#essentially she's culturally christian so this like

[our-blood-is-our-ink]

Headcanoning Eve as Jewish I am not sorry

[writingwithcolor]

Sri Lankan Fairies and Senegalese Goddesses: Mixing Mythology as a Mixed Creator

[Note: this archive ask was submitted before the Masterpost rules took effect in 2023. The ask has been abridged for clarity.]

@reydjarinkenobi asked:

Hi, I’m half Sri Lankan/half white Australian, second gen immigrant though my mum moved when she was a kid. My main character for my story is a mixed demigod/fae. [...] Her bio mum is essentially a Scottish/Sri Lankan fairy and her other bio mum (goddess) is a goddess of my own creation, Nettamaar, who’s name is derived from [...] Wolof words [...]. The community of mages that she presided over is from the South Eastern region of Senegal [...] In the beginning years of European imperialism, the goddess basically protected them through magic and by blessing a set of triplets effectively cutting them off from the outside world for a few centuries [...] I was unable to find a goddess that fit the story I wanted to tell [...] and also couldn’t find much information on the internet for local gods, which is why I have created my own. I know that the gods in Hinduism do sort of fit into [the story] but my Sri Lankan side is Christian and I don’t feel comfortable representing the Hindu gods in the way that I will be this goddess [...]. I wanted to know if any aspect of the community’s history is problematic as well as if I should continue looking further to try and find an African deity that matched my narrative needs? I was also worried that having a mixed main character who’s specifically half black would present problems as I can’t truly understand the black experience. I plan on getting mixed and black sensitivity readers once I finish my drafts [...] I do take jabs at white supremacy and imperialism and I I am planning to reflect my feelings of growing up not immersed in your own culture and feeling overwhelmed with what you don’t know when you get older [...]. I’m sorry for the long ask but I don’t really have anyone to talk to about writing and I’m quite worried about my story coming across as insensitive or problematic because of cultural history that I am not educated enough in.

Reconciliation Requires Research

First off: how close is this world’s history to our own, omitting the magic? If you’re aiming for it to be essentially parallel, I would keep in mind that Senegal was affected by the spread of Islam before the Europeans arrived, and most people there are Muslim, albeit with Wolof and other influences. 

About your Scottish/Sri Lankan fairy character: I’ll point you to this previous post on Magical humanoid worldbuilding, Desi fairies as well as this previous post on Characterization for South Asian-coded characters for some of our commentary on South Asian ‘fae’. Since she is also Scottish, the concept can tie back to the Celtic ideas of the fae.

However, reconciliation of both sides of her background can be tricky. Do you plan on including specific Sri Lankan mythos into her heritage? I would tread carefully with it, if you plan to do so. Not every polytheistic culture will have similar analogues that you can pull from.

To put it plainly, if you’re worried about not knowing enough of the cultural histories, seek out people who have those backgrounds and talk to them about it. Do your research thoroughly: find resources that come from those cultures and read carefully about the mythos that you plan to incorporate. Look for specificity when you reach out to sensitivity readers and try to find sources that go beyond a surface-level analysis of the cultures you’re looking to portray. 

~ Abhaya

I see you are drawing on Gaelic lore for your storytelling. Abhaya has given you good links to discussions we’ve had at WWC and the potential blindspots in assuming, relative to monotheistic religions like Christianity, that all polytheistic and pluralistic lore is similar to Gaelic folklore. Fae are one kind of folklore. There are many others. Consider:

Is it compatible? Are Fae compatible with the Senegalese folklore you are utilizing? 

Is it specific? What ethnic/religious groups in Senegal are you drawing from? 

Is it suitable? Are there more appropriate cultures for the type of lore you wish to create?

Remember, Senegalese is a national designation, not an ethnic one, and certainly not a designation that will inform you with respect to religious traditions. But more importantly:

...Research Requires Reconciliation

My question is why choose Senegal when your own heritage offers so much room for exploration? This isn’t to say I believe a half Sri-Lankan person shouldn’t utilize Senegalese folklore in their coding or vice-versa, but, to put it bluntly, you don’t seem very comfortable with your heritage. Religions can change, but not everything cultural changes when this happens. I think your relationship with your mother’s side’s culture offers valuable insight to how to tackle the above, and I’ll explain why.  

I myself am biracial and bicultural, and I had to know a lot about my own background before I was confident using other cultures in my writing. I had to understand my own identity—what elements from my background I wished to prioritize and what I wished to jettison. Only then was I able to think about how my work would resonate with a person from the relevant background, what to be mindful of, and where my blindspots would interfere. 

I echo Abhaya’s recommendation for much, much more research, but also include my own personal recommendation for greater self-exploration. I strongly believe the better one knows oneself, the better they can create. It is presumptuous for me to assume, but your ask’s phrasing, the outlined plot and its themes all convey a lack of confidence in your mixed identity that may interfere with confidence when researching and world-building. I’m not saying give up on this story, but if anxiety on respectful representation is a large barrier for you at the moment, this story may be a good candidate for a personal project to keep to yourself until you feel more ready.

(See similar asker concerns here: Running Commentary: What is “ok to do” in Mixed-Culture Supernatural Fiction, here: Representing Biracial Black South American Experiences and here: Am I fetishizing my Japanese character?)

- Marika.

Start More Freely with Easy Mode

Question: Why not make a complete high-fantasy universe, with no need of establishing clear real-world parallels in the text? It gives you plenty of leg room to incorporate pluralistic, multicultural mythos + folklore into the same story without excessive sweating about historically accurate worldbuilding.

It's not a *foolproof* method; even subtly coded multicultural fantasy societies like Avatar or the Grishaverse exhibit certain harmful tropes. I also don't know if you are aiming for low vs high fantasy, or the degree of your reliance on real world culture / religion / identity cues.

But don't you think it's far easier for this fantasy project to not have the additional burden of historical accuracy in the worldbuilding? Not only because I agree with Mod Marika that perhaps you seem hesitant about the identity aspect, but because your WIP idea can include themes of othering and cultural belonging (and yes, even jabs at supremacist institutions) in an original fantasy universe too. I don't think I would mind if I saw a couple of cultural markers of a Mughal Era India-inspired society without getting a full rundown of their agricultural practices, social conventions and tax systems, lol.

Mod Abhaya has provided a few good resources about what *not* to do when drawing heavily from cultural coding. With that at hand, I don't think your project should be a problem if you simply make it an alternate universe like Etheria (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), Inys (The Priory of the Orange Tree) or Earthsea (the Earthsea series, Ursula K. Le Guin). Mind you, we can trace the analogues to each universe, but there is a lot of freedom to maneuver as you wish when incorporating identities in original fantasy. And of course, multiple sensitivity readers are a must! Wishing you the best for the project.

- Mod Mimi

[genderkoolaid]

hey i wanted to get this off my chest and i feel like u r someone who will get it! im an out trans guy and i work with mostly cis queer women, and the other day a trans man (wearing a trans shirt- we chatted :3) shopped in the store and afterwards one of my coworkers (who is my close friend and dating a transmasc person and i trusted her) LITERALLY said she could tell he was a trans guy “because he was too nice and trans guys who are nice are so obviously not actually men” and went on and on. she tried to walk it back a few minutes later with “i mean they’re the real men and cis guys aren’t” i didn’t say anything (i’m a coward) but like fuck. cis women are so comfortable calling us fake men and acting like that’s not a horrific thing to say. like it’s a compliment even. sorry for the rant i just feel so gross and stupid and evil for being a trans guy around women !!!!

need people to understand that "i can clock trans men because they're so nice and docile and polite" is one of those complementary-stereotypes-are-still-harmful things.

for one its kinda giving "women are kinder because they are biologically predisposed to caretaking and motherhood, so they are naturally kind and generous because thats how their brains work :)" misogyny. Obviously a lot of trans men do act differently than cis men because we had to personally confront toxic masculinity and what it means to be a man & likely personally experience (or have in the past) things like misogyny and menstruation. Similarly, a lot of women historically have been motivated to help others because they wanted justice and cared about others lives. But there are also trans men who are huge assholes and women who are deeply selfish and cruel, and a lot of how people are is based on their choices in reaction to the situation they find themselves in by birth, not the situation itself.

Its like. saying "Ashkenazi Jews are biologically smarter than others" sounds like a compliment, and someone might even say it trying to be genuinely nice. But its rooted deeply in antisemitism & notions that Jews are supervillains who could overpower White Christians. There's a difference between "Jewish culture values education and study" and "Jews have higher IQs, because they are essentially a different species, and I totally don't mean this in a Nazi way and if you think that, maybe you're the real antisemite!" Same thing here. If your "compliment" is othering to the people you are complimenting, then you should rethink it.

