time the church (church leaders) has come out publicly and stated that it was sorry for something or that something that went terribly wrong in the church should have been handled differently? I don't. There are so many stories at this point and WELS seems to consistently assert that it is someone else's fault for the bad things that happen in their churches. WELS seems to have an entire culture with a lack of accountability.

54. WELS ISN'T AFRAID OF THE GOSPEL. What this means is that they aren't afraid to do really messed up things to people (you and your family), which of course can involve sins on top of sins, so that the holy spirit can work in your life (sarcasm). Of course, their sins don't matter like yours do. Perhaps more accurately you might say "we aren't afraid of being brainwashed sheep who don't think for ourselves." This is another little saying dropped over and over and what it really means is that WELS leaders are trying over and over to justify all the little requirements and extras inserted by them into your salvation, and if some terrible thing has to be done to someone or if it requires separation from everyone religion and christians, so be it. And of course, the "gospel" they are referring to is "what they say is the gospel." The act of doing something harsh or being strict serves as an affirmation to them, which is again a form of "making my religion real." It again is typical of cults and used to intimidate and control people.

55. NARCISSIM. WELS is a great church for narcissists. Despite all the issues I have pointed out regarding WELS, "we are the most correct and pure christians. God loves us, don't you know?" They put others down to lift themselves up.

56. IS WELS A CULT? All I will say is that their actions satisfy several factors suggesting a group may be a cult.

57. WELS exhibits many factors of the BITE model of control used to assess cult groups:

https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/

https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/?sfw=pass1621452630

58. WELS leaders/pastors demonstrate many signs of spiritually abusive leaders:

https://www.jillmonaco.com/25-signs-of-spiritual-abuse/

59. SITE FOR WOMEN AND A SPIRITUAL ABUSE SURVEY. EVERY WOMAN, in WELS or not, should go to this site (wickedshepherds.com) and read everything written on the women's page. It is great at explaining how pastors, like in WELS, try to replace a woman's husband as the most important man in her life, which is a form of control and very destructive. Failure to be a strong woman and deny your pastor as explained on this website can lead to catastrophe in your marriage and with your kids. Don't let your pastor come between you and your husband. It is also a great resource for educating yourself about bad/improper church leaders/pastors. Finally, there is a spiritual abuse survey that everybody should review (a list with yes/no answers to questions, and if 50% yes, then very unhealthy, 75% yes, authoritarian cult).

http://www.wickedshepherds.com/AWordtotheWives.html

http://www.wickedshepherds.com/WomensPage.html

http://www.wickedshepherds.com/AReligiousSociopath.html

http://www.wickedshepherds.com/SpiritualAbuseSurvey.html

60. Here are other numerous sources that should be reviewed by WELS members or anyone considering WELS, which will help you be more cognizant of major issues in WELS.

https://www.sgmsurvivors.com/2008/07/05/controlling-personalities-in-the-church-manipulation-techniques-and-your-defenses/

http://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/11/15-mind-control-techniques-both-churches-and-cults-use/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/libertyforcaptives.com/2012/06/24/mind-field-eight-ways-to-identify-religious-brainwashing-part-1-of-8/amp/

https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Family/infidel.htm

http://www.flcssc.org/wordpress/2018/05/26/beware-of-the-gaslighters/

https://mindshiftpodcast.medium.com/is-evangelicalism-a-cult-5bb25448bc26

https://www.gotquestions.org/gaslighting.html

https://goodguyswearblack.org/2013/11/22/signs-in-a-congregation-that-a-leader-has-covert-narcissistic-personality-disorder/

http://thewartburgwatch.com/permpage-church-discipline-and-abuse/

http://en.believethesign.com/index.php/Sociopathic_Leadership

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/spycatcher/201404/why-predators-are-attracted-careers-in-the-clergy%3famp

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2013/07/11/nine-marks-of-an-abusive-church-2/

https://rickthomas.net/spiritual-abuse-when-it-is-time-to-leave/

https://careynieuwhof.com/6-signs-church-culture-toxic/

http://samanthapfield.com/2016/05/11/smell-test-how-spot-toxic-church/

https://whenpeoplearekind.org/toxic-churches/

https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/the-pulse/73107-20-signs-of-a-toxic-church-culture

https://faithinthenews.com/4-warning-signs-of-a-toxic-church/

https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/7-types-of-churches-to-avoid-at-all-costs.aspx

https://intervarsity.org/blog/six-ways-identify-cult

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/what-to-know-about-the-psychology-of-cults/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/361400/

61. FINAL REMARKS. What you choose to believe is up to you. Considering everything I have said, I don't think WELS is worth anyone's time and attention unless you are related to other WELS members or pastors/leaders, or you grew up in the church or went to a WELS school for many years. Do I want people to hate WELS members and leaders? No. Unlike many of them, I respect their need for peace in their lives, even though the church has so many problems. It is their history and tradition. Most of them were indoctrinated early or got in and got stuck, or otherwise can't imagine life any other way because they have never stepped aside to critically consider what is happening around them, or are powerless to change it. I feel sorry for a lot of them. There are some really great individuals in the church (but there were also some great Germans during holocaust who sat idly by and did nothing). Some are just power hungry narcissistic jerks. Also, in some ways it is important to distinguish WELS as an organization from people themselves. Regardless, I think everyone deserves and truly needs love. Love heals and comforts, encourages good things and behavior, and does not destroy or take joy in the destruction of others, no matter the circumstances. I would not take joy in this list hurting someone or their family. With that said, I do believe WELS deserves this huge dose of criticism. Members of WELS often become unwitting pawns and really should stop, step aside, and critically consider their church. At any rate, with so many glaring issues in both doctrine and their churches, I urge WELS to adopt more humanist qualities (empathy) toward your fellow man rather than acting as you do. Additionally, again due to there being so many issues, it shouldn't be surprising to WELS members/pastors/leaders that people don't want to go to church with you.

[delicioushistory]

No matter what spiritual beliefs I may have; I truly believe that the key to healing all parts of yourself and others is to heal one piece of yourself at a time, then pass that knowledge to someone else. Not to get all Christian on anyone, but in the Bible it states, "thou shall not worship any other god, for I am a jealous God." God never denies that other Gods exist. He just states he is a jealous God and if you choose to worship him, worship him only. With that being said as a Christian practicing druid ways, I've learned that it's ok to believe in magic, energy, manifestation. I also know that each spiritual teachings have a price to pay, yes even Christians too. The walk along any spiritual/religious path come with its own trials and tribulations. Struggling to be open minded, yet loyal to our teachings. Christians judging other beliefs does no good, just as no other spiritual/religious beliefs judging Christians is no better. It only hinders our ability to heal and pass it on to others. I used to collect crystals, cleanse them, make me feel better. Through a deep dark spiritual awakening I realized our power lies within God, and whatever God or Goddess you believe too. Reading the Bible helped me open my eyes that God gave us free will to choose what we want to believe. I believe my God is magic. He spoke to Moses through a burning bush! Like come on that's magic. Although the word magic is frowned upon, I can't help but think logically and realistically, That's fucking magic! How can any Christian deny that's magic, energy, manifestation? So where was I getting at with the crystals and stones you may ask? If God made everything on the earth, wouldn't that mean he put energy and magic into what he created so that we could heal and take care of ourselves? So comes my next point, I no longer go out and buy crystals they are gifted to me or I find them hiking. If I do purchase one I never keep them for long nor do I touch them. I cleanse the ones I have put them away by a window where my plants are. I don't hang out with really anyone, but I know when they found their home. I no longer collect crystals for myself, rather I give them away with good intention and knowing it belongs to that person. Like anyone does a spell I pray to God to bless my rocks with love and whatever may be missing in that person's life.

Now you may be asking why the hell am I rambling on? Because I can and because no one truly cares what my thoughts are, but I feel they have to be heard somehow. I'm Native American, Scottish, English, French. My kids are African American, Native American, etc., I also have a very big family in general with lots of different cultures and beliefs. I have always struggled with what am I supposed to believe. How do I respect others beliefs and still have my own? What do I believe in? Am I a witch? Am i an evangelistic Christian? Am I druid?? Am I dark or am I light? I choose to believe in everything. I'm very spiritually tuned in, in a wisdom, intuition,spiritually political, dreams, I can't speak negative otherwise it happens, because of this I learned you don't need spells, if your energy and intent is strong. I have other random gifts. I do believe other deities exist, I choose not to worship them, but I do acknowledge them with respect. I have done tarot, I have done spells, seances, when I was younger and didn't know how to spirtually protect myself then. I do believe I opened a portal when I did the seance when I was 10, I do believe something dark has followed me since then. As punishment and proof of my loyalty to God for his protection and strength to handle my darkness. I use my darkness as armor to walk through darkness, to help guide or give hope to those whom may want to walk through the door of light and yes shadow workers have light. I always wondered why I feel full of life, but so dead inside, being a shadow worker is not for the faint of hearts, often feels like a curse, but for humanity overall is a blessing in the end. After all it is the price I pay for not properly knowing how to perform a seance. You think I'd learn my lesson with the seance, but no I had to try spells. They work, but there is a price to pay in anything you practice. I paid heavily, which taught me the lesson of using spells and speaking in general with good intent, if there is a slight doubt I will not proceed. I have spoken bad on someone and revoked it, so that I take back all the karma and stop their suffering. Let me tell you holy cow lesson learned. I don't do spells except for that in prayer. Buddhism taught me to work on ego, greed, pride, peace of mind. So many amazing teachings and so many beautiful rituals. As you can tell this is why I love druidism, they are known for wisdom, worshipping other deities,political guidance, although rejected they eventually incorporated Christianity in there, I'm sure it was forced upon them? However as a practicing Druid Christian, I'm a firm believer humans taint the teachings for the sake of power and the actually meanings of the teachings get lost with the hate people create around it. It is not our deities who fail us, it is us who fails us.

If someone says blessed be, do not be offended or reject good energy, just because it's not God or it's magic. Energy itself is magic thats what we are in this human body.

If someone says or asks to pray for you, do not be offended, maybe that's the only way they no how to send out good energy, because they don't do spells and are scared, due to lack of knowledge and understanding.

If someone is dark energy or accept darkness, you love them as they are. Whether you can tolerate it close or far away is your choice, but practice acceptance.

We all are supposed to learn to preserve the earth and heal each other. Heal within ourselves first, then pass down the knowledge. If you don't agree with something, ask yourself what can I learn from this? Then tell yourself you are not perfect, but you are ok. Lightworkers don't always look bright. Shadow workers aren't always dark. There's a positive to a negative, no matter how small. The impossible is always possible.

[dragonofyang]

On Love and Lions Part 1: An Analysis on Love in VLD

“I have always believed that unity is where true power comes from, and true unity can only be born of love.” --Gyrgan, Paladin of the Yellow Lion

Voltron: Legendary Defender is a cartoon on Netflix that–with the final season available to watch on Netflix–has extremely regressive and harmful messages. The S8 on Netflix carries lessons about how war is good, that men shouldn’t respect the wishes and desires of women, that violence and abuse mean even victims aren’t deserving of forgiveness. Everything about that is 100% antithetical to what VLD was about throughout the prior seasons and each harmful message is another nail in the coffin of the original narratives of peace, respect, and fundamentally how everyone is deserving of love and forgiveness, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

In fact, the theme of love in VLD is something we at Team Purple Lion wish to discuss. It’s arguably the most absolutely fundamental theme of the show. Love destroys the universe, and love saves it over and over again. And love would have rebuilt the universe, but thanks to the edits ordered by the trademark holder, the universe that should have been born from love was instead born from one girl sacrificing her life because she saw no better option. She didn’t even get to tell her only remaining father figure goodbye. What kind of message is that? In the original final season, prior to the executive meddling, we should have seen how love was such a powerful force in the universe that it could not just repair this reality, but all realities. And it’s not just romantic love, but six types of love.

Now, for those of you more familiar with our work, we’ve discussed some pretty big concepts in VLD and how they’re addressed, and there will be even more in future episodes of our reconstruction Rise and Atone. VLD engages not just with its own predecessors in the Voltron franchise, but Beast King GoLion, Labyrinth, Frankenstein, and Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey is all but the story bible for Allura’s arc. The concepts we are about to discuss date back to Ancient Greece, and while love can be more than these concepts, it’s important that we have a framework through which we can discuss and analyze love as it appears in VLD without getting lost in all the examples.

In American culture, “love” is not very well-differentiated between kinds because we only use one word: “love”. While we use it across all sorts of contexts, we have to add modifiers when we don’t mean romantic love or familial love, which are the most commonly-acknowledged forms of love. VLD, being written and edited by primarily Americans living in America, also encounters this issue, but it does not focus solely on romantic love, which can complicate how to interpret love in the show. We, however, would like to argue that not only is it all love, but it doesn’t all have to be good love, familial love, or romantic love. At the end of the day the plot is driven by love in its many forms. Love is so baked into the story that it’s quite difficult to extricate, dare I even say impossible, and that ultimately is part of why we were able to reconstruct so much of what was lost in S8.

The Ancient Greeks had many words for love, but we feel it’s important to discuss the dialogue that VLD engages in with various forms of love, using the Ancient Greeks’ framework as a guide. The model gives us concrete definitions of different kinds of love, and can help us as an audience understand the various forms of love that are present in VLD. It’s important that we define the different ways we can observe love being portrayed because much of VLD relies on the writing adage of “show, don’t tell”.

So without any further ado, let’s dig into what, precisely, is love.

As stated earlier, we’ll be using terminology coined by the Ancient Greeks, specifically six categories of love that we feel are most prevalent in the show. We’ve also deduced our own examples of these forms of love when they’re taken too far or flat-out discarded, which will be discussed in a companion article.

The six forms of love are as follows:

Eros: the most famous kind of love, an intense (and often sexual) passion for another being and seeing the beauty within them. This is the love that most closely aligns with romantic love as we understand it in a modern American context.

Philia: an affection and loyalty between friends, notable for its platonic nature, it is the love that arises between friends, and can be found among family, but the modern equivalent would be the found family trope.

Storge: this is the intrinsic empathy between individuals, primarily the attachment of parents to children. This form of love was primarily used to describe familial relationships, and the patience one sometimes needs when around blood relatives.

Philautia: put simply, this is self-love in its purest form. It is acknowledging your needs, wants, and happiness without apology. The Ancient Greeks considered Philautia to be a basic human need.

Xenia: while many might not consider this to be a form of love, it is hospitality, or as we define it, love between a host and their guests. Specifically, this would be the care a host gives to their guests in both physical (food, gifts, etc.) and non-physical (respecting rights, protection, etc.). Hospitality is massively important because if you are good to someone while they are in your home, they will be equally good to you if you visit theirs.

Agape: this is a Greco-Christian term, ultimately, and is a little more difficult to understand because it can be confused with other forms of love. At its core, though, it is a pure and unconditional love such as that between spouses, families, or God and man. It shouldn’t be confused for other forms of love such as Philia because unlike the other forms of love, which only focus on one aspect of humanity, Agape is the unconditional and universal love for everyone. It’s sexless, unlike Eros. At its core, it’s the love born of goodwill to all people, regardless of circumstance.

While these are only six categories, there are many ways of interpreting love, especially since there are so many avenues to see love–in good and bad forms–in VLD. These categories are also not inherently hierarchical, and are not presented in any particular order. Agape is the main exception, being more convoluted in its nature, and thus is discussed at the end. It also narratively serves as part of the culmination to the plot, so it carries a greater weight in relation to the alpha plot of the whole story.

Now, let’s examine how they present in VLD. As an official reminder, please remember that all analysis of VLD is done from a ship-neutral stance and we are not proposing any endgame romances. The sole purpose of this article is to discuss observable portrayals of love in its various forms, and to analyze both the text and the metatextual messages resulting from them.

Eros: Passionate Love

Eros… arguably this is the most contentious form of love presented in VLD, if only because of all the ship wars that occurred in the fandom. Eros drives the shipping communities of fandoms across the world, because it often stems from on-screen chemistry or the potential of the fleeting seconds where a spark flies but does not catch in canon. The beauty of Eros is that it ripples quietly through fiction, or it can be a tsunami ready to devour the story. It’s the quiet whisper of two women sharing a private moment, to the shouted declarations in the heat of battle. Eros thrums through fandoms in a desperate tempo for seeing a love as passionate as you can feel in characters who may never share more than a glance.

Plato actually had quite the influence on the word “Eros”, because “Eros” or erotic love, was largely regarded as a type of madness brought upon a person by seeing someone whose beauty strikes your heart with an arrow (Cupid’s arrows, anyone?). Eros is the love that drives you to despair if the object of your affections is cruel or uninterested, and it burns like a fire. “Falling in love at first sight” is the key concept here, and you can see it reproduced in fandoms across the world, though many cultures have their own names and terms for it. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott define “Eros” in A Greek-English Lexicon as “love, mostly of the sexual passion”. Plato, however, redefined the word to include a nonphysical aspect. He discusses it in Symposium and says that while (physical) Eros can be felt for a person initially, with contemplation you can and will fall in love with a person’s inner beauty, which for Plato was the ideal, since he specifically emphasized the lack of importance of physical attraction. In fact, Jung–who coined the Anima and Animus–has a similar approach, with an emphasis on unity within the self by accepting your internal Eros which manifests as your feminine Anima/masculine Animus.

In the text of VLD, Eros is remarkably subdued. This is partially due to its rating. Being a Y7-FV show, VLD can’t really have explicitly sexual content. Sure the implication can exist, but a lot of times sex has to be carried through metaphor if a story is to address it at all. Take the juniberry as an example. It’s a three-petal flower of a deep rose and softer pink, delicately topping a green stem, with a yellow pistil. In much of literary history, flowers represent female sexuality and beauty, and they are common representations of youth across genders.

Now, in strictly biological terms, flowers as a sexual symbol is a 1:1 accuracy in analysis, because the flower is the reproductive organ of a plant. I’d like to analyze the juniberry from a biological perspective, because understanding the anatomy of a flower can help us understand its role in literature as a metaphor for sex. The whole point of the flower is to be able to spread pollen across individual plants, whether by wind or by pollinators such as bats or bees, and breed to produce more plants. The actual reproductive organs of flowers are called the stamen and pistil, respectively. The stamen produces pollen, while the pistil collects pollen in its ovule to fertilize and create seeds. A stamen is a very slender filament, topped with what’s called an “anther”, which is where the pollen is actually released. The pistil, meanwhile, has a thicker base with a long body, usually topped with a few tendril-like structures called “stigma”.

Diagram by the Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants [ID: A simple cross-section diagram of a flower. Three petals are visible on the far side, with reproductive organs drawn in the center. There is also a stalk and sepals at the bottom. Along the sides of the cross-section there are labels. On the left, a category called “Stamen” is labeled, with “Anther” and “Filament” pointing to two parts of the thinner reproductive organ. “Receptacle” marks the base of the flower, and “Peduncle (flower stalk)” marks out the stem. On the right, we have the label “Petal” and three labels under the category “Pistil”: “Stigma”, pointing to the top portion, “Style” pointing to the stem-like feature, and “Ovary” pointing to the rounded bottom. The label “Sepal” marks the leaf-like structure just under the petals. End ID.]

Now, when we look at the juniberries we see in canon, we can see that at no point are any drawn with stamens. They all have a single pistil growing from the center, and they’re topped with three stigma, meaning that all juniberries drawn on-screen are female juniberries.

