#AND VERY HEAVILY RELIGIOUS

[nacreousor]

I keep seeing takes about Whitaker being religious and I need to counter balance with my own take. Whitaker coming from a small religion heavy town in a religious heavy area and studying Theology is not indicative that he is religious, it's indicative that he has dissected religion. If people are big believers from their childhood/church, they go deeper into religious education on the church side, not the higher education side. The fact that he brought up scripture with the context of his undergrad and not personal affiliations with the church or God to Robby really drives this home for me personally. My take is that Whitaker came from a religious family in a religious area, went to church as a kid, but was more inclined towards science and medicine, and opted for that route instead. From what we know of his family and where he came from, no one would have batted at eye at him continuing to work on a farm, and based on the location, going to church and raising a family. He hasn't done this, despite it sounding like all of his older brothers have. You don't pursue God in school that isn't associated with your church; that's not what Theology is. You learn about different religions and their impact culturally. A course on Theology is going to look at religion on a global scale, not focus on one true god and holy text, and people that are way down the rabbit hole of practicing one religion don't go for this approach. Whitaker being the first in his family to go into higher education despite being the youngest in his family could make this undergrad decision a possible peacemaking gesture to his family 'yes I'm taking steps away from your traditional values, but I'll keep religion in mind', while also seeking out a broader image of religion as a whole in order to separate one's self from it. When he encounters Robby clasping a star of David and reciting a Jewish prayer (after David himself is the one who finally pushes Robby over the edge, oof ouch), then Robby tells him that he isn't sold on his own faith, Whitaker matches Robby by quoting something back, clarifying that he's pulling that from his education and not his personal beliefs either.

He quotes scripture in the context of studying, and he quotes Robby back to himself in the same manner - this is something I have learned regarding higher powers in times of stress. It's a reminder that they're here not because of what they may or may not believe in, but what they've studied and what they're here to do.

[stolenkissesdiaz]

i see ppl being disappointed/worried about eddie saying he’s straight but like…the conversation was also about disguises? and self-hatred? punishing yourself by not letting yourself feel joy or letting urself get things you want? he literally talked about getting a full beard in the same convo? the entire theme of their talk was that eddie was subconsciously punishing himself? like the first time eddie’s sexuality is brought up it’s in this one conversation? he was also so comfortable and chill about a goddamn fucking PRIEST flirting with him as if last szn he wasn’t avoiding seeing his gf since he didn’t want to sleep with her bc he found out she ALMOST became a nun. like yeah he said he was straight everything else about the scene implied he is very much not.

[theycallme-ook]

Chat should I be annoying and make a post about how Hyrule's religious practices are more in line with Shinto ones than Christian ones and people should stop depicting worship of the Golden Three and Hylia as a 1=1 with Christianity or should I shut up and be normal (for context I am agnostic but was raised in a Christian household but a Shinto country)

[maryymaruu]

Hi, Three Signals! What’s your favorite song? (If you have one)

TS: [ I HAVE HUNDREDS OF SONGS AND COMPOSITIONS IN MY MEMORY BANK, ALL INCREDIBLY PRECIOUS. HOWEVER, IF I HAD TO CHOOSE ONE, IT'D BE THIS ONE. ]

TS: [ COMPOSED BY MY CITIZENS, LONG TIME AGO. BALLADING THEIR LIFE, ACCEPTANCE OF THE ENDLESS, OF THE CARNAL AND OF THE SIMPLE. ]

TS: [ ...IT WAS NOT WELL RECEIVED OUTSIDE OF MY CITY, DUE TO IMPLIED CRITICISM OF THEIR RELIGION, CALLING IT A WASTE OF TIME AND IMPRISONMENT. AS WELL AS SUSPECTED MESSAGE URGING TO ABANDON PRAYER, TO ABANDON STRIVING FOR ACSENSION ALTOGETHER, IMPLYING IT TO BE POINTLESS. ]

TS: [ THEY PICKED THIS SONG APART... TO BE HONEST, I'M NOT EVEN SURE IF I SEE THEIR ARGUMENTS. SONGS ARE SUBJECTIVE, AND THEY WERE EAGER TO SEE THE WORST IN US... ]

TS: [ ... I THINK IT'S SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL. WHEN I PLAY IT LOUD ENOUGH, THE HEARTBEAT ALMOST FEELS LIKE MY OWN... ]

[serpentface]

What exactly are living gods in the blightseed universe?

