#But really it's about the tension between science and religion

[edenorisshitposting]

oops, looks like the story I planned to make into a short comic grew so much it's now going to have to be a graphic novel

[creature-wizard]

Info For Beginner Witches!

This is basically a masterpost for content relevant to new witches. A lot of it of it's stuff I wrote but I'll also link to material written by other people if I think it's useful.

Practice & Technique

Magical Correspondences 101

Closet Witchcraft: How To Get Witchy When You Can't Come Out Of The Broom Closet

How To Practice: Divination With Dice!

An approach to deity/entity work for the sort of people this sort of thing would work for

Manifestation Without Woo (a compassionate psychological approach to manifestation)

Non-Competitive Affirmations

No, you can't tell anything about a person from their natal chart.

A Brief Introduction to Energy Work

Energy Work On The Body: Hittin' The Right Spots For Tension Relief

Research & Critical Thinking

Information Literacy Basics

How to research

Distinguishing Fact, Opinion, Belief, and Prejudice

Critical Thinking: Definition, Examples, & Skills

Caution & Critical Thinking In Divination

10 Questions To Distinguish Real From Fake Science

Search for information on any witchy topic here!

"A weird thing just happened, does this mean anything? Is it an omen?"

Practicing discernment: Some ways of testing and ruling out the mundane

Research Tip: Remember the Five W's!

How conspiracy peddlers and cult recruiters make you feel like you're "thinking for yourself" when you're actually not

Remember a Previous Life? Maybe You Have a Bad Memory

Why fighting pseudohistory matters

Scams, Hoaxes, Conspiracy Theories, & Cults Everyone Should Know About

On people who assert "things are done this way for a reason!"

Dogmatism is not the solution to cultural appropriation

Some beliefs you might have to deconstruct as an ex-Christian

How the "divine feminine" and the "divine masculine" perpetuate patriarchy - and what we can do about it

Avoiding Harmful Stuff & Staying Safe

Recognizing the difference between real history and pseudohistory

Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags

List of red flags to watch out for when joining a coven or online group

Beware of charisma mirrors

When your right to say no is entirely hypothetical

Dog whistles and symbols to watch out for

Eugenicist and bioessentialist beliefs about magic

What is spiritual eugenics?

Toxic Individualism In Modern Witchcraft

New Age beliefs that derive from racist pseudoscience

The Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis is Racist and Harmful

Allyship does not mean seeing yourself as worthless

The rules about responding to call outs aren’t working

History

Debunking the Pervasive Myths About Medieval Witch Hunts

Debunking Myths About Easter/Ostara

Just How Pagan is Christmas, Really?

The Origins of the Christmas Tree

No, Santa Claus Is Not Inspired By Odin

Why Prehistoric Matriarchy Wasn’t a Thing (A Brief Explanation)

Why Did The Patriarchal Greeks And Romans Worship Such Powerful Goddesses?

No, Athena Didn't Turn Medusa Into A Monster To Protect Her

Who Was the First God?

Were Ancient Civilizations Conservative Or Liberal?

PODCAST RECS - Debunking and Fact-Checking for Witches & Witchcraft Spaces

Angela's Symposium (YouTube channel about modern esotericism and witchcraft by Dr. Angela Puca)

ESOTERICA (YouTube channel about the history of Western esotericism by Dr. Justin Sledge)

ReligionForBreakfast (YouTube channel about religion run by Dr. Andrew Henry)

Let's Talk Religion (YouTube channel run by Filip Holm, lots of Islamic content but also lots of other stuff)

OceanKeltoi (Norse Heathenry)

Jackson Crawford (Norse Heathenry)

Conservation & Ecology

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Explained (all USian witches should read this, it most likely affects you)

How the Rage for Sage Threatens Native American Traditions and Recipes

(This post is unrebloggable because I plan to use it as a reference post to link, and may add/remove things to it over time.)

[anghraine]

The Memory Alpha wiki is helpful at times, but also really frustrating, because yeah, it's a wiki, and it's limited by its users like any wiki. But I've got two major issues with it, one really major and one ... sometimes a big deal and sometimes minor, but annoying at best.

1— The big issue: the wiki tends to whitewash the production histories of the show while also providing the most convenient and broadly detailed histories of each episode's production. So it's easy to rely on their versions, but if you do so, you're going to miss some really important things. For instance, Memory Alpha mentions that Shimon Wincelberg, the writer of "Dagger of the Mind," used "S. Bar-David" as a pseudonym, and that he was Jewish (his family fled Nazi pogroms in the 30s) and that:

He incorporated several references to Jewish parables into the screenplay.

There's no explanation on either the episode page or the page for the Bar-David pseudonym as to why Wincelberg used a pseudonym, or what the Jewish references in the episode even are. But if you go to Wikipedia, the plot thickens:

Shimon Wincelberg originally wrote a reference to Hillel the Elder's "Torah on one leg" parable, but Roddenberry mandated an attribution to "the ancient skeptic." Wincelberg, incensed by Roddenberry's rewrites, requested a name change to S. Bar-David for the airing.

If you go back to the aired episode, the villain (Dr. Adams) specifically dismisses Kirk's (entirely justified) skepticism in the context of "the ancient skeptic who demanded of the wise old sage to be taught all the world's wisdom while standing on one foot." The line about "all the world's wisdom" is "the Torah" if you check the source of this, and "the wise old sage" is either Hillel or his rival Shammai. So Wincelberg's script explicitly associates the Adams-Kirk conflict with a very major Jewish figure whom Adams evidently expects Kirk to know about, and Wincelberg was angry enough about Roddenberry's excisions that he wouldn't put his own name to the script. But the reference to a science lab Christmas party on the Enterprise is allowed to remain, and Helen's surname Noel is an unsubtle reference to Christmas.

If you follow the Wikipedia citation from that discussion, you get a whole article from 2015 about the tension between Roddenberry's intense antisemitism and the influence of Jewish culture on Star Trek. The article includes a discussion of a conversation between its writer and Leonard Nimoy himself:

"Gene was anti-Semitic, clearly," Nimoy replied as my heart sank. "Roddenberry had Jewish associates; Bill (Shatner) and I were both Jewish, as were others. To be fair, Roddenberry was anti-religion. And apart from being a ethnic-cultural entity, Jews, to him, were a religious group. But I saw examples not only of him practicing anti-Semitism, but of him being callous about other peoples' differences as well."