Juniberries are a quintessential symbol of Altea, and they represent home to Allura, as well as what she’s lost. However, they also represent how Allura’s relationship to her own femininity is not some mystical thing determined by forces beyond her. Colleen gifts Allura a juniberry that was selectively bred from flowers she had available, and it’s identical in every way (that we can see) to the juniberries native to Altea. The message, though it’s subtle, is quite clear: Allura is in control of her femininity and can define herself however she pleases (“highlands poppy” versus “juniberry”). After the sexual undertones that threaded her relationship with Lotor, this is a very important message to convey, especially since a patriarchal story would punish Allura for the metaphorical sex in physical ways, such as how the season 8 on Netflix does.

Allura isn’t simply a vessel for male desire, nor is she a strong female character who doesn’t need a man. Her story is about finding agency separate from male expectations, without forsaking her own femininity in the process. Like the juniberry, she is feminine, but she is able to define herself, and the dark entity masquerading as Lotor reminds her of that with their conversation about calling the juniberry a “highlands poppy”. That’s what makes Lotor so dangerous to a traditional patriarchal values system: he reminds Allura that she has a choice.

It’s important to note that during their interactions Lotor never gives Allura a choice in the sense that he, a man, is allowing her one; he simply steps back and encourages her to make the choices to which she is entitled and to act on her emotions and desires. She is an agent of her own free will, and Lotor, being first her Shadow, challenges her to be smarter, quicker on the battlefield, and then as her Animus he challenges her to look inward and become in-tune to her own inner wants and needs. The other Paladins can offer some aid in that, but none of them strike her anxieties or hopes the way that Lotor can, being the crown prince and heir to her sworn enemy, and being half-Altean and half-Galra. He is, in a fundamentally physical way, the union of two races that were at war before Altea’s destruction, and to a survivor of that war, that forces Allura to question the beliefs she held in the beginning of the story. The stakes of success and failure are much higher with Lotor in the picture, and it’s easier to focus literary tension on two characters than five or six, so as a result of that persistent tension, we as the audience are given plenty of chemistry between two characters to spur Eros.

As we discussed last year in “Legendarily Defensive: Editing the Gay Away”, Keith was meant to have a gay relationship with another Paladin. We refuse to write conjecture on what his endgame romance was meant to be, however it is important to discuss Keith’s Eros in a metatextual sense. For example, let’s look at Keith and Shiro. Keith is a legacy character that dates all the way back to 1984 Defender of the Universe. His romantic subplot was relegated to excised footage and extremely subtextual if it managed to squeak past the axe. Shiro was able to be queer, however, due to the fact that he’s a DreamWorks-owned character who is new to the franchise, meaning that there isn’t a legacy that needed to be upheld.

Keith’s queerness, however, still acts as a spur to fuel the potential for Eros, and helps build tension between him and his fellow male Paladins. And I specify male Paladins because during season 2, Keith and Allura go off in a pod by themselves to see if Zarkon is tracking either of them. During the scenes with Keith and Allura together, it’s important to note the background music is remarkably flat and lacking in romantic cues. In prior iterations of Voltron, Keith and Allura are implied as endgame (DOTU), have the beginnings of an on-screen romance (VForce), or straight up just fuck on the page (such as in the comics). It stands to reason that this scene should at least imply some form of passionate chemistry here, but largely it’s two friends confiding in one another and trying to find reassurance as they confess their fears. Keith doesn’t have a moment to admire Allura’s beauty the way we see Lance and Matt do, and Allura doesn’t blush like how she does with Lotor or Lance. Without markers for any kind of Eros, the scene is a quiet moment of contemplation away from the stress, only to be broken by Shiro telling them to get back because the Galra Empire found the Castleship again.

So then where do we see passionate chemistry for Keith? At the risk of starting the ship-war again, his chemistry largely exists with Shiro and Lance. Shiro, narratively, functions as his Mentor, someone to guide and believe in him, who then gives up his position of leadership (sort of) so that Keith can grow. Bringing Shiro back prematurely makes it harder to see, but in a traditional Hero’s Journey, the Mentor figure teaches not-quite-enough to the Hero before disappearing, and the Hero grows on their own and becomes their own person. Naturally, this makes Keith and Shiro have tension, especially since Shiro was brought back prematurely due to marketing, so their relationship dynamic had to change to accommodate Shiro’s return. Lance, however, constantly baits and teases Keith, and Keith frequently rises to it and they argue. They butt heads and don’t have that sense of camaraderie that Keith and Shiro do, so right off the bat there is more obvious tension between the two of them. Eventually, Lance and Keith learn to trust each other, and in season 8 we finally see them settle their rivalry as they prepare to face Honerva. So while Keith’s dynamic with Shiro is more focused on camaraderie and growth, Keith’s dynamic with Lance is more focused on pushing each other to be better warriors and teammates.

Philia: Friendly Love

In VLD, we’re shown that friends can be found anywhere if you’re willing to put down the blasters and try to make them. We’re also shown that just because you’re on the same side of the battlefield, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re best buddies. Commander Lahn pledges his loyalty to Lotor after his base is saved by Voltron, and Keith and Lance butt heads so often you’d think one would sooner drop the other into a black hole. However, we should never discount the power of friendship, or rather, we should never discount the value of platonic relationships. This includes everything from friendship, to the found family trope, to the mystical bond the Paladins have with their Lions. Philia is the companion’s love, firmly rooted in platonic–and often intellectual–admiration.

Philia, as defined in A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott, is “an affectionate regard or friendship, usually between equals”. Where Eros is the fiery passion between sexually-attracted adults, Philia is the platonic love between people who respect and trust each other. This is the love that flows like water, endlessly filling and refilling your emotional needs with good company, good advice, and generally just a good presence. Friendships are the ports we anchor ourselves at when the seas become too rough, and in VLD, where space is the most dangerous frontier and most of the universe is your enemy, friends are more important than ever for our Heroes and Heroines.

[ID: A screenshot of S4E1 “Code of Honor” with Allura, Lance, Coran, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk sharing a group hug with Keith. Coran, Hunk, Pidge, and Allura are all crying, while Keith, Shiro, and Lance are smiling. End ID.]

Everywhere you look in VLD, you’re sure to find some kind of camaraderie between friends. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk make the Garrison Trio (or as I like to call them, The Planck Constant), and they get into shenanigans together. In fact, it’s entirely likely that had Lance and Hunk not decided to follow Pidge up to the roof, they never would’ve found Shiro, and subsequently Blue Lion. Later, when Voltron has allied with Lotor as the new Galra Emperor, they reprogram a sentry to become the eternally-fantastic Funbot. If you want a prime example of the fun that could be had between friends, those three are quintessential to the definition of Philia. They’re the first Youths you meet in the story, and it’s through their eyes we watch as a far-off intergalactic war comes to Earth at last. The show has us follow them as the audience, and we watch as they meet up with Keith, save Shiro, and then find themselves going from Earth to Kerberos in less than five minutes, and then by the end of their day, they’ve awoken Allura and Coran and are on Arus, thousands of lightyears away from their home.

We see the Paladins go from a rowdy group of teenagers with Shiro as the head to a group of five Heroes and Heroines capable of saving the universe. Lance helps Pidge get all the GAC coins she needs for a video game, and he’s always got the team’s back with his sniper rifle. Hunk always is ready to lend a hand, even when he’s scared of flying Yellow, but when the Taujeerans are in danger of falling into the acid as their planet breaks apart, he’s right there holding them up while the team gets the arc ship ready for takeoff. Our Paladins are the embodiment of the power of friendship, trust, and perseverance, and it’s that tenacity and dedication that should have carried our six Paladins to victory and brought the Purple Paladin back into the light he thought had forsaken him. Black, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple, and White, together in a bond of pure platonic love. There’s an old phrase I’m sure you’re all familiar with: “blood is thicker than water”. The power of Philia and found family in VLD challenges that notion in the original S8 when Lotor is offered his vindication. “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

Pick any two of our main protagonists and you’re sure to find a thread of Philia connecting them, because when you fight together as one, you inevitably become closer as the trust builds between you. In fanfic terminology, this is the root of the found family trope: strangers and friends finding themselves in a gripping adventure together, and discovering that they’re stronger together than they could be apart, and coming to see these people as more than colleagues or acquaintances. They become your family and people to defend, and the people you trust to have your back when it’s time to face down an enemy together.

That’s part of why Keith leaving for the Blade of Marmora is so fractious. He’s growing into a leadership role and obviously accustomed to it, but with Shiro’s premature return, there’s some growing pains as the incumbent leader and the former leader unintentionally butt heads. Keith needs to be in Black Lion without Shiro to complete his growth, but without a way to easily integrate him back into the team without messing with the legacy, Keith has to go. And like with any good friend, when you have to say goodbye, it’s a bittersweet affair. The team doesn’t want him to go, but in-canon he feels he can do more good with the Blade, but the meta reason is that his Hero’s Journey has been arrested. But, like with any good friend, the team is able to reunite with him at a later date and he integrates back into the group. They are wiser to the world, harder, but they are together again. And they need that unity when it’s time to face Honerva and go into battle for not just their universe, but all realities.

Storge: Familial Love

In English, we have many concepts of love, but generally we only treat the single word of “love” as a word for “love”. As a result, we tend to use other words to modify the type of love we mean, which can get things kind of sticky if you talk about X type of love but don’t specify that it’s X type and not Y type. With familial love, it can be relatively understood without being specified, but as you can see by my explication here, I still have to modify the word “love” with an adjective to describe the next kind of love I will be discussing. Storge, the familial love.

A Greek-English Lexicon defines Storge as “love, affection, especially of parents and children”. Storge, unlike Philia, is not a platonic admiration for a companion in the family, however it does denote respect. Storge is also not the idealized unconditional love of Agape (which we will discuss toward the end of this essay). Storge is the instinctive love for those in your family, especially between parents and children. I also argue the key aspect of Storge is that your family–for all the times you want to tear out your hair–will love you for the rest of their lives. And you’ll love them, because they’re people who have your best interests at heart, even if they don’t always express that well.

Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man himself is Allura’s second father figure (after Alfor), but he’s the only father figure for Allura in the show that’s alive. Coran’s protectiveness of Allura is well-documented. He was furious when she got captured saving Shiro, he warns her to be careful healing the Balmera, he worries for her in Blue, but at no point does he actually prevent her from making her choices. He wants her to have a full life, a happy life, or at least as happy as one can be when you’re one of the only survivors of a war. He’s a father through and through, and even if Allura is Alfor’s daughter by blood, Coran is the one who supports her during the most difficult stage of not just her life but the universe’s life. He loves her, he consistently reminds people to respect her and to think of what’s best for her. Not just as a princess of Altea or the heart of Voltron, but as a daughter. Alfor was her father, but he died before he saw her face the trials in the plot. Coran, however, he gets to see her grow into a woman even greater than what Alfor could have ever imagined. The audience might find him a little frustrating (such as in S8E1 “Launch Date”), and Allura takes his protectiveness in stride, but at the end of the day Coran is a gorgeous man with his heart in the right place, even if his execution is a little off the mark on occasion.

The Holt parents are also good examples of Storge. We see Colleen and Sam fight to tell Earth about what’s been going on, as well as finding their children. Colleen herself is a solid mama bear that anyone would want to have fighting for them in their corner, and we can see she gives no fucks about protocol when she’s told she can’t stay on Garrison grounds with her husband.

[ID: Colleen Holt glaring, her husband Sam behind her looking equally annoyed. She glares at Admiral Sanda (off-screen) as they argue. The subtitle reads, “You’ll get me the clearance.” End ID.]

While Colleen doesn’t hesitate to ground Pidge for running away to space, the fact of the matter is that she and Sam fought like absolute hell to protect their kids in the ways they had available to them. Storge is the love parents have for their children and these two human characters are the perfect examples of it, even if Pidge chafes a bit under being grounded. Sam and Colleen’s love for Pidge and Matt and Coran’s love for Allura are the perfect avenues to explore how Storge is love, even if it’s frustrating, but they also serve as an excellent foil for how that love can be horribly twisted.

Philautia: Self-Love

In S1E1 of VLD, when our human protagonists meet Allura, Sendak is barreling through open space to their location and hellbent on capturing the Blue Lion. Allura is able to talk to Alfor–or rather, his hologram–to seek guidance in the upcoming battle, and he says, “You must be willing to sacrifice everything to assemble the lions and correct my error.”

With VLD, there’s this idea of sacrifice, of giving your life for the greater good, but when discussing acts of love, we also need to talk about acts of love for yourself. We see many instances of characters sacrificing themselves for the greater good, the belief that their death will bring an eventual victory to the Paladins of Voltron and free the universe. Allura throws Shiro into an escape pod so he doesn’t have to suffer the abuse again, but in the process becomes a prisoner herself. Ulaz gives up his life to save the Paladins and keep the Blade of Marmora base secret. Thace sacrifices himself so that Galra Central Command can go offline and the plan can move forward. Keith nearly kills himself trying to break through Haggar’s barrier at the battle of Naxzella before Lotor intervenes and destroys the ship with a blast from his Sincline ship. Sacrifice is a massive part of the show, and needless sacrifices are always undone, but what message do continuous sacrifices leave us with as the audience? It leaves us with Alfor’s lesson: you must sacrifice everything to correct my mistake.

When you’re writing, one of the most basic things you must do to drive a plot forward is change something significant. In the beginning of a story, Character A might think Character B is wrong and has no idea of what it takes to do something, but then Character B later on needs to surprise Character A by proving they can do that thing or that they don’t need to. It forces Character A and the audience to rethink their initial assumptions, and it encourages tension and dialogue between characters that otherwise might not exist. It’s an internal motivation, and one that audiences will pretty much always find more gripping and compelling than a simple monster-of-the-week scenario. VLD is no different. “All Galra are bad/Altea is good” leads to meeting the Blade of Marmora and Alteans who took over their universe. The challenge to a character’s worldview is what makes turning these initial ideas on their head so satisfying.

So what could challenge the idea that you have to sacrifice everything? Especially to correct the mistakes of someone else?

Love. Not for others, not for family, not even for the greater good.

But for yourself.

To quote Audre Lorde, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Philautia is the love in which you put yourself first, not because it’s selfish, but because it’s self-care. Self-love is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “an appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue” and Philautia has been recognized for millennia as a basic human need by the likes of Maslow and the Ancient Greeks. Recognizing your own needs and worth is a fundamentally radical decision, especially if you are in a position where you’re expected to prioritize the needs of others before your own.

S1E1 of VLD offers us pretty much every worldview that gets challenged later on in the series, except for Alfor’s. We see Alteans can be equally cruel, that Galra are not all evil. Voltron is a great protector, but it is also a great weapon, and Keith even calls it an alien warship in the very beginning, highlighting the danger Blue–and consequently Voltron itself–poses by merely existing. Philautia is not the exertion or prioritization of your desires, but the assertion of your needs. It can easily swing too far into selfishness and vanity, but making yourself heard is never a bad decision, and for those who are marginalized, women, trans people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, nonwhite people, it is an act of defiance. The sins of people in positions of power are not the burden for their victims to bear. If protesting is too much or too burdensome, simply taking the time to care for oneself is enough, because you can’t pour water out of an empty cup. Alfor’s plea to Allura was always meant to be overturned with the finale, especially since she’s facing down the antithesis of everything she believed in season 1. Honerva is selfish, manipulative, abusive, and an Altean woman. Alfor would ask Allura to give up everything she has left to destroy Honerva, but in the original and unedited season 8 Allura would have taken that plea and turned it on its head.

VLD’s Princess Allura is the first and only iteration to be a nonwhite girl and voiced by a black woman. Having her sacrifice herself is an extremely harmful message to little girls of color everywhere because it’s not the burden of girls of color to save the world. Their duty is to love themselves and know they’re able to be as brave and kind and intelligent as they’d like. Princess Allura’s arc is about a girl learning to not shoulder the burden of violence, but instead choosing to relieve herself and choose healing and creation, and in turn, her reward would be the literal universe at her fingertips.

And Allura isn’t the only character to learn to love themselves. Lance, as well, learns to become comfortable with himself. At first he’s comfortable and cocky and immature in Blue Lion, but then as the seasons progress and he finds Red to be more of a challenge, he learns he has to follow through with his actions and decisions. He learns that to fly Red, he can’t hesitate and just has to roll with the punches. He dubs himself “the sharpshooter” of the group, and at first he gets laughed at, but then he saves Slav from being trapped in prison once more by firing and making a near-impossible shot. He doesn’t have to forge ahead and fight recklessly, he simply has to see an opportunity and take it.

All our other Paladins learn to become more comfortable with themselves, as well. Hunk becomes more confident in being the voice of reason, and becomes an A+ diplomat in the process. Pidge is able to open up and be honest with her team about her secrets and fears, and in return is blessed not just with that weight off her shoulders, but the knowledge that her team is her family just as much as Sam and Matt are. Keith, too, learns that he doesn’t have to go it alone all the time. He’s able to relax and trust his team, and rather than burdening himself with doing everything, he’s able to rely on the skillsets of the other Paladins and make them a stronger team by focusing his attention on directing them, as opposed to commanding them.

Another interesting example of Philautia is Lotor himself, who at no point is uncomfortable with his mixed heritage, even when he’s called a “half-breed” or when one of his parents blames half of his heritage for his failings. The main reason that it’s not as blatant is because by the time the story begins, he’s been at peace with his heritage and his place in the Galra Empire for a long time, and thus does not play a significant role until he has his breakdown at the end of season 6.

This form of love is quite possibly the most frustrating, if only because so much of its payoff was in season 8. We should see Allura not give up her life in the name of sacrifice, but rather choose to become a goddess in the name of love. We should see Lance become unshakably confident in his abilities when it’s time to face the biggest bad guy of the series. The final season was meant to be a season won through love, and self-love is quintessential to that victory, because it gives viewers the message that your acceptance of yourself is vital to the world. It’s an important lesson for little girls everywhere to know that their worth doesn’t lie in how much of themselves they can give away, but how much of themselves they cultivate and grow, because if you trust in yourself and choose love, then you’ll be as powerful and strong as Princess Allura. It’s possible to be the brave and chivalrous Paladin while also being the princess who likes the occasional sparkly thing.

The lesson of Philautia in VLD is one of embracing your limits of what you can give, and reminding the world that you matter, because loving yourself is the greatest act of defiance when you’re faced with an enemy who wants nothing more than for you to make yourself smaller, weaker, more amicable if it would please them. It’s the reminder to be gentle with yourself, no matter what battles you face, because caring for yourself is just as–if not more–important.

Xenia: Love for the Stranger

Hospitality is a massive part of many cultures, I personally had a relative (who has since passed) who would always have an open door for the poor families in their neighborhood and the stove would always have something cooking. My own mother will cook especially for you if you need her to. There’s a reason “Southern hospitality” is famous. Good food, good company, and ultimately safety are what sets Xenia among the categories of love as defined by the Ancient Greeks. In VLD, this form of love is very sparse in comparison to love such as Philia, however it’s extremely important that our heroes engage in it. To quote Coran, “70 percent of diplomacy is appearance. Then 29 percent is manners, decorum, formalities and chit-chat” (“Changing of the Guard”). The remaining one percent, which Allura notes, is actual diplomacy and fighting for freedom. That’s essentially what hosting, good and proper hosting, is. It’s taking someone into your home and providing them with material comforts and necessities such as food, as well as non-physical ones like safety or protection, or extending and respecting their rights.