Ok here's the (DANGEROUSLY vestigial at this point) Meta Deeplore:

There is a material form of energy that is utilized by biological bodies essentially as an animating force. This IS the vaguely defined, extremely ambiguous magic in the setting. It is what produces the actual experience of Consciousness and can be basically considered 1:1 with conscious experience. All life utilizes this energy (whether actually conscious life in the traditional sense or not).

It cannot be created or destroyed, and rather follows pathways of dispersal between one material plane and a parallel plane. This parallel plane is 'the ether' 'the dreamlands' etc, and has its own matter. Discrete entities from the dreamlands are essentially formed as a byproduct of consciousness and, when interacted with, are deeply susceptible to the influence of conscious Thought (they are essentially matter organized By consciousness and can be reorganized by consciousness)

These are the entities that can become living gods. Dreamlands fauna occasionally slips into prime material reality, at which point they are directly under the influence of consciousness and can be transformed. Dreamlands fauna in of itself is not directly perceivable but produces a sense of Presence, like the feeling of being watched when alone in the wilderness, a 'third man effect', a sense of inexplicable awe or fear, seeing shadows from the corner of your eye, etc. The combination of their tangible effects and their susceptibility to consciousness creates a self-reinforcing cycle that produces living gods.

IE: if one is on a forest and people experience the sensation of its presence, belief that there is some entity there may develop. This will follow the lines of the cultural worldview- say there are already beliefs in spectral hounds that encounter travelers at night, it might be interpreted as a location-specific hound, given a name and identity through stories. This in turn causes the dreamlands fauna to physically embody that form and the assumed qualities, and people will start having absolute materially real encounters with it, thus reinforcing the initial beliefs that created it and generating new elements of the mythology. This is what a living god is.

They need persistent, localized, and coherent beliefs to hold their forms. If a village creates a living god and is then wiped out in a disaster, the god will gradually lose its form and return to its initial state of a sense of Presence. This is also a limiting factor on the 'size' and power of a living god, if an entire religion formed around it and became a widespread phenomena, the living god itself cannot 'keep up'. It is sustained on direct and localized interactions, so belief becoming widely dispersed (especially if the localized belief is lost) will cause it to gradually become less discrete. The effect of this property is that living gods are almost always minor deities or spirits tied to a specific location by a specific nearby culture. A lot of deities in larger religions may have once had a living god component that is now indiscrete.

The living god of the Ur-tree is an unusual exception in that it was created over millennia, basically by the survival instincts of the Plants it interacts with, and has held its form over hundreds of millions of years due to this being ubiquitous and un-susceptible to cultural change. The only thing that could 'kill it' is if its forest was entirely destroyed.

So 99% of living gods can be described as thoughtforms created by the process of folkloric/religious development. They are created BY people and not the other way around, and nothing about their nature confirms or denies the existence of other deities or etc.

And yeah I'm going to be 100% real I am REALLY tempted to dump even this extremely ambiguous magical element like it is soooooooooooooooo fucking NOT important to the setting at this point. I've kind of allowed 'literal god entities created by mortal belief' to be just a tiny part of the world's fabric by their nature, like it works within the worldbuilding for such a hugely significant concept to ultimately be insignificant in the overall framework, so I COULD just Leave It but idk. If it were not for me wanting to still have my big fucking god tree and a talking dog as an actual character it would be out of here soooo fast..........

[shorthaltsjester]

sometimes people will say “going dark” and then what they’re actually talking about is just people no longer presenting a carefully constructed version of their emotions and experiences.

like. emotional turmoil is not the same as darkness. laudna in this Fictional Universe that has tangibly different stakes wrt to death and killing than our own, is at best like . morally neutral for what she just did like. man has been secretly trying to kill you, and then just tried to do so again, killing him back is a fair choice. and even if i was someone who is excited by delilah’s inability to escape from the narrative, this shit isn’t about delilah. laudna made a choice. if delilah is back or whatever it’s a choice that laudna made because something in that grants her more control than her existing conditions did. this isn’t some Delilah Takes Over, it’s Laudna Expressly Makes The Choice To Call Forth Something within Herself to remedy the lack of control that’s been thrust upon her. if y’all want to Continue to limit Laudna’s agency (as the cr fandom is so, so want to do when a female character makes a choice that isn’t Good according to some weird system of virtue ethics) go ahead.

