#religious insights

[ominouspositivity-or-else]

*The Eucharist is the body of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.

**God is bound to these sacraments, meaning he always gives grace through them when they are done, but he is not bound by these sacraments, meaning that God can do literally whatever he wants and can of course go around them and provide grace in other ways.

***7 sacraments, listed: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Confession, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

Feel free to add nuance in the tags or talk about why you find the teachings strange! Let me know if there's anything utterly baffling that I didn't include!!!

Also please remember to be respectful!!! Not everyone knows theology like you might!!!

[roaldseth]

Josef was already made for me, but I really was given the question what if he was made even more for me. (Been calling angel!Josef a "Featherchampion," but that's subject to change)

Since it also was a popular question, and by popular question I mean I thought about it to then be asked about it in quick succession: he gives "wing hugs" by going under the arms and around the torso. He is not immune to Alain's pleading face.

[the-letterbox-archives]

file (1/2)ALL-58-0016: badly summarised wips

are you ready for the biggest tag game in the archives so far? (every wip!!) thank you @willtheweaver and @the-golden-comet for the tag! the goal of this game is to give a bad summary of your wips, so i decided to go all out and do everything in the archives so far, across both volumes!

tales from a dying heart

do you like love? well you shouldn’t. let the heart consume you.

the rockdove promise

objectively, you can’t fix him. becoming an acolyte for your own ulterior motives will not fix anything. laszlo. you won’t win. LASZLO. STOP IT–

insincere.

oh fuck i don’t like feeling things, can i go back to sleep?

on kingston alley

why will no one spill the town secrets to these two obnoxious, gay, mentally ill teenage girls?

school rules

win at school or die. featuring a smartass radio host

the dumaresq poems

can we all just chill and write depressing poetry?

the hunt is a dance

on today’s episode of: what will seren do today to destroy the status quo?

TITANSPINE

police bad magic hard much violence

n3xt y3ar

creativity is dying!! let’s rot in bed!! wait no–? are we not doing that? uh okay then… revolution?

soleil éteint

weird nightmares gone terminal.

shatter the shield

gay boy in mourning is very bad at expressing basic human emotions, stabs people.

open tag, but i'll consult the tag list if anyone's interested:

@wyked-ao3, @48lexr, @thecrazyalchemist, @moltenwrites, @yourpenpaldee,

@glassfrogforest, @gioiaalbanoart, @drchenquill, @paeliae-occasionally, @tc-doherty,

@corinneglass, @mysticstarlightduck, @thecomfywriter, @thelovelymachinery, @kind-lion,

@leahnardo-da-veggie, @an-indecisive-nerd, @honeybewrites

[godsfavoritescientist]

I Am Unwell About This

[soliloquent-stark]

🫀 may the angels bow down for you by soliloquent

2k words // pairing: tony stark & steve rogers

—⎊—

“He hides.

When the Demon gets loud, when He drinks His poison and tries to hurt him with His palm, or His words, or His power—he hides.

Burgundy. Oak. Shattered glass.”

or: Tony pleads for help from his Angel; Steve pleads for forgiveness from Tony.

written for the @cap-ironman 2023 holiday exchange

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[afterthefeast]

i think it’s interesting that fitzjames’ justification to crozier for eating his body after he dies is to say “i am not christ”, ie his body is not sacred and after death is merely meat that is sorely needed by the crew, in contrast to hodgson explicitly invoking the eucharist in relation to eating gibson’s body. obviously what makes any potential cannibalism of fitzjames potentially justified would be his prior giving of consent, in contrast to gibson dying with no idea what hickey intended to do with his body, but what’s more interesting is the fact that what renders fitzjames’ body as possibly sacred, in the sense of having a meaning and importance beyond its material reality as meat, is crozier’s insistence that his friend’s body be left alone.

in contrast, if you interpret the eucharist monologue as being to do with hodgson’s recent consumption of human flesh (which i do think is the most useful interpretation at any rate), gibson’s body is only sacred once it has been consumed, in direct opposition to how fitzjames’ is given greater meaning by not being eaten. in both of these contexts what gives the body a potential sacredness is the external meaning imposed upon it, but while hickey does try to present cannibalism as having a sacramental quality, it’s obvious that at the end of the day gibson is merely meat.

