#I came up with a whole theology

[burningchapel]

HELLO you reblogged my art (thank you) and your username intrigued me. I read "fuck me father for i have sinned" we are the same. Agnostic ex christian with religious trauma 🤝 practicer of transgressive atheistic catholicism. You understand me. Just wanted to say that have a wonderful day brother

HEY thanks, your art is sick, love anything religious-alternative/interrogative. It's all about deconstruction and reconstruction of the prescribed faith and cultural religious narratives that dictated the development of the self concept and worldview at the end of the day amiright

Thanks for stopping by, and if you ever wanna chat religious imagery, personal or cultural theology, catholic art history and how it's been reappropriated etc I'm here with my head buried in books and pdfs

[ohnoitstbskyen]

What’s the difference between Ascended, Aspects, Freljordian demigods, Aurelian Sol, and whatever Soraka’s got going on? Are they all just different varieties of League gods?

Hoo boy, okay, so. First of all, Riot have been pretty adamant that there are no gods in Runeterra, every god-like being that exists in that universe is actually a spirit or just a very powerful being of some kind, but definitely no real gods, no matter how much it seems like they are definitely writing these characters to be actual literal gods.

I don't 100% know why they are so insistent on this, but I imagine it has something to do with censorship and ratings agencies, or maybe they just don't want to have to establish any actual theology on Runeterra. Volibear isn't the god of storms for real, he's just a super powerful spirit that can create storms in the Freljord, but not all of them, so please don't ask us whether every single thunderstorm in the Freljord was something he did deliberately. That sort of vibe.

To go through them point by point:

Celestials & Aspects

The Celestials are beings like Aurelion Sol and Bard, which exist as cosmic entities operating on levels of power and motivation beyond human understanding. They came into existence with the universe itself, and tend to busy themselves governing various parts of its operation. They are, again not gods (Riot is very insistent on this), but Aurelion Sol literally made every star in the galaxy, he's functionally the progenitor god of Creation.

Some of them, though, like to interfere in the mortal world of Runetera in various ways, and they tend to use mortal vessels to do it. That's where we get Aspects: Aspects are mortals who are chosen by the Celestials that live on Mount Targon to contain their power and be their avatars in the mortal world.

Leona is the Aspect of a Sun celestial, Diana of the Moon celestial, Pantheon is the Aspect of War (or he was, until Aatrox killed it, but he retains access to many of its powers), and Zoe is the Aspect of Twilight, and so on.

Soraka is another Celestial in mortal form, but she is NOT an Ascended. Rather than possess a mortal, she created a mortal body for herself and poured the whole of her being into it, which is causing her body to permanently burn up from the inside while she regenerates it with her magic. She lives on Runeterra and acts as a mysterious mystical wise guide and mentor to mortals who need it.

Ascended & Darkin

Ascended are somewhat similar in kind to the Aspects, but usually lesser in power. The Ascended are also human beings infused with Celestial magic and power, specifically with the power of the Sun, although as far as I know, that power is drawn not from the Celestial of the Sun who empowers Leona, but directly from the physical Sun itself. This means the Ascended aren't possessed by Celestials and retain full free will, at the cost (or let's be real: benefit) of being transformed into furries, which extremely coincidentally just so happen to closely resemble the gods of the Egyptian pantheon. but again, they are definitely not gods, please don't put it in the newspaper that they are gods.

I don't know exactly how canon Riot considers this anymore, but the lore was that the Aspects of Mount Targon gifted the power of Ascension to Shurima in order to produce Ascended that could serve as shock-troops in the war against the Void, which is a swarm of extradimensional horrors that are constantly trying to eat the world. Whatever the case, the Ascended DID fight the Void, and it traumatized and corrupted them so badly that they degenerated into body-horror blood monsters called the Darkin.

The Darkin fell into civil war and it got so bad that The Aspect of Twilight (not Zoe but her predecessor in the role) decided to use some magical trickery to imprison them all in their weapons, which is where they've stayed for a few thousand years, getting even more traumatized and mentally destabilized by the total sensory deprivation and solitary confinement. If any mortal touches a Darkin weapon, it immediately assimilates them and uses their flesh as a new host, and then goes on a killing rampage about it. That's where you get your Aatrox, your Varus and (eventually, once he devours Kayn) your Rhaast.

Gods, Spirits & Demons

This is the category for Ornn, Anivia, Volibear, The Seal Sister and so on. The Freljordian people worship them as gods, but they are, technically, only extremely powerful nature spirits, manifestations of the nature of the Freljord itself, which draw power from the land and to a lesser extent from their worshipers. There are many, many lesser nature spirits, which might be worshiped as gods by particular tribes or hold power over particular areas, but Ornn, Anivia, Volibear, The Seal Sister and the Iron Boar are the most powerful and most widely revered.

On a similar note, Ionia is absolutely choked to the gills with spirits, because those lands are soaked in magic. They are usually not worshiped as gods specifically, but take the shape of everything from dragons to living trees to sprites and will-o-wisps and which roam fairly freely in Ionia. This includes characters like Lillia, who is the daughter of a magical tree of dreams on whose branches the dreams of mortals grow and mature, and it includes Ivern, who is an extremely powerful and ancient nature spirit formed from the soul of a magical tree.

Demons are distinct from spirits, in that rather than drawing on the power of the land or fountains of magic, they draw on the emotions of living things for their powers. The most powerful demons are known as The Ten, who get their power from the most primal emotions that living things feel. Fiddlesticks is the demon of Fear, and Nilah somehow draws her strength from Ashlesh, the Demon of Joy, whom her order has imprisoned. We don't know who the rest of the Ten are yet, but Riot seems to have that worked out somewhere in their internal deep lore.

Swain has a lesser (but still powerful) demon of secrets called Raum bound in his arm through some sort of deal, Evelynn is a demon of anguish and pain, Tahm Kench is a demon of addiction, and Nocturne is a demon of nightmares.

Besides those, there are an untold number of lesser demons, who feed on more and more specific feelings, and thus are less and less powerful because there's simply less of that stuff around to feed on. They are often called Azakana, and may be demons that feed on feelings as niche as, like, noblemen's fear of their extramarital affairs with handsome commoners being discovered. Yone hunts the Azakana and collects their mask, although even he doesn't know quite what for.

Death

This is where we place the Kindred. Technically they are merely Spirits of Death, but more than perhaps any other category of creature, Riot keeps writing them as Literal Gods of death and I don't think it makes sense to think of them any other way.

The Kindred take on many different shapes all across Runeterra, seemingly influenced in large part by the expectations of the people or creatures who are dying, but their most popular visage is that of a Lamb and a Wolf, hunting together. Lamb's merciful arrow ends your life if you accept that your time is up and go gently into that good night, but Wolf hunts you down and rips you to shreds if you resist and fight to your last breath, destiny be damned.

The Kindred are there for every death on Runeterra, they are the mediators (as far as we know) of all forms of death everywhere, and by far the most classically "anthropomorphic embodiment of universal existence" style god in the lore that we know of. Where a god like Anivia only really has power in the Freljord, the Kindred have power everywhere there is life. Only the undead escape them, and even then, only temporarily.

In Conclusion

YES Runeterra has tons of gods, it obviously has gods, you can't walk five feet in that universe without tripping on a god, but they tend to be gods with hard limitations on their power and influence, and rarely have powers on the level of bending reality itself.

Even Aurelion Sol, who literally makes stars, can't snap his fingers and undo causality, for example, or suspend the laws of physics wholesale.