The article's ultimate conclusion is not remotely "fuck Star Trek"—it deeply loves it, in fact—but the legacy is fraught and complex. So that seems rather a lot to just breeze past, and Memory Alpha does this pretty regularly (the references to Grace Lee Whitney's ouster are often incredibly vague, for instance).

2— A sometimes lesser but still significant issue with the wiki is that it takes a very contemporary, Wookieepedia-style, canon-welding approach to very different, not-especially-cohesive ST projects that ... I don't like as an approach to Star Wars, either, but which feels particularly egregious for Star Trek, which I think has traditionally taken a looser, healthier, less continuity-obsessed approach to storytelling.

So, for instance, in TOS, the conflict between the Federation and the Gorn is a tragic misunderstanding; the Gorn are defending themselves against colonization. The twist the entire episode is built on is the revelation that the Gorn are the injured parties and aren't monsters at all (when the Gorn is winning the combat, he tells Kirk things like, "Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick" and "Captain, let us be reasonable"). The Federation erred in colonizing their homes. The culmination of the episode is Kirk's defiant refusal to kill his Gorn opponent, or have the Gorn ship/crew destroyed when he has the chance; he instead chooses to try and talk to them and negotiate peace. SNW has, let's say, a rather different take on the Gorn. If you project SNW!Gorn backwards onto "Arena" to weld it all into one canon, you basically have to sacrifice the whole sense and point of the original episode (which was criticizing colonialism!) in the interests of some forced, anodyne continuity.

Memory Alpha sometimes notes continuity "issues" like these, but is never really willing to treat different projects as distinct narratives apart from the alpha/beta distinction. If you look at the citations for various statements about "canon," for instance, you'll see TOS, the original movies, TNG/DS9/VOY, AOS, SNW, and others all thrown in together into some kind of canonicity blender, without it even being clear which statement belongs to which canon. And that approach to ST is especially hard on Trek that had something important to say that's been smoothed away in the modern era of glossy but often much less ambitious Paramount productions.

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Men ain't the problem grow up 🤣🤣 white women voted trump

Well, yes and no.

Yes, white women are an example of a demographic the majority of which voted for Trump. They've done so three times in a row now and we've been hearing for eight years that there's a problem here. Everyone knows it and it isn't really new or productive information, especially since they did not move towards Trump in this election, which most other demographics did. It was something like 55% for Trump in 2020 and 52% this time,* and yet in the nationwide popular vote he gained four points. That's a pretty significant leftward shift in an increasingly right-wing electorate. Those 52% of white women still need to take a hard look at themselves, though, as does everyone who voted for Trump, because fascism offers nothing of value to anyone. (Even the so-called captains of industry like Musk and Bezos have to live in fear of getting on the ruling clique's bad side, and the ruling clique in turn have to live in fear of one another.)

The reason a lot of people are focusing on men and gender with this election, even though the overall gender gap didn't really grow that much, is that the groups that moved the most towards Trump are types of men with a preexisting reputation for being fixated on masculinity and perceived threats to it--Latinos, Gen Z men, men in some other ethnic and age groups as well but those are the two big ones. Whether or not this is a fair reputation is another question, but both campaigns acted as if it was while the election was ongoing. The Trump-Vance campaign was explicitly misogynistic and masculist.† Even the Harris-Walz campaign often seemed to be thinking as if the median voter was some kind of softcore MRA and Walz had to act as macho as possible to win them over, rather than touting his progressive accomplishments in Minnesota, which are considerable. This seems to have been true, because these are, again, the groups that shifted towards Trump by enough to yield a different election result nationally. If Candidate A gets 47% of the vote one year and then 51% or so four years later, the group that went from 55% to 52% is, mathematically, less at fault for that than are groups that went from 36% to 55% (Latinos) or 45% to 60% (Gen Z men). Those are massive, massive lurches towards Trump, and there's compelling evidence that, among some of the smaller subgroups of men that I alluded to above, it was even worse.

This isn't to say that that 52% of white women is off the hook; again, fascism ultimately offers nothing good to anyone, and therefore anybody who votes for it is a world-historically malicious and/or gullible motherfucker, regardless of who they are and why they did it. But it is to say that we've been discussing the political woes of the dang dirty white women for eight fucking years now, and now we have plenty of other groups full of bad faith and false consciousness to worry about too.

*Everything I'm saying about how different demographics shifted is an estimate, because this isn't an exact science. You can't scrutinize people's ballots based on their race or gender or religion. You have to make educated guesses based on how different geographic areas voted and how people claim to have voted in exit polls. For once, the US makes this easier than some other countries, because we report vote totals with more geographic specificity; we can see how neighborhoods voted, not just cities or counties or Congressional districts.

†In addition to manipulating resentments between different minority groups, something Trump had never successfully done before; he improved with Hindus by bashing Muslims, improved with Muslims by bashing Jews, improved with Orthodox Jews (but not non-Orthodox Jews, who held the line for the center-left despite the serious tensions of the past year) by bashing Muslims...Vance even tried to improve with gay men by bashing other types of LGBT people, although it's not clear if this one worked or not.

[the-last-dillpickle]

Tell me about Keiko/Winn, I am intrigued.

It is close to bedtime for me so this answer will be somewhat abbreviated, but it all starts with their season 1 conflict over the school. They got tension there, they both have something to prove, and the issue never really gets resolved between them. Their interpersonal conflict reflects bigger ideas, from science vs religion to Federation vs Bajoran interests.

If we want, this conflict can then be extended to include Kira. It's important to remember here that Kira was originally on Winn's side. She supported her bid for Kai as well as her position on the school. It was only later that they began to have their own discord. Kira also ends up the surrogate for Keiko which causes them to become close. So now we have Keiko, bastion of atheism shacking up with a once devoted follower of Winn... Well, I think there could be some jealousy and resentment there 😏

[reds-skull]

please infodump about the cyberknights au🥺

Well if not one but TWO people give me permission I guess I have to haha

(Seriously tho thank you so much T_T)

All of this can be changed by the time I get to start writing it, so fair warning lol

So last time I really talked about cyberknights I mentioned their world is basically a theoretical future where operation Deadbolt failed (deadbolt being the op to contain the aether/zombie outbreak to Urzikstan in MWZ), around 70 years after the initial outbreak.