[sepublic]

Again, with Luz's arc, she has her 'Sheeple' moment at the beginning of Hollow Mind where she essentially assumes that she is more progressive than the average person and incapable of having a bad belief; Only for that to be disproven heavily when she realizes she too can fall for the propaganda and manipulation of a dictator, and helped him in a pivotal way that nobody else has. It's a "You are not immune to propaganda (but neither am I)" moment. This really caps off of Luz's culminating storyline of resenting herself for whatever mistakes and bad consequences she 'caused', which leads to her, in a vulnerable state of mind, thinking she's basically pure evil and just as bad as Belos.

But then S3 has Luz's loved ones, such as Camila, reiterating to her that it's okay to make mistakes, that's just part of living. Luz meets the Titan and he confesses to also making mistakes; He's responsible for the Collector being imprisoned and thus vulnerable to Belos' manipulation. The Titan can personally relate to a very specific form of guilt that Luz has been fixating on in particular, which echoes the previous episode's climax when Luz realizes she just wanted to be understood, after seeing her mother is able to empathize with her. And the Titan is also a parental figure to Luz.

With the Titan basically saying that Luz made mistakes, but she means well and intends to improve and that's what matters -and thus differentiates her from a bad actor like Belos- I think it all ties back to the idea of guilt and repentance. The show is saying that it's okay that Luz messed up, but she needn't self-flagellate eternally for this, she doesn't need to focus on redeeming herself. Not only does this feel like a response to the Evangelical brand of Christianity, but also?

It reminds me of how in progressive spaces, there's often this mistake people make where they expect themselves to be morally pure and perfect; They need to have all of the right beliefs and progressive politics. And if they didn't, if they messed up, then it's basically the end of the world. It's led to criticisms of this type of culture being more concerned about the idea of being morally perfect, rather than actually growing and improving.

So the revelation that a self-proclaimed progressive could be 'guilty' of a bad belief can make someone collapse, which leads to things like white fragility where white people make it all about themselves as they wallow in self-pity and shame over some mistake like a racially-insensitive remark, and that in turn makes it impossible to have a meaningful conversation and critique because of how much they overreact. It makes the discussion about themselves and how bad they feel, and not about the people they’re supposed to be an ally towards.

Now, Luz is obviously not white. But the latent fear of not being a perfect progressive thinker isn't exclusive to white people. And people more informed than me have linked this anxiety of needing to be morally perfect to certain brands of Christianity; There's a link between this and the fact that fallen angels exist, but risen demons don't. You can fuck up once and still be condemned eternally; That's the anxiety at the source of such a trope, and the absence of its inverse.

So given creator Dana Terrace's own past with Catholicism, plus the rise of social justice movements, including amongst youth. And in a way Luz's arc could be seen as a critique for this type of moral-purist approach to social justice that doesn't allow people to make mistakes and grow, and how that is linked to some racist phenomena that makes it difficult to inform white people of what they've done wrong. It is, again, a response to certain denominations of Christian belief (especially the Evangelical kind that informs a lot of the U.S.'s lack of prison reform) and the obsession with this Holier Than Thou status.

And in the end, it's a relieving reassurance; Luz is told that it's okay to mess up. It's okay she had the wrong ideas, but what matters is that she wants and intends to keep growing, and is engaging with this in good faith; She cares more about doing right than being right. Luz isn't doing this to be perceived as morally superior or self-righteous (unlike some people, both fictional and in real life), she genuinely wants to help. She can let go of her need to be a perfect hero because it’s less about the strict details of the story and more the point of it.

By forgiving herself Luz can actually focus on fixing what happened, instead of wallowing in self-loathing; And we see how she can just cause more problems by doing that, which leads to more guilt, in this positive feedback cycle of destruction. But no more cycles here, this show says! Self-love is just more effective than constantly reminding yourself what a bad person you were, are, or could be.

Luz can dismiss the puritanical paranoia that making mistakes, regardless of intent, makes you basically evil (Which means she needn’t repent by cutting ties with the Demon Realm once the day is saved). This makes Luz a foil to Belos, who in his arrogant need to be the perfect hero, refuses to admit he has made any mistakes, and kills people to maintain that lie; He cares more about being right for the clout and sense of superiority, than doing right for the sake of others.

This also ties back to other characters like Amity or Lilith or Hunter, hell even Boscha; People who have had flawed beliefs and ideas and made mistakes. But they're allowed to grow and change, they're not forever defined by their past, even if they still hold obligations to the present pains that their victims might feel. And this ties back to the social justice context that prompted Luz's brief rant about how 'obvious' Belos' propaganda seems; It's not about getting it all right on the first try. It's about wanting to improve and fix each mistake, one at a time, and giving yourself leniency for flawed ideas because you are a human being and that's okay. You can be a little confused, but if you've got the spirit...!

[johaerys-writes]

i’d be super curious to hear your thoughts of the characterisation of achilles in the iliad! because while he is considered honourable and respected by the standards of the culture, surely by modern day standards he wouldn’t be so much? which is why i think that MM did such a great job, because she basically modernised him so that we would see him in the same ways that the greeks did re: his nobility versus his arrogance, but i thought the general consensus on achilles is that he’s an ancient greek hero which equals Not A Good Guy by our standards (but my formal education in classics is limited, i mostly partake as a hobby, so i’m always looking to expand my understandings and opinions and you’re obviously a very intelligent and considered person)

So I think the most important thing anyone needs to do when engaging with ancient greek works (and indeed any sort of work, especially those created millennia ago) is to keep an open mind. Importing modern moral judgement is anachronistic when it comes to the Iliad; hubris, as we understand it now, simply does not exist in the Iliad, there are no Good Guys vs Bad Guys, there are no Heroes or Villains. Those notions came much later and are very much a Christian thing. A hero in the Homeric world has no moral implication; he is simply a warrior. A dude that does things, and not necessarily admirable things. So it would be pointless to try to view Achilles or Hector or Agamemnon (or even the gods in the Iliad who do some pretty fucked up shit) as good or bad guys, because such a thing is irrelevant in the Iliad.

That being said, I feel like Achilles is portrayed generally positively both in the Iliad and also in other ancient Greek works. He is noble, that is, he is of noble/divine lineage, he is well-spoken, well-educated, generally reasonable and polite with pretty much everyone, except for Agamemnon in that opening scene in the Iliad (who was a dick to him as well). He is also honourable and with a very rigid moral code: in the Iliad it is stated many times that he prefers to ransom back captives instead of kill them, and he even lets the body of one of the Trojans he slew be burned with his armour on as a sign of respect, even though it is a thing of great importance in the Iliad to claim the armour of the people one slew. He is not greedy and doesn't flaunt his wealth, he is generous with his Myrmidons and is generally rather well-liked. Until Patroclus is killed and he goes on his rampage, he is a pretty chill dude; and then after Hector is killed, he organises the funeral games for Patroclus where he is shown to be very diplomatic and reasonable, even with Agamemnon; and then when Priam goes to ask him for Hector's body back, Achilles treats him with respect and the two men bond over their grief. So like, idk about you but those don't seem like the actions of someone crazed or extremely arrogant or bad, even by modern standards.

I think what is most telling about how a character like Achilles was perceived in the culture that created him, is that his portrayal in later ancient greek works, mainly the theatrical and philosophical works of around the 5th cent BC, is generally positive. Some playwrights depicted him as a bit of a hothead or a little boisterous and full of himself, but that isn't really framed as a bad thing. Achilles in those works is a famous and powerful hero who knows how good he is and how much the army needs him, but he isn't needlessly flashy, he always keeps his word, he is brave and heroic even by modern standards: in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, Achilles goes to great lengths to protect Clytemnestra and Iphigenia from the mob, and it is pointed out many times how averse he is to trickery and lies and that Chiron brought him up to be honourable, steadfast, to keep true to his values and to stay away from wickedness (which is what Agamemnon did, essentially). So I think it's really clear that for the ancient Greeks Achilles has many admirable traits.