Riot's weird insistence on "no gods in Runeterra" is more of an affectation, a bit of a put-on, than an actual narrative principle, and most of the gods of Runeterra can be understood very comfortably through the lens of various non-Christian religions like Norse or Greek mythology, or the hero/god characters of something like Polynesian myth.

[leeknow-thoughts]

୨୧ GLIMPSES OF THE LUSTFUL

𝝑𝝔 cw : blasphemy kink???, churchboy!Jeongin, toys, smut

𝝑𝝔 a/n : the years of my life spent in the Catholic church came in clutch with this fic

Growing up Catholic had its perks, but its drawbacks as well. The tradwife stereotypes for women along with the general theme of sexual repression.

You had grown up with Jeongin, going to church together and going to the same Catholic school with the boy. Over the years, you had lost your faith, Jeongin however only grew in his faith, it never bothered you, and your lack of faith never bothered him.

Eventually, you both went off to the same college, a few states away, and figured it would be easier to live together. It was easier then having to make new friends and less risky than having complete strangers be your roommates.

"My theology professor is trying to kill me, I think," you joke to Jeongin over dinner.

"How so?"

"Because I'm not religious, and I told him that, and he started like interrogating me, it was weird," you confess, taking a bite of cereal.

"Is he religious?"

"I suppose so, I mean I told him that I was raised Catholic, so he started assuming the worst," you explain.

"Isn't that religious discrimination?"

"I don't know what to call it, but it was weird," you shrug it off.

"Sounds weird, but any whom," Jeongin changes the subject, "tomorrow I'm leaving early to help with this fundraiser at church, so don't be surprised if I'm not here when you wake up tomorrow."

Jeongin's whole weekends revolved around church, whether it was because he was helping plan a youth trip or assisting the nuns or even helping run a fundraiser, he kept busy with the volunteer work. And of course he was also an avid participant in Sunday Mass, communion, and other traditions.

"m'kay," you figure, rubbing your tired eyes, "my mom and dad are coming over tomorrow," you inform him.

"Oh, fun," he retorts sarcastically.

"Yeah, fun," you say in that same sarcastic tone as him.

"D'you need help like hiding anything?" Jeongin asks timidly.

"Hiding anything?" you ask.

"Like," Jeongin blushes, hiding his face in his hands before he speaks, "s-sex stuff."

"Oh, I mean if you wouldn't mind?"

"I just don't want your parents to freak out on you, remember last time?"

How could you forget the last time your parents came over and they accidentally found a condom in your bathroom, immediately going into a five hour long lecture about how they expected better from you and that you needed to go to a confessional to be forgiven for your sins of sexual impurity.

"Yeah, trust me I remember," you chuckle, "that would be nice, I have all that shit in a box, so I'll just give you the box."

You rise up from your seat at the dining table and walk into your room, grabbing the medium sized box from the closet and walking into the living room with it when suddenly, you trip, and the contents of the box spill everywhere.

"Ow, fuck," you groan, clenching your knee, which you hit on the ground.

Jeongin is quick to stand up and rush to your side, helping you up. You watch as his face eventually turns to the spilled contents of the box. "What in the fuck is that?" he questions.

Jeongin never swore. He thought swearing was pointless and made someone sound trashy, but here he was, swearing.

"It's a dildo," you whisper an explaination.

"B-but wh-why does it l-look like that?"

"It's supposed to look like a dragon, like, uhm, dick," you explain with an embarrassed tone.

"That's really weird, I hope you know, also that thing is so like big how does it- how do y- how can it- how-"

"A lot of lube, and a lot more patience," you half-joke.

"And what is this?" Jeongin exclaims as he picks up the rose shaped toy.

"I-it's a clit sucker," you explain as you grab it from him and put the toy back in the box.

"And what are these?" he holds up a pair of nipple clamps.

"Nipple clamps," you inform him.

"Why in the hell would anyone ever use something like that," Jeongin speaks to himself.

"Don't knock em till you try em," you insist.

You take the nipple clamps from his grasp and put them back in the box before Jeongin is picking something else up, "and what is this?"

"It's a butt plug."

"But why does it have a tail? Ew wait this thing has been in your butt!?"

"It's clean!" you exclaim, "it has a tail because- well-well because I just like it I d'know?"

"Weird," Jeongin mumbles as he puts the toy in the box.

"And what is this?" he holds up a flogger.

"A flogger, you hit people with it," you explain as you take it from the boy.

"But wouldn't that hurt?"

"That's kind of the point, Jeongin," you hum, "hold out your arm, it's not as bad as you think it is, I promise."

After a moment of thinking it through, Jeongin holds out his arm, you lightly hit him with the flogger, "oh that isn't bad at all," Jeongin hums.

"Mhm," you nod, placing the flogger back in the box.

"Oh, what's this?" Jeongin holds up a tentacle grinder.

"It's a grinder," you tell him.

"What does it do?" he asks sheepishly.

"Well," you pause, embarrassment creeping onto your face, "you like grind on it, like you grind your clit on it."

"Oh," Jeongin's face falls before putting the grinder back in the box.

"I hope you don't think I'm weird or gross or anything now," you confess to him.

"I-I d'think y-your weird," he promises, "I promise, y-you're not weird for having s-sex. It's n-natural."

"But you don't have sex, so I j-"

"Who said I've never had sex?"

You stare at him blankly, "you-you've..."

"Well like it's not sex but like I've masturbated before," he confesses.

Your lips make an o shape as you nod your head, "oh, th-that's good?"

"That's good!?"

"I d'know what to say! I was just surprised!"

"Well I mean I'm human y-you don't think I'm weird do you?"

"No! Of course not!" you insist.

The silence that passes between the two of you is almost deafening. You glance down and that's when you notice it, the bulge in Jeongin's pants. "Je-Jeongin," you mumble.

"I-I-I should go to my room!"

Just as he's about to get up you grab his wrist, the way he looks at you tells you a thousand words. "Stay," you practically plead with him.

"I-I haven't, I don't know how-" he whimpers under your intense gaze.

"I'll teach you," you reassure him, "anything you want, I'll teach you."

No words are exchanged between the two of you as he leans forward and slams your lips onto his own. He's messy and sloppy and inexperienced. "Calm down," you muse to him, "enjoy this, we have all the time in the world," you reassure him.

You gently cup his jaw with your left hand, your right hand running through his hair, "darling, calm down," you mumble against his eager lips.

"Can't get enough of you, d'you know how many nights I've had to listen to you whining and whimpering and falling apart on these things? Hm?" he groans into a kiss, "how I've beat my cock to the thought of you? D'you know about that?"

"Jeongin," you murmur, melting further and further into the kiss, "thought of you too," you confess.

"Want to watch you," he states, breaking apart from the kiss, "I want to watch you fuck yourself, the way you do at night."

That is how you find yourself naked on your couch, Jeongin watching you intently as you ride one of your dildos. "Hmm, so all you do is ride that toy and think of me? That's pathetic," he scoffs, watching you like he's disinterested, but you can tell from the tent in his pants that he is anything but disinterested.

"And all you do is what? Hm? Stroke your cock?" you remark.

"You know, filthy whores like yourself shouldn't fucking talk," Jeongin stands up and kneels next to you, taking your nipple in his mouth, making you gush around the toy, "recite first Corithians 6:18," he demands.

"J-Jeongin," you whine, eyes rolling to the back of your head.

Jeongin is pulling you by your hair, making you look at him, "recite it."

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body," you quote.

"That's it honey, yet here you are, riding this fucking toy every night, thinking of me," Jeongin's words are venom, "don't worry though, I'll make a good girl out of you."

You can only whimper at his filthy words.