A good host will anticipate their guests’ needs because they have a love for their fellow strangers, and they show that love by providing for them. Xenia is the love of the stranger who has taken up space in your home and respecting their need to do so, but it’s also a reciprocal love. By extending your hospitality to a person, they will be more inclined to do the same for you and yours in the future. In Greece it was a complicated dance of gift-giving and receiving, spurred by the belief that one would incur the wrath of a god in disguise. While offending the gods was a big fear, it’s important to remember that good hosting and good guesting will create a deep bond between both parties because you’re respecting one another. Respect your wayward traveler and welcome them into your home, and they will entertain you with tales from far away lands, and in the future you will find a place at their table. Respect your host and the space they provide you, and you’ll receive gifts and care fit for a god. This giving and receiving encourages goodwill between strangers, and providing care to someone you don’t know is an act of love in its own right.

There’s a rule in American food language: “never return an empty dish”. This rule is especially prevalent in the US South and Midwest regions, but the general idea is that when you meet someone new (i.e. a new neighbor) you bring them a dish of something to welcome them and introduce yourself. You make small-talk, help them get acquainted with the area, wish them well, and then go on your merry way. Then, once your new neighbor has settled, eaten the food you gave them, and had time to make something new, they come knocking on your door and return that dish to you with a new food in it.

That’s a facet of what Xenia can encompass, and we see Xenia acted out in three key ways in VLD: Allura recruiting people for the Voltron Coalition, Lotor hosting the Paladins during their alliance, and Hunk showing his care for others through cooking.

Allura, for all her charms, isn’t that great of a diplomat, especially in the beginning of the story. When she meets the Arusians, she accidentally informs them that their dance of apology isn’t enough, which then makes them think they need to sacrifice themselves on a pyre. She thankfully recovers and lets them continue the dance, and then invites them into the Castle of Lions later. With the leaders of the rebel planets, she has a good presence and is rather suave with her guests, however when attention moves off her and onto the Paladins, and when the question of Voltron comes up, it’s extremely difficult for her to take control of the situation again. The loss of Shiro was fresh, and she really didn’t have a good answer that would reveal they couldn’t form Voltron, so she struggled with taking control back. This isn’t an indictment on Allura, but it is meant to point out how Xenia is not easy to learn. As we follow the Paladins, however, Allura gains confidence in her ability to speak publicly, and as they gather more allies it becomes easier for her to encourage alliances. She goes from panicking and trying to keep Arusians from dying to being able to communicate with allies and command a room. Xenia doesn’t come as naturally to Allura as it does to Hunk, and Lotor has had millennia of practice, but the important thing about Xenia is that you extend your hand and make the effort, even if it’s a little clumsy, because in the end you’re caring about strangers and welcoming them into your home and telling them they have a place at your table.

However, where Allura falls short in Xenia, we see both Hunk and Lotor shine. Let’s examine Lotor’s expertise, first.

Lotor is ten thousand years old, and it’s implied he’s spent much of that time playing the political game of the Galra Empire, as well as learning about other planets. It’s canon that he has a thirst for knowledge, and so couple his curiosity with his need to survive a very blood-driven political environment and you have a golden host forged in fire. It’s difficult to surprise Lotor, since he’s pretty much always two steps ahead of everyone. When he forges an alliance with the Voltron Coalition after his victory at the Kral Zera, Lotor has banners hung that bear the same symbol that Zarkon and Alfor fought under, which also adorns the shield on Green’s back. He specifically sought to recall the good times between the Galra and Alteans, and personally greeted the Paladins on his flagship. He encourages the Paladins to explore and use whatever resources they need, because as their host, Lotor–and by extension the entire Galra Empire–is now at their disposal. He’s the ever-perfect host, inviting his lower-ranked guests to make themselves comfortable, and acknowledging Allura’s rank as princess and personally escorting her along. In a lot of other high fantasy or sci-fi stories, showing the heroes around would get palmed off to a servant of some sort, especially if the host is duplicitous. However, Lotor affords our Heroes and Heroines quite a bit of respect compared to what other characters in his place might do, even going so far as to offer his own personal time to the princess when he has an empire to claim still. Given the canon politics, Lotor logically should have been in constant communication with various officers and securing their loyalty to him, but instead he takes time to approach his new allies and make them feel welcome in the headquarters of their former-enemy.

So while Lotor is arguably the best example of good hosting I’ve ever seen in a show (without it turning out to be some sort of ploy), Hunk’s style of Xenia is equally good if in a different way. While Lotor is shown to essentially be a master of decorum, Hunk is a master in the kitchen and the art of making room for everyone at the table. Hunk has only been in space for a few months to a few years (depending on when in the series we’re talking), he hasn’t had the millennia to research planets and learn all their customs, or train in diplomacy to make up for any lack of education. He’s just a guy from Earth who likes to cook and who especially likes to cook for others. In all prior iterations of Voltron, Hunk has always been “the food guy” or “the slightly dumb, but lovable one”. It’s not particularly flattering, and VLD even pokes fun at how flat his character is historically in “The Voltron Show!” by adding fart gag noises. In VLD, however, we see that Hunk is intelligent and brave, if anxious, and he’s more at home in a home than he is in a Lion. Hunk is a good Paladin, but he is quite possibly the best diplomat in the whole show.

A large part of Hunk’s diplomacy lies in listening. When he’s out in the field, he’s quite possibly the best listener out of the entire team. When there are guests on the Castleship, or when the Alteans are on the IGF-Atlas, he doesn’t just listen, he welcomes them. In scenes from season 8, we really get to see this shine, because as Hunk says in “Day Forty-Seven”, “food has a way of reminding people of moments in time.” Bringing good memories with food can go a long way to putting stress and anger behind people.

Every person has a dish that, when prepared, makes them relax and think of happy memories. In Hunk’s kitchen, everyone eats, and nobody is unwelcome. Whether you’re Commander Lahn and working with Hunk to save your planet from devastating radiation, or you’re an Altean who just wants what’s best for your people, Hunk will meet you halfway and try to see things from your perspective, and offer you a cookie because he feels like it. Hunk’s Xenia is not wrapped up in protocol or etiquette. His Xenia is found just across the kitchen table, with a plate of warm food and a friendly conversation, ready to listen to your troubles and offer a hug, if not a solution.

Agape: Unconditional Love

Now that we have discussed the five prior categories of love as defined by the Ancient Greeks, let’s examine Agape, which can be difficult to conceptualize. “Agape” originates a Greek term, however it wasn’t used very often until Christianity came into the picture, and thus it encompasses far more than even xenia does, because while Xenia is love in the form of courtesy to travelers, Agape’s prevalent definition stems purely from the idea that God loves everyone unconditionally. In fact, “agape” is the term used in the Bible to describe the unconditional love of God, but when you translate it to English, the word simply becomes “love”, losing the weight that it carries in Greek.

The idea of unconditional and divine love is not unique to Christianity or the Ancient Greeks. Throw a rock in any direction and I’m sure you’ll find a culture with a similar concept to Agape. The key aspects of unconditional love is that it is sexless–meaning attraction is unnecessary to feel Agape–and that it is founded in goodwill for others. It feels cheap to throw the quote “love thine enemy” around in this section, because that discounts the importance of Philautia as we discussed it earlier in this essay, but at the end of the day that’s what Agape means. The Bible–which influences much of the definition of this kind of love–would have people forgive the ones who do them wrong, but forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and loving someone doesn’t require forgiving them either.

In VLD, a man loved a woman so much he tricked his closest friends and allies into opening a rift in an effort to save her life. In the process, they both died and revived, cursed with immortality and a thirst for destruction. Zarkon was a man who loved Honerva so much that he doomed the known universe to 10,000 years of his tyranny. Honerva, when she regained her memories, sought vengeance against Voltron for not just losing her son, but also because she blames everyone around her for being the reason why her own son rejected her time and time again. Honerva is the antithesis to Allura in pretty much every way, and in the edited season 8, Lotor is condemned to a cycle of abuse because he’s never offered an opportunity to speak, just like how he was violently silenced by his mother when he disobeyed his father on the colony planet in “Shadows”. Honerva, however, is not.

[ID: A screenshot of S8, featuring from left to right: Lance, Keith, Allura, “Shiro”, Pidge, and Hunk. They face Honerva, who is facing away from the audience so we see the back of her head and suit. Screenshot from “Seek Truth in Darkness”. End ID.]

[ID: A shot of “Allura”’s hand grasping Honerva’s wrist and vice versa. Screenshot from “Seek Truth in Darkness”. End ID.]

Allura being a paragon of growing into Philautia gives other characters the ability to do the same, but as @leakinghate notes in “Seek Truth in Darkness”, that is not Allura’s hand, just as that is not Shiro next to Allura in the prior screenshot. Allura is not the one who was most wronged by Honerva. She was asleep and hidden from the universe. Lotor, however, was subjected to centuries of abuse by the hands of his parents.

Agape is a complicated love, one that requires a person to be able to love everyone unconditionally, but love does not necessarily mean “forgive and forget”. It’s important that Allura impart the enlightenment she gained on her Heroine’s Journey, because this is the point where she can be at peace and claim her cosmic reward, but she cannot do so without the person who was most wronged being able to face his oppressor: Lotor.

[ID: A close-up shot of Lotor glaring at the audience, with the subtitle text reading, “maybe I will take pity on you when the time comes.” Screenshot from “Seek Truth in Darkness”. End ID.]

As @leakinghate​ pointed out, Allura is the one to use her abilities to restore Honerva’s sense of self, but Lotor being present makes this confrontation all the more poignant and intense. This is the opportunity for us to see Agape in its full glory, but with the edits to the final season it’s a pale shadow of what could have been. The universe is about to be reborn because Allura and Lotor stay behind to repair the rift in all realities. We need that Philautia that Allura is able to embody, but we also need Agape. We’re shown countless times throughout the show that good and evil are not so clearly delineated, and that there are shades of gray everywhere. Lotor has been hurt so much by the one person alive who should have loved him unconditionally.

And rather than continue the cycle of abuse and take vengeance, he chooses to let go. We should have seen him take his power back, not in a godly or violent sense, but his power over his fate. He is not his father. And he is not his mother. He is more. By confronting her in this rift of all realities, we see the foreshadowing of season 6 come into full swing and while we are missing much of that original sequence between him and his mother, it’s important to realize that regardless of the content that was removed post-production, he takes pity on his mother in a sense. She’s a flawed person who made bad decisions. He does not owe her forgiveness, and he does not owe her love, but in her finally letting go of not just him but all the spirits of the original Paladins, Lotor himself is able to be free to love in the way he was denied: unconditionally.

The universe needs people who love themselves enough to choose a path of peace, and it needs to be made with the unconditional love of a parent, a friend, a lover, a god. It needs the eternal goodwill of its new creators because the people of the new universe will fuck up. They’ll make mistakes and hurt each other and Weblums will eat planets and the circle of life will continue. But being able to look at the fucked-up universe and say “I love you” is a power that not many have. It takes courage to look at the universe that has wronged you, wronged billions, hurt the found family that’s accepted you, and still find a way to love it.

The new universe is made of love just as the old one was. It’s made with passion, for friends, for family, for strangers, and for yourself. It’s made by people with love and hope and the intent to make the world they live in a little better every day. And that, ultimately, is the true love that spurs the story of VLD forward.

Stay tuned for a companion meta soon, in which we will discuss these forms of love and how they can be twisted and taken to unhealthy extremes.

Works Cited

Dos Santos, Joaquim and Montgomery, Lauren. Voltron: Legendary Defender. Netflix.

LeakingHate, et. al. “Legendarily Defensive: Editing the Gay Away in VLD”. Team Purple Lion. 12 Mar 2019. Web. https://www.teampurplelion.com/gay-romance-cut-voltron/

LeakingHate, et. al. “Seek Truth in Darkness”. Team Purple Lion. 2 Mar 2019. Web. https://www.teampurplelion.com/seek-truth-in-darkness/ Liddell, Henry and Scott, Robert. “Eros”. A Greek-English Lexicon. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De%29%2Frws

Liddell, Henry and Scott, Robert. “Philia”. A Greek-English Lexicon. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dfili%2Fa

Liddell, Henry and Scott, Robert. “Storge”. A Greek-English Lexicon. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dstorgh%2F

“Self-love”. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-love

Payne, Will. “Botany for the Beginner”. Australian Plants Online. 2006. http://anpsa.org.au/APOL2006/aug06-s1.html

Potter, Ben. “The Odyssey: Be Our Guest With Xenia”. Classical Wisdom Weekly. 19 April 2013. Web. https://classicalwisdom.com/culture/literature/the-odyssey-be-our-guest-with-xenia/

@leakinghate​ @crystal-rebellion​ @felixazrael​ @voltronisruiningmylife​

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Normally I don't like to ask stuff but I feel distressed. My mom is arguing about a preaching that she heard where it says that the antichrist will be gay. She quotes the book of Daniel, particularly Daniel 11:37. Her argument is that Daniel is a prophecy book therefore it must be true. It just really hurts that she'd say this to me and keeps making remarks about my faith. That I'm not a good enough Christian for not believing like her. Is what Daniel say true or is the interpretation wrong?

Hey there. I’m sorry to hear you’re distressed, and especially that your mom keeps making remarks about your faith. It is not right for any of us to judge another person’s faith like that! 

This is gonna get long, so for a tl;dr, after studying Daniel 11 and its surrounding context I can say pretty confidently that your mom is indeed wrong about how to interpret 11:37. If you want to explore just why with me, read on!

______________

So to start with, I disagree with your mom that everything in the Book of Daniel, or in any “prophecy book” of the Bible, must necessarily be “true” – or “come true” as if it were fortune telling. Biblical prophecy is not fortune telling or future telling. As I say in this post, biblical prophets were actually much more concerned about the present, about how the past had shaped that present, and about how the present could be used to shape the future! This is just a fact of how ancient Israelites viewed prophecy, regardless of how one interprets scripture (whether more fundamentalist / literal as I imagine your mom probably is, or more historical/contextual, etc.). 

Christians who get really into all the biblical visions of “the end times” and the rapture and stuff don’t want to hear this, because they want it to be somehow directly relevant to them and their futures (and that’s understandable), so the following paragraph is just some information for you rather than anything that’s likely to convince your mom:

Most biblical scholars say that most of the biblical prophecies aren’t about “The End Times” the way we conceive of it. The Book of Daniel’s prophecies do include some talk of the actual end of the world, but – like the Book of Revelation in the New Testament – the majority of his prophecies actually refer to kingdoms and intrigue going on in Daniel’s own time (or not so long before or after his own time). 

I have not studied Daniel’s prophecies, like, at all besides reading through them, so I can say more about how the Book of Revelation is less about “the end of the world” and more about “the end of the Roman Empire;” but Daniel follows a similar trajectory of being more about the fall of the empires that have oppressed his people than about the end of the whole world. If you have a Bible that offers footnotes about the historical context going on in any given passage of scripture, it will tell you all about that – that Daniel’s prophecies discuss the sequence of Babylonian, Median, and Persian rulers that oppress his people and criticize those oppressive kings. 

Thus when you go to look at Daniel 11 (and 10), you see that Daniel isn’t talking about “The Antichrist” in this passage – indeed, that title “Antichrist” is not used at all in this Book, or in any book of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) at all! – but rather he is talking about a Persian king who is going to arise and oppress his people. The New Interpreter’s Study Bible suggests in its footnotes for 11:37 that the specific king Daniel’s talking about is Antiochus, who “grew exceedingly arrogant: He abandoned his ancestral gods and imposed the worship of Zeus Olympus” – hence 11:37′s statement that he “shall pay no respect to the God’s of his ancestors.”

Now that we’ve reached the verse itself in our discussion, let’s have a closer look at Daniel 11:37. The New King James Version reads, 

“He shall regard neither the God of his fathers nor the desire of women, nor regard any god; for he shall exalt himself above them all.”

The part of this verse that is used by some to claim that “the antichrist” (if you interpret this passage as even being about the antichrist, despite the context pointing to it actually being about a Persian king) is gay is, of course, “nor the desire of women.” 

But along with that seeming like a very random tangent for the prophet to mention in a verse that otherwise is about this king abandoning all gods, the issue with biblical Hebrew is that sometimes getting a precise meaning out of it is hard. Thus “nor the desire of women” is not the only translation into English that one can make from the Hebrew. I’ll list some other translations that have been made (and you can see tons more here):

KJV: “nor the desire of women”

NASB: “or for the desire of women”

NIV: “or for the one desired by women”

ESV and NRSV: “or to the one beloved by women”

New Living Translation: “or for the god loved by women”

CEB: “and the god preferred by women”

Now, there are many conservative Christians who believe that the King James Bible is never wrong, and therefore they’ll insist that the translation to “nor the desire of women” is the one “correct” translation. But even if that is the case, what exactly does “the desire of women” mean in English? Does it mean: 

that this guy doesn’t desire / isn’t attracted to women, as your mom believes? 

could it also mean that he doesn’t care if women desire him? aka he might still desire them, and doesn’t give a damn about whether they like him back

or does it mean that he doesn’t care what women desire/want – i.e., that he won’t listen to them about what they want, perhaps in regards to what gods he respects, since that’s what the rest of the verse is about?

Moving to look at those translations that translate it “the god loved/preferred/beloved by women,” some suggest that this meaning: just as the guy has no regard for “the god of his ancestors,” likewise he has no regard for the god[s] of his wives/concubines. There are examples in the Hebrew Bible of women having different gods from their husbands – Jacob’s wife Rachel takes her household gods with her into his house; Solomon’s many foreign wives convince him to worship their gods with them. So if the Hebrew here, hemdath nashiym, is translated something about “the god loved by the women,” that’s what it could be about – this guy won’t be swayed to worship any god, whether his own family’s gods or his wives’ gods. 

That above reasoning makes much more sense within the context of the verse than it being like “So this guy won’t care about his ancestors’ god, oh also by the way he’s gay or whatever, and back to the god thing, he’s gonna exalt himself over all gods.” It would be such a random tangent! 

_______

So that’s all the language and history stuff. Now let’s get hypothetical: 

so…what if your mom is right? So what if the verse is saying “this guy isn’t attracted women”? (and for the purpose of this hypothetical, let’s say the verse is about the antichrist though as I discussed above I do not believe that it is.) 

First off, just because he doesn’t desire women doesn’t necessarily mean he does desire men. He could be asexual and/or aromantic. That wouldn’t be much better, of course, because we’d be moving from homophobia into aphobia. Asexual and aromantic folks get vilified enough with the stigma that “oh you can’t ~~love~~?? you monster!” So I definitely do not like the supposition that the antichrist is ace/aro; that’s just as icky as him being gay.

But again, we’re in hypothetical land: so let’s say the antichrist is gay, or is aroace. ……..So what??

Gay people, aroace people, aren’t all perfect and good people. We can be badguys too, ya know? If the antichrist were cishet, it wouldn’t mean that All Cishet People Are Therefore Like The Antichrist – so if the antichrist were gay, why would it therefore mean that all gay people are like the antichrist? 

He’s just one person. A big bad person – but his sexuality isn’t necessarily a part of that. He’s not evil because of whatever his sexuality is or isn’t. 

I will close by offering some counterbalances to a supposedly gay (or aroace, or otherwise LGBTQA+) antichrist: there are also LGBTQA+ heroes in the Bible.