Cyberknights is a temporary name for the Knighthood, the organization that is in charge of keeping the aether as far away from the remaining human cities as they can.

I think it will be an international organization, made possible by the aether tears and teleporters (can't remember the official name rn).

What I was thinking about more recently is, that maybe the Knighthood are a separate entity from the state they're from. That is why they can work internationally despite some countries having political tensions between each other.

I was replaying Dishonored (my favorite game <333) and really paying attention to the interactions between the Overseers and the City Watch.

[brief explanation on those if you've never played Dishonored: There are two main peacekeepers in the city of Dunwall, where the game takes place, the City Watch, who are basically policemen following rules made by the parliament, and the Overseers, who are religious officers that follow the Abbey of the Everyman and the high overseer (comparable to the pope in our world I suppose). These two groups have tensions between them in-game, but they're often working together.]

Inspired by the Overseers, I wanted to have the Knighthood be more religious, making the aether a sort of religion by itself. To combine science and the supernatural. Maybe the aether is seen as a curse, and those who often come into contact with it are seen as tainted. The knights do a work no one else wants to do, they sacrifice their own good for the sake of the rest of the population.

The knights are more religious than the general population, prayers and rituals part of their every day life. Their religion isn't just followed by them, but by many outside the Knighthood, but none are as devoted as them.

I think knights would begin training very early in life. If a child has a strong constitution, their parents can consider sending them to the Knighthood. They're likely to never see the child again, so they receive goods from the state for their sacrifice.

The child will be trained in combat, taught how to cleanse aether contamination and use aether tears, and basic mechanic knowledge to work with the technology they're given. After they're deemed ready, they will go on their first mission along with a team, and if they survive they will officially be knighted.

In this structure, the knights won't have much contact with the outside world, and form tightly-knit groups.

The exception to this is Soap, who originally was raised in what used to be Scotland (don't have a name for it yet...), but was moved to the British order after his injury. His accent and mannerisms differ noticeably from the rest of the knights.

Sidenote on the tech they use, I think it will be quite similar to what their equivalent of a military has, except the knights purposely model their armor to be in the image of the original knights. The cyberknights admire the original knights, and in their eyes they continue their legacy of fighting monsters. As they fought dragons, they fight aether worms.

The military sends tech for the knights if they find it will be useful for them, as everyone relays on the knights to hold back the aether. A lot of people question the continued need for the Knighthoods, asking why so many resources need to be wasted on them, but those who know what they do understand that without them, humanity will collapse again.

The newest invention of the military was G.H.O.S.T, a fully functioning robot to aid the knights. G.H.O.S.T is experimental at the start of the story, the first of its kind in any combat situation. Many knights distrust G.H.O.S.T's presence, but the 141 squad learns he's not quite like a real soldier.

Part of why the Knighthood doesn't quite like G.H.O.S.T is because his body works with aether. G.H.O.S.T is able to use field upgrades just like a knight, and his weapons are infused with the same process their's do. Those processes are considered blasphemy for anyone whose not a knight, but the Knighthood assures them G.H.O.S.T's creation wasn't.

I want to design banners for each Knighthood and incorporate them to the outfits for each member respectively. Like imagine having Soap marked by his original Scottish Knighthood, while Gaz and Price have a British banner, with G.H.O.S.T having none since he was never technically knighted. I think that would be really cool.

For the story, I think there will be a lot of knights we will see in temporary collaborations, since the knights aren't limited by physical distance or country of origin. So I'd like to design knight armor for Rudy and Alejandro, and Farah and Alex. Also considering adding Roach for the first time since I will need a lot of characters.

Besides knights, there are also mechanics and aether experts in their base of operation (don't have a name for it yet either), trainers for the children that weren't knighted yet, and of course the amount of people that takes to maintain such large amount of people, like cooks, cleaners, etc. and I want some of those to be characters from canon because it's more fun than inventing people I guess.

As to what the knights do when they go out to the contaminated lands, a lot of their work consists of destroying aether nests, collecting crystals to replenish their supplies, fighting disciples that attract zombies towards human cities. Very rarely, they would fight monsters like an aether worm, if they find it poses a risk.

The knights are always working against the clock, trying to outrun the never-ending storms that ravage through those lands. Getting stuck in a storm often means death for them, as it depletes their aether supply faster than they can replenish it. Aether is fuel for a knight's suit, which powers their weapons and motorcycles (which look like horses and can actually respond to voice commands), but it also makes sure their filtration masks work. Every inch of a knight is covered for a reason - the air in the contaminated lands is toxic for humans.

If knights enter storms, their stay only lasts mere minutes, but if they stay far enough they could last days before returning to the Knighthood's base. Over the years, knights have built shelters in places they frequent, and it is tradition to leave one thing behind if a knight comes across one and uses it. Those shelters have food and water, as well as charging stations.

Knights almost never go out alone, usually having a team of 2–3 people, depending on their task. Like I've explained before, a full team of knights consists of a combat expert, a mechanic expert and an aether expert. A combat expert is always needed, but the mechanic and aether can switch out if the job doesn't require them.

The 141 has four members, with two being combat experts, so they can often split into two teams, and that's why Soap and G.H.O.S.T end up alone in the start of the story.

Out of the three jobs, a mechanic is the least likely to expect combat, and is the least useful. They're still very important, you wouldn't want to be stuck in the contaminated lands with a broken helmet or bike, but aether-mechanic lifeforms are weaker than native aether forms.

[non-native aether lifeforms include regular zombies and mechanic-aether lifeforms, while native aether lifeforms include disciples and aether worms.]

It's for that reason Soap was demoted from combat expert to mechanic after his injury. Initially, he was to be removed from entering the contaminated lands altogether, but after practically begging, he was allowed back. He hates leaving the combat role behind, but because he's got a few loose screws he still acts like he is.

Field upgrades (I'll probably change their name to something cooler in the future tbh) allow knights to use aether to their advantage. They range from healing to hiding the user from the eyes of aether lifeforms, and use up a lot of aether so they're best used in combat only. While in combat, aether is collected from the blood that comes into contact with the various blades of the knights, and because regular zombies are easy to kill it's a good source of energy.