You mentioned MM and how she modernised Achilles and made him sympathetic to a modern reader's eyes, and I simply don't think that's true. I think MM's portrayal of Achilles is pretty close both to the Iliad and how other ancient Greeks imagined him; perhaps the only way she differs is by portraying him a bit calmer in places lol. She simply took away all those layers of nonsense that had been piled on top of him through centuries of literary criticism that took all the later Roman works that depicted him as a sadistic monster a little too seriously or only focused on how awful he was compared to Noble Hector (no hate on Hector but those classicists really need to find a new blorbo *smh*)

I also think that maybe MM went a little too hard on the arrogance thing and on his obsession with glory without explaining it enough, but that's just my personal opinion. Achilles is very concerned with his glory in the Iliad as well, but we have to keep in mind his position here: Achilles gave up everything for that glory. He knew about the prophecy and knew that he would die in Troy, and made the choice to fight in the war because glory is just that important within the context of the Iliad. I think that many of the heroes we see in the Iliad would have chosen the same, if given a dilemma like that. So Achilles gave up the life he could have had, his kingdom, his family, just for his name to live on through the ages, and then Agamemnon royally fucked that up by disrespecting and insulting him publicly in the vilest of ways. Achilles then made up his mind to abstain from the war and to go back to Phthia and thus giving up his claim to glory because he was so over the war, and he probably would have done that had Patroclus not died. And then there was nothing else for him to do other than to die as well. So like.... idk. His actions make sense to me. He is a passionate character who is swept away by his emotions, he has flaws, he isn't perfect (if such a thing even exists) but I think he's all the more compelling for it.

I hope this answered your question, anon! Thank you for giving me the chance to ramble about my favourite fictional man <3

[earlgrey24]

Top 5 myths/legends/folklore? :)✨

Thank you for the fun ask! ✨ (and sorry for taking so long!)

1. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

I'm not exactly sure why, but it may be my favourite piece of Greek mythology. There's just something about it that resonates with me. I definitely prefer the versions in which Iphigenia gets saved at the last minute by Artemis (and I'm here for any potential queer readings).

I also think it's interesting how it highlights the parallels between a wedding ceremony and a ritual sacrifice (things like white colour symbolising purity, symbolic death of the bride for her old family, priest being present, a subsequent feast, even the fact that blood was technically expected in both cases). Something I've been thinking about ever since I watched the new Contrapoints video.

2. Hyacinth and Apollo

The original death of a twink! Jokes aside, it's quite a tragic story. What I find the most interesting about the myth however is how Hyacinth was mourned/celebrated during the Spartan festival of Hyacinthia. If you want to get really heretic, you could see the festival as a forerunner of some of the later Christian Easter traditions, with the whole death/rebirth motive.

3.  Lady Godiva

One of the earliest examples of women getting involved in British politics!

Again, jokes aside, I do appreciate this legend because it is essentially a story of a woman taking risks for a cause that she believes in. It also brings up the idea that femininity can be used as a weapon. That is not necessarily my most favourite take of all, but it's certainly interesting - and this old English myth captures that perfectly!

also the iconography is so cool I mean--

4. The Legend of El Dorado

I definitely think that the legend of the mythical city filled with gold located somewhere in South America can tell one a lot about European colonialism. Not an expert on it by any means (though I'd love to read more about it at some point), but I really enjoyed how it was portrayed in Voltaire's Candide!

5. The Golem of Prague

Okay, obligatory hometown reference. I do find Jewish folklore genuinely fascinating, and the story of a being made of clay that came to life is perhaps the most interesting of all! Some parallels can be traced with later stories - like Frankenstein - or even with things like robots or AI, if you stretch the definition a bit.

It can be seen as a warning that technology can turn against its creator which dates all the way back to the 16th century!

(I also find it really interesting how much emphasis Jewish culture places on the power of words, and the story of the Golem is a great example of it, since words are literally what brings the golem to life).

[mamawasatesttube]

I don't know that much about superboy so forgive me if this is a silly question but what's the deal with Magdalene Visaggio?

not a silly question, dw!! if you haven't read many kon comics it probably doesn't look particularly noteworthy but OOF. OOF.

the tl;dr of it: despite being paid to write him once, she also hasn't read kon comics and it really, really, really shows. i'm talking geoff johns levels of flagrant disregard for the existing character - maybe even worse than geoff? which i say only because i know geoff did read sb94 even if he didn't act like it. but that's off topic; this isn't a geoff hatepost. this is a magdalene hate post.

under a cut for length, lets goooo!

so we start out with her canonizing supermartian. already off on the wrong foot - that's a ship out of yja the tv show which is a completely separate continuity from main comics and a completely different kon than main continuity kon. despite supposedly knowing that, she still shoves them into a relationship in main continuity, despite them never having actually interacted on page in main continuity.

she then goes on to characterize kon as angry and entitled and uncaring, and also in high school again. not only does she directly contradict all of his preboot existing characterization (which is important because kon-el never got reset during flashpoint - he was in another universe and thus dodged that bullet. current kon-el is canonically the same kon-el as pre-flashpoint/postcrisis kon-el.), but also she directly contradicts both young justice (2019) and superboy: man of tomorrow, which are in current continuity, leading one to really wonder if she has read a single comic kon appeared in at all. it's also worth noting that the asshole with anger issues characterization is, once again, much truer to the young justice animated tv show than any comic kon.

also worth noting is that the infamous red hair dye streak? well, uh...

yeah..............

on her twitter, she once said something about kon-el not being a good name because it's "still a name someone else gave him", called him "the jason todd of the superfamily", and insisted that the meaning of a trans narrative is "burning down your life and reevaluating your place within it":

kon-el is a name gifted to him to signify his acceptance into his family (superboy (1994) #59) and he was so overjoyed to receive it that he cried. overall, the superfam are very supportive and loving, and introducing strife just to make him run off and live with jinny hex instead of them just because she thinks one can't transition and retain previous relationships is... not it, lol.

her pitch also contained some outrageously egregious christianity bullshit, like villains named "saint", "shepherd", and "savior", as well as direct comparisons between clark and jesus christ. this is... sorry i really just have to say this is Fucking Cringe. i guess the more polite way to put it would be "incredible gauche" (considering the jewish origins of the superfam) but i just can't call it anything else. This Fucking Sucks Dude. i won't even get into the weirdness about genetic bullshit she leans into by introducing kon's "brother" who's also part luthor, part superman, but "luthor-dominant" (lol?) (do you know how genes work even a little bit).

she has quoted the one panel from reign of the supermen where kon says "don't ever call me superboy" a few times, claiming it's the first thing he ever said and no one listened. to me this essentially reads as her going "i've read one of his appearances and i would like to throw out the like 200 issues of character development he had since then in favor of making him my own self-insert to explore MY transition and religious trauma".

basically she doesn't seem to know how to write a story that's not about herself. as a trans person with a positive relationship with my given name (because as a first-gen kid of two diasporic immigrants, it provides an important tie to my family's cultures, to me) and with trans friends who involved their parents in picking new names and so on and so forth, i honestly find it very reductive and white to insist there's only one trans narrative and only one good way for trans characters to be named. i also find her putting her own christian religious trauma into a superfam story off-putting and . well. fucking cringe. i understand and respect that that is her story, but it sure ain't universal and i won't be able to respect her as a writer until it becomes clear she gets that.

[leonstoenailunderhisbed]

RE Villains and my psychological opinion (+mini history lesson hehe.)

I really like the way CAPCOM writes their villains. Everyone talks about the main protagonist(s) such as Chris, Leon, Jill, Claire, etc. I think we should definitely give some credit to the evil guys of the franchise. I have my own two favorite villains, Lord Saddler (RE4/RE4R), and Svetlana (Damnation). I wish I could write about ALL the characters but that would almost be a book's length.

(I am no expert in psychology, i barely survived my spring semester lol. I am not licensed and i most certainly am not a doctor. The history part is true, but the psychology is just me being hyper fixated on the minor details. Once again, take this lightly. Also, i have my psych final soon and I'm so ready to kick ass.)

There's just something so alluring to me about the obsession with one being known as a God or God's messenger. Lord Saddler really got me thinking about how easy it is for a narcissist to make a cult about, essentially, themselves. Everyone knows the story about Narcissus, the mythological Greek God, and how he fell in love with his own reflection and basically starved himself to death. Hence why the term narcissism derived from the myth of Narcissus. Narcissism goes deeper than just one being self-centered. A narcissist is much more evil- they lack empathy and exploit others for their own goals/achievements. I would like to believe that Lord Saddler definitely has a narcissistic disorder because he took it upon himself to become, and as I like to call it, The God of Plaga. I mean, the dude literally created his own "bible" and his own insignia. He, like James in RE0, believe that they can conquer the world using the parasite. But the psychology behind it, or least in my humble knowledge, is really just a narcissist playing God. Saddler's psychological disorder is being projected onto religion, maybe in a response to a traumatic event. Freudian theory states that projection is a psychological defense mechanism where an individual projects unwanted thoughts, feelings, and motives on another person/group. I'd like to think that Saddler is a narcissist that projects his own motives as defense mechanism using religious methods.