And that is what started your little taboo tradition, every Sunday night you'd be face down ass up on Jeongin's bed, getting pounded from behind, and you'd only get to cum if you could recite five Bible verses for him.

Jeongin was definitely no priest but he brought you closer to the pearly gates than any real priest ever could.

[worfsbarmitzvah]

I've thought about how gentile Abrahamic religions are antisemitic religious colonialism before and it pisses me off a ton and I'm thankful you said it, but now that it's someone besides me saying it, I'm gonna give some criticism (please don't take this personally)

Everything up to Abraham (particularly Adam and Noah) have G-d creating and tending to the entirety of humanity, right?

During Abraham's time, it should stand for something that G-d tends to Hagar and Ishmael, right? Especially since Hagar gives her own name for G-d and He makes a promise to Ishmael that he'll be the father of nations (or something like that). And I think the Prophet Muhammad is supposed to be descended from Ishmael.

And Noahides are a whole Thing in all this too ofc.

But the bigger thing is there are definitely texts and interpretations that take G-d being the G-d of the Hebrews and extend it to Henotheism, but for the Jews who are purely monotheists and say there is truly only one G-d in existence and He belongs only to us, isn't it cruel to totally deny the vast majority of humanity the Divine, especially if He is still their Creator and controls the world(s) they live in?

this whole thing is coming from the assumption that judaism was always monotheistic. it wasn’t. at one point in time we were monolatrous, meaning we only worshipped one g-d but didn’t deny the existence of others. hell, the language used in the torah supports this (the way the text treats egypt’s g-ds being perhaps the most prominent example). hashem has always been our specific g-d, since before the idea emerged that he is the only g-d. our/the world’s perception of him may have since evolved into this idea of one singular deity, but it has not always been that way.

hagar and ishmael still come from our mythology surrounding our particular g-d. the idea then emerged in islam, which was born with the same jewish roots that christianity was, that muslims were descended from ishmael. and, like, i don’t really mind or care about that either way. ishmael’s not a super major figure in our folklore. the story, along others in breishit, genuinely does lend itself to the idea that hashem can be the guardian of many different peoples, families, and nations. and to tell the truth i don’t genuinely have much of a problem with sharing some folklore and roots.

but it NEEDS to be acknowledged where those roots come from. for so much of history, right up until today, christians and muslims have pretended they know our g-d and our folklore and our history better than we do. they have MURDERED us for worshipping our g-d and practicing our customs in OUR way, the way we have been since before their religions and cultures emerged. if the religions that find their roots in our culture were more willing to listen to us, respect us, and learn from us, maybe i’d be less angry. but they’re not. they’ve tried and tried and tried to eradicate us and erase where they came from and make our stuff theirs. i don’t think it has to be like that forever but i don’t think we’re very close to it not being like that as of now.

also, i can’t think of a single cultural mythology that doesn’t have a creation story of some kind. it’s just the kind of thing that societies do when they try to make sense of their place in the grand scheme. the fact that we believe our g-d created the entire world does not actually mean that that story or that g-d belongs to the entire world. the fact that everybody thinks our creation myth applies to and belongs to them is just more evidence of how widely our culture has been co-opted.

there’s nothing we can do to change the fact that our g-d has been made universal (either through the natural evolution of our theology or from colonialism and cultural theft, more likely a combination of both) and i have to be fine with that. sure, fine, the people who have adopted our g-d as their own without actually bothering to understand us at all can outnumber us by orders of magnitude.

but why does our holy city have to also be their holy city? the christians have the vatican and rome and islam has mecca and medina. why do they need jerusalem? why can’t even that just be ours?

again, i have to push this aside and be okay with sharing if i truly want to have peace in our land. and i do, because i love eretz yisrael and yerushalayim more than i hate what has been done to her. the situation has grown so far beyond the injustices i am angry about that it is impossible to right those injustices without creating brand new ones. so i will be okay with sharing our g-d, our texts, and our land. but that doesn’t mean the injustice of it won’t burn like a fire in my heart.

[inbabylontheywept]

The Mormon Heretic Casts a Curse

So, this is a sequel piece to The Mormon Heretic and the Leviathan. @apolloendymion requested that I write some more of the stories, and this is another one. I'm going to put a trigger warning here that the story does involve partner abuse. Not from the heretic, but just... as a detail. Also, I guess, some medical stuff that involves death. It's Old Testament shit. Take it as you will.

Mormon seminary has four separate courses about the four separate parts of their canon. It’s on a constant rotation, and my particular ordering was Old Testament, then New Testament, then Book of Mormon, then Doctrine and Covenants. 

I got the Mormon Heretic for my OT year, which is 100% the best year I could have possibly got him for. And, also, absolutely the worst, because at that time I was a very orthodox Mormon, and this guy couldn’t have fucked with my brain worse if JFK’s dad gave him an icepick and a waiver. 

At that time I had an abysmal understanding of the OT, and to call my experience with it jarring would be an understatement. I learned that Elohim is a plural word. I learned that OT God itself doesn’t deny the existence of other Gods, and in fact relished challenging them to contests. The whole experience was so insane to me that I stayed after class one day to ask the teacher how he managed to bridge the divide between the OT and the NT. They're insanely different theologies, and he really refused to mince words about it.

He listened to my concerns, and I cried a little because I was fourteen and beginning to realize that there was something fundamentally wrong with the religion I was born into, and when it was all said and done he said that tomorrow he would teach the story of how he squared away the differences between OT God and NT God. 

And he did. 

I can remember having a sense that something was strange when we arrived at the building. There was a crosswalk where the exiting teenagers would pass the entering teenagers, and normally people would discuss the lesson as they passed. The group we passed just looked shell shocked. 

I sat down. The class arrived. Heretic stood up, and went to the front of the class, and he began his tale: 

He had a little sister that got married at nineteen. She then started making visits to the hospital. 

He, like his family, assumed that she was just clumsy. He was clumsy. He’d had multiple surgeries on his shoulders and his elbows and his knees because he kept doing dumb things to himself.

She was not clumsy. Her husband was beating her. 

She got a divorce. Heretic was old when the story was being told - I think in his early sixties? - and the divorce went shockingly well for the time. Sister was not blamed, husband was ostracized from both families, and life found a way to continue in its slow way. 

Heretic was, at that point, a new teacher in the Church Education System (CES). He was trying to be a spiritual guy, and teach spiritual lessons, but he just wasn’t doing a very good job because he was really, really, murderously angry with the guy that had hurt his sister. 

Sister had moved on. Or, he thought she had, he was hardly telepathic, but he felt like she’d let go and started her life anew, and her parents had supported her, and even her in laws had supported her, and things should have been easy to let go of, but they weren’t. And every day that he tried to let go, he got more and more angry, and every day he tried to pretend he was fine he ripped the wound wider, and one day he taught a spectacularly bad lesson and came home and wanted nothing more than to kill the man that had beat his sister. He instead said a prayer. I cannot quote it verbatim, but this is very, very close to what was said. “God, I know that I must forgive to be forgiven, but I want nothing more than to see that animal choke to death on his own shit.”(I know for a fact that the choke on shit part was in it. It is not a common thing to hear a seminary teacher say “shit” in the middle of class. It is also integral to the rest of the story) If this was a book, there would’ve been an immediate result, but instead Heretic felt a strange peace, grabbed ahold of it like a lifeline, and resolved to go to therapy. Which is how he got into Jungian analysis. Finding therapy in the deep South in 1980 was pretty wild. Jump cut forward to the early 2000s. Heretic has moved on. Sister is remarried. He is at peace with the world, but he gets a call from his sisters old in-laws. 