Soap's field upgrade, Frenzied Guard, is usually reserved for combat experts only. It makes it so the user builds up a sort of coating that protects them the more they slay, but at the cost of having every aether lifeform aggravated and focused on them. Field Upgrades can be changed with the right ritual, but Soap refused to do so.

Frenzied Guard actually helps Soap's leg injury not affect him while he's using the upgrade, but at the cost of making him collapse right after it runs out. He doesn't use it often as a result, and is actively discouraged to by his team.

I still need to work out what happened 70 years prior to the start of the story, exactly how much civilization collapsed because of the aether, as well as how are countries now operating, what even their names are... How people react to the Knighthoods. There are a lot of interesting ways I could make the dynamics of the knights and the military go, currently I'm leaning into mutual distrust...

And of course there's G.H.O.S.T's mystery... which I won't reveal here but oh boy if there's not a lot I could do with it...

I feel like this AU burrowed in my brain more than even rev AU because its world isn't ours, so I can world build so much more. I'll admit working within canon restrictions is interesting, leads me to decide things I wouldn't usually think to do if I was left to my own devices, but cyberknights AU is far more of my bread and butter. Before getting struck by COD brainrot I would only work of things that are related to either fantasy or sci-fi (which includes superheroes and supernatural entities in my eyes), things that rely heavily on worldbuilding as they often don't take place in our reality. Overthinking everything is part of the job in those genres haha. So I'm very much enjoying myself thinking about all of this, as you probably can tell by the length of this post...

I also still need to continue my research into Scottish mythology and knight orders from medieval Britain and Scotland (the Scots didn't really have the same vibes as British knights but it's still interesting to look into). I'm currently reading a translation of one of the stories allegedly written by that medieval John M'Tavish and it takes far longer than a modern story would because they use high level words that I never heard of, and English isn't my first language by far so I need to sit with a dictionary and reread the same sentence three times sometimes to understand it lol... but this was the case with the Exeter book as well and I read like 20 poems and riddles from that book for BLOOD||HUNGER so it's not like that's new.

How do I tell people I got into medieval poetry because of a fucking COD fic.....

[a-chinese-doll]

Cum Laude

This little excerpt was originally meant to be part of a full story I had started sketching out a while ago — but, like many sinful things, it ended up sitting in my drafts for far too long.

For context: Y/n works for Suguru Geto and, as fate would have it, she inevitably crosses paths with the ever-fascinating, painfully naive Choso. This is meant to be the first of several encounters between them — each one a step deeper into their mutual, messy, and passionate discovery of human bodies and all the pleasures of sex.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let’s be honest: it was inevitable that, after spending an entire day buried in the books you had so carefully arranged in your Japanese-style room, it would come to this. The collection ranged from deep psychological analyses to the most obscure philosophies and religions, all the way to detailed anatomical encyclopedias and novels — some refined, others utterly questionable. Everything you had read over the years while serving under Suguru Geto.

And Choso, so naive and curious, once granted your permission, had dived headfirst into this ocean of mortal knowledge, his fascination zeroing in on the erotic novels you’d so discreetly tucked between the science and the romance.

By the end of the day, this half-curse, eager to understand the human world, had asked you, with surprising sincerity, if you’d be willing to grant him the honor of explaining female anatomy.

And so, after dedicating a solid half hour to cupping your breast — with your consent, obviously — exploring its softness and shape with near-reverence, things had, quite naturally, begun to spiral.

His large, calloused hands had glided down your side, as if following the trail your feverish skin had left for him, letting you feel every inch of his touch through the delicate layer of your yukata. His fingertips ghosted over you, gentle but searing, until they reached the edge of your underrobe, and stopped there hesitantly.

Choso looked up, his gaze half-hidden beneath the strands of hair that had fallen onto his eyes. “Touch… there too?”  his bubbling voice came out trembling.

Clear, lucid eyes met his, while your blushing cheeks already betrayed the tension coiling tight in your thighs at the mere thought of what he was about to do. Your head moved on its own, nodding shakily, breath hitching.

With a surprising gentleness, a single finger slipped beneath the waistband of your underwear and slowly pushed the thin fabric aside. You felt the cloth drag against your damp skin before it slid away completely, leaving your thirsty little pussy fully exposed to his sight. Your puffed clit stood out proudly between lips already dripping with arousal.

Silence wrapped around you both, thick and charged, while your core pulsed hot against the cool air, in stark contrast to his serious, unreadable face. He watched, awestruck, your bare cunt, messy and wet, on full display before him. Your shameless need spilled open like an offering on an altar of flesh, as if it held the answer to something sacred.

Your hand moved down, slooowly, fingers trembling just enough to betray how worked up you already were. And with a raspy little voice, barely over a whisper, you taught him.

“We’re... really sensitive here,” you murmured, pressing your fingertip to the very top of your sweet spot.

The touch was featherlight, precise, and still, your eyes fluttered shut, thighs twitching as a soft tremor ran through you.

Choso stared, transfixed. He absorbed every instruction you gave him, and moved obediently.

His fingers replaced yours, mirroring the motion. Light. Careful. Somehow... worshipful. But even that ghost of a touch had you gasping, a low whimper spilling from your lips before you could stop it.

"What… was that?" he asked, breathless, eyes wide in wonder.

His brows drew together, breath catching hard. He froze, not out of hesitation, but because something deep inside him snapped loose.

That sound. Your sound.

It had triggered something.

Inside his pants, pressure was growing fast, raw and new, yet unbearable. His cock, twitching and eager, was slowly hardening into a thick, throbbing shape, straining beneath his loose clothes, the growing bulge clearly outlined, trapped and painfully compressed.

You dared to speak — "It’s just… the body’s reac—"

He cut you off, his smoky voice low and hasty: “Do it again.”

His fingers pressed onto your sensitive nub with more intent, firmer, and this time your moan came out louder, helpless.

The erotic melody hit him like a punch to the crotch, his shaft pulsing violently, as if it could hear you.

Choso looked down, bringing his free hand between his legs, shy fingers curling around the ache growing there, eyes confused, lips parted. He let out a frustrated, primal growl, as his nose twitched in a clear expression of disapproval.

Poor Choso. He didn’t know what was too much or too soon — he was just a centuries-old adult acting like a teenager, stumbling into the sinful realm of eroticism for the very first time, desperate to relieve that maddening, caged-up feeling building in his body. And yet, your shiny pussy was already laid bare before him… so really, what could possibly be wrong with showing you what he was feeling?