I'm no expert on modern religion but I do like to think myself as someone well versed in BCE and CE religion. As i played through the game, I couldn't help but notice some similarities between Saddler and his cult and some ancient religious beliefs. Ancient civilizations often believed that their God's power was absolute, thus making religion an important part of their culture. The village in which the game takes place obviously contains a small church and then a castle- followed by the peasant village in the beginning of the game. We know that this is a remote location in Spain and since Spain was known as Hispania during the Roman Empire, it would be safe to say that maybe MAYBE CAPCOM was inspired by the history of the country that had followed all the way to CE. I'd like to believe that Saddler was probably inspired by the ruling of the Roman Empire after Emperor Theodosius (who declared Christianity as the state religion of the empire.) Saddler, much like Theodosius, created his own religion but it was considered a minority. Once Saddler had recruited more people, his "empire" expanded, much like Christianity all across Europe in CE. His plan was obviously to expand his domain and control the world with Las Plagas. Of course, this is just my own theories and observations.

I really loved Svetlana's character as a villain. She's cunning, diplomatic, and very goal oriented. It fascinated me the way she handled situations, as if she already knew everything from the start (except the temporary unification of Russia and the US). We know she used to be a combat instructor, or still is maybe. To me, she's the definition of a wolf in a sheep's disguise. Which again brings to my point on my analysis on Saddler- a narcissistic will do anything to make sure they accomplish their goals, regardless of whose lives are at risk. Svetlana, unlike Saddler, has international support and can manipulate ambassadors to be in her favor. She already has control over her republic as president, she only needs a little more help from her international supporters. This is not only a trait from a businessperson but also someone who is very smart and probably knows how to use people at their expense. But that's every politician, in my opinion. Greed and money are basically what sugar is to kids for politicians and government officials. The way she smirked and basically declared her victory when she was talking to Buddy through the barrier was literally so evil of her part, but it made sense. At the end of the day, I'd like to think that she really just had this urge of not messing up the country since she probably faced a lot of pressure from being the first female president of the country.

Svetlana is very smart. She resigned of her position right after the civil war ended because she knew the consequences of basically breeding Nemesis’s cousins (LOL) A narcissist is never dumb and if they are then they aren’t narcissists. Narcissists are extremely smart and extremely manipulative with no sense of guilt.

I would like to talk more about James and then deeper in Resident Evil Village bc that game is literally so well written I’m like 😍🫶🏼

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Honestly, I hate the term "puriteen".

There's a post that keeps going around from a religious trauma survivor about how they are in favor of calling fandom wank "purity culture", but also in favor of the word "puriteen", and I don't know how to tell you this, but you've fallen for basic generation gap type propaganda and more than that, for ageism.

Like, there are whole ass articles challenging the idea that it's all young people spreading purity culture bullshit. Even potentially a study, iirc, though I can't currently find it so take that with a grain of salt.

At least in the US, kids nationwide are challenging book bans, fighting the racism and queermisia that are in part driving them, and saying basically "hey, y'all adults know we can tell the difference between fiction and reality, and that we don't think bad stuff is okay just because it happens in fiction but that also doesn't make the fiction bad, right?"

Like, have you examined your own harmful biases? Because yeah, there are some young people who have some of the worst, absolutely christofascist-informed ideas about fiction. There's also plenty of older people, 30, 40, 50 year olds and older, saying this shit. But, get this, only discourse skews young because internet usage skews young. Have you bothered to look at how many young people actually agree with you? With how many MORE of them are on your side than not?

Have you bothered to look at just how many older people, online and offline, hold these ideas? At the ages of the dozen people actually driving most book bans across the country? At how it's moms for liberty and similar organizations doing the harm? About how saying it's "for the kids" doesn't mean it's "by the kids"?

At how book bannings targeting children are actually yet another form that oppression of youth takes?

Like, this is not some statistical trend you can point to. Blaming kids is entirely based on anecdata - and it's blaming them for something that negatively affects them first and hardest.

You saw a couple of teens who had arguably been groomed into a dangerous puritan ideology by adults who may have also sexually harassed them (especially by distributing both fictional nsfw materials and sometimes even actual genuine CSEM) and decided that this is something related to their age and not, y'know, their status as a vulnerable marginalized class, nevermind something that is nowhere near universal.

You ignored the majority of actual minors saying "yeah no they don't speak for us" in favor of the idea that teens are irrational and basically "stupid" until they reach a certain age, as if this is related to age at all. You ignored the many people your own age and older doing this shit. You ignored how it wasn't even your own age that informed your own opinions, except perhaps to the extent that having what media you could access severely restricted as a child may have limited your ability to form opinions on the media you couldn't access.

I grew up in a culturally christian agnostic household. My trauma is only religious-adjacent, but it was informed by the same kind of purity culture driven by christofascism.

I didn't learn what sex was until 8th grade health class. I wasn't allowed to read books with sexual material in them until well into high school, and even then was discouraged from doing so if it didn't "contribute to the plot". I was shamed for masturbating as an adult living at home (because my mother refused to knock or let me get a door that locked), was told people into BDSM are dangerous, and routinely had my main kink that my mom knew about (piss) treated as essentially a dangerous and harmful mental illness.

My mother repeatedly encouraged me to come to her to discuss anything sexual growing up, and praised me and told me other kids would have hidden it from their parents and she was glad I was such a good kid who didn't keep secrets, and then used it all against me. She tried, pretty hard, to indoctrinate me into purity culture, and yet from the moment I was actually allowed access to social media at 18 and could seek out different viewpoints, I started to realize how very bullshit that all was.

It took a little bit of extra time to interrogate ideas surrounding kinks like cgl, abdl, and general nsfw agere, just because I saw anti-kink messaging around those first, but funny enough the very first counterargument I actually saw convinced me of how bs the anti-kink stuff was with that too.

Like, I don't know how else to explain that a small minority of kids being indoctrinated by a high-control group is not in fact indicative of what most kids believe or that age is a factor in an ideology held as much if not more by adults than kids. And that for the few that are being recruited into these groups in which there is no accountability and concrete evidence of actual predators growing unchallenged, perhaps a sneering insult and blame is not in fact the way to treat people who are more victims of purity culture than you will ever be.

(Also, do you care more about being "right", or effective praxis? Because even in the case of true malicious actors, you should in fact care about not reinforcing the control of the abusive group that meets many criteria of the bite model by proving that said group are the "only" safe people who "respect" them, and that everyone else will insult them for their immutable identity. It's the same reason you don't mistreat the mormons and Jehovah's witnesses that knock on your door, because you are literally doing the cult's work for them if you do.)

You should also care about interrogating your own ageism instead of going "no, that's not bigoted because children are really like that!!1". Fun fact, that's just as bigoted as if the word "children" was replaced with any other marginalized group. Your own ignorance and biases about children being irrational and unintelligent are not actually the "facts" you think they are.

The word "puriteen" is as useless as it is inaccurate. Most kids aren't actually for purity culture. Plenty of adults are for it. Acting like this is about age because of some bullshit pseudoscience about "brains that aren't fully developed" (brains never stop developing and the cut-off of 25 that's often cited and more often internalized was based on a study that didn't actually examine people OVER 25) or because kids are all "irrational" and "unable to think critically" and just "like that" shows me you've never once actually spoken to the vast majority of kids.

I have trauma from purity culture that's heavily adjacent to religious trauma, and we should retire "puriteen" forever.

Bigotry is never justified. Not to fight purity culture, not to fight other bigotry. If you are handwaving this as hysterical or ridiculous or over-the-top accusations, or that they prove you right about teens:

1. You're part of the problem. Convincing people that a marginalized group and their allies' accusations of bigotry are bullshit or crazy or overblown is foundational to the perpetuity of the marginalized group's oppression.

2. If you need to hear it from an ally and not a kid, I'm turning 27 next month.

3. Not wanting to examine your own discomfort around being called out for your bigotry and the ways you justify it, is a you problem.