Daniel himself may well be one of them!!

To start with, Daniel is most likely a eunuch: after all, he has a position in the Babylonian court, and as David Bayliss notes, “it was customary for Mesopotamian kings in the first millennium BC to surround themselves with eunuchs as servants.” The Bible itself attests to this fact, in places like Isaiah 39:7 that talks about youths being taken from Judah to serve Babylon’s king as eunuchs. Along with those two facts, Bayliss continues with more evidence that Daniel was a eunuch:

Third, the fact that Daniel and the other captured Israelite youths were entrusted to the “chief eunuch” suggests that they were to become young eunuchs themselves.

Fourth, boys to be made into eunuchs were usually selected for their beauty, which is mentioned at the top of the list of selecting criteria in Dan 1:4.

Fifth, there is no mention of Daniel or his companions ever marrying (or having children).

Sixth, Daniel showed no interest in returning to Jerusalem after Cyrus the Great came to the throne (who allowed exiles to return to their homelands), which may have to do with his physical humiliation and the Deut 23:1 ban.“

Now, why’s it matter if Daniel’s a eunuch?? What’s that got to do with being LGBTQA?? Many queer scholars, myself included, have argued that biblical eunuchs share many similarities to gay people, or trans people, etc. I talk about the connection between biblical eunuchs and contemporary trans people in the section of this webpage titled “ ‘Better than sons or daughters’: Isaiah 56″.

(For other resources on eunuchs’ link to LGBT folks, see here, here, here, here.)

On top of that, some scholars have suggested a romantic/sexual relationship between David and the head eunuch under which he served, Ashpenaz. According to Daniel 1:9, Daniel enjoyed “the favor and tender love” of Ashpenaz. This could be a totally platonic thing, or it could be physical; the Hebrew is ambiguous. 

You might not be able to stop your mom from making her awful comments, but maybe being able to respond in your head to her “the antichrist is gay!” with “no, Daniel was gay” will help you a little. 

Please keep safe, and do what you can to keep your mom’s crap from getting to you (I know that’s much harder said than done). You are beloved by the God who made you, friend. And scripture is much queerer than hateful Christians want to admit. 

[ohhoneato]

I remember being terrified of becoming depressed when I was younger, to the point where i asked my mom for counseling to assure I wouldn't.

I think that experience hurt me in the end, I didn't know if anything was wrong and since I lived in the bible belt of Texas, the counselor ended up trying to shove christianity down my throat.

I wasn't an avid Christian, but I did go to church, because I had friends there. I don't remember anything they taught. I don't remember any of the advice I was given in counseling. I just remember telling her I wasn't Christian and asked for her several times to not use it as her teaching method.

I ended up asking to stop going, not because I was better, but because she was shoving religion down my throat. My mom pulled me and gave them a piece of her mind while she was at it, but in the long run, I should have asked her for another person.

Thinking back about what I presented her with, I did have the beginnings of deeper problems. All of my writing was about suicide, my drawings all had blood shed and death, and here I was worried that I was getting depressed to the point where I couldn't sleep at night. This wasn't the start of my anxiety, but I can pinpoint that as the start of my downward spiral with it.

I never asked my mom for another counselor, I knew they were expensive and we were struggling constantly. She would have gotten me another if I'd asked, but I never wanted to bother her about it.

I stopped being able to get my own lunches at school. I remember clearly the first time I realized I was terrified to go into the lunch line. I got free lunches and barely had to talk to anyone, but I still ended up asking people to get it for me, or I wouldn't eat that day. I had people who would oblige, but if no one was eating with me that day or my regular friend wasn't there, I'd get paralyzed with fear thinking about the lunch line.

Then I stopped being able to talk to my own friends in a classroom setting. They'd all be talking to each other and I'd be scared to say anything at all. It wasn't my conversation I had no right to butt in. If they tried to include me, I'd try to exit as soon as possible. Talking to people was taxing and I had to save that energy for the teachers and my parents. I grew away from everyone, but tried to stay my usual sunshiny self.

It didn't work.

I don't fully remember the situation, but I had English one period and theater directly afterwards. I believe I'd gotten in trouble with my english teacher, though I can't remember what for, I believe it was because I hadn't done my homework.

I ended up yelling at my theater teacher. This man was a saint, I swear. He sent me out into the hall and I could have sworn I was in trouble. I was waiting out there a long time, crying. He pulled me back in and the whole class had recreated disney land to cheer me up. He taught me it's okay to have emotions, it's okay to get upset, my feelings were valid. High school is a stressful place and he knew this and instead of punishing someone who had one bad day, he cheered them up instead.

This was a positive interaction, but I began snapping at more people, mostly my parents and friends. I stopped doing things outside of school, my LARP friend had moved away without telling me anyways and there wasn't really anything else to do.

I started discovering my own sexuality and found out that some people didn't like homosexuality. My family never cared about those types of things. I began isolating myself from others, not really leaving the house unless I had to.

It's taken a long time to get where I'm at now. It got much worse before it got better. I had to drop out of college because the anxiety led to extreme depression where I couldn't force myself to go to my classes, despite genuinely enjoying them. I finally got a new counselor, at a church if you can believe it because they had a free clinic. Both of the counselors I had there were phenomenal and I'd go back if I was still in the area.

I've fought hard with my own mind to get where I can leave the house, where I can approach the cash register by myself and friendly chat with a stranger. Getting a job in customer service helped a lot. And I'm still not even close to better. I have my days of such bad anxiety that I can't even talk to my girlfriend. I have days where I just want to die, days where I can't get out of bed. Days where I give up, i think I'm useless, a toxic person, someone undeserving of life. I don't even know what to do with myself half the time.

But I did it. I didn't think I'd live past 17 y'all. But here I am, still breathing (albeit badly xD) at 23, turning 24 this year. This is an amazing feat for someone who wanted the world to end in 2012. And despite how horrible I feel sometimes, I can't actually deny I'm getting better.

I'm working on surrounding myself with a more positive atmosphere, my bathroom is going to be citrus themed (which is weirdly hard to find omg) and instead of the black and red I've always had my room, I'm making it sunset colored. Lime green and sunflower yellow have become my favorite colors, I never thought I'd love the color yellow, it always felt so grossly happy. Now I feel like I can't live without it.

I've started trying to use more positive language, if you see me say the word funky, I changed from something negative or self deprecating.

I never believed this until right now, I've always thought it was bullshit, but it does get better! This isn't some propaganda crap that adults are trying to fed you to make you keep forcing yourself to live.

This is me, someone who also wanted to and still do sometimes, give up. To throw in the towel. Telling you that it can get better.

I am living in that better for me. No it isn't perfect. I still have problems, I still find it hard to function.

But it does get better. Please, please remember that. It doesn't have to end bitterly, you don't have to destroy something you can build into a better tomorrow. Situations aren't forever.

I love you all and wish you all the best.

[just-gay-thingz]

So I decided to write a text about homophobia at midnight and i decided to publish it here. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the notes or reblog it :) 

also im in no way homophobic. im gay myself and those are jsut the way i think about this topic.

I’m sorry for eventual grammar mistakes or spelling errors. English isnt my first language

Homophobia

There are a lot of people out there who are homophobic. Their reasons are it’s not normal or not natural, the bible says its wrong or just because they don’t like it when people don’t condone to the heteronormativity of society.

 Let’s start of with the argument, that homosexuality is not normal or natural. Homosexuality is common in in over 1.500 species and homosexual animals are very important in their communities. For example, if a straight couple isn’t able to take care of their child anymore because let’s say they died. No other straight couple will be able to take care of that child because they are to busy caring for their own children. This is where the gay animals come in. As it is not possible for them to get their own children, they are able to take in the orphaned child and take care of it. When it comes to homophobia though, it only exists in one species. In the Homosapiens. Humans have been oppressing homosexual people for hundreds of years. In most countries “conversion therapy” is still legal. “Conversion therapy” is when you send homosexual people, mostly teens who were sent by their parents, to camps where people, so called “therapists” even though they are many things but a therapist, torture them into being straight. Some methods for that are: making them watch straight porn, hit them/make them feel pain while they have to watch gay porn, so that they will associate that kind of porn with the trauma in the future. Another method is to give them medicine that makes them feel aroused (e.g. Viagra) and force them into having sex with someone from the opposite gender. They also try to pray away the gay, which I think gets explained by itself.

You often hear homophobic people say, “the bible says Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” or “the bible says homosexuality is wrong” or “Homosexuality is a sin and you will go to hell for it.”. But I don’t think those people always act as it is written in the bible, because if you can’t just take one part of the bible and ignore the rest. As Jesus said: “the one without sin throw the first stone”. I don’t think those people even commit to the ten commandments. They probably already used “Jesus fu****g Christ” or “Jesus no” or other slurs including the name of God, when the second commandment is “you should not miss use the name of God”. Another example would be “You should keep the day of God holy” but I’m pretty sure not all of those Christians who use the bible as an excuse for homophobia go to church every Sunday or do nothing all Sunday long. “You should honor your mother and father” is another one of the commandments but I don’t think none of those people spent their whole live without ever speaking ill of their parents. The sixth commandment says “You should not break your marriage” but still 50% of the marriages end in divorce. Only about 77% of the world population are not Christian and obviously not all of them are married but it’s still unlikely that all those divorces are all from non-Christian people. “You shall not lie” or “You shall not steal” are commandments too and I don’t think there is a person out there who has never lied or stole something even if it was just a pen from a classmate or something like that. “You shall not desire someone else’s wife” but people still cheat and just because you are Christian doesn’t automatically make you a faithful person. “You shall not desire someone else’s stuff” but people still are jealous of others for having a better phone/car/house/etc. You have to remember those statements are only the ten commandments but if you say homosexuality is wrong because it is written in the bible. Then this means you support everything in the bible. This means you support that Babies are getting killed and women are getting raped. "See, the day of the Lord is coming — a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger. . . . I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty. . . . Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated." (Isaiah 13:9–16 NIV). This means you think it’s okay, that daughters are burned as an acceptable sacrifice for God, "And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: 'If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.' . . . When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! . . . After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed." (Judges 11:30–39 NIV). This means you share everything you have with the people who don’t have that much, Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same. Luke 3:11 NIV. As you can see Christians often just pick the verses of the bible if they help them back up an inappropriate or offensive argument.

Good responses to homophobic sayings by Christians:

“Its Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve”-“It’s Homosapiens not Heterosapiens”

For the Bisexuals: If they tell you to just pick a side, tell them, Its Adam AND Eve not Adam OR Eve

“You will turn my children gay”-“No, I don’t think so. I Mean your Heterosexuality didn’t make me straight either”

Feel free to add your own statement in the comments.

 So I think that was enough with the Christians. Let’s get to Heteronormativity!

We all grow up thinking we are straight because society tells us there isn’t something else. That’s because of the almost nonexistent representation of LGBTQ+ people in the media and because it’s “normal” for a man and a woman to be together. It’s “normal” for a child to have a mum or dad. But if you don’t stick to these stereotypes, people will see you as a rebel and we always get told rebels aren’t good people and that we should always listen to our parents. But sometimes rebels are just what we need. Sometimes we just need to see that it’s okay to be different. That it’s okay for a boy to dress feminine. That it’s okay for someone to not want have sex. That it’s okay for someone to not feel comfortable with their Cis gender. That it’s okay for girls to like girls or for boys to like boys. And nobody should be able to tell you otherwise

  hope you enjoyed reading this and im sorry if it was shit, these are just my late night thoughts

[ninequestions9]

Lowell, 24, Part Time Worker at Edible Arrangements and Michael’s

What is the biggest frustration you’re facing now?

My biggest frustration is within myself. Nothing external in the world has really given me any frustration. I’ve recently come into some very bad habits and a lot of it was through this relationship I was just in that was really destructive. I think we didn’t really get along well ultimately because we didn’t promote good behaviors in each other. Not to put it all on the relationship because every relationship takes two to tango. A lot of that came from me allowing it to happen. You can see why a lot of that frustration is internal. I’ve gotten past that relationship though and I’m looking forward to an excellent 2020 because I finally feel like I’m able to receive the external love.

2. What trait do you wish you most had?

It’s a combination of perspective and empathy. People throw around the word empathy a lot like you care about other people. That’s a very simple version of it. But that’s not what empathy ultimately is. Empathy is similar to an out of body experience. You actually empathize with them, how they’re feeling, what their perspective is in a way that doesn’t directly relate to your own perspective. That’s really hard to do. I feel like a lot of stuff that I’ve learned since ending that relationship was like getting a different perspective of myself and what life is. I think it’s a part of growing up and becoming an adult. You learn a lot of stuff that you don’t get when you’re not an adult. It’s a difficult time to be in.

3. What are 3 characteristics you look for in a friend?

Honesty, humor. That’s all it takes. The third one would be non-malevolence. If you’re a nice person and you’re genuine then, sure. Honesty…be an honest person. Don’t lie and sneak around. Humor, be a fun person. Be a fun person to joke around with. I often think about humor as a way of learning. Humor is learning. It’s a novel thing that you experience because it’s new. Usually if you’re a humorous person it means you’re fairly intelligent and you’re interesting and you’re curious. Non-malevolence is like don’t be evil, but the more people I meet the more I realize that evil people are so rare in the world. Most people are really genuine people who aren’t trying to screw you over, but some people are so you can never be too sure.

4. What makes you feel brave?

Bravery usually requires action. Like be brave and go into that cave or be brave and face something. If the act is for someone else that I care about then I’m really brave. This New Years party in particular is a big thing that I do for the people that I care about. I’m always motivated every year to do it even through the hard times. So other people make me brave.

5. What makes you feel vulnerable?

I’ve been described as a person who is really easily vulnerable. I really put myself out there. I’m a a lot all at once. It’s a lot for most people. People get thrown off by that I think. It doesn’t take much to make me feel vulnerable. I try not to put myself in a shell too much.

6. What was your proudest moment?

I was in undergrad and my economics teacher….we had an instant connection in the class room. The lecture was something about time travel and I gave an answer about it or something and it was like a joke, but then the professor immediately responded with a rebuttal to what I was saying and it was a deadpan serious rebuttal, she wasn’t treating it like a joke. It struck me and it was so unique. I told her I’d meet her in her office afterwards to discuss and we did. That’s an example of how she’s special. One day after an exam came back and the deal was if you think there’s any discrepancy like if you think there’s anyway to challenge what the professor graded you then you can bring it up. So I was looking through it and I read a question again and I saw it was marked wrong. This is logically true what I’ve answered and I went through it like 4 or 5 times. I went to her office afterwards and I was like “This is the case. This is logically wrong and I should logically be correct.” It was clear she did not expect this and she was not happy about a student challenging her in this way. It was so natural to me. This is just what you do. If the question is marked wrong then bring it forward, but it was perceived as a challenge. We got into this discussion about what was communicated in class. It went like two or three layers deep this discussion. At one point she became visibly angry, but she has class so she kept it low and simmering. I realized I’m on the wire now. It completely threw me off and I realized like I need to give her something. In the end I convinced her that this is logically true.

    The next class, she started off by saying “A student has come to me about the exam and I marked him wrong and he came and presented it in such a way.” She basically gave a play by play of our discussion. She said that she believed in her heart that this student does not have a dishonest bone in his body. Then she gave a modified version of the question for everyone to answer. She did that because of our discussion and it just hit me like, Oh my fucking God, I had an effect. We had a heart to heart. I went to her after class and I thanked her for what she did.

7. Who is your role model / hero and why?

My role model is Mark Rosewater. He is the lead designer for Magic the Gathering. It’s like a nerd’s heaven. I’m getting my brother-in-law into it and we’re playing a little bit. I’ve never really understood for most of my life, idols. Why would you idolize someone? I didn’t look up to anybody. Then it struck me very recently….I was reading a blog that he write about Magic the Gathering and one week he posted a blog post. He was like “It’s a special week and I’m going to post about something completely different from Magic the Gathering.” It was an article about hosting a party. It was all about giving good advice to party hosters and what makes a good party. It was really good advice. It was fascinating and I like hosting. He is such a multifaceted dude. He used to be like a full time comedian and he used to be a regular game designer, but he landed as head designer for Magic the fucking Gathering. He’s called it his dream job on multiple occasions. He’s been exposed to everything. He was a jack of all trades until he just happen to fall into his perfect job. He’s my role model. That’s how I want to be. Just jack of all trades until I can find something. 

8. What is one life lesson you’d like to pass down to future generations?

I don’t think I’ve learned that lesson yet.

9. What is your opinion of Jesus?

Jesus was a pretty good guy. I haven’t read the Bible in a while. I’d like to read the Bible again. I want one of those versions that have the words of God in red. It makes it a little more clear of what the actual message was. I’d want to read the new testament because no where did Jesus Christ say call people who are different from you The Other. It’s scary. I don’t think it’s Christian like in the truest sense. Alan Watts is a kind of quirky dude. He’s a religious academic, or he was. He was really popular during the late 1970’s and he’s a little hippy dippy to be honest. I think he offers some really unique perspectives on Christianity and religion as an idea that you don’t often hear. He had a really good one on Christianity. He said that calling Jesus Christ the Son of God is a translation thing. The best they could do at the time that they translated the new testament to English was at a time when “the son of” was a legitimate translation of “one with,” which is the more accurate translation of what it was. That changes the whole reading doesn’t it? Every instance of “son of” becomes “one with.” Jesus was one with God. He and God are the same. He’s not like a son in the sense; he’s not a different being. It’s wild. That’s why they call it the great paradox. How can you be three in one? Yet, here it is Jesus and God are one. It’s beautiful and it’s incredibly democratic. Watt’s view is that this man on earth became one with God.

    He is a man on earth who is birthed. You and him are the same, reader. He’s a human and he is God-like. He’s divine. It’s very democratic. God isn’t some being out there. He’s here on earth with you. He’s here to talk with you. Incredibly familial and friendly. Like one on one. In a way that the concept of God could never be in that sense.

    I’ll take a quick aside to tell a Christian short story that I think perfectly describes what I just described. There was a man and it was Christmas Eve. The man was not religious anymore. He was over the whole God thing. This man thought how could God be so ludicrous. If God is all powerful, surely he’d be able to talk to me. He can do anything he wants, why can’t he just speak to me directly and not send down this messenger. The rest of his family went to church that night for Christmas Eve service and he stayed in the cold farm house. It’s a freezing blizzard outside. He looks out the window and sees this bird in the blizzard. An injured baby bird flopping around on the ground. He’s like, oh my god it’s going to freeze to death. He had empathy and compassion so he said I gotta save this bird. I gotta get you and bring you into the barn where you’ll be warm and at least you won’t die. The bird wouldn’t listen. The bird was freaking out when he approached him to guide him. The bird was flapping and injuring himself even more. The man was like, why doesn’t this bird do what I want him to do? I’m trying to help it out, why doesn’t it just listen? That’s when it occurred to him that God must have had the same problem. I think it’s all well and good the whole Jesus idea. But the way that’s it’s being practiced now a days is not to those beliefs. That’s my firm opinion of Jesus Christ. I think he’s an excellent man, but I think he’s losing sight of his flock if you ask me.

[animes-trash]

Servamp Theory Game

This is a “summary” with an explanation of every reference in Servamp, spoilers included !