"It hurts," he muttered to himself while fumbling awkwardly at his groin, in a clumsy attempt to soothe the discomfort, but it was useless, the sensation only growing sharper, more frustrating, until it became clear there was only one logical solution. With one smooth, instinctive motion, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and pushed them down past his hips.

His cock sprang free, stiff and rosy. Thick veins traced the shaft, and his swollen, bulbous crown glistened with precum beaded right at the center, dripping down in a slow, honey-like strand.

"What are you doing?!" you gasped, instinctively covering your mouth, legs pressing together — but your eyes stayed right where they were.

Because holy fuck.

Choso Kamo was... blessed.

“It hurts,” he repeated, voice still, completely unashamed and that made you throb. “I don’t know why, but...”

He leaned back slightly, revealing himself in all his juicy, aching fullness; that oozing, desperate length strained toward you, heavy and prominent against the soft color of his clothes, begging for something it didn’t even know how to name.

"My god…" you whispered, lungs empty of air, your face burning hot.

Choso was still staring between his legs, his expression absorbed, almost scientifically intrigued by the strange essence slowly lubricating the painted bulb of his manhood. He brought two fingers to his swollen ridge, carefully running them over the crown where dense, translucent pre had gathered in glistening drops.

A shiver ran down his spine, soft but unmistakable, as he collected the leaking essence on his fingers. With relaxed, awed curiosity, he lifted them to eye level, gaze locked on the slick fluid coating his skin. It was as if he were trying to decode its nature — its scent, its texture, rubbing it slowly between thumb and forefinger, watching it stretch, smear, and stick, fascinated by the way it clung and glistened.

"Choso! Don’t do that— it’s… it’s embarrassing!" you burst out, one hand flying to your forehead in sheer disbelief, while his other hand was still pressed tightly between your thighs soaked.

But he wasn’t exactly listening.

Or rather, he was, just in his own way.

That innocent seriousness of his, so focused, so unaffected, was absolutely disarming.

His fingers, lubricated with his own pleasure, flexed and curled, slowly opening and closing as salacious strings stretched and snapped between them.

Then his gaze dropped again, between your legs, to your folds, shuddering at the attention, your cunt clenching pathetically around nothing.

His hand shifted slightly against your drenched slit, bold, exploratory.

"You’re wet too." he said, like it was a technical observation.

He withdrew his hand gently from the warmth between your thighs, dragging his fingers along your entrance, letting them get coated with your glossy arousal, spreading them apart, watching the thin, gluey shimmering thread of fluid stretch from one knuckle to the other, eyes lighting up with the same fascination as before.

And then, still silent, he began to play with it, sliding it between his fingertips, letting it smear over the back of his hand, watching how it clung and pulled, methodically and calm, like he was observing some kind of magical substance.

At the same time, his other hand lifted, still shining with his own viscous cum, and, awkwardly, he began comparing it to yours.

You stared at him, cheeks flushed a deep magenta, thighs still clenched, breath shallow and uneven, utterly incapable of tearing your eyes away from him.

There was something maddening in the way his fierce purity melted into something so unconsciously sensual. That interest, so raw and absorbed, made your whole-body ache for him.

You wanted him. Desperately.

And yet, all your lips could manage, ridiculous and shaky, was "…you’re impossible."

Yet right then, in that charged, consecrated moment, Choso couldn’t have cared less about what was possible or not. His body moved on instinct, and without warning, he brought his fingers to his mouth. The very same fingers slick with your syrupy juices, still shiny from your heat. He did it with complete genuineness, like it was simply the next step in his quiet study of you, oblivious to just how filthy, how devastatingly dirty the gesture truly was.

"Wha—Choso?! What are you… ah—what are you doing?!" Your voice broke, high and stunned, as your eyes widened, equal parts horror and fascination, melting into something dangerously close to hunger.

Your gaze dropped to the sinful gesture with a aching captivation that made your chest tighten, like you were witnessing something you absolutely shouldn’t…

You watched, enamored, as he brought the fingers to his lips, as they parted eagerly; watched as his tongue flicked out and licked each fingertip, savoring every last drop of your unholy fluid.

"Choso…" You whispered his name, bewildered.

His eyes fluttered shut, his expression melting into one of near-ecstatic bliss. His tongue moved with delicate precision, slowly gliding over his fingers again and again, hypnotized by your taste.

And you, sitting there in front of him, your underrobe still hiked up, thighs damp and trembling, pussy pulsing and burning with raw desire...you felt pandemonium explode between your legs. Your essence leaked freely as you struggled to collect yourself, body undone under the weight of that sacred indecency.

All the while, he tasted your release so shamelessly, so naively — in that maddening blend of eroticism and innocence that made you want to throw yourself at him.

Your eyes dropped for just a second, and landed, unintentionally, on his tense length. It looked even bigger than before, swelling further from the mere act of tasting you; his mushroomy tip twitching in perfect sync with whatever Choso was still doing with his mouth.

"You taste good."

His voice broke the silence with startling ease, his comment flowing out with the smooth, composed tone of a professional gastronome. He looked you straight in the eyes, calm, sincere, without a hint of innuendo, and it sounded like the most genuine compliment in the world.

Your eyes widened in disbelief.

"Ah… thank you," you mumbled, trying to gather what little sanity you had left — fully aware that Choso had no idea just how outrageously arousing he was being.

Though, there was no time to collect yourself.

Because he deliberately slipped that same finger back into his mouth, lips closing around it with a slow, deliberate suck, his cheeks dipping just faintly, and let it fall from his lips with a soft, wet plop.

You shivered violently, that gooey sound crawling beneath your skin, slinking straight down to your aching, bliss-dazed cunt.

And that’s when he touched you again.

Choso’s finger, still damp with saliva, returned to your clit, pressing against it gently.

"Is this okay?" he asked, trying to understand if resuming his movement was the right thing to do.

You inhaled deeply, searching for courage, then reached for his wrist with a soft grip. "I’ll show you…” you whispered. With careful precision, you placed your thumb over his and guided him, teaching him how to draw those delicate circles.

Then, with your other trembling hand, you slipped your middle finger inside yourself, a soft moan escaping as the pressure met your heat. You moved slowly, showing him how to find the rhythm.