If you are marginalized yourself in any way, unless you are somehow privileged enough that you've never experienced this, you should know EXACTLY how shitty it feels to call out bigotry and have people (who are often not marginalized in that way) laugh in your face and call you insane for daring to suggest they could be bigoted by doing [actively and glaringly bigoted thing].

If you've never had this happen, because you've only called out types of bigotry that most people recognize as such to people willing to listen, you may also need to examine your own internalized bigotry against your own identity. You may have done this to people in your own community who were brave enough to call out forms of bigotry that are less recognized and whose accusations were more ridiculed. You may be accepting mistreatment of yourself and your community because you're too scared of backlash to call it out, or even think you deserve it, and that's... not good.

[wrishwrosh]

the vaster wilds has the typical goodreads problem of all the negative reviews just being “this book was gross and sad and nothing happened :((“ “the prose was stylized and hard to understand”” but as a gross sad stylized prose enjoyer these critiques do not get to the MEAT of all the evils herein present

- the problem of the enlightened protagonist, where a character who has nominally lived in the real historical past until the book begins and yet somehow manages to individually develop a 21st century twitter-educated perspective on colonialism, god, and nature. classic groffism nothing new

- remember that tweet about how hiking is a bourgeois affectation and indigenous people never hiked before colonization. imagine if that was the premise of an entire novel. written by somebody who went to amherst

- another classic groffism is taking a real historical figure about whom almost nothing is known and constructing a history for them that can’t technically be ruled out as impossible given the dearth of records but IS ahistorical, implausible, and kind of stupid while also making sure that the one thing that is concretely known about this person is weirdly and smugly deemphasized in the narrative. in this case the historical figure is “jane” the anonymous teenage girl whose remains were found at jamestown exhibiting signs of butchering. the cannibalism is treated as a twist ending which is dumb as hell and made the pacing insanely frustrating as this was obvious from the beginning to any true jamestownheads in the audience. also the cannibalism of a young woman seems like an obvious place of exploration for a novel nominally about the exigencies of subsistence survival and how hard it was to be a girl in the dark ages before second wave feminism but what do i know. obviously you should just kind of shoehorn it in as a gotcha in the last 20 pages serving as the millionth indication that the bad guys in this narrative are bad and do bad things

- speaking of the bad guys every single character aside from the narrator is a one dimensional paper doll present to essentially speak one of groffs points directly into camera and then vanish in a way that literally made me laugh out loud several times. Some Women Are Vain, Which Is Bad. Some Men Hurt Women And Native People For Fun, Which Is Evil.

- there was a stylistic decision made to not capitalize proper nouns which sure. it makes sense with what the book is trying to do to not capitalize god or english or powhatan. but then it was so inconsistently applied like why is atlantic (ocean) not capitalized but James (river) is. why is god lowercase but Sunday is uppercase. why are all the names capitalized but titles that function as names arent. stop the madness

- a personal nitpick now but i have spent a lot of time kicking around in the area where the book is set and was hoping at least there would be some evocative descriptions of this place that i love. and yet in this book nominally about wilderness there was so little specificity in the depiction of it! this could have been any forest! the specific natural setting did not feel like a tidewater forest! feels like groff wrote it based on a google search of pamunkey traditional lifestyles and a glance at a topographic map

- cant even get into all the reductive and underresearched gender stuff but know it’s there. classic groffism

- finally and most minimally yet perhaps most egregiously groff has yet again failed to internalize a religious worldview in order to write a religious character. this narrator is a change from marie in matrix as we are sternly informed on page 4 that she believes what she has been told about christianity. like once every 20 pages groff remembers that and has her pray or something and then once she has been away from her culture for about 200 pages she realizes god is a lie and that’s the arc. cool!

- why bother! why bother with this setting, this character, this real place and real historical event and real belief system, if you arent going to USE any of it. this should have been a zine about climate change. it should have been like six tweets. if it needed to be fiction (and im not convinced it did) it should have been a contemporary novel and like three things could have been changed. why! bother!

in summary, i went so insane that i googled every single person mentioned in the acknowledgements to see how many were historians or archaeologists or librarians or ecologists or associates of the pamunkey tribe or anyone else who might be assumed to have expertise here and there was: one. illustrative i think!!!!

[sophieinwonderland]

Speaking of changes in Christian beliefs and interpretations, I've noticed a recent shift where some folks want to focus more on the idea that Jesus was human, and all that idea entails. See, although Christian churches obviously teach about Jesus as an important figure, a lot of them (at least that I've seen and been to) tend to portray him as a divine being who was just born on Earth because he had to complete his mission of saving us from Hell. The recent trend I've seen has been about discussions and slight changes in approach to Scripture, where people talk about Jesus being human, and how that adds to the meaning of his sacrifice of his life for us – he wasn't just with us, he was one of us, and he lived like us and died like us.

I find it silly to be up in arms about a plural interpretation of the Trinity because "it's change!! It's not exactly what we worshipped before!!" when people are already doing that in a different way lol. Good luck preventing *checks notes* people wondering if Jesus had a favorite wood he liked to work with as a carpenter

This also reminds me of something in When God Talks Back by Tanya Luhrmann.

One of the interesting things she discussed was this shift in culture where in a lot of modern evangelical churches, god became more of a close personal friend.

There are references to friendship with God and with Jesus in the Bible, but this friendship is not the free and easy companionship of two boys swinging their feet on a bridge over a stream. The remarkable shift in the understanding of God and of Jesus in the new paradigm churches of modern American Christianity is the shift that the counterculture made: toward a deeply human, even vulnerable God who loves us unconditionally and wants nothing more than to be our friend, our best friend, as loving and personal and responsive as a best friend in America should be; and toward a God who is so supernaturally present, it is as if he does magic and as if our friendship with him gives us magic, too. God retains his holy majesty, but he has become a companion, even a buddy to play with, and the most ordinary man can go to the corner church and learn how to hear him speak. What we have seen in the last four or five decades is the democratization of God—I and thou into you and me—and the democratization of intense spiritual experience, arguably more deeply than ever before in our country’s history.

The chapter tells the story of how a lot of this change was owed to an unconventional union of these conservative churches and hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee.

Frisbee's teachings essentially single-handedly rewrote how God and Jesus were perceived in these evangelical churches for generations.

... and then he was excommunicated from the denominations he founded for being gay, and they've been trying to erase his history ever since.

Because yeah, right-wing evangelicals suck...

But the point is, doctrine changes. People's understanding of and their relationship with God changes. That's how religion works. And sometimes, it only takes a single person to start making those waves.

...

Also, never let the Vineyard Church or the offshoots they spawned forget that their church owes its entire existence and doctrine to a queer hippie who they turned their backs on for being gay!

[queerprayers]

hello, i hope you are having a lovely day! thanks for having this blog! 💖 my exposure to faith has mostly been through mainstream doubt-unfriendly environments so it felt eye-opening to follow your blog and a few others that are quite welcoming to it!

do you possibly have any recommendations for nurturing faith when one has so many doubts, including the existence of God or belief in the events of the Bible? or possibly even reading recs?

i was raised agnostic in a Muslim-majority country and i have a diverse friend group with Muslims, Christians, Pagans and agnostic friends so whenever i wish to believe i find myself both doubting and also not knowing how anyone chooses any religion or denomination to follow, but i like to think everyone's faith/religion is valid and connects them to God. anyway that was a bit long, thanks for the blog and answering asks again! :)

Welcome, beloved! I'm so glad you're here and it brings me so much joy to know that people can be honest about their doubt here—it's an integral part of so many people's experience and to repress it or pretend it doesn't exist is misleading and painful.

I'm currently reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong (which I'll probably quote from a couple times) and thinking a lot about how conceptions of God have changed over time, and therefore how doubt has changed—we can only doubt when we have something to doubt! For some people, this book would probably increase their doubt (just a fact, not a bad thing), but for me, learning about how culturally-specific and constructed and interconnected religion deepens my faith in a God watching over it all.

One way that I see people talk about doubt (and I've definitely done it myself) is address it as if it were a stumbling block on the road to faith. That it's something we get over. That there's a linear path to certainty. Even when people praise doubt and call it holy, sometimes they imply that that's only because it strengthens the faith that always comes afterward. Doubting Thomas was the first person to name Jesus as God—we know this, this is all true and is very meaningful to so many. But I've learned to accept other ways that doubt exists, because not everyone has this experience. Doubt is a companion sometimes, not a temporary roadblock. Sometimes it's an inherent part of faith, and sometimes it doesn't lead to religious faith at all. In case you need to hear this: don't create some imaginary end of the road where you'll be certain! Maybe you will, but don't expect that of yourself. Your doubt is your questions and your desires, your creative thinking and your love for your friends, it's you caring about finding something meaningful. It's proof that this matters to you, and even if someday doubt is no longer a major part of your religious experience, don't lose it all. Doubt does not need to be cured—it needs to be listened to.