Hello guys~ ! Holy heck, it litteraly took months to make. Like, I started in September (I’m also lazy since lots of weeks though). So, as you may know, Servamp has a lot, and I mean, a lot, of references coming from a lot of different things such as myths from various mythology, plays, books, poems and else. I tried to find and explain them as best as I could, even though I'm not an expert about some of them.

Also, this has been written the BIG HELP of my dear friend @amaranight ! All of the tarot cards and the Mikuni parts are from her ! I want to thank her A LOT for the help and also for the emotional support XD

Remember, this is not an exhaustive list. I don't know all of them, though I tried to find the most I could. Also, I didn't want to say wrong things so there are references I wrote less about, even though I still searched a lot for every of them. Yes, there are things probably already have been explained somewhere in the fandom.

ALSO ! The manga isn’t finished yet. I’ll edit this post when there’s a new reference or if some of you have things to say to complete what I say or if modifications need to be made.

Forgive me if there’s typos, spelling mistakes or whatever. This post is really long and there’s still things I couldn’t correct, and note that I’m french so English isn’t my first langage, so pardon me if some things sounds weird. 

Here is a table of contents

Alicein family and Servamps

Greed Pair 

C-3 Arc 

Tarot cards

Basically, that’s how I cut this thing. There are some things that aren’t related to the C-3 but happen in the arc so I also put them under it. 

This is a very long post (+10 000), everything is under the cut !

Alicein family and Servamps

Lust Pair

I found something about Misono and Lily’s attack. When they fight Belkia (vol. 2, chap. 7/ ep. 3), Lily "cuts" Belkia's head. When doing so, it is written "Good Night Sweet Dreams, execution block of the Red Queen". The first part doesn't mean anything, it's just saying good night because Belkia ends up... knocked down.

What's interesting is the second part : "execution block of the Red Queen". Given that it's about cutting heads, I thought it could be something about Alice In Wonderland, which would fit the Lust Pair. (I mean, Lily's mail is "Alice-In-The-Garden"). But when I searched, I learned that it wasn't that. In Alice In Wonderland, the queen who's always like "Off his head !" is the Queen of Hearts, and not the Red Queen. In fact, there's a Red Queen in Through The Looking Glass (Kind of a "volume 2″ ? of Alice in Wonderland). But she's not like the Queen of Hearts, she doesn't cut head and all.

So I kept searching and I found who is the Red Queen. It is Marie Stuart, queen of Scotland (1542 - 1587). She was put to death because she was plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, queen of England. Her head had been cut off on the scaffold.

That's not all. Her last word were "in manus tuas domine commendo spiritum meum", which means in english "into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit". After "cutting" Belkia's head, Lily says "The thing I destroy is not the body, but the mind." So, it kind of connects with her last words with the spirit thing.

Most of all, in the anime when Lily cuts Belkia's head, things are written in japanese and there a crown that's put on one of the Kanji, I screened it.

This is the same crown as Marie Stuart. (In one of the paintings of her, she wears a crown like that, made of gold with a Christian Cross.) This is all I had to say about this one.

Mikuni Alicein

East of Eden - 1

In an official art, we see Mikuni (and others) reading. Mikuni is reading "East of Eden". Though we don't know the author, we can easily guess who it is. First because there isn't any other known books with that name, and second because you'll see that all fits. 

It is "East Of Eden" from the author John Steinbeck. (1902 - 1968). it's a book that refers to the verse of the Bible about Caïn and Abel, but we'll talk about it later. This book talks about two families : the Trasks and the Hamiltions and interwoven stories. We can do some parallels with Mikuni's family.

Mikuni / Adam, son of the first marriage of their father, who remarried with a maid and had another son : Misono / Charles. The oldest, Mikuni / Adam leaves the house to engage in the army / C-3.

Another parralel : the mother of Mikuni / Adam becomes crazy because of a supernatural thing. (Religion in the book, the Servamp of Envy in Servamp.)

Some themes are quite similar too. In the book we have : individualism, Mikuni thinks he's better alone, without people to bother him in his projects, and freedom, which is what Mikuni assumes to have when he leaves the house.

The parralels are pretty hard to tell if you only read a summary of the book. You can find one online if you want to know more about it, but it might confuse you. I advise you to read the book if you want to fully understand all the parralels.

East Of Eden - 2

This time, I'm talking about Caïn and Abel. For those who are unfamiliar with that story, it's a biblical myth. Caïn and Abel are the sons of Adam. (Adam, like Adam and Eve.) The brothers don't get along, and Caïn ends up killing Abel. He is known as the first killer of the World. To punish him, God bannishes him and makes him immortal (with the Mark of Caïn, but it doesn't matter here). Then, Caïn leaves and go to the East of Eden, more precisely to the Land of Nod.

So, first of all, his doll is named Abel. I think it already makes things pretty clear. Second, we know that Servamp has a game, who takes place in Mikuni's shop, who is litteraly called “The Land of Nod”.

Do I need to say more ? "Nôd" means "to wander". When Mahiru first meets Mikuni (vol. 2, chap. 9 /he doesn't  say it in the anime) he says to him "I'm just a poor antique dealer, whose hobby it's to travel the world". He is wandering.

That all we had for these two part of East of Eden. Even if these fits with Servamp, there are still differences, things are not exactly the same. But, it's like that for each references, everything isn't exactly like in the books / myths.

My Fair Lady

Now it’s about Mikuni’s attack. When he fights with Tsurugi in chapter 44, we see his attack, which is called “My Fair Lady”. It comes from the musical / operetta of the same name. I won’t talk about it because it doesn’t matter now. What’s interesting is the reference of the musical. 

It is inspired by the greek mythology. More precisely bya myth from the Metamorphoses, a book by the Roman poet Ovid. The myth we’re talking about here is the one of Pygmalion and Galatea. 

So, Pygmalion wasa telented sculptor who decided to stay single. Though, he dedicated himself to his work and created Galatea, a statue of a woman. He found his statue so perfect that he deeply fell in love with it. Aphrodite, the goddess of love took pity on Pygmalion and decided to give life to Galatea. The sculptor lived happily with her.

Now, think about Mikuni and Abell, his doll. Though they aren’t in love, it fits the story. Look at Abell’s form when Mikuni attacks :

She looks like a woman that could be a statue. Also, look at how Mikuni treats Abell. Once again, there isn’t love or anything, but we see that he cares a lot about her. About the judgment thing, I think it’s just because of the title, my “fair” lady, with the idea of justice and all. Okay, maybe this one is a bit extrapolated but when we think about it, it makes sense.

Alice in Wonderland

So, I'm going to talk about the whole Alicein family and their servants now. They are all, or almost, from the famous book Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Caroll. Though, apart from Misono and Lily, they others don't really have a character development  or even a backstory, so we can't really develop. And even, at this point of the story, we didn't know a lot about Misono and Lily either.

So, firstly, Misono is Alice, and Lily the White Rabbit. Misono is "the center" of the family and the others focuses on him, he has all the attention. It's not really a common point with Alice, just that they are the "protagonist" of their story. Also, Lily's item is a pocket watch, like the White Rabbit. Lily is the "supernatural creature" that kind of drags Misono into other supernatural things, even if Misono already lives in a house full of vampires.

For Dodo, he's a reference to The Dodo. Yeah, it was a bit obvious. Though, only their name is similar. The Dodo being a caricature of the author, and isn't well developed.

For Mitsuki, she's a reference to the March Hare. This time, it's in the name again. In kanji, her name is "三月", "Mitsuki", which means March. So yeah, March Hare.  

For Hattori, he's a reference to the Mad Hatter. Once again, the almost only thing they have in common is their design. But, in Through The Looking Glass, there's another character that is Mad Hatter, but called "Hatta" (why, I don't know). Hatta / Hattori,you see.

For Yamane, she's a reference to the Dormhouse. If you only saw the movies by Tim Burton, she's called Mallymkun, or just Mally. This time, the two have the same "fighting style". Mally fights with a pin, and Yamane fights with that, which looks like a big pin.

For Julie & Marie, they are a reference to Tweedledum & Tweedledee. Just because... well, they both are twins. I told you, these ones aren't that complex.

For Mikado, he's a reference to the White King. The people in the Alicein family call him the King already. He's the White King, and not the Red King, because he's on the "good" side. (The Red King being on the "evil" side, as an antagonist).Alice and the others are with him, like Misono and the others are too.

That's all we know for them. For Mikuni, he has his own reference to something else, that I already talked about here.

Greed Pair

Shakespeare

You waited for it. Even though Lawless does quote Shakespeare a lot, his character is a reference to one play, Hamlet. Now, I'm going to explain what's Hamlet about, in the big lines : Hamlet's father, the king, died a week ago. He was killed by his brother, Claudius (but nobody knows), who becomes the king and marries Hamlet's mother. Hamlet learns that Claudius killed his father and only wants one thing, revenge. His thirst for it will drive him crazy. He loves Ophelia, and some people tells that it's the reason he's crazy, because he doesn't have her. In the end, he's killed by Ophelia's brother, Laertes, by a poisoned rapier.

Now, I'm going to compare the characters from the plays to the characters from the Greed Team, by explaining their character traits.

Hamlet - He is melancholic, bitter and very cynical. He is full of hatred for his uncle's scheming and so loses faith in humanity. Though, he's thoughtful and studied at the university. On one hand, he's hesitant and doesn't know what to do, and on the other hand he's very impulsive and do rash acts.

Lawless is a lot like Hamlet. When he meets Kuro again after all these years, he isn't angry and serious, he does bitter and sarcastic jokes. He doesn't take it seriously. We can also see him as melancholic, sort of. He is stuck in the past and refuses to turn the page. A major difference is that he's full of hatred for humanity, and not someone in particular. The other common points are his "bipolar" tendencies. When he's with his eves, at least the ones before Licht, he's rather calm. (Like, he doesn't kill every moving thing). But at the moment he gets bored, he becomes impulsive and violently kills them. When he was back to the castle, after the others decided to kill sensei, Lawless was very lost and didn't know what to do.

Ophelia - She'd the daughter of Polonius, a friend of the king. She is a beautiful, sweet and young woman. She obeys her father and the other men in her life, as long as she thinks it's for the good. Her father doesn't want her to be with Hamlet. When her father dies, she's the one who becomes mad. Not long later, she's found dead in a river.

Our Ophelia is also like the one from the play : sweet and caring for the others. She does what she's told to, like when she accepts to marry the prince of the other country, because she thinks it's a good thing to do. What changes is that our Ophelia doesn't become crazy, and she doesn't drown in a river.

Guildenstern and Rozen Kranz - They are Hamlet's friends since he is young. Though, the king turns them against him when he tells them that he's crazy. Later, Hamlet is send to England and the two have to go with him, the king wrote a letter saying that Hamlet shall be executed there. When Hamlet finds it, he thinks that his friends betrayed him. Which is wrong, they didn't know about the letter. So, Hamlet changes the names on the letter and escapes the ship they're on. The two ends up being executed in England, by mistake.

We can't really make parralels between them, exept that they're good friends. Maybe for Guildenstern who was with Lawless for a long time. Appart from that, they aren't really similar.

Now, I want to talk about the scene where Lawless goes back to the castle, or what remains of it. (chap. 34, vol. 7 / ep. 10). Because it is, for me, one of the most interesting scene with Lawless.

So, what happens ? When he returns to the ashes of the castle, he sees Ophelia's statue falling into pieces. Then, he hug the bust of the statue. That's from here that he becomes crazy. He starts dancing and singing. He sings "she is dead and gone, lady. She is dead and gone...", "Lord, we know what we are, but not what we may be !", and "Sweets to sweet, farewell !".

Now, what's interesting : in Hamlet, it's not Hamlet who says all that nonsense. No, it's Ophelia. After her father died, she goes in the Queen's room and says "he is dead and gone, lady. He is dead and gone". She talks about her father. She then starts talking nonsense. She talks about a baker's daughter who became an owl, and says that "we know what we are, but now what we may be". Then, she starts singing and dancing.

Lawless is quoting Ophelia in his madness. (Litteraly quoting, he’s a fan of Shakespeare and probably already read Hamlet). When he says, "she is dead and gone", he compares his love for her with the Ophelia from the play's love for her father, who was known to be immense. And I find that beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.

I also want to make a parralel with Hamlet and Lawless's duel with Higan. (Chap. 36, vol. 7 / ep. 11). It is like the duel between Hamlet and Laertes, Ophelia's brother. He wants to kill Hamlet because he thinks it's his fault if his sister died. (Technically, it is. Hamlet killed Ophelia's father, but not on purpose). They fight with a poisoned rapier and both of them die at the end, because of the poison. The "atmospheres" are similar. Though, this scene is more a reference to next thing I'm going to talk about.

The Phantom Of The Opera

Also an obvious reference, but this time with Licht in it. I’m now going to talk about The Phantom Of the Opera. More known for its musical comedy, it comes from a book with the same name, written by Gaston Leroux (1868 - 1927). Basically, someone is damaging the opera, the people are calling him "the Phantom". However, plays and comedies are still playing. Christine, a singer, will sing in an upcoming play. But she's afraid because, at night, someone comes in her room and sings to her with a beautiful voice. She calls him her “Angel Of Music”. She tells that story to the viscount Raoul De Chagny, who secretly loves her. They both find out that this "Angel" is really the Phantom, a man named Erik. He has an hideous face and is considered as a monster, he lives under the Opera. In love with Christine, he kidnapps her and drag her under the opera. Soon, Raoul comes to save her. A swordfight happens and Raoul wins, but doesn't kill the Phantom.

So, while fighting with Higan, Licht starts playing the theme of The Phantom Of The Opera on his piano. Because of the magic, both Higan and Lawless are wearing capes and masks, which are the costume of the Phantom. 

I guess we all assume that Lawless was the one compared to the Phantom ? Because it's wrong. Lawless tells to Higan "I have a verse that fits you perfectly. 'Ah, secretly, secretly. The loathsome gargoyle who burns in hell, but secretly years for heaven !'".

This quote is talking about the Phantom. Lawless is comparing Higan to the Phantom. The ugly beast with a beautiful voice. So, does that make Licht Christine ? It would make sense. Christine was kidnapped by the Phantom, Licht was kidnapped by Higan, exept that he isn't in love with Licht. Raoul fights for saving Christine, and that's, sort of, what Lawless is doing : he's moving forward. He doesn't want Licht to get killed. That's also in this scene that Hyde is telling himself "I want to change !". He, now, wants to protect what's important to him, like Raoul protects the one he love. (My mind wants to scream "LAWLICHT" do damn fucking loud but I'm going to stay serious). So, the "final duel" between Lawless and Higan is also a reference to the swordfight between the Phantom and Raoul.

I thought Licht was compared to "The Angel Of Music", that would makes sense. I mean he's an angel pianist. But no, the Angel of Music is the Phantom of The Opera. Well, after all, everything isn't like in the reference, so I guess it's still refering to Licht.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This reference is not only about Licht and Hyde’s attack, but rather about themselves. It comes from the novel "The Strange Of The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", written by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894). It talks about the Dr. Jekyll, a famous Doctor known for his kindness. Philosopher obsessed with dual personality, he creates a liquid that separates Good from Evil in someone. Except that when he drinks it, instead of being two people, he turns into Mr. Hyde, who looks like Dr. Jekyll but smaller, more hideous and a lot uglier. Jekyll chooses to turn in Mr. Hyde at night so he can do whatever he wants without being reconized. In the end, he randomly transforms and the others are about to find out, so he kills himself.

This novel is about he duality of Humans. The Good and the Bad, what is one and what is the other. It's about the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so different yet the same person. There's not a "right" one and a "wrong" one. It's the two perspectives of the same reality, seen by two different opinion. The two faces of a same coin.

It's exactly like Licht and Lawless. They are the two opposites and they perfectly complete each other. Licht is the Angel and Lawless is the Demon. Licht is the Good and Lawless is the Bad. Licht is the introvert and Lawless is the extrovert. Licht is the optimistic and Lawless is the pessimistic. Licht is the dreamer and Lawless is the stuck-in-the-past. Licht and Lawless' versions of the world couldn't be more different, but neither of them are “right” or “wrong”. Just two points of view. Even in their character design : Licht's hair has a white stripe, Lawless's hair has black stripes. In his hedgehog form, Lawless is black and his stripes are white, exactly like Licht.

In their attack, it's almost as if they were really the same person doing the same attack, when they almost can't stand each other.

And also, I mean, their fucking name. Licht JEKYLLand Todoroki and HYDE.

C-3 Arc

Oh dear, the C-3 is so damn full of references. Their spells have, generally, some verses of a true poem/nursery rhyme, some verses invented by Tanaka Strike to fit the charachter and things like that. Some of their spells are easy to find where they come from, but some other are either hard as hell or just aren't a reference to something. There's some where I didn't find anything, so I tried to interpret it, because why not. There’s also all the norse mythology things, not gonna lie it was a pain to write.

Tsurugi Kamiya

Norse mythology

At the C-3, his code name is Baldr. Baldr is a God in the Norse Mythology. He is loved by all, handsome and gracious. At least, most of the versions say he's like that, but they forget to mention his love for fighting and for war. Some people even say he's a God of War. One day, he begins to have dreams of his death. People laugh at that because he's an immortal being, so they just throw things at him. He is finally killed by Hodr, his brother. Hodr didn't mean to kill him : Loki, the guileful trickster of the gods, made an arrow with misteltoe (that can kill Bladr) and told Hodr, who was blind, to throw it at Baldr, and he did it without knowing it would kill him.

Knowing that Hodr is Yumikage's code name, it would mean that Yumi's going to kill Tsurugi. We can't say if it'll happen or not. The death of Baldr is very famous though. It could make sense, Yumi and Tsurugi are almost like brother, but it doesn't mean anything.

spell

When Tsurugi uses his spell (vol. 8, chap. 44.) it's "against" Kuro. It puts a kind of necklace / choker around their neck. A string of around 200 meters stops Kuro from running away and Tsurugi has power on him.

The spell is : « I want you to read pictures books to me by my bedside. I want you to pat my head and say 'goodboy, good boy'. Then hold me kindly, and say you love me. I am your treasure. 'Neverland' don't leave me alone ! »

I didn't find where it comes from. Not even some verses. Still, we can say that this poem talks about a child who doesn't want to be left alone, and to be loved, probably by the love of a parent. We can say with because of the pictures books by the bedside, who's usually a parental gesture. This poem is rather childish, and that's one of the reason we can relate it to Tsurugi, who couldn't grow up. He basically stayed alone, but with Touma. Even if he has bad influences on him, Tsurugi doesn't want him to leave him alone.

Another interesting thing is the "Neverland". Neverland is the magical land in Peter Pan. Once again, we have the parralel with the child who couldn't grow up, exept that Peter Pan didn't want to grow up.

Other

Here's a little thing I noticed. I don't really know how to call it or if it's even a reference but anyway.

In that pic (chap. 48, vol. 9), the white bubbles are Tsurugi's words. The two first are a quote from Martin Luther (1483 - 1546). Well, it's not the exact quote. The exact one is "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."

This quote talks about the fact that you should be happy now, instayead of wasting your life searching happiness. It has a sense, I promise.

What's interesting is the "I wonder what kind of tree it was...". The tree represents the "happiness", Tsrurugi is asking himself how to be happy. He doesn't know how to be. He wants to stop asking himselft how to be happy and plant that tree. But, which tree does he need to plant ?

Also, maybe a small parralel to The Mother's farm with her apple trees ? I don't know. 