crucially, this is ultimately also true of fitzjames, despite crozier’s best efforts, because his body ends up possibly eaten and definitely looted anyway. hodgson’s speech has no real meaning beyond futilely trying to justify what he’s done. he finishes the monologue with the only thing that really matters - “i’m so hungry”. moral concerns have no weight in the face of such an immediate material reality, and the body itself does not really have any importance beyond its own materiality - instead what is sacred are the bonds it once had. i think crozier’s refusal of fitzjames’ offer is still important, less so for its effect, but more because it marks the persistence of his love for his friend regardless of other concerns. if anything is sacred in the terror, it’s that.

this emphasises the show’s overall emphasis on the importance of human dignity and fellowship in the face of utter ruin. despite the above, i think the terror is overall ambivalent on the direct moral question of eating human flesh, and it does not really encourage the viewer to judge any of the men who actually engage in cannibalism beyond pitying them. the whole mantra of “god wants you to live”/characters encouraging each other to survive suggests that cannibalism might be justified in that context, but that the disrespect shown to those who end up cannibalised in the show is what renders the act explicitly immoral.

aside from crozier, no one survives the terror, regardless of whether they abstain from cannibalism or not. refusing to butcher gibson would not have saved goodsir, and doing so did not save hodgson; little’s group would not have survived even if they stayed with jopson. crozier’s best efforts did not prevent hickey from finding fitzjames’ grave. but precisely because there is no greater meaning in death and its aftermath, the way the crew treated each other in life is more important, because really that’s all there is.

for little and dundy, the moral event horizon is not when they eventually succumb to cannibalism long after they’ve kept walking, but when they abandon jopson and the other sick men - this is a line they toe in the previous episode when they suggest abandoning fitzjames, but crozier doesn’t let that happen. crozier has also eaten human flesh (the fact that it’s goodsir, who in crozier’s view is “clean” is another fascinating element i’m not bothered to untangle here), and in that respect he’s equal to little, but his refusal to abandon his friends affords him, at the end of the show, his own dignity, best expressed through survival. i don’t mean to imply he has the moral high ground in a reductive sense, nor do i think his survival has really any greater meaning than the fact that he’s the protagonist (by my own logic any of goodsir, jopson, blanky, or fitzjames could still be standing at the end). but i do think the show presents certain actions as ones you cannot go back from with your own dignity or self-respect intact, and these are primarily based on the ability to recognise humanity in your fellow man regardless of circumstance (be that deprivation, illness, or cultural difference).

fitzjames was correct - he is not christ, and hodgson’s attempts to justify his cannibalism through the eucharist are revealed as just that, empty attempts. nonetheless, while there is nothing sacred about the body in death, there is something almost transcendental about the bonds it had in life.

[archived-diegesis]

HC-HARMONY

Then, they say, O you who have reached the end, enter into the paradise that envelopes all! Join this great choir and feast, listen to the beating of billions upon billions of hearts holding you in their embrace…

The harmony is a collection of many , The hearts of many who have wanted nothing more but peace. THEY are the will of merriment and love, THEY are the embodyment of genuine care and kindness but not niceness.

Xipe is the want for connection, for the sharing of oneself with others. THEY are the act of care, the very want for peace and THEY want all to know the solace of safety for THEY embrace all.

THEIR path is connection be it negative or positive it is the act of bonding and understanding that brings peace. THEIR path striders act with the intent of bonding with care and kindness but do not need to be nice.

Xipe's followers are The family because of the bonding that has been found in THEIR embrace.

The acceptance, The care, The love is what THEY embody the very meaning of peace- To blend all your ideas and views together and accept one another.

[kohakhearts]

hey that pokemon 2000 gifset + your jn dub analysis made me think about the pokemon 2000 dub - I've only seen it subbed once (compared to the hundred times I watched it dubbed as a child) so I could be misremembering, but didn't the dub completely change the themes of the movie with the chosen one ash thing?

i actually haven’t watched the sub nearly as many as times as the dub either :p but i have read extensively about this topic bc it’s personally my favourite pokemon movie and yes! the first and second pokemon movies are both victim to this (like mewtwo’s epic speech we all love so much at the end of the first movie…being a complete fabrication by the dub team :p you gotta give those writers credit - they were VERY good at what they did), largely i’m guessing due to cultural values and expectations. since they were trying to sell the anime to an american audience, not a japanese one.