And the in-laws say that yes, they have ostracized the abuser for the last twenty years, but they got a call from him a few hours ago to please, meet him at the hospital, because he was sick. 

And the abuser was, in fact, very sick. He’d been vomiting for days. The doctors couldn’t figure out why, but they knew that at the present rate, they were running out of time. He was going to have some kind of exploratory surgery as a hail Mary, and the guy wanted a blessing first. 

And so the family had gone to Heretic, to ask him if he would be willing to bless the man that had beat his sister. It is one thing, to feel like you have forgiven someone enough to move on, and another to wish good things upon them. But Heretic had spent years and years in therapy, and he developed on an incredibly spiritual path, and he said that yes, he would bless the man before the surgery. 

And he did. 

The surgery found that the man had a benign mass in his colon. It wasn’t spreading, but it had grown large enough to prevent food from going around it. Without an exit, things had built up back to the entrance. The man was throwing up because there was nowhere else for the shit to go. Worse, during the surgery he thrown up and some of the mix had managed to drain back into the man’s lungs. He survived the knife, but the combination of fecal matter and acid inside his lungs had created an infection that he failed to survive. He drowned in his own fluids. 

He drowned in his own shit. 

Now, at that point, the class had no idea where this was going. We were a bunch of children, hearing a story about this insane divine retribution, but the Heretic continued. 

And with tears in his eyes, he told us that God had answered his original prayer only after he had fully and truly forgiven that man. That if he’d wished death on another human being in anger, in rage, and then received it, it would have damned his soul, but that as soon as he was at peace, as soon as he could wish life and love upon the man that had wronged his kin, justice could be brought down. And be believed it, with his entire heart. He spoke about how God wants to give us what we want, but that he loves us so much that we will not give it to us until we have reached the point where it is not poison to us. We will have our revenge, but only when it is meaningless to us. When the only lesson that could be grabbed from it is that God heard us the first time, and held back out of love. Then, we will see those who had wronged us choke on their shit.  

The bell rang after that, and we left the class in a daze. When we went across the crosswalk, no one spoke a word to the students crossing the opposite way. We were all too busy thinking. 

[blue-little-angel]

Your Chuuya x reader made me MELT! Ur writing is so soooft! Can I please request a Fyodor x male! reader with a teleporting ability? (before established relationship). You know how Fyodor's really big on God? Pfft, imagine he suddenly has a crush on this reader who is a man, so he tries to hide it because he thinks its sinful.

Buuuuut! Reader's a tease who fears nothing and nobody and knows FULL WELL that this bitch has a massive crush on him, so just to catch him off guard/make him show emotion other than '_', the reader randomly tickle-attacks Fyodor using his teleporting ability so that Fyodor can't ever get him back. This becomes more and more frequent...

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AND THEN THEY KISS-

I didn't really feel confident writing about god and all but here's what I could come up with, sorry if it sucks:'(

Anyway...

°•|Hope your day is as great as you are|•°

Fandom: Boungo stray dogs

Lee: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ler: male! reader

I tried to focus more on self-acceptance sorry-

Fyodor was lost in prayer as usual, meditating on God's divine word. His emotions were always so subdued, focused inward on his spirituality. Nothing seemed capable of disturbing his inner peace.

Or so he thought.

With a sudden pop, a certain psychic appeared directly behind Fyodor, arms extended in a sneak attack. "Gotcha!" You yelled mischievously as fingers descended upon Fyodor's waist. To his shock, Fyodor let out an uncharacteristic yelp and convulsed from the ticklish sensation.

As quickly as he'd appeared, the troublemaker vanished again in a flash of blue light. Fyodor was left gasping for air, cheeks noticeably flushed. What was this peculiar reaction? Never before had anyone been able to catch him so off guard.

Over the following days, Fyodor found himself continually harassed by surprise tickle attacks from your elusive self. No matter how alert Fyodor tried to be, the psychic was always one step ahead thanks to his teleportation. Each encounter left Fyodor more confused and rattled than the last.

Was this strange tightness in his chest coming from irritation...or something more profound? Fyodor tried to deny the latter, telling himself such feelings for a man went against God's teachings. But being around you made Fyodor experience emotion in a vibrant, stimulating way unlike anything before.

Finally, one fateful encounter went differently. As the machievous one materialized with waggling fingers, Fyodor steeled his nerves and grabbed both the psychic's wrists before he could strike. They stood frozen, heartbeat against heartbeat, gazes locked. Something shifted in that electrified moment.

Slowly, hesitantly, Fyodor leaned forward until his dry lips pressed against soft lips. To his amazement, you kissed back with fervor. The Russian's lips were dry but they teased like blood..but also had a floral sent, tasting more like sour fruits.

All of Fyodor's doubts melted away in the sheer joy and completeness of that moment. Perhaps God's love was more nuanced than he knew...

Fyodor was left reeling after that intimate exchange with you. As he retreated to his quarters, he sunk to his knees in prayer - but found no answers, only more questions swirling in his mind.

His whole life, Fyodor had defined love and righteousness through a very narrow lens, as prescribed by the theology of his childhood. But being with the cocky psychic had stirred emotions that defied all he once knew. There was an innate purity and rightness to the feelings, unlike anything sinful or forbidden.

Over several nights of introspection, Yokohama's rat slowly came to understand love in a new, expanded way. God's domain encompassed far more nuance and complexity than any church or doctrine. Divine love embraced all people equally, without distinction of gender, orientation or identity. Who was Fyodor to decide whom God could or could not love?

Perhaps what really mattered most was the dignity, compassion and devotion present between two souls. Fyodor saw all those virtues in his bond with the reader. Their connection felt divinely ordained, a blessing rather than transgression.

From that epiphany, Dostoevsky emerged with a profound sense of clarity and peace. His faith had evolved to embrace life's rich ambiguities, not shrink from them. And he was ready to offer his heart fully to the one who helped open his eyes - if they would accept him in return. A loving God smiled upon such unions, Fyodor felt certain now deep in his soul.

[mask131]

I already made a post about it before, but since a lot of people are coming around for more Greek mythology content, I thought "Why not take off the dust from old talks?", and thus here is my redo-post about the Homeric vs Hesiodic tradition.

I am summarizing here greatly but... We all know that Homer's epics (The Odyssey and the Iliad), and Hesiod's works (The Theogony, Of Works and Days) form the "basis" of Greek mythology as we know it today, as they are the oldest literary records of Greek mythology we have, and the Ancient Greeks themselves shared the same opinion, even going as far as using them and analyzing them to understand their own religion.

And yet, despite this set of works being considered together as a "whole", Hesiod and Homer actually presented two different visions of the Greek mythology and the Greek pantheon, often contradicting - and many of the "There's thousands versions of a same myth" trend about Greek mythology comes from the fact that these two fundamental set of works were already in conflict.

Why? Long story short it is agreed that Homer was the oldest of the two, and that in his works he reflected an older, more primitive state of the Greek religion and Greek gods. Meanwhile Hesiod, the "youngest", collected a more modern and recent set of beliefs that would become the dominant Greek theology of Ancient Greece. There's a lot of interesting debate and scholarly study about this, but in this post I just want to collect and highlight a few key differences between the "Homeric" and "Hesiodic" traditions, to again remind people that you are not always forced to stick to one version, since already at the beginning of all there were TWO recorded versions, from which many many more different spawned afterward...