Yumikage Tsukimitsu

Norse mythology

His code name is Hodr. We don't know a lot about this god, compared to the other ones. Though, we know he was seen as very strong, even too strong.

The most famous story about him is the death of Baldr, as I explained earlier in Tsurugi's paragraph. I'm not going to repeat it here. Though, I want to point something. It is said that Hodr was blind, when he killed Baldr. Buuut- he wasn't really. Buuuut- maybe he was. People aren't really sure about it, it depends of the versions. Though, most people tend to say that he wasn't really blind and that it was rather for the symbolism.

He is killed by Baldr's avenger, Vali. Vali almost has been made to kill Hodr.

Spell

His spell creates a kind of sphere, like a moon, of light. He can throw them and it seems to be very powerful. We see it he's fighting Touma. (chap. 70)

His spell is : "Who killed Cock Robin ? You said it was you. Cast away the green eyes ! Flee, cowardly Lion ! Everyone shall grieve your absence. The tree is swaying from the flight of birds, making the hanging craddle fall down. Kill your mother, kill your father, kill your friends, kill your teacher. Kill everything and end up alone. Crawl the sky drowned in spilled blood. Cry for the Moon."

So, so, so. The first two verses come from a nursery rhyme called "Who killed Cock Robin ?". Yeah, it was pretty obvious. This rhyme talks about the death of the Cock Robin, who was killed by Sparrows. Basically, the animals of the forest talk about his death and what will happen next (who will burry him, etc). It has many interpretations. One of them being the death of Robin Hood. But it's not the one I'm going to talk about now. The other one, is the death of Baldr by Hodr. Baldr/Tsurugi would be the Cock Robin, killed by Hodr/Yumi, who would be the Sparrow. Here again, the sparrow didn't kill him on purpose. It was by mistake.

Seriously, all tends to say that Yumi will end up killing Tsurugi, by mistake, yes, but still. Tanaka please ;;

We can notice is the "cowardly lion", a character that comes from The Wizard of Oz. The "green eyes" could be the Green Witch, but she doesn't have green eyes. Though, it is said that the “green eyes monster”, in Shakespeare’s plays represents the Jealousy.

Now, here's something else. The verse "The tree is swaying from the flight of birds, making the hanging craddle fall down." I think it's a reference to the nursery rhyme "Rock a bye baby", who's... one of Touma's spell. You know what, I'll talk about it in Touma's part, to get it less confusing. I'm putting a little (1).

Jun'ichirou Kurumamori

Norse mythology

His code name is Thor. Well, I think you all know who's Thor, at least his name. Still, I'm going to developpe. Thor is the god of lightning / thinder. He is the warrior. He's the loyal and honorable fighter of the other gods and their world. His sense of duty and courage are unshakeable. Doesn't that sound like Jun ?

Also, Thor has a charriot carried by goats. What is Jun's tarrot card ? The charriot. He also has his famous hammer. I'm going to talk about it right after that.

Spell

His spell can "summon" a big hammer. Like, a really big one. This hammer is obviously Mjölnir, Thor's hammer. In theory, only Thor should be able to hold the hammer. That's maybe why he's that big in that scene, like only the one who casts the spell can hold it. Here, he's fighting against Tsurugi. (chap. 53, vol. 10)

His spell is : "Let's talk about the past. Let's talk about when you smiled. Let's talk about when you got mad. Let's talk about when you were here. I still can't believe in all those things we called the past. Ring a Ring, the Wheel of Fate !".

I didn't find where any of those verses come. If they come from something XD. But I still have things to say there. I believe that this spell talks about Tsurugi, a bit. Since Jun is fighting with him, it's almost as if he's "blaming" him. Jun is talking about the past, when he smiled, got mad, was here, etc, so, when he had emotions. Maybe, when they were younger, Tsurugi was less... sick ? I don't know how to call how Tsurugi is doing now. In the past, when Tsurugi still had, at least a little more, emotions. But here, I'm just speculating.

There's another thing I want to say here. Touma is watching the whole scene on his screens. He says "even if he's not as good as the previous Thor, he's using Mjölnir better than I thought he would". That implies that spells can be transmitted from one to another.

Touma Taishi

Touma doesn't have a norse mythologic reference. He has more spells than the others, though. Most of his spells don't have an affect on himself, but on Tsurugi. Like, a boost of power.  Let's go in chronogical order.

Spell - 1

In chapter 53, when Tsurugi is fighting with Jun, Touma uses one of his spells.

It goes like : "You were born in a room with no windows. Today is the senventh you'll crawl on the ground. Instead of crying like an infant, scream out. Clutch your throat and yell. Breath five times in one second. Meanwhile, a single adult will die. 'Baby in the Dark', 'the black bird of Kensingston'".

The only reference I see is the "black bird of Kensingston". It comes from the book "The little white bird, or adventures in Kensingston Gardens". Written by James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937). This book is where Peter Pan comes from. In the first chapters at least, the next is someone else. As most of you know, Peter Pan's story is in Neverland. But in the beginning, Neverland was just the Kensingston's gardens in London. Barrie changed the name afterward.

Though, the title of the book says "white bird". But in Touma's spell it's "black bird". Touma could be compared to a darker version of Peter Pan, probably his shadow, given of one of his last spells.

One of the interpetation of Peter Pan's shadow, is that it is his inability to grow old. It would represent the spirit of a dead one, who's still tied to earth. For the first thing, it could Touma and Tsurugi. Tsurugi is Peter Pan, the one who couldn't grow up because of his shadow, Touma.

For the rest of the spell. Touma is probably refering to Tsurugi, also because his spells can make Tsurugi "stronger" to fight. But, it could also be referring to Touma, for we also know that he had a bad childhood.

Spell - 2

In chapter 70, Touma and Tsurugi are fighting against Yumikage and Kuro. (Well, Tsurugi doesn't want to fight with Touma, but he forces him).When Yumi attacked them with "cry for the moon", Touma fights back with his spell. Once again, the spell affects Tsurugi, and not really Touma.

The spell is : ... well there isn't really one. I mean, not a long thing. But that seems already enough. It is "Rock-a-Bye-Baby ! 'sleep, little one, go to sleep'".

So, Rock-A-Bye-Baby is a nursery rhyme. The most common version used today is "Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock, when the bough, breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all."

This nursery rhymes has some interpretations, but no one really suited the story in any sort.

Though, it talks about chidlren. That's probably why it fits with Tsurugi, who's still like a little child. I don't have anything else to say, exept maybe that the last thing "sleep, little one, go to sleep" comes from one of Mozart's lullaby. Same in that case, the only parralel is the child state of Tsurugi.

HANG OOON, THE LITTLE (1) IS NOW. So, in Yumi's spell was the sentence "The tree is swaying from the flight of birds, making the hanging craddle fall down." I think the hanging craddle is the same as in this nusery rhyme. We have the same idea of the wind who makes a craddle fall down from a tree. Maybe it's only a coincidence, maybe not. Still, I find it funny to tell.

Spell 3

Now, we're in chapter 74. Touma is fighting against Tsurugi, Kuro and Mahiru. Tsurugi is still a bit fighting against Kuro and Mahiru, because of Touma's previous spells. This time though, Touma's spell has an affect on himself, and not on Tsurugi. He can turn himslef into a shadow and attack people.

The spell is : "Do not open the lock, do not go outside. There's no place for you in the world. Tonight as well, monsters with the same face are bringing agony. Laughing in a world where I do no exist, there won't come a day when I can forgive you. The world is full of pain. Daddy Long Legs, 'nobody knows'".

Exept the litterature reference that I'll explain just after that, let's talk a bit about the spell in itself. It could be refering to Touma and Tsurugi, but it's rather for Touma I'd say. It talks about him. We know that Touma mostly had a shitty childhood, and let's say it a shitty life. I think the "onsters with the same face are bringing agony" sentence is referering to humans in general. He is full of hatred toward the others, he won't forgive them, as it's said. I don't think I need to say more, it speaks about itselft.

Now, the daddy long legs thing. Daddy Long Legs is a book written by Jean Webster (1876 - 1916). It talks about a girl, Judy who lives in a very poor orphanage. They live thanks to donor donations. When she's around 17, she wants to go to college, but she can't because of money. But, a mysterious donator offers to pay for her studies because he thinks she can become a wonderful writter. The only condition, she ahs to write a letter to him every month. She named him "daddy-long-legs because she never saw him and knows nothing about him, she only saw his shadow. To college, she has two friends. A kind and humble girl and a rich / snobinard girl. She not friend with the second in the beginning, but later.

Judy is obviously Tsurugi. He lives only from what he's given. (Even clothes, like Judy). And the Daddy-Long-Legs is Touma, even if now he's not someone good for Tsurugi, we can't forget he litteraly saved him and helped him a lot in the past. Also, Judy has two friends, like Tsurugi. The more humble one, like Jun, and and the snobinard one with whom she becomes a friend only later, like Yumikage.

Also, Touma has fucking long legs man.

Shuuhei Tsuyuki

For now, the only references we have for Shuuhei is his spell and his tarot card. Well, I wonder if he could be Loki, from the norse mythology, because Iduna calls him like that. But I don't see any parralel he could have with Shuuhei, so I'm not gonna speak about that, because, well, I just have nothing to say.

Spell

While he is fighting with Shamrock, in chapter 62, he uses his spell that he seems to have inherited from his father. Shamrock says they have the same eyes, and his power are a thing with the view, so maybe he inherited it.

The spell is : "I am thy law. Thou art a demon. Thou art corrupt. Fall from the rye field's cliff. Where no one will find you. You cannot return, even if you hold tightly to the 6 pence that you gave me. Four and Twenty black-birds. 'nobody in the rye'".

His spell gives him the power to have an unobstructed bird's view. He can know the position of objects and people and their behavior up to 10kms away, this power is called "Hayabusa", or "Hawk Eyes". The hawk is one of the bird that has the sharpest vision.

The "four and twenty black-birds" come from a nursery rhyme, who's not really one but we'll call it like that, who's called "Sing A Song of Sixpence". The rhyme goes like :

"Sing a Song of Sixpence, pocket Full of Rye, four and Twenty Black Birds, baked in a Pie. When the Pie was opened, the Birds began to Sing, wasn't that a dainty Dish, to set before the King ? The King was in the counting, house counting out his money, the Queen was in the Parlour, eating Bread and Honey, the Maid was in the Garden, hanging out the Clothes, when along came a Blackbird and snipped off her nose"

It has many interpretations, but the one that I find the better and who fits more Shuuhei is that the rhyme was Blackbeard's Alert.

Blackbeard was a famous and succesful pirate. Unlike most of the others, he paid the member of his crew. He paid each man 6 pence a day and a packet of rye whiskey. Like every crew on a ship, there was around twenty-four men. Given it was Blackbeard's crew, they were called the black-birds. Thanks to his many sources, he could usually know exactly were a ship would be.

(Blackbeard was the King, the Queen was his ship, the Maid would be the ship about to be attacked and it was in the garden, a specific area which was useful for Pirates. It was hanging out the clothes, meaning under sail. The black-birds were Blackbeard's mean hidden in the ship/pie.) The part in parenthesis isn't really important for the explanation, just for culture, if that interests you.

It fits Shuuhei because of Blackbeard's ability to know where every ships would be. The men are also the called "birds", and the hawks are birds. Also maybe, Shuuhei used to have black hair. And blackbeard had, well, a black beard.

Shamrock

We don't know much about him. We know a bit about his past, like the fact he was german. Like some subclasses, he has a special attack. In that case, it transforms him into a kind of... beast, that seems to be a bird, at least. Which species, I don't know. A kind of hawk, maybe.

His attack is called "Die Verwandlung. 'the nighthawk star'".

"Die Verwandlung" is a german novel written by Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924). In english "the metamorphosis". Basically, here's what happened. Gregor Samsa, a salesman, one day, wakes up, transformed into an insect. He has a sister and his two parents. Because of his "insect" state, he can't go to work and ends up fired. His sister is the only one who tries to help him (like, to feed him and all. He's not a little insect like we see everydays, he's a human sized insect). His parents are too frightened to help him. One day, his father throws an apple at his back, which ends up causing an infection. Now, even his sister stopped help him. He will die alone in his room because of the infection, he thinks of his death as a sacrifice to help his family to move on.

This novel is about the transformation. Gregor Samsa was abandonned because he became an insect. He was still the same man, but had another body. And because it was ugly to see, disgusting even, the others let him alone. It fits Shamrock, somehow. He didn't became an insect, but a vampire. Though, Tsubaki didn't let him. Yoshimasa did, but he wasn't a vampier yet. But we can still make the parralel of the abandonment. That's all I had to say for that.

"The nighthawk star" is a popular Japanese children's story written by Kenji Miyazawa (1896 - 1933). Here's a summary of what happens. There's a Nighthawk, who is a nightjar (another species of bird, but who isn't an hawk). He is bullied and hated by the others because he is descibed as "ugly". The "real" Hawk dislikes him because the nightjar has "hawk" in his name and demands him to change it. But the Nighthawk refuses. He is very sad to see that the others hate him just because of his appearance. He ends up dying, alone, while flying. He became a star and shines.

We have the theme of the reject because of the appearance back, and the theme of the birds that goes with the Tsuyuki family. It could be that the "real" hawk is Yoshimasa or Shuuhei, that hates the nighthawk/nightjar, so Shamrock, because he is an ugly beast/monster.

Shuuhei does hate him because he is a vampire. (Well, also because he killed his father, but the fact that he is a vampire has something to do with it). Yoshimasa didn't hate him, we can say that he abandonned him, but before he was a vampire.

Because of his attack, Shamrock does transform into something else. The two of his references reflect what happened/happens to him, and one if it is tied to the Tsuyuki family. Now, I'm done with him. Let's move on.

Wrath Pair

I didn't know if I can call Iduna and Freya like that, but for now I will. Their references are related. They have references to the norse mythology and an attack. Let's begin.

Norse mythology

I'll begin with Iduna.

Iduna, mostly called Idun, is the goddess of youth and fertility in the norse mythology, pictured with long blond hair. We don't know a lot of things about her, sadly. In her best-knows, and only, tale, she is the owner of a fruit that gives immortality. People accord to say that this fruit was apples. Whoever eats one of her apples finds his youth back.

Take makes a parralel with Freya's backstory, we knew she married a man that planted apples. Also both Idunas have long blond hair. Apart from that, there's nothing else to say. Let's go with Freya now.

Freya, also written Freyja, is the goddess of love, fertility and beauty. Her name would be a derivative from the german word "Frau", which means "lady". We have more stories about her than about Iduna, but it'd be too long to tell them. Also, they're not interesting for this post and for the parralels we're trying to make.

Freya und Iduna don't really have stories in common. Well, there's one book. It's called "Freya, Iduna & Thor : vom Charme der germanischen Göttermythen" (Freya, Iduna & Thor: from the charm of Germanic myths of the gods, in english). It's a book of some tales for chidlren about the gods. But it doesn't really speak about the two goddess together.

Attack

When Freya und Iduna are fighting against Shamrock, in chapter 76, they have a special attack called "Maiden of Orleans ! 'war maiden, take the sword !'".

Their special attack creates a bunch of light swords. Freya is fighting with them while Iduna seems to control the swords as well.

"The maiden of Orlean" is a reference to Joan of Arc, who had that nickname. She was a french girl who was born in 1412 and died at age 19 in 1231, burned at the stake. She was considered a heroine in the history of France and a saint by the Catholic Church (though she had been canonized like 500 years after her death).

At this time, the Hundred Years' War was going on between France and England. At age 17, Joan of Arc, who was the daughter of farmers, began to have hallucinations. She thought the angels (such as St. Micheal) told her she was the one who had to save France from the british. She went to see the future Charle VII, son of the previous France's king. He accepted that Joan join his troops and gave her and an armor. In the end, at age 18, she led the the French army to victory in the battle of Orléans. She was captured one year later by the British and had been burned alive.

The parralel obviously the fact that "Hey, I'm a girl and I can kick your fucking ass". (A sentence is better than a hundred of words, sometimes. XD). Because, I think y'all can agree with me, Freya is fucking badass, like Joan of Arc was. Iduna is strong too, but here it focuses more on Freya. She's the one with the swords and the shield, who were two of Joan's attributes.

Johaness Mimir Faustus

Norse mythology

This tall scientist is a reference to Mimir. He is the counselor of the gods and known to be exceptionally wise. We don't have a lot of sources on him, and the ones we are have are contradictory. For example, we don't know if he was a God himself, or just a Giant. Tanaka Strike seems to have choosed the second option, because Johaness is the tallest of the manga, with 2 meters and 11 cms. (Or 6'9'', in feet. Basically, fucking tall.) The vikings thought of him like "the one who helped the gods retain the wisdom of tradition".

Though Johaness is more seen as the "crazy scientist", we know he has a lot of knowledge, especially over vampires. His words also help Mahiru a lot, sort of, he acts as a counselor. So yeah, some people could consider him as a wise, in some ways. I already talked about his height, but I still want to say again that us, people, call tall people like him giants.

The Lion and the Unicorn

There's something else about Johaness but I don't really know where to put it. Given that it's Johaness who talks with Mahiru, I'll put it here. Also, it happens in the Greed Pair Arc, sooo yeah kinda confusing

So, in chapter 29, Johaness helps Mahiru to... hum, should should I say this... get into Kuro. Well, his mind. And before throwing him, Johaness says "I'll recite a poem for your journey !"

Here's the poem : "The Cat and the Unicorn, were fighting without the crown. The Cat beat the Unicorn, all about the town. Some gave them no flowers, and sent them out of town."

This poem is adapted from this one : "The Lion and the Unicorn, were fighting for the crown. The Lion beat the Unicorn, all around the town. Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown. Some gave them plum cake, and drummed them out of town."

The real peom (who's a bit longer, but the last four verses aren't interresting here), also called nursery rhyme, is about the United Kingdom. As you may know, the Lion and the Unicorn are one of its symbol. Even before the unification of England and Scotland, in 1603, the Lion was England's symbol and the Unicorn was Scotland's smybol. When they unified, they combined. And this nursery rhyme was created.

Though, the rest of the poem, well... doesn't really have a signification. Some people say there was a battle between the two country and that England (the lion) beat Scotland (the Unicorn). but they officialy unified as equals. Soo, I'm kind of lost with this.

In Johaness' version, it is the Cat and the Unicorn. The cat is obviously Kuro, but for the Unicorn... I can't really say.

This one is kind of confusing. The rhyme talks about "fighting for the crown", but there wasn't a war or anything, they unified, as I said, as equals. It's pretty hard to make parralels when you can barely understand the base.

I did some research and asked friends, and it appears that the Lion and the Unicorn are two characters from Through the Looking Glass. (Who're also a reference to the original rhyme). It was surprising because the Alice's references are rather for the Alicein, but here it's in the Greed Pair arc, said by Johaness and to Mahiru. But hey, that's the only clue I have so let's go that way.

The Lion and the Unicorn are fighting for the White King's crown, which is pretty absurd because both of them are on the White side. There, the Lion is pictured as a rather slow, even stupid, but the better fighter. The Unicorn sees Alice as a monster, but he says he'll believe in her if she believes in him first. The Unicorn also "attacks" Alice, but the Lion protects her.

We know the Lion/Cat is Kuro. Now, here is my interpretation. I don't know at all if it really meant. I thought that Lawless could be the Unicorn, and Mahiru Alice. (Even if Alice is already Misono, buuuuuut, this and the Alicein aren't related, not in here.)