I'm thinking a lot about the existence of God while reading Armstrong's book—how she presents a constructed God, used as a tool for good and evil, and how beautiful and terrible ideas of God can be. While talking about medieval Islam, she tells us this:

. . . [T]he Arabic word for existence (wujud) derives from the root wajada: "he found." Literally, therefore, wujud means "that which is findable" . . . An Arabic-speaking philosopher who attempted to prove that God existed did not have to produce God as another object among many. He simply had to prove that he could be found. . . . [T]he word wajd was a technical term for [Sufi mystics'] ecstatic apprehension of God which gave them complete certainty (yaqin) that it was a reality, not just a fantasy. . . . Sufis thus found the essential truths of Islam for themselves by reliving its central experience."

What if God is more than existence? What if God is more than we could ever believe in—and so instead of believing in Them, we seek to find Them, see Them a little bit more clearly every day? There's such a Christian emphasis on believing the right thing, and I do think it matters what we believe. But there's more than that—there's how we believe, and what we do about it.

C.S. Lewis believed that the fact that we desire something this world can't satisfy is itself proof that we were made for and by something more. I can't talk you into believing in God, and I don't want to. But the desire for more is a space where God can reside, if you let Them. The desire to believe is a kind of belief. Wanting to believe in God is wanting God, and I'm not claiming proof of anything, but I am saying if you connect with that desire, God is already a part of your life, whether because They're there, or because you can't find Them. The lack of God is still a relation to God. Doubt in a god existing is still a relation to God. God exists in relation to you, in you. If we can only doubt when we have something to doubt, if we can only disbelieve when there's something to disbelieve in, that means we have something.

The Bible is more specific than God's existence, and for some this makes it harder to relate to. It is a more clear presence for many people, though—it's something we can hold, memorize, study. Every person of faith relates to their scriptures differently, and I can't tell you exactly how to do so, or which way is "right." But I will say it is not a thing to believe in—"it" is a living, breathing library of transcribed, collected, translated, loved (and hated) books. We could talk about taking the Bible literally vs. metaphorically, or whether it's "historically accurate," or whether God wrote it or told others to write it or had nothing to do with it. Ultimately where I am, the foundation I come back to, no matter how my beliefs change, is that I believe God wanted us to have it. I believe it matters. Once someone asked me whether a psalm was "theologically accurate" and while that's an interesting conversation, my first instinct when reading a poem written thousands of years ago by someone I've never met is not to theologically analyze it but to say, "Yes! I've felt that way too! I hear you! And God hears both of us!" I don't think you believe or disbelieve in myth or poetry or oral history or prophecy or personal letters—I think you listen to them. Before asking yourself whether these things happened, or if we can prove certain figures existed, or anything else super useful but very overwhelming, especially without a history degree, first ask yourself what they would mean if they mattered. What would change about how you move in the world if these books were close to your heart? If you listened across centuries to find people also believing and doubting and searching and finding?

While recommending the Bible (as well as the other books closest to his heart) in Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke tells his student, "A whole world will envelop you, the happiness, the abundance, the inconceivable vastness of a world. Live for a while in these books, learn from them what you feel is worth learning, but most of all love them. This love will be returned to you thousands upon thousands of times, whatever your life may become—it will, I am sure, go through the whole fabric of your becoming, as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys." Don't believe in a book—live in it, love it, let it weave you together.

Reading A History of God, I'm being reminded how much dialogue there has always been between religions, especially Judaism/Christianity/Islam, and how so much of the Bible is built on traditions outside of it. The writers of the Bible were also living in diverse communities, interacting with and reacting to other faiths, sometimes with hostility but also with synthesis—so much of all three of these religions is built on the local pagan traditions of where they evolved, and all three incorporated Greek philosophy in various ways. None of the major religions of the world are solitary faiths that sprang up out of nowhere—we have always lived with each other, and we've been alternately mad about it and inspired by it.

Having relationships with many kinds of people is beautiful and fulfilling, but it also inevitably brings up questions! I've found myself saying, "I love this person, I think they're intelligent and well-meaning, and they genuinely believe in something I do not. What does this mean for me? Am I doing something wrong?" Embracing others' faiths is, to me, a really important part of loving them, but it's also often a challenge to work through. It has ultimately been beneficial to my faith for me to work through this, but sometimes it just feels hard, and that's okay.

Although I never really questioned the existence of a god, there have been moments in my life where I had no particular conviction that Christianity was true or especially holy. I've been captivated by Jewish and Muslim traditions/beliefs/scriptures, and admired countless philosophies and practices. Christianity has hurt me and so many others—does that mean it's inherently wrong? But in every season of my life, I've said a Christian prayer every night. Everyone experiences religion differently, but for me? I am not a Christian because I think it's better than all other religions, or because I reasoned my way into it, but because it's where I'm from, where I live, where God meets me.

Your statement that everyone's faith is valid and connects them to God—it's a beautiful belief and it opens us to explore and love what we might not be able to otherwise. Reading A History of God—I do believe it's all God. If God cannot hold contradiction, why would I honor Them? How could I believe They encompass the (paradoxical, contradiction-filled) world if They can't exist fully in paradox and contradiction? This Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Trinity for me, and I love its mystery and its acknowledgement that God is always past our understanding, that God has more than one face, that God comes to us in more than one way, can never be pinned down. I and Christians throughout history encounter God as Trinity, but the day that I limit God is the day I have thrown away everything I've worked to build in myself.

The good news for you is if you believe all religions connect to God in some way, then you also believe that you will always be connected to God—no matter how your beliefs change, no matter where you call home, no matter what your practice looks like. We can't let ourselves believe one thing for others and another thing for ourselves—I did this all the time, believing I could never be forgiven but never dreaming of saying that about someone else. Give yourself the same grace and openness and hope you give your friends. You know they are valid, you know you love them—what can that help you learn about yourself? your own validity, your own ability to be loved?

I'll let you in on a secret (in case you didn't already know): the majority of people do not sit and look without bias at the major world religions and decide which one is "true" and convert to it. I'm sure people have done that, and maybe that's what you want to do (I won't stop you). I don't even know to what extent we can "choose" a religion—I think often one (or many) finds us—but for me and so many others, religion is a culture and a practice as much as, if not more than, a belief. And often it's wholly or mostly inherited—I don't know if I would be Christian if my parents and grandparents and ancestors weren't. I don't know exactly what you've inherited, but we all inherit beliefs (even if the belief is not believing in something), and yours are also built on tradition and ideas throughout the centuries.

This all means that doubt is part of any inherited culture and practice. It means that doubt and participating in a religion have always gone together. If religion is action and community and music, you don't have to believe anything in particular to live in it. My Jewish friends have shown me this most clearly—I know of many Jewish people who don't especially believe in the existence of a god, but eat kosher and observe holidays and say prayers. If you ask them why, they say it's because they're Jewish, because it makes them a more fulfilled person, because they're connecting with their ancestors. If religion is connection to God, as you've said (and I agree), then you don't have to have belief to connect with God.

I am absolutely not saying that we should never question the traditions passed down to us, or that conversion is not a valid choice, or that if you weren't raised religious you can't have religion. I just wish to point out that many people do not first believe in a system and then join a faith practice, but the other way around. They practice their way into faith. So often we cannot know what a belief means unless we first do it. Unless it first has meaning to us. From A History of God:

[Anselm of Canterbury, the 11th century theologian] insisted that God could only be known in faith. This is not as paradoxical as it might appear. In his famous prayer, Anselm reflected on the words of Isaiah: "Unless you have faith, you will not understand":

"I yearn to understand some measure of thy truth which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to have faith but I have faith in order to understand (credo ut intellegam). For I believe even this: I shall understand unless I have faith."

The oft-quoted credo ut intellegam is not an intellectual abdication. Anselm was not claiming to embrace the creed blindly in the hope of its making sense some day. His assertion should really be translated: "I commit myself in order that I may understand." At this time, the word credo still did not have the intellectual bias of the word "belief" today but meant an attitude of trust and loyalty.