tangentially, i will say i also think that’s the root of this like…subtle distinction some people have between the characters “ash” and “satoshi.” i don’t differentiate them in any big way myself because fundamentally they still are very much the same, but it is true that in japanese, ash has somewhat different mannerisms and responds differently to events at times, especially in the early anime when it was so much easier to get away with making big changes for…a big assortment of reasons haha.

in THIS movie in particular, some of those things are like…well. the prophecy is probably the most obvious change. the dub team rewrote it to include the chosen one reference, which works great because of the word play on ash’s name. in japanese, it just says “an exceptional trainer will appear to help calm the wrath of the gods.” ash’s response to this is more mild trepidation than outright fear. he doesn’t hesitate like he does in the dub. and tbh? both reactions make perfect sense for his character in my opinion.

in japanese, his concern is more "do you really think i can fit that role?" this...tracks pretty well with his character development by this point. like yeah he said he could win the indigo league, but he's also thinking about dropping out after gary loses; it's that little grain of insecurity he has, which he's normally good at covering up with arrogance (a lot of which is also very genuine, don't get me wrong). but he sees the opportunity to help and he takes it. that's just...what ash does.

in english, though, the prophecy is pretty clearly about him. there's no one else it could be. it has to be him. and he...doesn't like that? that scares him. which, fair. anyone would be terrified by being singled out like that. it's also so much...not ash's thing, even at this point in the series. his character development is about embracing having to work hard to do well. to keep trying until you get it right, no matter how many times you get it wrong. the idea of being a "chosen one" completely robs him of his ability to be so single-minded about what he wants his destiny to be that it manifests as pre-determined; it just...pre-determines it for him, if that makes sense. lol.

the thesis of the japanese version of the film is that no one person or pokemon can stand on their own. everyone needs help. it's about harmonizing with each other and with nature. about letting others help you, and helping them in turn. the english version rewrites that into a story about power and destiny. the title alone says it all, right? it's called "the power of one" - no reference to lugia, no reference to the birds. in japan, the title is about the revelation (or "birth") of lugia.

westerners love a good chosen one story, so this was a really good choice by the dub team in that respect. i mean, it's a narrative that's stuck really well. fandom loves chosen one ash! in general, western fanbases are really into this narrative. it's everywhere. and there's a lot that goes into that, culturally, and especially religiously, historically, etc. so at the end of the day, i don't think the change is so much about conflicting ideas about collectivism and individualism. it's more about goals and ideals, on a personal level.

let me say again for the 273456784th time, i love that they resolved ash's story by having him realize that the goal he's really been striving for all this time is to meet and befriend pokemon. to learn from them. to earn their trust. it's like...he did the thing that everyone else thought represented his goal, maybe even himself included, only to realize that his dream was never about the end of it anyway. it was about everything he learnt and everyone he met along the way. (i also suspect nobody writing in 1997 knew that that would be the ultimate resolution, either. but it makes sense in the entire context. it's kind of a nice irony, even. to only figure it out after writing the story :p)

and i think this little distinction is important to that goal! it's his whole character! which is why even though i too love chosen one characters, i don't necessarily think of ash as one. because even if he is, his whole Thing is that he wants to try. a lot of the chosen one narrative is about characters being reluctant to be used for a "greater good," or about them collapsing under that pressure. ash doesn't really have that. he does what he thinks is right because he...thinks it's right. sometimes, sure, others have to push him into it a bit, but usually they're actually pushing the other way - it's too dangerous, you're going to get hurt, etc. and to me, i don't know - thinking of times he's died, or nearly died, and some legendary or mythical pokemon has saved him at the last minute...i don't think that has to mean he's special in a cosmic sort of way. i think it just means he's special to them. that he did something for them, or for someone else they had come to care for (thinking manaphy responding to may's emotions, not just to the fact that ash was drowning, or in mpm ash convincing latios to trust him because of their mutual desire to save latias, etc.), and so they want to help him. which is completely opposite to the typical chosen one narrative, i think? because he doesn't do those things out of obligation...he does them because he thinks he can become a better trainer by doing them, and he wants to do that. and well. he did do that.

anyway my tl;dr here is YES they changed the theme a lot haha, but i find it fun that they also changed the characters’ responses to that theme. funnily that’s…kind of also what fanfiction writers do all the time, lmao, but that’s a whole other conversation.