KEY DIFFERENCE 1: Everybody knows Hesiod's Theogony, and how from Chaos came Gaia and Ouranos, and from them came the Titans, and then the Olympians. One long genealogy dating back from the Earth and the Sky out of the primordial void... And yet Homer hints heavily at another cosmogony, where Oceanus/Okeanos and Tethys are not actually part of the Titan siblings (as Hesiod claims)... But the origin of all things. The parents of all the gods, and the source of all life, as many divine beings (from Hera to Hypnos) explain repeatedly. The clues scattered throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey point out to the fact the "cosmic couple" might have been originally the water deities of the sea and ocean, before being replaced by the sky-and-earth one ; and this puts under a very different light why the two stayed "neutral" during the conflict, and why Oceanos and Tethys would end up sheltering Hera during Zeus' attack against Kronos...

Key difference 2: Everybody knows the story of Aphrodite being born from Ouranos' sexual organs being cut off by Kronos and thrown into the sea... And yet Homer tells a very different story about Aphrodite being actually a daughter of Zeus. Her mother is a mysterious goddess named Dione - I say mysterious because outside of Homer, and a handful of other things, we know barely anything about her. Most of what we know is that she had an actual worship in the old Greek religion (the grove of Dodona was dedicated to her), and that all analysis and studies point out to her being a female version/counterpart of Zeus. If I recall well, from Homer making her a secondary character in his epics (with a famous scene of her comforting her wounded daughter), Hesiod made her a mere name dropped among the Oceanids.

Key difference 3: In a continuation of the previous difference, Eris, the goddess of discord, also has different parentages in both tradition. According to Homer, Eris was Ares' sister (and thus the daughter of Zeus and Hera) ; Hesiod rather described her as one of the many children of Nyx, the primordial goddess of the night. (In fact, in the Hesiodic tradition Eris took example on her mother and gave birth in turn to many malevolent and destruction personifications ; this was not the case in the Homeric works).

Key difference 4: The story of Hephaestus/Hephaistos being born of Zeus and Hera the... let's say "regular" way comes from the Homeric tradition. Hesiod actually depicts a very different birth-story ; and in quite a twist, most people today remember Homer's genealogy than Hesiod's one. For you see, in Hesiod, Hephaistos was actually conceived by Hera alone, without any male intervention. She had grown jealous of Zeus having a daughter of his own (with Athena coming out of his head). She basically interpreted this as her husband "showing off" and somehow trying to prove he did not need women to have children (I am extrapolating here but that's the core idea) ; so in return Hera decided to have a child all on her own too, and she managed to fall pregnant and have a son with her own power, no Zeus or other god involved... But the result was Hephaistos, ugly and lame.

Key difference 5: Homer placed a lot more focus on Helios than Hesiod. In fact, Helios is so present and so involved in the Homeric epics that he is basically the unofficial "thirteenth Olympian". And, while in Hesiod's Theogony the name "Hyperion" designates one of the Titans born of Gaia and Ouranos, and the father of Helios, Selene and Eos ; in the Homeric epics, instead "Hyperion" is a qualificative/synonym/alternate name of Helios himself, and not at all a distinct entity.

Key difference 6: In Hesiod's cosmogony, the Moirai are a trinity of goddesses, each with their specific name and function - the goddesses we know today. Hesiod even gives two CONTRADICTING birth-stories to explain the origin of the Moirai (if having two conflicting "founding fathers" wasn't enough, we now have a guy who contradicts HIMSELF). Hesiod alternatively describes the Moirai as either daughters of Nyx (and so part of these primordial deities of darkness and doom born somewhere in the mysterious beginnings of time) ; either as daughters of Zeus and Themis (and in this version they explicitely received their powers over fate from Zeus himself).

In Homer, the Moirai are much less defined and personified - in fact, many times - almost all the time - he refers to Fate/Destiny as a singular entity. Not only is the fate goddess singular (except for some parts of his epics that evoke a group of "weavers"), but she is as I said not very personified, not given any attribute, genealogy or description, to the point that... it seems that she was just a poetic metaphor, a rhetorical allegory, a personification more than a goddess. Instead, in the Homeric world it is Zeus that fills the role of the god of fate and destiny - changing fates and weighing destinities on his own ; a far cry from the future image of a Zeus that must bow to the laws of fate.

There are many, many more differences to point out between Homer and Hesiod - but I think those selected fews are enough to show that, even in its "foundations", Greek mythology kept offering alternative and variations ; and that by putting the ancient works back in a correct chronology order, we get fascinating evolutions (Oceanos and Tethys replaced by Gaia and Ouranos ; Zeus losing the paternity of many important goddesses ; Zeus losing his place as a god of fate ; Helios losing importance as time went on, entire deities disappearing such as Dione...)

[luckys-last-brain-cell]

I hear a lot of accusations about Jews making up antisemitism. I wanted, perhaps foolishly, to share a story of my own that really stuck with me. This happened when I was 20, an age which I currently am not. So if there are some vague bits just bear with me. It’s been a minute.

Anyway, I was in a medieval history lecture. First day, I met a girl outside and we got to talking. We decided at that point we’d sit together, because at least we had names for each other. We kept this arrangement up for a few months.

One day we started talking about upcoming courses. I said I was eyeing a Christian history course, because I wanted to learn more about it. Specifically, this class was on the church in medieval times. She was excited because she, as a devout Christian, would also be taking the course. She told me she was excited to meet her theology idol in class. I thought it was sweet.

And then she asked if I had any particular Christian tradition I followed. I said, laughing a little, that I was Jewish. Her whole face changed. She got confrontational, asking me why I thought it was appropriate for me, as a Jew, to take that class when a Christian might really want to have that spot. I don’t remember exactly what I said after, but I know I left the conversation smiling and waving goodbye. I thought she did, too. Until the next class came and I stood outside waiting to speak to her as always. She didn’t show. I went in. I sat in the seats we liked. I waited. She came in on the dot and chose her seat as far away from mine as possible. We never spoke again. Someone I had been friends with, who had seen pictures of my dog and chatted regularly with me, no longer wanted to speak to me once she knew I was this Other Thing and not Christian. Once she knew I was Jewish.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

I’m trying to come back to Christianity after deconstructing and your blog has been a great help to me, but I still struggle with the phrase “Jesus died for our sins.” I feel like it places undue responsibility on people who had nothing to do with his death. How is it possible that he died for my sins when I didn’t even exist 2,000 years ago?? Or am I taking the phrase too literally?

Hey there, I feel you! I know of so many people who, especially as young children, were made to feel a lot of guilt over the idea that "Jesus died for your sins." And that's a problem, especially seeing as Jesus came to liberate us from our guilt, and to invite us into full and mutual relationship with him.

While the dominant Christianities that exist in our culture/s right now don't like to acknowledge it, there have always been many different ways of understanding what happened on the cross and how salvation "works." So if this phrasing does harm rather than good for you, there are many other ways to understand salvation!

One that resonates most with me is a view of salvation that doesn't focus solely upon what happened on the cross, but instead takes the entire Incarnation into account. In her book Inspired (which is such a fabulous read, especially for folks working to reconnect with Christianity & scripture), Rachel Held Evans sums this idea up well:

Jesus didn’t just “come to die.” Jesus came to live—to teach, to heal, to tell stories, to protest, to turn over tables, to touch people who weren’t supposed to be touched and eat with people who weren’t supposed to be eaten with, to break bread, to pour wine, to wash feet, to face temptation, to tick off the authorities, to fulfill Scripture, to forgive, to announce the start of a brand-new kingdom, to show us what that kingdom is like, to show us what God is like, to love his enemies to the point of death at their hands, and to beat death by rising from the grave. Jesus did not simply die to save us from our sins; Jesus lived to save us from our sins. His life and teachings show us the way to liberation. But you can’t fit all that on a bumper sticker.