If you haven't already, ask to go to a religious service/event with a friend, read/listen/experience the faiths of others. When you encounter things you're not sure if you believe, ask yourself what it would mean for you if you encountered it as truth. If God exists, if God is [insert attribute here], if God commanded [insert commandment here], if this or that book is something God wants us to have—how would that change your life? My belief in a loving God transforms my world. My prayer practice orders my days and centers my emotions. I am living (or attempting to live) my beliefs, not just thinking them. What can you trust, what can you be loyal to, what can you live, even if you don't believe it right now? "Lord I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

You can live as if something were true, even if you have no proof, even if you're not sure about it. I live as if there is a loving God—I have no scientific proof of this, I have not always been sure of it. But I live as if there is one, and there is more love in the universe because of it. I have only experienced a loving God when I was living in relation to one. You can go to a church without reading its whole catechism, without knowing all the words, without being sure. My pastor once told me he likes the Nicene Creed more than the Apostles' because it says "We believe" instead of "I believe." A creed not as a personal certainty, but as a communal agreement. I don't always know what I believe, but this is what we believe. I can leave it behind, but I cannot pretend it does not exist. It is my inheritance.

My advice for nurturing faith? Be willing to be wrong. Any god I've heard described is outside of our powers of description. It's dangerously presumptuous to think we can be right about God. Once I let go of the pressure to be right, once I accepted that I could be wrong about everything—that's the only way I got to faith. And the worst thing I can think of is coming to a belief through fear (of hell, of being wrong, of uncertainty, of spiritual homelessness). Fear is sometimes present, but come to it because you want it, because it fills your days with life and love. I'm obviously not a scientist or a philosopher—I've never really searched for capital-T Truth, and maybe it sounds like giving up to say all this, to think that I can never be right. But I have only truly come to Christianity when I've accepted that, as Rachel Held Evans said, it's the story I'm willing to be wrong about.

While it's definitely from a Christian perspective (I'm not sure how relatable that will be to you), the book that's calling to me right now for you is Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others by Barbara Brown Taylor. It's incredibly honest and interested in the experience of exploring envy in a religious context. It completely changed how I approach finding meaning in others' beliefs, and gave me so much peace in my own. And if you do ever begin to follow a religion/denomination, you might need a reminder that you are not abandoning everything else. You may be choosing a home, but you are not locking yourself inside it. We don't look for a home to denounce everyone else's—we look for a place we can live. Taylor says:

I asked God for religious certainty, and God gave me relationships instead. I asked for solid ground, and God gave me human beings instead—strange, funny, compelling, complicated human beings—who keep puncturing my stereotypes, challenging my ideas, and upsetting my ideas about God, so that they are always under construction. I may yet find the answer to all my questions in a church, a book, a theology, or a practice of prayer, but I hope not. I hope God is going to keep coming to me in authentically human beings who shake my foundations, freeing me to go deeper into the mystery of why we are all here.

What are you willing to be wrong about? What do you want to hold close even when you doubt it? What do you want to do, even if you don't believe in it? What brings you closer to the life you know exists for you, the one that fulfills that desire for God? There might not be one religion that is all this for you. Whether or not you ever create/join a concrete belief system, whether or not you're ever sure about any of it, God is with you. Many people live fulfilling lives outside of institutionalized religion; not all who wander are lost; your existence in a diverse community will serve you so well on this journey, which doesn't have an end and always includes doubt, and from which we can always find a new path, and is all encompassed by a many-faced Universe of Love.

And, as I find myself doing so often, here's some more Rilke to his student, which we can receive whether or not we're young or a Sir:

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

<3 Johanna

P.S.—As well as the things I've quoted from, I would also recommend Not All Who Wander Are (Spiritually) Lost: A Story of Church by Traci Rhoades and all of Rachel Held Evans' books.

P.P.S.—People quote this last Rilke passage a lot, but I'm not sure how many have read the full context? He's mostly giving advice regarding sex anxiety in that letter, which I think is great. It's relevant to most journeys in life, but in case you were wondering what journey it's originally about, there you go.

[evilwickedme]

I would like to see the Jewish headcanons please

Hi yes thank you so much I wasn't fishing for this at all

We've already covered this in that post that gained me 150 followers in a week, but obviously Peter Parker is Jewish. My personal headcanon is that he's Ashkenazi and somewhere between Reform and Conservative. Like he flip flops on keeping Kosher and observes the high holidays as best as he can assuming there's no world saving he needs to get done, but overall being Jewish to him is about community and culture over the religious part of it

For Bucky Barnes, however, being observant was a way to reclaim his identity after... Well, you know. He's vaguely conservadox? He doesn't really define it beyond being Sephardic. He keeps Kosher (which was difficult during WWII unfortunately) and wears tzitzit and goes to shul whenever he can. He'd love to keep Shabbat but it's just not practical most of the time - essentially it's like being an on call doctor, where your job is essential to saving lives and therefore he can't keep Shabbat properly, but he likes to have Friday night dinners with his friends (and Natasha, whether they're together at the time or not) whenever he can. He doesn't know if God exists, but during the High Holidays is when he comes the closest to believing it

Bruce Wayne is canonically Jewish but like, by accident? I feel like he less defines himself as Jewish and more defines himself as Not-Christian™. His mother used to take him to Synagogue but the memories are vague now, but he always enjoyed lighting the candles on Hanukkah, especially with Jason. He stops celebrating the holiday after Jason dies, because he loved it so much. It's a shame because I KNOW Cass would love Hanukkah and Steph would be so into the Maccabees' story

Tim is also Jewish but he's entirely non practicing; his parents were never around to celebrate any holidays or impart any Jewish traditions on him and Bruce had stopped doing the one Jewish thing of lighting the hanukkiah/menorah (whichever you wanna call it) by the time he became Robin. The main Jewish thing in his life is antisemitic garbage being published about both Bruce and himself, especially once he becomes CEO of WE

Damian was raised Muslim and doesn't really know how to feel about being half Jewish. When he grows up he might try to find a way to reconcile those two parts of his identity, but the only Jewish person who actually practices that he sees even irregularly is Batwoman, who's his cousin once removed and he's not exactly close to, so he just doesn't feel the need to deal with it yet

The Thing and Batwoman are canonically Jewish this doesn't count as a hc I just love them

Same for moon knight minus loving him cause I have a bunch of his comics but just haven't gotten around to reading them

Actually can we talk about Mayday Parker? Because I feel like Peter would absolutely raise his daughter to be Jewish. He wants her to feel that connection to the Jewish people even though he's always been so wishy-washy about it and she grows up to be way more observant than him

I actually don't want canon!Clark to be Jewish, but I think exploring his Jewish subtext in fic can be so interesting? Cause, you know, he's Moses and shit. I feel like an Modern Orthodox Clark would have the exact same values as current Clark but also I'd love to hear his thoughts on certain Mishnahs, you know? Also having read the Death of Superman arc earlier this month I can confirm all Jesus metaphors in adaptations are such bullshit oh my God did you even read the comic

Anyway I think that's it for now? Unfortunately I have not read Every Comic Ever yet so there might end up being even more HCs later on (especially since I plan to read Greg Rucka's Lois Lane series soon and I'm hoping for some Jewish subtext in that)

Thank you so much for asking this was so much fun!!

[mormonbooks]

The Bishop's Wife Review

4/5 Stars!

This book was nothing like how I expected it to be and everything I needed and wanted it to be. I expected the kind of novel you could recommend to your mom for a bit of light reading on a Sunday afternoon. The Bishop's Wife. She's a mormon woman who is doing her best to take care of her ward.

I was pleasantly surprised at the moderately progressive tone the book took within the first few chapters (asking questions about the sexism in the church, the fear of judgement 'imperfect' families face, etc) but I soon realized that it there was much more. This novel is a deep commentary on Mormonism, digging into the deep and unpleasant parts, and asking difficult questions that most members like to avoid. It does it all through the eyes of a faithful middle-aged woman, who knows what she believes and uses her faith to bring justice to her community, even when she has to struggle against the church institution and her own husband to do it.

In my opinion, it's a great work of mormon feminism, that allows our culture to shine through in all it's glory and with all it's flaws. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, genuinely. The mystery is engaging, the community is loveable, the plot twists are gut wrenching. Truly a work of art. I'm excited to read more of Harrison's work

Breakdown under the cut

1. Well written - 5 Stars

Yes. The prose is beautiful. The plot is engaging. The mystery is complex and the new information always threw me. It was gut wrenching at times. It was comforting at others.