"See… right here. Like this. Back and forth… And when you press… curl your finger a little, upward…"

Choso nodded, drinking in every word, then imitated you, his hand replacing yours once again.

His middle finger, longer, thicker than yours, slid into the molten slickness between your legs, drawn in by your starving, eager hole. But even that first gentle thrust was enough to make you whimper, your body folding slightly forward.

"Oh…" It slipped from your lips, uncontrolled.

His finger moved slowly at first, delicate, tentative, soaking in the welcoming wetness of your flesh, steadily gaining confidence.

He pushed in, pulled back, and when you told him to curl it, he did, striking that exact spot that made your hips jolt.

Your thighs clamped tight around his wrist, your breath catching in a strangled moan, skin erupting in goosebumps as your head lolled back.

The moment Choso realized he’d done something right, pride bloomed across his face. He began to move with purpose, sliding his finger along your spongy walls, twisting it with intention, hunting for that same sweet spot — again. And again. And again.

"Am I doing good?" he asked, voice low and thick, barely audible over the sound of your pleasure. Lustful eyes flicked up at you from beneath his lashes, utterly devoted, while his ears were bathed in the blissful squelching lullaby of your soaked cunt.

You couldn’t even answer, your lips pressed together in a vice so tight it almost drew blood, your hips moving on their own.

"God… Choso… yes… just like that…" you wailed, while his hand was trapped inside you, caught in the tight grip of your walls as they spasmed and vibrated around his finger.

He was relentless, touching you with the same reverence he used to protect his brothers. As if your pleasure had become his only mission in life.

His finger thrusted decisive, firm and rhythmic. And when his thumb joined in, circling your soft spot just the way you’d shown him, a raw, louder scream ripped from your chest, your back arched, your skin damp with sweat.

You didn’t even care if someone could hear you through the walls of that place that had been your home for years.

You hovered at the edge, bliss coiling into your belly, pressure building between your unsteady legs. Your whole body tense toward a single, burning point, toward that finger whose rhythm was guided by your gasps, your moans, the needy stutter of your waist.

Each final thrust stole your breath. And when you dared to open your hazy eyes, the sight below shredded what little composure you had left: Choso’s cock was the most intoxicating vision you’d ever witnessed.

Precum spilled generously from the libidinous ridge, thick ribbons of nectar trailing down to his tensing, cum-weighted balls. It looked like he was about to bust just from watching you unravel.

You gasped his name unable to finish the sentence. But he didn’t answer.

He wasn’t speaking anymore, a prisoner to a frenzy he didn’t understand, lost to instinct and commitment.

He wasn’t thinking anymore, his brain clouded with a single, burning goal: to draw every last drop of pleasure from your body.

His finger kept fucking into you — brutal, steady, precise. His thumb caressed your clit in perfect sync — feather-light, devastating.

And then, abruptly, he shoved his finger deeper, until it was swallowed by your heat, all the way to the knuckle.

He found the perfect curve and pressed, pressed, pressed. Your body shattered with a broken, strangled cry. You collapsed onto the soft surface below, every muscle spasming, your core compressing intensely around him, trembling endlessly. Your legs locked around his arm as your orgasm hit like a thunderstorm, floods of release pouring out in a hot, crushing rush, bathing his fingers, his wrist, the sleeve of his robe.

Choso didn’t know what was happening — not to you, not to him — but his body did.

His nerves tightened, snapping low in his belly; a sudden rush of ecstasy flooding him as he heard that filthy, soaked sound, your wrecked pleas, as he saw the bounce of your tits under the transparent fabric, with every breathless heave of your chest. It was too much.

And he broke too.

Overcome by something almost animalistic, something profane that felt far too close to his cursed nature, a deep, guttural growl tore from his throat, feral.

He didn’t even touch himself.

His cock, already strained from the aching tension of the entire evening, began to pulse violently, bursting without permission in a milky-white flow.

The first spurt shot out, with a wet slap, thick, hot, powerful, staining the futon in front of him.

More followed, creamy viscous ropes spilled out in messy, uncontrollable waves, coating the sheets as his body finally gave in, discharging every last drop of the unbearable pressure he'd been carrying.

And when everything stilled, your breath, his gaze, both your trembling bodies, you remained there, suspended in a silence broken only by the soft, sloshing sounds of your shared ecstasy.

You, legs still parted, chest rising and falling unevenly, your skin glistening with sweat. Him, kneeling before you, breathing raggedly, fingers still coated in your slick, eyelids fluttering like he was descending from some place divine.

He looked stunned, wide-eyed and dazed, his innocence barely wrapping around the edges of something far more carnal.

And in that surprised, bliss-drenched state, he faltered, limbs shaky, breath shallow.

He stumbled forward, instincts kicking in just in time to catch himself with his elbows, until his face was hovering right above yours. Your breaths mingled in the warm space between you, his heated, exhale ghosting over your lips. Slushy cum still leaking onto your bare thigh, dripping timidly in slow, lazy trails.

And when his glossy, overwhelmed eyes met your playful, blissed-out expression, he stood still, stuck somewhere between mysterious confusion and reverent awe.

"Was I good?" he muttered, as you brought his forehead to yours tenderly.

"You did perfectly," you praised against his lips, kissing him slow, deep — your tongue sliding against his with unspoken gratitude, tasting him with the same worship he had shown you.

"I think I owe you something in return…"

"Can we do it again?" he asked, voice apparently still thick with want.

"We can do a lot more than that…"

He blinked, and you caught a subtle gleam of eagerness in his eyes.

"I… may have taken the liberty of highlighting a few passages in your books,” he added seriously, like it was a matter of deep academic importance.

You chuckled playfully, your breath brushing his jaw as you began to lower yourself, lips trailing down the side of his neck.

"Oh, we can dive deeper later…" you purred, your hands sliding down his chest — slow, intentional "but right now, there’s a very specific part of your anatomy that needs… hands-on attention."

And your mouth kept moving lower.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ryan Burge

Published: May 8, 2024

I've always been a bit fascinated by people who live with inherent tensions in their lives. For example, I reside in a small, rural town that will likely vote overwhelmingly for Trump in 2024—probably by forty points or more. Yet, there are some hardcore liberals here. I know a few of them. They advocate strongly for their beliefs, aware that their efforts might not significantly sway the majority. Many spend considerable time in St. Louis, about an hour's drive away, seeking a cultural environment more aligned with their values.