likewise with orym. little guy is not “going dark” because he has finally made direct action about his emotional turmoil in dealing with a situation which has similarly left him without control and has also placed him in a position where his stalwart conviction towards protecting and honouring those he loves and has lost alike is constantly met with other people he cares for going well.. what if they had a point/we are killing other peoples loved ones/etc. which like . yeah that might be frustrating and in fact might lead him to go, actually, i can’t afford to try and maintain some abject morality where I carry a locket that will literally only provide guilt. orym is completely committed to his beliefs, the locket and what it represents has never been a limit to what he will do, only a reminder of the consequences of what he might cause in those actions. but they Are at war and orym has a billion things on his plate. he can put down the locket. especially when bor’dor is the explicit manifestation of that locket’s symbolism. the subtext rapidly became the text and orym doesn’t need a reminder. it’s there in the fact that team issylra is walking away with two friends, not three.

these are character who have at every turn denied their own emotions in various forms while still being acutely aware of what they deny, whether that awareness was/is fully realized or not. many of laudna’s early convos with ashton show us that there is some awareness to the lighthearted spooky goth girl and how that persona fades when she thinks too much about what has led her and maintained that reality. likewise the entirety of orym’s story thus far is defined by his grief in a very literal sense, it Has extended from that grief to also the commitment he had to the purpose of figuring out the assassination attempt on keyleth but as we have seen, that purpose has fallen apart. paired with the quasi-reopening of his grief that was getting to see will again only to have to turn away, i don’t think there’s a lack of awareness in orym of how much he hurts. but between his actions and 4SD, that hurt tends to get buried under guilt or Responsibility.

and now, finally, both of them have admitted to that Not in the safety of small introspection or one-on-one conversations but with actions that they cannot shy away from or deny. laudna killed bor’dor and orym encouraged her to. and it Is a complex situation but truly I don’t really think it’s a “going dark” one. because they’re not giving into some overhanging Darkness of Morality™, they’re admitting that they are hurt and have long been hurting.

or, y’know, tldr for those who continue to deny laudna and orym agency or fully villainise them for whatever weird reasons . you could listen to laudna and ashton’s conversation that pretty much lays it out explicitly. laudna claims she’s weak for having chosen to kill bor’dor. ashton denies that and affirms instead that, no, she’s hurt.

[the-overanalyzer]

> knocks on your door to your office. Hey hey! Are you busy? I was wondering what the hell it was that I posted or reblogged about Stormlight that got you interested. > chinhands

Nothing in particular, but I've been wanting a new fantasy series to sink my teeth into, you started posting about one that wasn't too long (well, not too long by number of books, the actual books themselves being ridiculously girthy) and you usually have pretty good taste, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I've listened to 19 hours in the last two days, so I'd say it's working out so far.

[milo-by-the-fishtank]

One day I’m gonna save all those transgender Mormons, I feel so bad for them 

[daemon-in-my-head]

As much as I'm already enjoying hansry and as much as those two idiots are tickling my brain I kind of doubt I'll be doing anything about/for it.

Reason number one being that I'm still horribly obsessed with the facist and his serial killer situationship.

Reason two: I'm not about to pick fights with a ship that's become (deservedly) popular by completely ignoring the usual fanon tropes and letting them suffer from my artistry. I'm growing more comfortable with allowing Durge and Gortash suffer from it by the day, but I won't be subjecting the other dolts to that. Or risk having a perfectly fine ship spoiled.

[glimmeringtwilight]

Okay the new trailblaze quest has been VERY juicy with the sunday lore I'm so excited

[20w14a]

Do Unto Others by MSI gives me Elquackity vibes while Pt. 2 gives me Quackity vibes.

[dearest-valentine]

.

[clergynonman]

I am the way I am because I was born a dykey faggy loud mess and was raised to be a prim a proper straight As stand straight dont speak unless spoken to good little girl and I can't be either of these things in peace because I still feel I need to be ashamed of everything that I am naturally but am also not able to be what I was groomed to be and also not wanting to be that but also living in constant fear that when people find out the trashy loser fuck that I am inside they're going to run away in fear and disgust while also not being able to be freely who I naturally am because I am only now in my twenties slowly letting myself be that and be who i am when i love myself but i feel so incompetent at it because i havent let myself be that dykey mess since I was like 7 and at this point i don't even know how to be myself properly and just imitate others like me but thats not being myself -because i was thoroughly obsessed with the blue mermaid from Barbie Mermaidia.