For God so loved the world, They took on human flesh. Jesus's whole life was lived in love for us, for you — all the joys and connections that contained, not just the pain and death.

___

Another thing that I always stress, and that you point out in your ask, is that we have to be careful when we discuss who's responsible for Jesus's death. Otherwise we end up with people blaming Jewish people, or scared little kids, or even God for his death.

Ultimately, it was human beings in a very specific context, and imbued with systemic power, who enabled and carried out his execution: Roman soldiers acting on behalf of the Roman Empire. Jesus died because corrupt human powers cannot stand for the Good News of liberation and abundant life for all peoples. He died in ultimate solidarity with all who are similarly oppressed or executed across history.

___

It's reeeally long so sorry in advance, but if you're interested in an exploration of theologies of the cross, I've got a YouTube video on the topic! If you don't have the time or inclination to watch it all, the parts I most recommend for you are:

(13:01 - 21:54) Delores Williams & Historical Consequence — paying attention to real-world impact; don't use cross to justify suffering

(1:21:41 - 1:27:00) Theologies that look at Jesus' whole life, not just death, starting with Jesus as Moral Influence/Exemplar

1:42:54 - 2:00:00) The Cross as Solidarity — Christ becomes one with all who suffer unjust / systemic violence — on the cross, God knows godforsakeness — good news for oppressors as well as oppressed

If you check out the PowerPoint linked in the video notes, you'll also find links and resources in that :)

Finally, you might want to wander through my #crucifixion tag or #sin tag for more related to your question.

Wishing you well on your journey, anon! May the Spirit of Love guide you into healing and wholeness <3

[silviakundera]

Love for Love's Sake (2024)

Extremely Spoilery Meta about the Finale

A drama that really REALLY worked for me. Just like "A Journey to Love" is my exception to a hate for tragic ending romances, "Love for Love's Sake" is an exception to my burning hatred to unclear endings.

In this case, I think the ambiguity is fine for me because it's not "open" and unsettled. The ending is definite. It's how the viewer personally interprets the ending that is open. And the director/screenwriter earned the multiple interpretations every step of the way. I felt satisfied with my own answer (and the protagonist's peace at demanding no answers), which is all that matters for my enjoyment.

The whole drama is set up to reward a rewatch and it's intended to be enjoyed more the 2nd time around. There are subtle clues from the start that the protagonist has died & it's an AU "adaption" of his own backstory that he's been dropped into. (for example, not just the mirrored history he has with Cha Yeowoon, but also multiple settings we see from the flashes of his Real Life show up in the Game World. The world is being populated with places from his repressed memory. omggggg guys when the game is 'glitching' and he appears damp [SCREAMS] )

"He suffers so much from beginning to end. ..The perfect happy ending you're talking about might just be an inescapable tragedy for others."

"It can't be helped that some people's lives are like that."

This could be referring to Cha Yeowoon, from the storyline The Senior has introduced. But more I think it's directly referencing Tae Myungha and the tragedy of his short life. Even with altered memories of a truth he isn't ready to face, he feels an injustice. In the liminal space between life and death, with a blurred recollection of what came to pass, he faces the author.

The whole opening has an unreality feel as they discuss death and how some people get left behind from others' happy endings. How dark and unfocused the background is just emphasizes that this conversation is occurring in no place & time.

Then he drops into The Game, unsettled and unmoored.

The sense of urgency they give the character is interesting. It plays 2 ways. The drive to save your favorite character from his doomed narrative. And the secret, hidden drive behind the wall holding back his memories. That last second desire not to be extinguished.

So what do I ultimately think is the meaning of what Tae Myungha experienced and of the ending? 🤔 I think there's no 1 truth. The drama's narrative is intentionally ambiguous. And so I don't want to tell anyone what their interpretation should be.

But what I ended up believing is that this is Tae Myungha's journey to make peace with his regrets, forgive himself, and find love & happiness like he failed to do in his life. He is given an opportunity to seize these things (by death, by buddha, by some god-like author idk) but he has to go through a journey to solidify his place in this next life. An afterlife of sorts - call it The Good Place. ;) Many different theologies have the concept of a mid-place waiting area and it's not guaranteed that you will cross over to what comes next.

"Please carry out the missions and build the world."

Cha Yeowoon starts out as his mirror but Cha Yeowoon isn't a version of Tae Myungha. I might say he's the RPF AU version of Tae Myungha lmao. [my meta on this topic here] Once the world begins to take shape, the core people our protagonist interacts with become real and gain autonomy. Tae Myungha's actions could stabilize & help build out this new world he's entered. But he couldn't make Cha Yeowoon act as he wished or be happy exactly when & how Tae Myungha wanted & expected it. Myungha can't predict him.

What does it mean to be 'real'? If the core people who are built out in this world develop their own feelings and thoughts, can hurt & care, then they're real enough to love and be loved back. Cha Yeowoon picked up the pen himself at the end and decided not to accept Tae Myungha's erasure. Ultimately, they were both able to wield the pen. It was by both of them joining hands that Tae Myungha got to stay.

In the end he is in a warm & bright room, almost hazy with light. His grandmother is there with him, looking healthy & happy. His friends and the boy he loves are waiting for him. They're going to the beach, young and careless. It looks like an endless summer day. The game is over, a reward offered: the happy ending.

Episode 1: "So is this reality or not?"

"This place is better than the real world. Should I just stay here?"

Finale: "In the daily life that is too ordinary to be called destiny but too beautiful to be called a coincidence, I finally realized I have all the answers I want. Our days are filled with unquestionable happiness."

[tanadrin]

went back and listened to the episodes on david bokovoy's personal experience with religion, and man, it's funny just how different the stuff that people twig on in their experience of faith is--for bokovoy, even as a scholar of biblical criticism, it really isn't the truth claims of the LDS church that were ever a problem for him. like his academic career definitely primed him to move from a more orthodox, small-c conservative theology to a more expansive one (and he remains a pretty spiritual guy in general from the sound of it), but the thing that really started to fuck him up was the church's insistence on beating the anti-gay-marriage drum, starting with proposition 8, and culminating in the 2015 declaration about the children of gay parents not being welcome in the church unless they denounced them.

and it's a little infuriating to listen to him talk about how he feels about the LDS church after all of that--this whole "the leadership are good people deep down, i just disagree with them on this." like, come on, dude. i get that you're a straight guy whose experiences with mormonism have been generally very positive, but you are also self-aware enough to talk with compassion about LGBT people, about the experience of having a gay daughter, about the way in which people raised in Mormonism who are gay or even just a little bit nonconformist in some aspect of their life can have a really brutal time of it, and yet you cling to this idea of the organization as having some noble core, some inherently good quality that is only failing in its ultimate expression. he even talks about the experience of watching a movie that dramatizes the way different faith leaders came together during the civil rights movement, and having a moment of acute discomfort remembering that at the same time the leadership of the LDS church was still racist as hell in its teachings and policy

like, you should not be afraid to admit that the LDS church fucking sucks! it's always fucking sucked! most organized religion fucking sucks, and the organized religion that doesn't fucking suck has mostly gotten there by virtue of progressives splintering off and forming organizations that retain only a general flavor of the awful bullshit they grew up with and none of the core dogmas. i don't know of a human organization from the beginning of time that rigidly patrols boundaries of identity politics and creates structures of authority based on spirituality that didn't rapidly collapse into tyranny, a grift, or both, except the ones that were already that from the beginning.