[compassionmattersmost]

Deepening Prayer: From Requests to Communion with the Divine

Experiencing Prayer as a Profound Connection with the Divine Introduction In many religious traditions, prayer is often perceived as a means of making requests or interceding on behalf of others. Yet, a deeper understanding of prayer reveals it as a profound opportunity for communion with the Divine. This post explores how we can transform our approach to prayer from one of mere requests to a…

[myristicisms]

trigger warnings for this drabble include; vague mentions of child endangerment regarding miriam's childhood, vague allusions to self harm, minor body horror, mention of needles, and suicidal ideation/thoughts/romanticization of death

God, religion, oddities in of themselves that always had some ridiculous notions and taboos attached to them; Were there a god then why would one worth a grain of salt allow monstrous beings to exist and bring harm to the so-called beloved humans they had made? Were there a god, then why would they allow their cherished humans to commit atrocities against one another with little consequence? There was no god, not to Miriam in any case.

That had been a revelation long since held throughout her childhood, when needles dug deep within her flesh to drain her of blood to monitor and when daggers carved unknown script ( which later she'd found to be Enochian ) into her body with little regard for the sobs of a child begging to be freed and left alone; Death was something akin to a gift, Miriam had thought, it must've been if the damned alchemists had fought tooth and nail to keep her alive even despite the ever constant dizziness and nausea that left her malnourished as a child.

Every night she'd pray to God for relief, and every day she'd awaken in misery, the ever present freezing chill of the shard slowly embedding itself within her spine a constant reminder of her ailment, when the alchemical process first began, she remembered far too vividly how it felt to stand and walk, like daggers shooting through her very being and leaving her exhausted after mere minutes of activity compared to the rest of the children who'd yet to be pushed through the same process; Eventually, though, everyone within the orphanage had endured the curious proddings of lunatic men claiming to be alchemists.

The thought was laughable in of itself, bitter enough to drive the taste of bile deep within her throat - Perhaps in title they were alchemists but as far Miriam cared, they were nothing more than frauds and monsters. And as far as Miriam was concerned, part of this heinous experimentation had been at the fault of the ever rising sentiments regarding religion; Had the alchemic guild not lost funding due to the rise in spirituality for a god that seldom ever answered prayers ( and likely doesn't even exist, given how little they care for their people ) then their plunge into insanity and degeneracy likely never would have happened, Gebel would not have been so ill much the same as Miriam herself.

Alfred and Johannes were among the few ‘ good ones ’ as far as the guild was concerned, although the bar for that was intensely low to begin with. As the years passed on and Miriam grew older, the more she questioned what little faith she'd had, questioned herself too, simply because when one is raised as a weapon, a monster, it becomes difficult to truly know if perhaps the lack of answers was due to a lack of a god, said god not caring one bit, or the answer that lingered and made the most sense; She was not a person.

Not any longer, no. She was a monster, a demon, and beast, one that thrived upon slaughtering whatever hellish creatures she'd been forced into combat with to collect data and absorb their lingering magic within herself.

Hellish, painful, hideous, awful, putrid, vile, monster.

Every night, shattered shards covered in crimson and alabaster would rest upon once pristine wooden floors, shaking fingers prying each one out with the intent of some form of normalcy and yet they only return as swiftly as they're removed. Humans do not experience that, humans do not need to pry crystal from their flesh, humans do not experience the feeling of claws ripping apart their ribcage and intruding upon her very core to develop some form of newfound strength, humans were not Shardbinders and Shardbinders were not human, they were extensions of hell in a way, a conduit of demonic energy that drew other monsters to their vicinity to continue an ever looping and hideous cycle of violence only ever broken by the sweet caress of death's fingertips.

Every morning was new misery, new pain, the ever present shifting of crystals within her body molding her skin into something thicker, something near cold to the touch, and each new piece of herself she'd discover would only further raise the same question within Miriam's hardly beating heart; Where is God? Why won't he stop this madness and end her ever growing misery.

It wasn't until years later down the line, where Miriam begged and pleaded to be slain that finally she'd had something answered to some degree, angrily lashing out at Gebel over her condition simply because she'd been bitter ( fitting given her name, of course ) and he'd had the audacity to try to be optimistic, that she finally understood what she was, who she was to some degree. Shardbinders weren't a thing, a simple label that held no meaning to those who knew themselves and knew their capabilities too.