I’ve written about this before - people who are just in a weird situation. Most notable, I put together a paper about people who both identify as lesbian/gay/bisexual but also say that they are evangelicals on surveys. It was published with the title, “To be of one mind?: integrating an LGB orientation with evangelical beliefs” at Politics, Groups, and Identities. Long story short - these folks are more religious than other LGB people but not quite as active as non-LGB evangelicals.

We have a term for this in political science, it’s called being cross pressured. I consider this piece by Diana Mutz to be one of the foundational works in understanding the concept. The field of religion and politics presents me with a whole bunch of combinations of folks who would clearly fall into this cross pressured category. I wanted to focus on one today that may be the most incongruent - people who identify as atheist or agnostic on the religion question but then say that they are Republicans.

I don’t think I need to provide a huge theoretical justification for why this is a weird combination of factors. The Republican party is basically 85% Christians right now. So to be an atheist who also identifies with the GOP puts you in a really small subset of the population. Let me start by just showing you that - this is the share of Democrats and Republicans who identify as atheist/agnostic over the last several election cycles.

Even back in 2008, atheists and agnostics were much more at home in the Democratic coalition than with the GOP. Twelve percent of all Democrats were atheist/agnostic compared to only 3% of Republicans. Over time, both numbers have increased but the trajectory is completely different. For Democrats, that percentage has risen from 12% to 21% between 2008 and 2022. For Republicans, it’s much more modest - from 3% to 5%. One in twenty Republicans are atheists or agnostics. It’s one in five Democrats. There are four Democrat atheist/agnostics for every Republican.

I think part of the reason for this finding is not the fact that Republicans are just a whole lot more religious than Democrats, it’s that Republicans just don’t like that atheist/agnostic label that much. So, they may be functionally non-religious but they would never want to call themselves a term that they believe to be repugnant like atheist or agnostic. The empirical evidence for that is pretty clear when you limit the sample to people who report their religious attendance as seldom or never and then calculate the religious composition of those low attenders.

For Democrats who attend less than once a year, a majority are nones - 35% are atheists/agnostics and nearly the same share are nothing in particular. That percentage has grown by about ten percentage points since 2008. Only 27% of never/seldom attending Democrats say that they are Protestant or Catholic today.

However, those same figures for Republicans who are low attenders are much different. Among those who are seldom/never attenders, 56% of them say that they are Protestant or Catholic - that’s twice the share as the Democrats. Meanwhile, only 11% of low attending Republicans are atheist/agnostic - compared to 35% of Democrats. Pretty strong evidence here that when Democrats are far from religion, they have little hesitancy in embracing the atheist/agnostic label. Not so for Republicans.

But let me take that a step further and add another question to the mix - religious importance. I calculated the share of Democrats and Republicans who said that they were atheist/agnostic broken down by level of religious attendance and religious importance. This is where my thinking crystallizes quite a bit.

Obviously there’s not much happening in the top right of these heatmaps - those are folks who score both high on religious importance and religious attendance. Almost none of them say that they are atheist/agnostic. The real action is happening on the left side of the graph and the color coding tells a lot of the story. Look at the bottom left square, specifically. Those are people who never attend religious services and say that religion is not at all important. Among Republicans, 33% of those in this box are atheist/agnostic, it’s 58% of Democrats.

Those huge gaps are evident across a number of combinations of importance and attendance. For instance, among those Democrats who say that they seldom attend religious services and religion is not at all important - 40% are atheists/agnostics. It’s only 24% of Republicans in that same square. In fact, there’s not a single combination of these two factors in which a Republican is more likely than a Democrat to identify as atheist/agnostic.

Okay - I think it’s pretty well established that even if you control for other questions related to religion, a Republican is just less likely to identify as an atheist or agnostic compared to a Democrat. There’s some clear hesitancy there. But I was curious about something else - are Republican atheists/agnostics that different politically than the Republican party as a whole? And, just for the fun of it, I did the same thing for the Democrats. The area of inquiry was questions about abortion. That seems like a topic that could be deeply impacted by religious convictions, so I wanted to see if an atheist Republican was less conservative than the average member of the GOP.

The data on this is pretty convincing, atheist/agnostic Republicans are more moderate on abortion across a variety of scenarios. For instance, while only 30% of all Republicans would favor a woman having access to an abortion for any reason, that share rises to 51% of atheist/agnostic Republicans. Only ten percent of the latter group favors a complete ban on abortion, compared to 25% of Republicans in general. On the bottom two abortion questions, there’s a thirteen point gap. Atheist/agnostic Republicans are less willing to support a ban on late term abortions and less willing to favor a prohibition on federal funds for abortion.

There are gaps among the Democrats, too, by the way. Atheist/agnostics here are consistently more pro-choice than the party as a whole. You can see that especially on the question about late term abortions. About a third of all Democrats would support a ban after 20 weeks of gestation, it was only 13% of atheist/agnostic Democrats. My guess is that a lot of Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics in the larger Democratic sample are skewing the numbers a bit there.

But do atheist/agnostic Republicans actually vote any differently than Republicans as a whole? Yeah, they do. That’s what is coming through when I calculated the vote choice of those two groups over the last four presidential elections. The gaps aren’t huge, but they are certainly noticeable.

For instance, McCain only got 82% of the atheist/agnostic Republican vote in 2008. But, Romney did a whole lot better in 2012. His percentage jumped up to 89%. However, Trump did really poorly with this group in his first campaign in 2016. He only got 80% of Republicans who identified as atheist/agnostic. It’s interesting that the remaining 20% was fairly evenly split between Clinton (12%) and third party candidates (8%). However, in 2020, Trump did much better with this group - getting back to near Romney levels. This may have something to do with the fact that third party candidates were not as viable in that election cycle.

Here’s what I know - there are going to be more atheist/agnostics who identify as Republicans in the future. It’s almost inevitable at this point. A group like the nones can’t get to 30% of the population by just drawing from the same segments of society over and over again. It will have to get more politically diverse in order for it to grow. How can the GOP be hospitable to this group, while still remaining the party of a whole of evangelicals? Time will tell.