2. Fun level - 5 stars

It's a slow-paced story, with many moments that skip weeks or months where not much happens. But I enjoy stories like that. It gave breaks between the page-turning mystery solving moments.

3. Complex faith - 5 Stars

This is probably my favorite part of this book. The villains and the heroes are all mormons, and they all approach their faith and their religion in different ways. Linda obviously has more progressive views, and is enraged by the misogyny of many of the men in this story. Those men are not shown to be anamolys per se but they're also not shown to be the norm. Many women in the story have opportunities to voice their questions and doubts but it never makes them any less mormon. People exist all over the scale of mormonism and it feels like the most honest portrayal of our culture that I've read so far.

4. Homophobia scale - 3.5 Stars

It's not a major plot point, but it's mentioned that Linda's son Samuel joined the GSA at his school and she is proud of him for that. She also suspects that her other son might be gay, and worries about how that will affect his relationship with his father. I imagine this will be explored further in the series. It's refreshing that Linda is pro-LGBT but it also seems to treat the church's heteronormative stance quite naively and I'd love to see Harrison really dig into that topic in the future.

5. Mormon weird - 4 stars

Realistic Fiction, but definitely uniquely mormon. The characters in this book could not be swapped out with "generic christians." some of the problematic and dangerous beliefs are uniquely mormon, but so are the beautiful and comforting ones. There is a lot of discussion of the plan of salvation, that I appreciated. I also liked Linda's realistic approach to faith, and her honest moments of doubting, or referring to things as "legends" and "myths." Things don't have to be doctrine to be important in our culture

6. Diversity of characters - 2 stars

I don't think race is ever touched on in the novel, and they all live in Utah and have typical european-american names, so it's easy to assume they are all white. And despite being essentially a work of mormon feminism, a very small percentage of the speaking cast are women.

7. Other problematic stuff - 4.5 stars

I deeply enjoyed the novel as a snapshot of a mormon town, however that does mean that, despite her progressiveness, Linda has a realistic understanding of gender, as a middle-aged mormon woman. She has some beliefs and attitudes toward men that I found frustrating, although understandable.

Conclusion:

I gave this book 5 stars on goodreads but that was before I did my breakdown. I wish it had been more diverse, but I think Harrison explores race in the church in future novels. We'll see.

I LOVE Linda Wallheim. I LOVE the way Harrison talks about Mormon communities and Mormon faith and Mormon culture. I love how much this book made me feel. This is decidedly GOOD mormon rep, with all the determined faith mixed with struggles against flawed systems and truly terrible people. like. I cannot express how much I hate the villains in this book.

I can't wait to see Linda's next adventure.

[artist-issues]

I love your post detailing greta gerwig's changes in her adaptation of little women, but isn't Narnia definitely flavored with some universalism? In the Last Battle, a worshipper of Tash ends up in heaven because he's like "truly seeking the face of God" essentially even if he knew Aslan by the wrong name because his culture only exposed him to Tash. Also, I was raised protestant so I don't know if catholics have a different idea about what counts as universalism or not, but basically I'm not so sure if this will get in the way of her working on the films, especially if she does the Magicians Nephew. Unrelated, I wonder how they're going to go about adapting the Horse and his Boy without it being lambasted for racism etc lol

I think "flavored" with Universalism is a good way to describe The Last Battle--and only The Last Battle, and only that bite of the meal that deals with the young Calormene. Because my understanding of Universalism is that they believe all people, regardless of their beliefs contradicting Biblical Christianity, go to heaven and are not condemned for choosing to be god-of-their-own-life.

You can't quite look at C.S. Lewis' entirety of work and believe he was a Universalist in that sense. He certainly believed in the Biblical truth of Hell. Otherwise, specifically in Narnia, there would be no "Darkness on Aslan's Left Side" that all the creatures who fear and hate him disappear into at the end of the world. That seems like a pretty straightforward representation of Judgement.

I think the whole thing with Emeth the Calormene is interesting. From the language Lewis uses, it seems like he's trying to say something about the posture of a heart more than the name one swears by. Emeth is confused that he's been allowed into the True Narnia because "all my life I have served Tash." But Aslan basically looks at the heart; he says if Emeth had been serving Tash, his deeds and his heart would match Tash. It actually seems more like Emeth didn't know who Tash was at all, or he would have been performing vile works to please Tash. Aslan also says Emeth would never have kept "seeking" for so long if his heart had been serving Tash, which implies that Tash is easier to know than Aslan.

All of that is fascinating (I do think it is the theologically weakest, if not worst, part of the Chronicles of Narnia series.) But I don't think it has anything to do with Universalism as we know it today. Unitarian Universalism is just "Believe whatever you want as long as your belief system doesn't judge other people's belief systems, and you'll be fine with 'God.'" Lewis certainly didn't subscribe to that unbiblical worldview, even with the Calormene in the Last Battle.

I don't know what you mean about the Magician's Nephew.

The real problem with Greta Gerwig is not that she claims Unitarian Universalism. It's that she can't tell a story that is faithful to the original books; she has to transpose it into her own values. So, for example in what we're talking about, if she were doing "The Last Battle," she'd certainly cut out The Darkness on Aslan's Left Side scene, and maybe even reduce the whole conversation between Aslan and Emeth to "all are welcome!" But the main thing she'll do is elevate Susan, Lucy, Jill, Aravis, and Polly to a disproportionate degree.

Finally, I would just say, I'd love for somebody to explain to me what makes The Horse and His Boy racist. (With a reminder that nobody on this website knows my race, so nobody can claim that race-based unconscious bias is what's keeping me from seeing it.)

Lewis invented his own race that, yes, is heavily influenced by Western-Arabian-Nights-interpretations of Middle Eastern cultures. But the Calormenes don't serve Allah, they serve Tash and other gods. The Calormene characters are not all ugly. The Calormen food is not all disgusting. Aravis is a Calormene, and she is a heroine and a main character. Not even every Calormene is even evil, or the enemy of Narnia, though the nation is. What, just because a non-white nation is depicted in Narnia and you can see what culture their fantasy culture is based on, that makes it racist? How? Because Lewis doesn't even write all Calormenes as good or evil, he writes them as humans. Explain to me how that's racist.

(I mean, not you, @childlessoldcatlady, I'm enjoying answering this question. I just meant, someone explain it, now that I'm on the subject. Thanks for the question. I'm Protestant, too.)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dancing monk icon by Marcy Hall Art

* * * *

Blessings on this eve of the Feast of St. Brigid!

I feel especially blessed to have had the joy of joining with a group of dancing monks online last Monday to celebrate Brigid's call to us as midwife, muse, and transforming fire.

February 1st-2nd marks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day in the northern hemisphere! (Imbolc is August 1st in the southern hemisphere).

Imbolc is a Celtic feast that is a cross-quarter day, meaning it is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The sun marks the four Quarter Days of the year (the Solstices and Equinoxes) and the midpoints are the cross-quarter days. In some cultures, like Ireland, February 2nd is the official beginning of spring.

As the days slowly lengthen in the northern hemisphere and the sun makes her way higher in the sky, the ground beneath our feet begins to thaw. The earth softens and the seeds deep below stir in the darkness. The word “imbolc” means “in the belly.” The earth’s belly is beginning to awaken, new life is stirring, seeds are sprouting forth.

In many places the ground is still frozen or covered with snow, but the call now is tend to those very first signs of movement beneath the fertile ground. What happens when you listen ever so closely in the stillness? What do you hear beginning to emerge?

St. Brigid is said to bring the first sign of life after the long dark nights of winter. She breathes into the landscape so that it begins to awaken. Snowdrops, the first flowers of spring are one of her symbols.

On the eve of January 31st it is traditional to leave a piece of cloth or ribbon outside the house. It was believed that St Brigid’s spirit traveled across the land and left her curative powers in the brat Bride (Brigid’s Mantle or cloth). It was then used throughout the year as a healing from sickness and protection from harm.

Often in Ireland, I have heard Brigid described as a bridge between the pre-Christian and Christian traditions, between the other world and this one. She bridges the natural and human world. Brigid sees the face of Christ in all persons and creatures, and overcomes the division between rich and poor. Our practice of inner hospitality as monks in the world is essentially about healing all of places we feel fragmented, scattered, and shamed. One of her symbols is her cloak which becomes a symbol of unity. All can dwell under her mantle.

[Thanks to Christine Valters Paintner and to the dancing monks]