It could make sense, with Lewis Caroll's version and the Servamp one, combined (?). Kuro and Lawless are on the same side, sort of : they're against Tsubaki. They aren't fighting for a crown. Lawless doesn't believe in Mahiru, he stills thinks humans life are meaningless, etc. Though, Lawless doesn't talk about believing in him later. Also, Lawless attacks Mahiru, not the first time they meet, but after, in the concert hall, and Mahiru protects him.

In both versions of the rhyme, they end up kicked out of the town. But I don't see anything that speaks about that. Not even in the original meaning the rhyme. I guess it's just... there, with no meaning behind.

Now the question is why the fuck does Johaness tells Mahiru that, when he doesn't even know what the fuck is going on between the others and Lawless. I'm talking about Johaness' later, he's a reference to a wise being, so we can say he doesn't tell things with no meaning. Once again, it's only my interpretation there, but Johaness could be telling Mahiru that the fights between Sloth and Greed are absurd, just like the Lion and the Unicorn's ones (at least those from Lewis Caroll's).

Mahiru Shirota

So, the sunshine finally's got a reference to something. Bye bye norse mythology, we're now in greek mythology.

In chapter 75, Mahiru and Kuro are fighting against Touma. Mahiru's attack/spell is "Elpis". (I don't know how to call that. It is formuled like a spell, but spells are only for magicians, if I'm right. So maybe it's an attack with Kuro, or maybe Mahiru has magician blood ? Anyway, it doesn't matter here) It is a reference to Pandora's myth, with the infamous Pandora's box. Basically, here's the myth in the big lines.

Pandora was said to be the first woman. She was created by the gods, beautiful and sweet but also curious. She was what we could call a poisoned gift for the human, given by Zeus. She was sent with a small box, but with the ban to open it. But, because of the curiousity, she opened it and all the sins were released in the world.

She was so sad and cried, her husband came to comfort her and asked what happened. She opened the box again to show him, but this time Hope came out. (Depending of the versions, people says it was Hermes, another god, placed Hope in the box without Zeus (the god of the gods) knowing).

"Elpis" is Hope. It is the way to call it, and also the personification.

This myth means a lot of things. One of the most important, it tells you that you shouldn't be curious. I mean, see what it did. Also, when Pandora talked to her husband and showed him the box, hope came. She opened up to him, and it helped.

We already saw these black boxes in the manga. Everyone has their Pandora's box. Touma's one already opened and the sins came out. Touma says it himself, he's a bad person. It is said the key of his box is lost, so the box can't open anymore, can't release the hope. But, here's Mahiru. His spell made the key. Now the box will open again, and Touma will be able to release his Hope. (With a bit of chance, still). He and Mahiru will probably talk (or talking while fighting, we'll see). Maybe Touma will open up to Mahiru and, like the lesson the myth teaches us, find hope.

Nothing more about the sunshine boy, for now at least.

Yggdrasill 

This time, this isn't a reference to a character in particular. Rather to... the C-3 in itself. As you all know now, the C-3 is full of references to norse mythology. Let me explain, in chapter 42, we have this picture :

I don't know why there's a bunch of triangles on the ground, but that doesn't matter. The interesting thing is the tree. It is Yggdrasill, the Tree of Life, also called the World Tree. It is in center of the Norse spiritual cosmos, and the it leads to the nine worlds of the said cosmos. The Tree is connected to the worlds in all ways : if the Tree is bad, the worlds are bad. It is said that the Tree has three main roots, one leading to Asgard, the world of gods, to Midgard, the world of humans and to Helheim, the world of the deads.

It's not surprising to see the Tree in the C-3. After all, there's so many characters with a reference to the norse mythology in it. The C-3 probably represents Asgard, the world of gods, because all of the references are gods. Asgard is the fortress of the Aesirs (the people of Asgard). The C-3 is also kind of a fortress, and also the home for some of the members, such as Tsurugi (Bladr).

C-3′s building and Servamp - Eve distance limitation

Okay so I really didn’t know where to put that, but I wrote something about the Servamp - Eve distance limitation and about the size of C-3′s building here.

Gilbert Weasel

His attack is called "Forbidden Lover ! Dying in Venice !". He seems to be able to "shot" water. It is pretty powerful, even if it doesn't sound like it. So, this is a reference to the book called "Death In Venice", by Thomas Mann. (1875 - 1955). Here's a summary.

A writer, Aschenbach, goes in vacation in Venice. In his hotel, he sees a Polish teenager called Tadzio. Achenbach falls in love with him, finding him just... perfect. Though, they never spoke a word to each other, just stares. When he learns that Tadzio has to go back in his country because of a disease that spreads fast in Venice, Achenbach goes to look at him one last time on the beach and then dies, of the said disease that he catched.

We understand the "forbidden lover", now. The forbidden love between a 14 years old boy and a man. Though, there isn't a real link between this story and Gil. Except maybe the fact the italian is often seen as "the lover, the romantic" in a lot of stories, and Gil and Ray are both kind of gentlemen.

We also have the thing with the water. As you may know, Venice is called the city of water, and the story of the book happens in Venice.

Ray St. Crazy Rabbit

Ray's attack is called "Illumination ! Betraying the Sun and the Moon !", it seems that Ray can prevent the person from moving, for some seconds, in a small space, as if taking a picture. All colors, light and black, disappears from this small space.

For this one, it's more complicated than for Gil's. "Death in Venice" is a famous book, and was pretty easy to find. If Ray's attack has a literary reference, it's more hard to find, if you don't know the book at all. It's also complicated to search, because the sun and the moon are very common in italian litterature. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

If it does refer to something, I didn't find. But, I had another idea. As I said, it's almost as if Ray was taking a picture.

His attack is like the old way of taking pictures. Look, the time is stopped in a small space, and Before having the photo, we only have the negative, that we'll have to develop. If mangas were with colors, we could easily tell if it is the negative version of the old pictures, or just something in black and white, which would be something else then. The negative version of a photo reverse the colors, here, it works.

Tarot Cards

A lot of characters, almost all from the C-3, got references to Tarot Cards. All the following has been written by my amazing friend, I'll go character by character. For almost every of the, their tarot card was said in a chapter title, exept for Mikuni, it is the cover of a chapter who’s the same as a card.

Yumikage Tsukimitsu - THE MOON

Indicates that you are kind of "lost in thought", that you have something to overcome even though you refuse to face it directly (because it's in your subconscious).  =  Yumikage is shown to be kinf of self-conscious about the choices he made. Despite not helping Tsurugi at first, because he didn't think he could / didn't really want to care, but he was still always there for him

The Moon shines less bright than the sun, but its light is more persistent. In the night as in the day, it's the moon that you can see. In the end, it's the moon that shows you the way between the Towers, helping you to deal with your tamed aspects and your wild aspects  =  Yumi's role is very important for Tsurugi. Mahiru did a great job reaching out to Tsurugi, but, at the end, Yumi's the one really pushing Touma (the Tower) once and for all, so as to soothe his friend's anxietes.

Taishi Touma - THE TOWER

Chaos and destruction  =  Touma is no good news. It seems nothing good can be coming out of him. He tries to take everybody down with him.

Solid but shaky  =  Touma is a strong opponent, if not the strongest. However, his core is based on false, or at least biased assumptions. Is he really the monster he claimed to have become ?

Desperate situation but it is possible to be saved  =  Touma claims to be a "purebred villain", and seems to have done everything to be one and to stay as such, but is there really no way to make him realize that he's blinding himself, living a life that will destroy him ? Maybe he has already realized it. Persevering in his wicked ways will without a doubt lead to a disaster (for him and everyone else), but maybe the sun will clean the tempest.

Iduna Nobel - THE STAR

Highly feminine card, water everywhere which means fertility, renewal.  =  Iduna is one of the few female characters. The chapter named "The Star" focuses on her bond with The Mother, another female lead.

The Star also follows the Tower in the Tarot Deck  =  After the chaos Touma made, Iduna is there to fix her superior's bullshit, which she can do with her loving and pure energy.

Inner resources and and intuition  =  Iduna is shown to be able to adapt very quickly. She is a scientist, and a talented one, very creative.

Hope and faith  =  She seems to be quite good at helping people and guiding them on a better path. "You're open minded and want to help the others, and you should not feel down about it. Even if you do, you have to stand up and show that you can handle the situation". Which Iduna does quite well for someone who hasn't gone through some personal shit and is not used to fight.

Tsurugi Kamiya - THE HANGED MAN

Martyrdom, sacrifice to the greater good  =  Tsurugi's relationship with Touma (or how Touma abuses Tsurugi). He is to become the ninth Servamp, and his life doesn't matter as a human being, for he has to serve this higher purpose.

Ultimate surrender  =  Tsurugi's passivity regarding, like, his life in general. He doesn't choose things. They are imposed to him, and he doesn't care because he judges it's not his role. He is willingly serving Touma.

Break, new perspectives, letting go  =  However, at some point, Tsurugi really suffers of his situation. The Mother, his friends and Mahiru make him realize that maybe he's not really doing what's best for him. Maybe he just has to take a break and let go of everything stalling him. But, he has to be ready to make this decision, and not to be forced to, or he'll just end up killed, like the Hanged Man. If he takes the leap, things are sure to go better, though it won't come from nobody but him.

Mikuni Alicein - THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Highly feminine card  =  Mikuni, do you have something to tell us ? XD This card maybe as well be about Abel, at this point.

Sacred knowledge, secrets, silence, subconscious, withdrawal  =  Mikuni is the guy knowing the most of stuff (with Johaness, maybe). But he doesn't share them easily, if not at all. Even his own self is full of secrets, maybe even for himself. It's more likely than you think that the guy pulling the strings from behind is actually the one having the most troubles to settle with himself. He will help you if you're ready to hear him, but it is not said that following him will grant you what you were looking for, maybe Mahiru will do as well to trust himself more than relying on Mikuni.

BJ - entrance of the Temple of Solomon (B = Boaz, "in his strenght", J = "he will establish"), duality  =  Very likely, Mikuni holds the answers our main characters are looking for. However, they are his strenght, that is, he is the one making "good" use of the,. The heroes have to be ready to face him. Moreover, he's ready to do anything to prove his point, and has a kind of God Complex. "He will establish", no matter what it takes.

Jun'ichirou Kuromamori - THE CHARRIOT

Lack of direction  =  Jun has gone through hard times, and didn't know what to do in crisis. He was really despaired when he was left alone with his son, when his wife died.

Brave warrior, determination, willpower  =  Jun has faced life with all his strenght, despite having lost his wife and having to raise his kid alone.

Mahiru Shirota - THE MAGICIAN

Numer one  =  Mahiru is the protagonist, aka the most important character. It's also the number of new beginnings and opportunities. The infinity symbol and the snake biting his own tail around the magician's waist also stand for the unlimited potential and the blossoming of ideas and intentions in the character.-

White robe for purity and red cloak for worldly experience and knowledge  =  Despite being only a child (at least it's how he considers himself), Mahiru has experienced a lot of things in his life and acts in a very mature way, especially in the way he takes responsibility for things/ of the others.

The magician brings you the tools, resources and energy you need to make your dreams come true, he's a source of inspiration for many people who are still insecure about what they should do/ who they should be, and make them realise that what they want to achieve is possible if they make efforts to do so. The magician will help you gathering everything you've learned so far + establishing a clear vision of what you can and want to do  =  Like Mahiru with Kuro especially.

However the focus, to be efficient, must be on one thing it's easier and allows you to eliminate whatever disturbs you  =  "Thinking simply" is Mahiru's motto. The Magician can also help to question one self.  

Shuuhei Tsuyuki - THE HIEROPHANT

The Hierophant is the masculine counterpart to the High Priestess (Mikuni’s card) = Even if we don’t know a lot about their relationship, they are linked. Mikuni offers his help to Shuuhei (though it maybe isn’t a good idea)

The other things don’t really fit Shuuhei, but he isn’t that developped yet so maybe there’s more to come. 

[androgyne-acolyte]

The “I” in Christ

Commissioning, Community, and Lessons From Hamilton

(My second sermon, for Confirmation Sunday. You can also listen on Soundcloud.)

This Sunday, a few of us are about to confirm our formal membership in this community of St. Andrew’s; we do this with a profession of faith, along with a promise to seek justice and resist evil. Not only does the process of confirmation ask the question of what it means to be part of a Christian community, but this passage from Luke (10:1-11,16-20) also poses the question of what it means to live out our own discipleship beyond the walls of the church — especially in an age where the image of door-to-door missionaries is something of a bad joke.

Perhaps Christianity’s best-kept secret is this: the actual gospel of Jesus is tremendously relatable to anyone else whose mission is also to seek justice and resist evil. These first disciples were instructed to bear one message: that “the Kingdom of God has come near” — or, to put it in more contemporary language, we might say “another world is possible”.

Jesus says to carry no extra gear, going out like lambs into the midst of wolves; greeting no one on the road, but traveling in pairs. This is a radically vulnerable commission — relying entirely on the generosity of strangers, who may not even care if you live or die — but it is also a commission of interdependence and reliance on one another. Sometimes, we might retreat by ourselves into the metaphorical desert for a while to figure things out. But when we go forth and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven, we’re not meant to go it alone. And so, from its earliest moments, Christianity is lived out in relationship.

We also see this in how the very early Christians came together in table fellowship — the root of our communion ritual. Jesus and the disciples had caught on to something that’s borne out by sociological science today (this is why we also had lunch as part of our confirmation classes): deep down, our brain associates “the people with whom you eat” with “family”. This becomes especially resonant when we consider that Jesus’ ministry seems to have been responding, at least in part, to the breakup and dispossession of families caused by Roman encroachment on Jewish ancestral farmlands.

So part of Jesus’ message to these seventy disciples is about going out and finding allies — and through that work, making new and cohesive communities in a time of tremendous social upheaval. Then and now, Christianity creates familial structures that counter the systems of injustice in the world with a message of radical community and genuine connection.

The New Testament, in the original Greek, calls this concept of community or fellowship koinonia, literally participation, partnership, or sharing, with emphasis on the element of relationship; a koinonos, used in the Epistles to describe the disciples’ relationship to Christ and to one another, is a sharer, partner, or companion; a joint participant. So, when we become part of the Body of Christ, we become partners, koinonoi, in acting out God’s intent, “on earth as it is in heaven”. As Jesus says when he is asked when the Kingdom will come (later on in the Gospel of Luke), “the Kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21).

So I suggest that we can look at koinonia — this radical companionship — as a concept that has four pillars. They are economic, interpersonal, internal, and political — and together, they answer a world of imperial domination and hierarchical, transactional relationships with the egalitarian, reciprocal relationships of a truly divine community.

Most of us grew up hearing the Gospel story of how a few loaves and fishes fed five thousand people. When Jesus says “give them something to eat”, the disciples respond with “but how can we possibly go out and buy enough bread for everybody?”. But Jesus had a plan — and we are told that “all ate and were filled” (Luke 9:10-17). This isn’t just a fanciful miracle story; in Jesus’ world, everybody gets enough. This is a total reimagining of our economic model. 

We see this principle carried out in the book of Acts, chapter 4: among the growing circle of disciples, it’s said that “there was not a needy person among them”, because people sold their possessions and shared the proceeds; “they laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:32-35).

“But that could never work!” we say, just like in the story of the loaves and fishes. I may not be an economic theorist, but my guess is that what gets in the way is our own self-interest; of course it won’t work if you assume that you and everyone else are just looking out for number one. The missing ingredient here is what the Bible calls lovingkindness, or what I call radical compassion — the key to the interpersonal aspect of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Remember, Jesus’ program is about treating people like family. And what happens when people feel safe enough, trusting enough, to be able to treat each other as a functioning family? “You’re in need? That’s okay, I’ll cover you.” — “Whatever happens, you’re still my sibling in Christ.”

This ideal of the family of God doesn’t end at the steps of the church, by the way. This is what Buddhist teachings mean when they talk about widening the circle of compassion: Talk to your neighbours. Look a panhandler in the eye. Fall in love with the immigrant kids down the corridor who won’t stop bouncing off the walls. Invite that raggedy backpacker down on Spring Garden Road to brunch. But, Jesus cautions, don’t make a big deal out of it; this is just what we do.

But again, we worry, just like the disciples: what if there’s someone in this community who’s really needy, taking up all the available resources and emotional energy? Perhaps that’s where a community can do its best work: helping a person become self-sufficient. Finding them a therapist, even if it means emailing every private practice in [the immediate area]. Finding them meaningful work in the community, something that provides for them and reminds them that their life matters. Granted, that’s extremely hard to do under late capitalism — but maybe that’s a specific challenge for Christians today!

We don’t claim to offer miracle cures here, but we do offer compassion and grace and walking with someone on the road to healing. And if you’ve bought into the Christian message, you’re already imagining the possibility of becoming whole — recognizing the image of God within yourself — and if you know any trauma survivors, you already know that that’s half the battle.

And to support each other like this, we have to be comfortable with being vulnerable. Paradoxically, that’s very hard to do in our white, English, North American church culture! 

My childhood pastor used to say that a good church has to be so much more than just “a club for nice people” — part of that is because niceness and civility as we understand them involve building very specific walls around yourself, so that no one sees the mess and the struggle underneath your calm exterior. But when others see that you’re a flawed, messy human too, they respond in kind. 

The very best of my church relationships are the very few people to whom I can confess almost anything, and they can confess almost anything to me. We inevitably find ourselves going deep; we have long conversations that are intense and sometimes unsettling, but I always come away feeling more fulfilled, more whole than I was before. And what is salvation in the original Greek but a kind of healing, or “making whole”?

That leads us into the internal work of the Kingdom of God. The hardest lesson we can hope to learn is to give up our preconceived notions of how things ought to be and what others are like. This is where contemplation comes in; it’s about letting go of our hangups so that we can see the bigger picture. This process of self-emptying seems like such a bewildering thought, but it’s a fundamentally liberating process. Just ask our Buddhist neighbours.

So, Christian community calls us to break free from our own self-interest by living as members of one body; as a collective of voices working together in constant dialogue. One might say that there is no “I” in Christ. 

And here is where being political comes in. When we live together in lovingkindness, in partnership, when we let go of our attachments to see things as they really are — we begin to see that this is exactly the opposite of what the world wants, both then and now.

We’ve heard [St. Andrew’s lead minister] Russ [Daye] speak of “sin” not so much as an individual moral failing, but as the state of a society propelled by self-interest and operating through systemic inequality, oppression, and violence. And when we see the big picture, we start to see that that’s exactly what’s going on.

A fully realized Christian life, lived out according to the principles of radical community, makes the scales fall from our eyes and highlights the terrible workings of inhumane disconnection and self-interest that our society is based on. That, in the eyes of our world, makes us dangerous. 

I recently had an extraordinary online conversation with another queer ministry hopeful, who is not afraid to state point-blank that “love cannot exist [or cannot exist fully] in a space where we are complicit in our neighbours’ suffering and exploitation”. We both agreed that a lot of us moderate Christians aren’t politically active because we can’t truly fathom how deep-rooted these systems of oppression actually are, let alone have any idea of how to stand up to them. 

But I invite you to consider that the kind of strong support structure that a fully realized Christian community can provide can be a living “no” to the Caesars of this world, and can empower us to speak our truth to their face, no matter the consequences. “We know love by this,” says the epistle of 1 John, “that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16).