[arolesbianism]

Euphrasie vc haiiii Claudie can you help me with something real quick ^w^ (<- visibly trembling because one of her circle wall ornaments keeps looking smudged to her no matter how much she wipes is and it's now 3 am and shes been at it for the past 6 hours)

[eraserbread]

nanami married you four days ago... he's so obsessed with you he forgets how to be. <3

kento's been physically unable to keep his hands off you since you took his surname. there's just something different in the way you move around him.

like this morning, you slide out of the big resort bed in absolutely nothing, dragging your feet as you head to the showers. of course you were careful not to stir your sleeping husband, but you couldn't last another second under the mugginess of the comforters. though, your langkawi honeymoon resort was full of love, just not air conditioning. kento hated sleeping with windows open, so you succumbed to the mugginess.

as soon as you turn on the shower spray and dip your head under, the door draws open so slowly you don't even notice it. you can only notice the sudden rush of cold that falls over your skin. peeking open a single eye, you smile when you see him shedding his sleep shirt and stepping into the steamy, tiled sanctuary with you.

he doesn't speak a word, but every little movement is so deliberate and kind. starting at your shoulder, he traces the expanse of your neck, breathing heavily behind you before pressing a kiss right above his touch. you crane your neck, offering him more.

"i hate to be a bother, but you are just so beautiful this morning." he whispers against your wet ear, nuzzling deeper into his back with his stringy, blonde hair dripping down his shoulders. "can you feel it? how much I need you? can I put it in - my nanami, please?"

he knows you'll say yes, but always asks. you'll always tell him to touch you whenever he needs it, but he's so respectful it's stupid. so, you nod, rubbing water out of your eyes so when you turn around, you can see him through the fog. all of his tight features, the cut of his jaw, the softness of his eyes. it all rings true and feels like home.

wrapping both arms around his shoulders, you nod. "as long as you keep treating me so well, you can have whatever you need." you remind him, leaning close to trail yours across his dripping lips.

"now, i'm not a religious man, nor did I lead a very fulfilling life. but, you, my dear..."

"what?" you're flushed, still so used to his compliments but always prisoner to his charm.

"you are my purpose."

around his back, your hands turn to fists, trying to fight the visceral body response his words never fail to give you. "god, don't look at me like that. you're perfect."

he would humor you more, but that look in your eyes makes him rather fuck you gruelingly slow against the harshness of the hot water.

so, that's what he does.

shower sex always unnerved you, but kento is so alarmingly stable on his two feet that he can sustain the weight of both of you against the slickness. it just gives him purpose for fucking you soft and slow, watching the girth of his cock split you open so delicately like you're made for him.

he makes you watch, this time, wrapping your legs around his waist as he supports you against the shower wall. you love the feeling of his thick fingers digging into the swell of your ass, and love the sound of his sweet, deep voice, recognizing all of your lewd tendencies.

"see how it gets all red when I pull out. like you're blushing on my cock, my baby - nanami."

"mm, oh i love that,"

"look at it," he demands, pressing the top of his head to yours as you let it hang between your shoulders. "no matter how many times I do this to you, I never get over just how well I fit..."

"almost like you're made for me. in fact, I know you were."

[ozzgin]

hear me out...

yandere prison..

runs normally, but the warden hired very specific people

and you just got falsely accused of a heinous crime

Yandere!Prison x Reader

A few years back I actually wanted to make a dating sim with a similar premise! So I might just redraw my old cover and recycle the characters, haha. content: gender neutral reader, violence

You've been accused of a crime you didn't commit. Even worse, you were speedily shipped to a maximum-security prison, despite your horror and your desperate protests. Your lawyers are scrambling to get you out as soon as possible, but it's not a guarantee.

You thought you'd be killed within the first moments after arriving. The three men you're sharing a cell with, however, turned out to be reasonable enough. Unexpectedly so.

The blonde one greeted you with a wide, merry smile. He's the friendliest of the bunch, despite his heavily scarred features. One of them seems to wear a mask at all times, and he doesn't speak much. The last one is polite, though he keeps his distance. His answers are curt and to the point.

You quickly noticed that all other inmates avoid you religiously. The tables empty when you put down your lunch tray, and during breaktime the yard fluctuates with people migrating to whatever corner is farthest away from you.

Today, you finally found out why: one of the prisoners happened to bump into you, and he promptly fell to his knees, begging you to not mention it to your cellmates. You are apparently sleeping next to the leaders of the biggest gang around. Even the guards are terrified to approach them the wrong way; the last one to do so was placed on permanent medical leave.

And yet, they are nice to you. In fact, you'd go as far as to say they're strangely protective of you, always looking out for your safety and hovering in your vicinity like trained dogs.

On your way back, you find the inmate who pleaded for your silence; his head nearly cracked open, held against the bathroom sink by your beloved blonde bunkie.

"Oops! You weren't supposed to see this," he laughs awkwardly. "Why don't you return to our room? I'll join you in a moment."

He flashes you his usual smile, innocent and somewhat silly. This time it appears particularly eerie, given it's stained by fresh splatters of blood.

[More yandere stories]