‘ Our power doesn't make us good or bad. Our choices do. ’

That had been what he'd said to her, what put her mind at ease and chased away the ridiculous notion that just because the alchemists had changed her, deformed her body to some degree and even marred her heart some, Miriam was no monster. She was no demon, nor some hideous and evil beast, because her choices were that of a human's, as righteous as they can be while still allowing wiggle room for growth and flaws, she was no monster and thus there was no god because what god would allow their cherished creations to suffer so terribly by one another's hand?

[clembian]

sammy has ocd.btw. speaking my gods honest truth i just know that guy has a million superstitious compulsions and rituals. i can confirm this bc i have it too👍

[menlove]

feeling like a real "well, actually-" bitch reading articles for my capstone that have only done surface digging into the ugaritic texts ahdhsjhs they make so many mistakes and parrot some common misconceptions and I'm sitting here like

[allastoredeer]

#as of right now im still not including the 9 Rings in my world building because they make no sense

Aww, that's too bad, but i get it. The 9 circles have a lot of fun story potential, but I can understand not wanting to try to incorporate something into your world building if it doesn't make sense to you. At the end of the day, you're the writer of these fics. So if something doesn't make sense to YOU, that's going to make it harder for you to convey it to your readers. Writing is hard, so you should do what you have to to make it less so while still being fun on your end.

But may I make a suggestion? How about you put a pin in this whole Circle thing and set it aside to mull over again later? I think I recall you mentioning that chapter three is going to go over Pentagram City world building stuff, so i can see why you might want to have some of this information hashed-out. But unless locations like Imp City are absolutely VITAL for this upcoming chapter, maybe put that off for later? Save that info for a future installment? Maybe all you need for everything to click into place is for another little lore tidbit to come your way, like with Andrealphus' palace?

I know I tend to get stuck on world building stuff too (ive tried my hand at DMing for my dnd group, believe me i know exactly how easy it is to get stuck on tiny world building details) The best thing to do when that happens to me is to step back for a bit and come back later with fresh eyes. Perhaps that'll help here too? If not, again, your the writer. Do what's right by you😁👍

The thing about world-building is that it is subject to change based on what fic I'm writing or what I need it to be. Even if I'm not including the 9 Circles in my base Hellaverse World Building, it's definitely something I'm keeping on the back-burner in case I do ever decide to incorporate it in a fic.

I'm not opposed to the 9 Circles being a thing, I just have a hard time making sense of it. There are a lot of ways to make it work, but so far, none of them work in a way that satisfies me. Fic 5 of Just Kiss Already will be the first deep-dive into the world-building I've concocted for the series, but most of that will be surrounding Cannibal Town and a specific punishment I came up for all the cannibals. It is Hell, afterall. It's meant to punish the wicked, and I like the idea that that comes with specific punishments for specific Sinners that's utilized in a way that punishes ALL Sinners.

I'm debating on whether I should make the world-building post for Cannibal Town now or wait until Fic 5 drops. It's one of my favorite headcanons because it explains how Hell kept the population under control until the Exterminations began (in somewhat recent years) and it gives me a lot of Alastor angst to work with, which is always a top my top priority.

[schrodingersbabe]

yall think god's intercession has like some asimov's laws of robotics-like shit applying to it

[entropy-sea-system]

Ok so. My in sys partner figured this out when I told them about my avoidance of personally having spiritual or religious beliefs (I have OCD and STPD and experience magical thinking) and I hadn't thought of it before but.

One may be avoidant of personally engaging in spiritual or religious activities or beliefs if they experience magical thinking.

Magical thinking is defined as "the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world" (from Encyclopedia brittanica website)

So magical thinking is when you believe causations or correlations between things that aren't necessarily rooted in actual consequences or possibilities. It's associated with some neurodivergences like schizospec (includes schizotypal pd, schizoid pd, schizophrenia, etc.) and OCD although anyone may experience it at some point. For example if you think unfollowing someone led to that person breaking up with someone. Or perhaps if you think that being jealous of someone led to them being injured in an accident.

Many superstitions and some religious and/or spiritual beliefs may literally have tenets that reinforce or include magical thinking (if you think this you will be punished for sin, 'step on a crack break your mother's back', etc.) . So if you're already prone to magical thinking, some such tenets or beliefs may make it worse (or it may also not, as not everyone has the same experiences).

This doesn't mean religion or spirituality is wrong(and this post is not antitheist or supportive of being antitheist or otherwise bigoted towards religions), it just means it can be difficult for some people to engage with spirituality and/or religion as a result of experiencing magical thinking.