Perhaps, then, there are many “I”s in Christ — together, we are the pillars that hold up God’s kingdom.

However we choose to confront the Caesars of our world, we must always centre our love for God and one another in our actions. This can mean letting our hearts break at the injustice all around us — remember, we are called to be vulnerable! — but it also means means finding and creating opportunities to speak out and stand up for justice; equipping one another with the skills to do so; and lifting each other up in support when those opportunities come.

Let me tell you a story about one such situation.

On June 15, only a few weeks ago, the Pride festival in Hamilton, Ontario was confronted by a group of right-wing agitators carrying giant banners with homophobic messages, shouting slurs, and threatening physical violence. Shamefully, many of these people had the gall to call themselves Christian, using our faith as justification for their hatred and aggression. 

Hamilton police, for their part, did very little to protect the Pride marchers. 

(By the way, I’ve tried to rely on firsthand accounts of this situation wherever possible.)

What did happen at Hamilton Pride was this: after a similar encounter a few weeks earlier in Dunville, Ontario, where homophobes and counter-demonstrators spent six whole hours trying to drown each other out, an affinity group formed in Hamilton with a new plan. They built a thirty-foot-wide, nine-foot-tall barrier out of black cloth, practiced moving it around as a team — and when the right-wing agitators showed up, the affinity group moved their barrier into position and physically blocked the agitators off from the rest of the festival. They intentionally did not raise their fists to strike at anyone.

But — they still got beat up. As the original members of the affinity group dragged themselves away from the fists and helmets of these right-wing bullies, they looked around to see people they didn’t even know rushing to the scene and keeping the barrier standing. The barrier, incredibly, remained intact until the police arrived a full hour later, escorting the troublemakers out of the park with their hateful signs in tatters. 

Community. We lay down our lives for one another.

When asked why the police didn’t get there sooner, an eyewitness reportedly heard the officer respond, “Don’t you remember we weren’t invited to Pride? We’re just going to stand here, not my problem”. [x]

There are, of course, many more layers to this story than I have time to get into here. But the ongoing aftermath of this situation is worth talking about. 

The queer community in Hamilton was furious and disappointed, if unsurprised. Remember that there is a decades-long history of criminalization and persecution of queer communities by police, and of police turning a blind eye to homophobic and transphobic violence. That tension doesn’t go away overnight, and it is still very much with us today.

A few days later, a local queer activist named Cedar Hopperton was arrested, purportedly because being present at Hamilton Pride had violated their parole conditions related to a previous act of civil disobedience. (Like me, Cedar goes by the pronouns “they” and “them”.)

But here’s the thing: according to eyewitnesses, Cedar wasn’t part of that incident at Pride. They had stayed at home, where their friends came to them for support and first aid following the confrontation. When Cedar got access to the paperwork associated with their case, it focused almost exclusively on a public speech they had given at City Hall in the wake of the events. 

And while they had been heavily critical of how Hamilton police have repeatedly let their community down, they framed their criticism with a prophetic statement: 

“...what I am interested in is building community around people who [have] a desire to build a shared idea of the world they actually want to live in. I feel like that’s a higher bar [which] is worth working towards.” [x]

That is what those seventy disciples were sent out to find: The Kingdom of Heaven is near. Another world is possible.

In response to this and what would become at least four other arrests of queer community members, along with frantic attempts to save face by the police and by City Hall, the local activist community decided to go straight to the mayor. In a wonderful example of non-violent protest, some twenty people “dressed in gay masquerade attire” showed up on the mayor’s front lawn early on a Friday morning, and spent fifteen minutes making a ridiculous racket while planting hot pink lawn signs that read “The Mayor Doesn’t Care About Queer People”. 

Within an hour, the same mayor who had largely refused to comment on the issue of right-wing agitators harassing and assaulting people at a Pride festival was in the news decrying the lawn sign action as a “violent attack”, and vowing that the perpetrators would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

That afternoon, one of the organizers of the lawn sign action found herself cornered by no less than eight police cars. After being brought in for questioning, she was escorted by officers with assault rifles to the central police station, where she was held overnight. 

Only one of the right-wing agitators has since been arrested. The mayor, in a stunningly oblivious move, concluded the day by issuing a boilerplate supportive statement about the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

The organizer who was arrested following the lawn sign action (who has chosen to remain anonymous) had some insightful words that I’d like to share with you. For me, they may as well have been spoken by an apostle in the first century. She said:

“[This is] about us as a community getting stronger — and them being afraid of that. We know [that] because within five hours they mobilized an investigation, manhunt and takedown. We know because they confront us with shaking hands and assault rifles. We know because they [subsequently] responded to a queer dance party with eighty officers on a Friday night. We see it when they make desperate arrests; [like] Cedar for a speech at city hall.” [x]

Because when we start to make a dent in the facade of unjust power, the mask slips, and the true cruelty and desperation of the people at the top gets revealed; just like the crucifixion of Jesus laid bare the horror that the Roman Empire was capable of. And yet, in ways that we do not yet fully understand, we are told that Jesus performed one last radical act of turning the tables; using that humiliating, commonplace death as a jumping-off point into the coldest, darkest reaches of the cosmos, where he sowed the love of God into the very ground of the universe.

Our anonymous lawn sign activist continues: 

“In that, we can also acknowledge something else; we are winning. They are afraid of us and what we can do. They are embarrassed. They are losing ground.”

This takes us right back to Holy Week — when the authorities start planning Jesus’ arrest in the wake of the non-violent protest march that we remember as Palm Sunday, because they’re afraid he’ll incite the people to rebellion. When we start to successfully seek justice and resist evil, the powers that be, propelled by self-interest and sustained by systems of cruel inequality, are terrified.

She concludes with this wonderful statement of commission — and I’d like to think it can be our commission too:

“So let’s keep this up. Let’s keep getting into ... public spaces. … Challenging the things that harm us — even when they are institutional and systemic. … Let’s build towards the world we want to see – and share and learn those skills together. … Not just every four years — [I would add, not just every Sunday] — but every single day”.

Amen. 

July 7, 2019 (Confirmation Sunday) — St. Andrew’s United Church, Halifax

Selected further reading:

Center for Action and Contemplation, “Consumed with Love”

Queer Theology podcast, “A Community of Care”

Rethinking Religion, “Buddhists Don’t Have to Be Nice: Avoiding Idiot Compassion”

[lovemesomesurveys]

S/O to @iaintgotcontrol for finding a new survey! lol.

Looks and Personality

What do you look like? I have a face with freckles, brown eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I wear black rimmed glasses. I have long hair that goes past my butt. I naturally have dark brown hair, but I dye it red. I’m thin. Gangly.  How often do you bathe? I don’t take baths, but I shower every 1-2 days. How do you wear your hair? In a pony tail.

What colours do you tend to wear? I have a lot of black and gray with pops of other colors. Do you have any tattoos? What, where and why? No.

What kind of clothes do you wear? Comfy, casual clothes. I’m always in leggings and a comfy shirt. I own a LOT of leggings and graphic T’s.  What kind of jewellery do you wear? I haven’t worn any in years. I used to wear these 3 rings I have 24/7 until one day I took them off for some reason and just never put them back on since. That was probably like 5 years ago. I went through a phase where I was all about accessorizing and wore a ton of bracelets. I wore necklaces and earrings, too. Is there anything else you often wear? I’m always wearing socks. Would you say you had a “look”? I’ve gone through different phases like the preppy/girly and emo phase, but now I’m just very casual and comfy. When going out, do you dress up or down? My going out consists of going to the doctor, the movies, or Walmart. I don’t dress up for any of those things.  What do you wear to bed at home? Those comfy, causal clothes I’ve been talking about. What do you wear to bed when your somewhere else? Same thing. Is there a place you keep any prized/secret things whilst you’re away? No.  What’s your favourite food? Chicken tenders, boneless chicken wings (garlic parm), burritos, potatoes in various forms, eggs, spaghetti, meatballs, and pesto pasta. What’s your favourite drink? Coffee. What’s your favourite desert? Donuts, cupcakes, muffins. What’s your favourite type of food (e.g Mexican)? American, Italian, and Mexican. Do you have any mental problems? Yes. Do you have any phobias? What? Why do you think you have this/them? Yes. Why might somebody dislike you? Because I keep to myself these days and have been very distant and withdrawn from everyone outside of my immediate family. I’m very moody. I don’t put any effort into maintaining friendships anymore. Or any effort into much of anything. I haven’t been a good friend at all to the friends I used to have.  What skill do you possess that you are most proud of? I don’t feel like I have any.  What is your greatest strength (e.g. honest, loyal, brave)? I... don’t know. What’s your greatest shortcoming or flaw (e.g. cowardly, alcoholic)? I have a lot of those. Who do you most admire? My mom and younger brother. Who do you most love? My family. What three things do you look for most in a partner? Good sense of humor, understanding, patient.  Do you like crowds? Nooo. I don’t well with crowds. What are your hobbies? Tumblr/surveys, watching YouTube, coloring, reading, watching TV. If you can’t get to sleep in the middle of the night, what do you do? So every night? At night I do my Bible study, watch YouTube, watch TV, and read. What is your favourite animal? Dogs and giraffes. What is your favourite colour? Pastels. If you could ask God (to athiests - IF there was one) one question, what? I mean, there’s a lot I’d like to know but some things we aren’t meant to know or are beyond our comprehension. Things will be revealed when they’re meant to, if they’re meant to be. Rate yourself on these traits from 0 to 10. 0 - do not possess this trait. 10 - you have great amounts of this trait. Calm temper Charm Cheerfulness Confidence Courtesy Curiousity Forgiveness Generosity Greed Helpfulness Honesty Loyalty Optimism Patience Self-sacrafice Wit Background Where were you born and raised? California. Briefly describe your family. Loving, supportive, encouraging, funny.  You must choose one - your childhood was calm/peaceful or tragic/turbulent? Calm and peaceful out of these choices. I had obstacles and struggles with health related things, but honestly those aren’t what stick out the most to me. I was a very resilient, strong kid. I’m a very weak, scared adult.  Did you have any rolemodels? My mom and grandma. What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you? I’d say the incident that made me a paraplegic at 7 months old takes home the trophy for that category.  How did it affect you? In every single way from that day forward. Have you ever had any recurring nightmares or themes in nightmares? Yes. As a kid I remember one of the reoccurring nightmares I had was Ghostface chasing me with a knife. I was so scared of Scream for the longest, but I love the movies now. ha. What were they? Death and being chased. Do you currently have a boyfriend/girlfriend? No. Do you have any close friends? I have my family. Briefly describe your best friend: My mom is so strong-willed and hardworking. Very giving. Very outgoing and social. She’s also very funny and sarcastic. She loves her some ID (Investigative Discovery) and Game of Thrones. Any enemies? No. Who? What are they like? Would you risk your life for your best friend?(not lover or family member!) My best friend is a family member, though. And yes. With who was your most important romantic relationship? I haven’t had a serious relationship. Of what are you most proud? :/ Of what are you most ashamed? The person I’ve become over the last 4 years. I really hate this person I’ve become.  Alignment, Ethics and Religion What is your religion? Christian. Where do you stand on abortion? Where do you stand on the death penalty? I’m on the fence. Where do you stand on wearing fur? I don’t wear fur or use real leather. Do you have a moral code that you follow? What? I mean, yes? Could you kill somebody? I can’t ever imagine myself being able to do that, but it’s something you don’t really know unless you find yourself in a situation that could lead to that. For what reason would you kill somebody? The only reason I could think of is self-defense, but even then I still can’t imagine killing someone.  Would you SERIOUSLY CONSIDER killing anybody right now? No, sheesh. Do you trust easily, or not? Trust isn’t a big issue with me, I just have a hard time opening up and expressing myself to people and sharing my feelings. What are your political beliefs (anarchy, communism, democracy etc.)? What, if anything, WOULD you sacrifice your life for? If it meant saving a loved one. Would you ever, for any reason, abandon your friends in an hour of need? That’s what I’ve done over these last few years. :( Motivation

What are your dreams/ambitions/goals? That’s the problem... I don’t have any. How do you plan to reach them? How would your ideal partner look? Not say looks don’t matter at all, but I’m more concerned with personality.

Do you ever want to have a family someday? With children? I can’t see that happening. Who would you want to start this family with, or do you not yet know? What would stop you from reaching your goals (e.g. death, retirement fund)? My health. What do you see yourself doing next year? I have to take it day by day, hour by hour, man. What do you see yourself doing in twenty years? Yikes. Would you ever have an affair? No, I truly don’t think so. Would you ever have a one night stand? No. What are your greatest fears? Losing my loved ones. More information If you had a month of nothing (no work, no obligations) what would you do? That’s been my life for the past few years and it hasn’t been a good thing. It dug me in a deep hole for depression. How do you relax? Listen to ASMR. What one thing would you change in this world (free Tibet, abolish Sweden)? No more violence.  Would you ever choose a career or job where your life was at risk? No. Why? How would you like to be remembered after your death? “When my time comes, forget the wrong that I’ve done, help me leave behind some reasons to be missed.” Random questions Where you present at any major historical events (e.g. 9/11)? No. How did they affect you? Do you have any famous relatives? No. Do you have to try and live up to your family’s expectations? My family doesn’t put any ridiculous or impossible expectations on me. All they want is for me to be healthy and happy, but for some reason I can’t seem to get my shit together and take care of myself like I should. Are you a loyal member of any organizations? No. General Information Name: Stephanie. Age: 29. Date Of Birth: July 28th. Race: Caucasian, Mexican, and some Filipino that I know of. I really want to do one of those DNA tests to see exactly what I am. Height: I’d be about 5′4. Weight: Mid 70s (lbs). Are you happy with this? No. I need to put on some weight. Desired weight: I used to be mid 80s-low 90s. Sexual orientation: Straight. First language: English. Second/Third/Fourth etc. languages (if any): I’m only fluent in English. Why did you take this survey? I hadn’t taken it before and I wanted to do a survey.

[strawberry-milktea]

As a gay, trans Christian, I believe you need to reconsider the way you speak to gay and trans Christians. If you reread the Bible, you'll realise that there's no trace of the biological essentialism you've quoted, and if you look at the Hebrew behind the classic clobber verses, you'll discover that most of them are about either underage sex, prostitution, or relationships after a spouse's death. I really hope you'll change the way in which you follow our welcoming, open, and affirming Christ!

Hello,

I actually have looked at the original language regarding verses about homosexuality to see how they align with the English translations. Your message is not the first time this argument has been brought up, please consider taking a look at this previously answered ask where I went into more detail about this. This ask discussed New Testament verses that address the topic of homosexuality:

http://strawberry-milktea.tumblr.com/post/158614773563/there-are-plenty-of-gay-people-who-dont-get

Since you specifically mention “Hebrew” I’m assuming you are referring to the two Leviticus verses mentioned in the Old Testament:

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” - Leviticus 18:22

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” - Leviticus 20:13

(And as a side note, before anyone comes on anon accusing me of supporting violence against gay people because of what Leviticus 20:13 says, I do not. Under Mosaic Law, the death penalty was assigned to a variety of sins such as engaging in homosexuality, adultery, bestiality, making sacrifices to other gods, and committing murder, to give some examples. Christ’s coming as Savior in which He died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice and resurrected makes it possible for us to be set free from the death penalty that sin brings. An example of an account where we see this illustrated is in the case of the woman caught in adultery who was about to be stoned. Under Mosaic law, she deserved that punishment, but Christ stood between her and her accusers. He protected her from death and told her to go and sin no more, painting the picture of Him standing in our place, saving us from our rightful punishment, and His expectation that we will not return to and embrace the sins He died for)

Moving back to the original discussion, what is being said in these verses is very concise and direct.. there is no mention or hint whatsoever at underage sex, prostitution, getting remarried after one’s spouse died, etc. in either of these verses. You’re basically saying something is there that isn’t, my guess because you read an article or discussion from someone who wants to justify homosexuality and claim it’s not a sin, so they’ve contorted scripture and tried to add context that isn’t there. And because you are gay and trans, you want to believe this to be true.

If you want to use the “mistranslation” claim, even taking a look at a Hebrew text analysis of the verses in question shows consistency with the English translations.

For Leviticus 18:22 -https://biblehub.com/text/leviticus/18-22.htm

For Leviticus 20:13 -https://biblehub.com/text/leviticus/20-13.htm

The order of the phrases is a little odd because it’s going between Hebrew and English, but the meaning is still clear. I am by no means someone who is a scholar in the Hebrew language, but you don’t have to be one to see that the meaning of each word and the meaning conveyed by stringing these words together is directly referring to engaging in same sex relations. Click on each word in the verses in the links above and see the meaning/analysis if you don’t believe me.. in fact, I urge you to do so. Don’t just take my word for it.

I understand how hard it can be to overcome sin. Homosexuality or transgenderism aren’t my struggles, so I can’t personally understand exactly how you’re feeling and how painful the idea of giving those things up must feel to you. But I struggle with other types of sins, so I know how your flesh tries to convince you that sin will fulfill you and the enemy will do all he can to make you believe that something isn’t a sin, when in reality it is. One of the ways he commonly does this is by leading people to jump through hoops to find “alternate” meanings in verses that describe what God defined as sin in an attempt to convince themselves that they can be Christian and continue embracing a particular sin. I’ve seen the same pattern done with the sin of witchcraft from people who claim to be “Christian witches”. And whenever I see this, there is so much reaching and contortion to claim a verse is saying what it isn’t when it makes far more sense to accept the verses for what they actually say in a direct and simple way. But people reject this and come up with involved contexts that don’t exist and claim “it’s a mistranslation” because it’s easier to convince themselves that these spiritually dangerous lies are true than it is to accept difficult truths that require sacrificing sin.

I really hope that you understand that I say all of this out of care for you. I’m genuinely worried for you because you’re accepting deception for the sake of holding onto sin. Engaging in homosexuality is mentioned as a sin in multiple places, throughout both the Old and New Testaments. It would be both false and unrealistic (as well as reaching extremely far) to claim every verse about homosexuality conveniently has a hidden context and that the verse isn’t actually saying what it’s directly saying. We can’t contort what His Word says and how He defined sin to suit ourselves. What you’re doing is the same as if I were to claim verses talking about anger being a sin aren’t really saying it’s a sin because I struggle with anger and I want to continue being angry without feeling there’s anything wrong about it. Or like me trying to claim that as an unmarried heterosexual person, I can have premarital sex and that God was really referring to “something else” when confronted with verses making it clear that sex outside of marriage is a sin, simply because I experience desire for sexual intimacy at times and I want to feel okay about acting on it. It’s a wrong and dangerous approach no matter what sin is in question.. We can’t pick and choose what is and isn’t a sin based on what we think is “acceptable” according to our standards. When you decide to follow Christ, it just doesn’t work that way because His standards become yours - including what constitutes sin.

We can’t control what sins we are weak to, but we can control whether or not we act on them. In your case, you most likely didn’t choose to experience same sex attraction or the desire to be the opposite sex, but you can choose whether or not to act on these desires. And I hope you can come to realize that no sin will ever fulfill, but only serves to spiritually destroy and separate us from Him. A relationship with Christ and eternal life is worth the temporary sacrifice of leaving behind any type of sin.

I appreciate the respectful way you approached me with this message and I hope my words were conveyed to you in the same way. Feel free to message me again if you have any questions or wish to talk about about anything.