and this, i suppose, is my disappointment with even the very open-minded progressives that John Dehlin interviews, which is that they want to redeem an organization that i think is fundamentally unredeemable. no particular shade to mormonism here--I think the Catholic church is also fundamentally unredeemable. hell, if i knew more about tibetan buddhism, i'd probably think that whole hierarchy was fundamentally unredeemable as well. the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints cannot become progressive on LGBT issues and honestly pursue truth and cease to misrepresent its history and spend its money on helping the poor and needy instead of conservative political campaigns and exploiting eighteen year olds to do morally questionable missionary work in third world countries without ceasing to be the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and its leadership knows this. for the exact same reason the Roman Catholic church can't go "lol you know what, our bad, this Pope guy isn't all that he's cracked up to be" and remain the Roman Catholic church.

i mean ultimately bokovoy doesn't go to church anymore; he says that the 2015 declaration was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, and even if it was revoked tomorrow, it's not like he'd start going back. i assume he's not tithing anymore either. and he seems like a generally very gentle soul who wants to see the best in people, and i don't want to get on his case too much about that, because i admire that. but man, i think it's kind of disappointing to watch someone as apparently smart and compassionate as he is work himself into knots to excuse the behavior of the leadership of an organization like that when the simplest explanation is just that these people are assholes on a fundamental level and always have been.

[unclefathersantateddy]

What's your all-time favorite Bob's Burgers episode? Like this is YOUR episode? (You can list multiple if you want!)

I had to get up a masterlist of the episodes to properly answer this as nothing immediately jumps to mind [bashful emoji]

Firstly I feel obligated to give honourary mentions to S1E1 Human Flesh and S13E15 The Show (and Tell) Must Go On, as they got me back into drawing regularly (which I hadn't done since my teens) and if it weren't for them the Fresh Meat au wouldn't be as fleshed out as what it is!

But in terms of favouritism and/or what episode(s) feel very me;

S8E21 Something Old, Something New, Something Bob Caters For You - I absolutely adore the subversion Bob and Linda go through in this episode. Linda normally being the hopeless/hopeful romantic, adoring anything and everything lovey-dovey, now being pessimistic or skeptical of a fast-paced couple getting married merely a couple months into dating. Then Bob, our usual skeptic/ambilvalent character being the one that's nips deep into this young couple's love and believing in them whole-heartedly. Plus "I Do" is a BANGER, the harmonies? Forget about it. 12/10.

S13E4 Comet-y of Errors - This episode is the one that feels very "me", it's MY episode lol. IRL I have quite a big fascination/interest in theology and anthropology, specifically regarding 'rivalling' belief systems. Given that the Big Three Abraham religions have historically been vessels for colonialism and oppression, I really appreciate the show NOT normalising things like Christian Puritanism (which, gestures broadly at the US lmao, is rare). Instead opting to present a more loose 'spiritual' lens on morality, and the Grand Scale/ Big Picture tm. Both Bob and Teddy's arc in this episode I find is Chef's Kiss. Bob's skepticism the entire episode, then having the "eye-opening" realisation that it is okay to have unique beliefs that don't follow the Big Books, to "believe in" the universe itself, as opposed to a Creator. CHEF'S KISS. And then Teddy, being so entrenched in his belief that he's rigidly following irrational patterns (COUGH COUGH, USAmericans [side eye emoji]), realising that it's your practical Real Life choices and behaviours that affect/change your Real Life circumstances, not the Mystical Realm. CHEF'S SMOOCH!!! It is a beautiful message on belief systems and how they intersect with Real Life. I adore it SO MUCH!!!!!! Also Tina's/Tammy's B-Plot of trying to understand how to be a Good Person is, I feel, essentially-universally relatable. It is all just remarkably well done, especially given how divisive Belief Systems are, have been, likely will always be. It's just handled with incredible poise and decorum.

I really enjoyed answering this thank you so much!!! I didn't think I'd have much of an answer for you but once I got going all these feelings, thoughts, ideas, and opinions came flooding back! Thank you for THAT too!!!! Big love <3

[emperorverse]

The Emperor-Verse: RWBY: Saints of Remnant, a reimagined AU(More details in Keep Reading!)

Once there was a world by the name of Omnibus. Created by the supreme deity The Author Allfather through the mysterious entity The Storyteller, this world was composed of four holy and mighty kingdoms, ruled by The Author’s Patron Saints whose reign protected the people, human and faunus alike, with their mighty armies, hunters, and their own holy powers from barbarian hordes, and the hordes of The Grimm who were the incarnations of hatred of the fallen seraph Grimmel The Black and his fellow fallen angels

In the dreadful world-shattering war of Ragnarök, the glorious age of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, and the days of Romance, Heroism Adventure, and Eucatastrophe came to a tragic end.

Now all that remains is the world that is Remnant

But there is a prophecy made by Ozma The First Time Wizard before his death at the hands of The Witch-Emperor, that one day the bloodlines of the original Patron Saints and the families betrothed to them will return to take up these powers, rally armies of the righteous, vanquish the darkness and restore the holy kingdoms and Omnibus and reign over them once more.

Sinners will become Saints

Legends shall be restored and new Legends will be born

And what was a Remnant, Shall Be Whole Again.

But until then, the Hunters lead a struggling battle against the Grimm while the modern kingdoms suffer under corruption of all kinds, both to the benefit of darker forces who have horrifying intentions for the world.

Cue Ruby Rose and her older half-sister Yang Xiao Long, they are about to enter Beacon Academy after being approved by the eccentric Professor Ozpin Pine along with the heiress Weiss Schnee and the introverted faunus Blake Belladonna forming team RWBY

Ozpin has also enrolled a few other students and transferred others.

The former forming team JNPR, and the latter being Team SSSN of Haven Academy

Ozpin seems to have his eye on all of them, but what for?

Heavily inspired by CS Lewis's series The Chronicles of Narnia

Main Ships Contained:

RoseGarden

BlackSun

Iceberg/Arctic Water

Arkos

Renora

and some other ships

Also will contain unorthodox reimagining such as Adam Taurus(He's an initial antagonist turned good) and the White Fang and Jacques Schnee and the SDC with their Canon!Counterparts replaced with substitutes among other things

Currently the concept is in the works in a series of notes.

Details of the Emperor-Verse

Now I'm sure there's some questions you probably are all asking which I assume are the same questions as my blog

“Why are you using your Religion?”

Mostly due to it being a strong foundation, notably theology, for most of my stories, there are many strong foundations of storytelling, religion, history, you can even fantasize science if you put the imagination, time, and effort into it.

After doing some soul searching and listening to the Narnia books on Audible, it became another important element in making this au and I might include elements of CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy

This AU is set in my fictional Multiverse The Emperor-Verse which Narnia is implied to exist in, or I should say had existed in(its set after The Last Battle)

“Isn’t this kind of entitled and disrespectful?”

Disagreement isn’t necessarily malicious, and entitlement is not inherently bad if its your opinions and subjective feelings which people are entitled to.

Tolkien was heavily inspired by his distaste for how Shakespeare handled certain concepts, such as the Ents when he was upset and dissatisfied that there were no walking talking trees in the Enchanted Fortest of Macbeth, and the Valar Aule the Smith and the origin of the Dwarves make him something of an Anti-Prometheus

Not to mention Philip Pullman, the author of His Dark Materials Trilogy, made it out his distaste how CS Lewis made the Chronicles of Narnia and his overall beef with Christianity, and nobody seems to take issue with that.

I’m not saying the direction RWBY went with V3 or Pyrrha and the rest of the cast potentially ending tragically in some way or another is objectively bad, it was just not my taste

And I am not saying every normal RWBY fan/RWDE person who liked it is an elitist about it nor are all of them trying to insult me and attack me personally or say my ideas are bad

Nor I’m not trying to change canon or its “trajectory” , nor am I doing this to spite Monty, especially when I never knew the guy. This is a difference in handling ideas and concepts.

I’m doing my RWBY AU, which will most likely be revamped into an original story since it takes a whole different directions with the characters and world, but it's mostly because with post V3 and now in retrospect I saw what this world, characters, ships and other ideas could have been all in a story I believe is worth telling. And I was disappointed that it wasn’t.

I mean yeah it's also due to personal tastes and preferences and subjective feelings, at least I’ve been told, but I also try to integrate that in a meaningful way.

So I hope you all enjoy what I have to offer, which will most likely be put on AO3 and FanFiction.Net, and who knows, I might get a few artists to commission to redesign some characters or illustrate some scenes if anyone is up for it.

[dorsey-divine]

(This is an artistic exercise, corrections on precise theology or correct theological interpretation- re: the bible is not always literal- are not welcome or needed, but your own theological fascinations/brain worms are most certainly wanted and welcome.)

I was raised catholic, and that deeply affects my art and the way I perceive other's art. Because of this I think about divinity, its nature, its place in the world, angels, and the nature of free will in the Bible quite often. Specifically how for several major characters (yes, characters, the bible is a book that at best is a heavy fictionalized version of certain real events and people) free will doesn't truly exist.

Did Lucifer really have a choice? Was his rebellion from God his own will or was it part of God's plan for the world? The structure of Christianity (and most Abrahamic faiths) requires God to have an enemy, a corrupter of His perfect design, so that the terrible actions of others can be justified under the worldview of the faith. God is omniscient, He knew that Lucifer would rebel and be cast down, and He needed that to happen so there would be an enemy deity, someone to blame. Was Lucifer meant to rebel? And God is all-powerful, he could destroy Lucifer, but he doesn't. So that he can continue to be the enemy and corrupt humanity? So God is never to blame?

Did Eve disobey God when she ate the fruit of knowledge, or was that still God's own plan? Why was the tree even in the garden in the first place? There's a whole world outside Eden. How did the snake enter the garden at all, if its purpose was to tempt? Surely a loving god would protect their creations from something that could harm them. Did God allow the snake in to test Eve, did He put it in the garden on purpose? Did He set humanity up to fail so that we would worship His greatness forever, always beneath Him? Groveling for his forgiveness and light from our first breath? For Christian doctrine to work humanity needs to be unclean, and for us to be unclean there must be an impetus. Did Eve truly disobey, or was the command not to eat the fruit a façade to cover up God's true intention? If He created everything, then He created sin. And why does Eve's sin taint us all? Why must we be at fault for sins not our own? Were they sins at all?

Mary was born without original sin in her soul because she was always meant to be the mother of God. Always. Gabriel came down from Heaven to ask her if it was what she wanted, but she was already chosen, her 'yes' meant nothing more than her 'no' would've. Could she have said no at all? The narrative is controlled by men, how can we know if her words are her own? What chance does the will of a teenage girl have against the Almighty God? The author of reality. And God could remove Eve's actions from all of us, but He doesn't, why? How can a loving God make that decree? How can a loving God give a mother her child and plan to take them away? How can he kill a child before their parents?

Judas is like Lucifer. Jesus Christ must be crucified in order for Him to take on and cleanse the sins of humanity, and to be crucified He must be betrayed. Jesus knows Judas will betray Him, he knew all along, for the Father and the Son are one in the same. Did Judas ever truly have a choice to follow Christ's teachings, or was his path already chosen for him, and was he forced along the road by fate's invisible hand? Did Jesus ever try to stray his friend from that path? Did Christ's infinite love fall short for Judas? In the face of the 'grand plan'? Did God lead him into sin and eternal damnation for the 'greater good' of humanity? Was he always meant to be the sacrificial lamb? Who truly died for humanity then? Jesus rose after three days and resides in paradise, but Judas remains in Hell forever because of the God he was meant to put faith in.

Did any of them have free will, or were they just playing their assigned parts? Like marionettes on strings, dancing and singing to a tune that is meant to look like one of their own creations. Were their lives forfeit for God to place himself on a cosmic throne? Are ours?

[artist-issues]

hello *wave* I came to ask you some things because you asked!!

what got you so passionate about theology and apologetics specifically?

are you a Percy Jackson fan? if so, what did you think of the tv show?

have you seen Rings of Power? what do you think of it?

also what is your favorite color? :)

also, I've been doing an ask game with 20ish people, right here, and i was wondering if you might be interested!! if you'd like I can send you the questions we've done so far <3 I started it as a way to fill up people's ask boxes more! if you're all set, that's cool too :)

I don't think I ever consciously got passionate about theology and apologetics. I'd like to say it's just because seeing Christ misrepresented or misunderstood is like seeing someone you actually know misunderstood and misrepresented—how can you not say something? But I think that's not the whole reason. The whole reason is, apologetics and theology are just words we use to generally describe "seeing the world and God the way they are, and communicating that to people." And God, in His kindness and grace, lets a rambling arrogant snot like me do that, because I belong to Him.

I do like Percy Jackson! Not a big fan of the new show. But in high school I was very into the books. I'm a big fan of Rick Riordan's characterizations! And I think it's no small feat to make a main character as likable and long-lasting as he has with Percy.

[cashandprizes]

tell me about the soft blasphemy WIP you know I’m always ready for some delicious delicious sacrilege 💌

-Lexi Sun ☀️

lexi. my sunshine. you have ACCESS TO THE GOOGLE DOCUMENT 🤣🤣🤣🤣

but ok

um. as with many of my works. must be below a cut. definitely check your tags here even though this is just a little bit of it

unempowered/normal life au, when I say blasphemy I MEAN IT, mostly feelings and plot (fuck i can't believe i've done this) but there's some smut in this bitch for sure, theology student! repressed gay Lasko x gender and sexuality studies! genderfluid! (gender as in fuck you, but sexual) Gavin, internalized homophobia,

Okay. Picture this: Lexi and I get on a fucking wild hare tangent about Lasko's flavor of repression being the ultimate combo of Catholic Guilt x Southern Bible Belt. I was like ooh what if we got a little fucky with it and came up with Gavin/Lasko. I blinked and suddenly there was a whole plot. How does this happen?

The highlights:

Gavin and Lasko are at the same school, paired on a group project for a general education credit - it starts rocky but they end up as friends and Gavin stops pushing Lasko's boundaries as they get closer and tries to respect that Lasko is so deep in the closet he's never seen sunlight

Direct quote from wip notes: "Despite all of these theology classes he [Lasko] has nothing but respect and care for Gavin and his lifestyle (read: being a genderqueer bisexual whore)"

Lasko's gay awakening is when Gavin tells Lasko that Jesus is trans (this is a whole other can of worms), and Lasko realizes he's not straight

After time he realizes he's not just sexually attracted to Gavin, but romantically as well. They start dating. it's wholesome - but Lasko is realizing that he's dedicated his college years to theology so he wouldn't have to go on arranged dates his mom kept trying to set him up with to get married (to a woman) and he's not sure what to do with his life now. But it's fine (it's not but he's in therapy and weighing his options) they're cute and adorable and have wholesome little dates.

UNTIL IT ISN'T. there's a planned scene for some real blasphemous stuff that would make some people lose their lunch. It's hot >:3

Um that's the gist thanks for coming to the ted talk you helped me write lexi