I do think that Trump’s posturing on abortion is probably a good strategy in this regard, for what it’s worth. Making it a state’s rights issue is a way to sidestep the larger moral questions at the federal level and letting voters decide in those states is probably a pathway forward that doesn’t turn off many Christian conservatives and likely doesn’t repel the growing number of Republican nones.

[elliepassmore]

The Sins on Their Bones review

4/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, historical fantasy, LGBTQ+ characters, political intrigue, Russian Revolution

Big thanks to Netgalley, Random House, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

TW rape/SA, spousal abuse

This definitely seems to be a book that you absolutely love or that you struggle with. I obviously thought this book deserved 4 stars, but I did struggle immensely with getting through the book. The pacing is very slow and it takes a while for the plot and the characters to really warm up. I do feel like a good portion of the first 50% could be cut without damaging the story.

Without a doubt this is a story about suffering and about healing. Dimitri, one of the MCs and narrators, is in terrible amounts of pain after what occurred with his husband and the revolution. He's the one we see suffering the most, but the book does follow his journey as he begins to heal and discover who he is on the other side of those things. Vasily, another one of the narrators, has pain in his past that is alluded to over the course of the novel. He's at a different stage of the healing process than Dimitri, but that pain and healing is still there.

I think part of the problem with the book's pacing is that Samotin strives to show a realistic journey of pain, depression, and healing, and that path is not a quick one. Dimitri does not recover over night or in the span of a chapter. He first needs to recognize that he can heal and then he continually needs to make that choice. I do think it's a realistic depiction, and I applaud Samotin for showing that. However, I think time jumps could have, and probably should have, been used.

Setting aside the pacing, I was fascinated by the setting of this book. It takes place in a fantasy, Jewish-majority version of Russia circa the Russian Revolution. The setting is rich with architecture and clothing and traditions. I liked the interplay of the different sects of religion in the novel and how that was used to create tension between characters who followed Ludyazist mysticism vs. those who followed the (not-so) Holy Science. I also thought it was interesting to read a book where a fantasy version of Judaism is the predominant religion instead of having it be a fantasy version of Christianity.

Dimitri is the main character, imo, even though there are three narrators. As mentioned above, this is very much a healing story, and Dimitri has a lot to heal from. He was the Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo prior to the revolution and he desperately loves his country. He also desperately loves his husband, who overthrew him and is just generally a not great (read: abusive) dude. Dimitri is grappling with the consequences of war and the feeling he let his country down, as well as the guilt associated with helping place his husband, Alexey, in a place to do that in the first place. But he's also recovering from the abuse Alexey put him through and coming to terms with the fact that it wasn't his fault. Beyond all of these things, Dimitri is extremely loyal and it's clear he loves his friends dearly.

Vasily might be my favorite narrating character. He's Dimitri's spymaster and fled with him into hiding after the end of the war. He blends humor and seriousness well and is able to stabilize situations fairly well. I liked seeing him work, I always think it's fascinating to see a character become someone else as a spying/manipulation tactic. He has his own past trauma that gets revealed a bit throughout the book, though he's further along on his healing journey than Dimitri is.

Alexey is the last narrating character and he was Dimitri's husband. Through experimentation with the Holy Science, Alexey has become immortal and is impossible to kill. He was already tempestuous and abusive, but post-immortality and post-war, he's only become more volatile. He strives to create and control an army of demons in order to make Novo-Svitsevo the strongest country in the world. But despite his delusions of grandeur, most of his court is terrified of him and he has little patience for what it means to run a country. Alexey is not portrayed as the good guy in any way, but his POV is one of an abuser, so keep that in mind.

I enjoyed the side characters on Dimitri's side of things. Other than Vasily, there are three other members of his court who fled with him and they are Annika, his general; Ladushka, his strategist; and Mischa, his physician. They each felt like well-rounded characters with their own pasts and idiosyncrasies. I would've liked to know a bit more about them but the pacing of the book makes that difficult.

Overall I think this book had a lot of potential. The pacing definitely got in the way of the plot and I think a good portion of the beginning of the book probably could've been cut. I liked the side characters more than the main characters as well, so that could've contributed as well. That being said, the characters have a lot of depth to them and the setting + magic system were interesting.

[bluepunkmon]

Going to awkwardly transcribe the Last Voyage of the Demeter ravings I subjected my friend to. This is on the 0.01% chance I need to retrieve them for any reason.

The movie has A LOT of issues but I do appreciate this scrunkled Dracula.

Ok here we go

Last Voyage of the Demeter has the ELEMENTS to be a perfectly fine B grade schlock horror fest but I feel like its pieces are in the wrong places.

first thing wrong is the lead, Clemens, played by Corey Hawkins

the black guy here

I really really liked him, both his character and the performance

the character is a Cambridge trained doctor who is working on the ship for passage to London to look for a job (having trouble finding non racist employers)

his whole deal is that he likes science and reason and he wants the world to make sense

Only other 2 main characters of note are the ship captain, old guy who wants to retire after this voyage, and his grandson toby, small scamp, has a pet dog, likes livestock animals on board

its unclear why the grandpa has sole custody of Toby, but eh whatever

one of the movie's main mistakes is there's no buildup of tension - almost immediately went eh first sailor is attacked, dracula bites his neck, lots of gore, and every other kill goes about the same

(I realize I can just copy messages timestamp and all and will do so)

[9:37 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: theres no escalation

[9:38 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: another mistake is that Clemen's character trait leads him to all the wrong conclusions - other sailors immediately start talking about some great evil on the ship, he's slower to come around, but the random superstition ends up being right

[9:39 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: later on (spoilers) toby gets chomped and dies. By this point there's like 5 guys left alive on the ship. its been established that some bitten people come back as like, weird grey eyed vampire lackeys. right before they dump toby's body into the water old captain man is like wait I see life! don't do it ! and toby comes back all snarly and then Clemens shoves him into the water.

[9:41 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: right ok SO

[9:41 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: i think the kills and Clemens' role should be altered slightly

[9:42 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: ALSO they shoehorn in a whole character just to exposition dump and explain that dracula's a bloodsucker - would toss that element, I would trust the audience to figure what a vampire is. in this version no one says the word dracula except maybe at the end

[9:42 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: OK SO ANYWAY. NEW STORY

[9:50 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: beginning stays the same, crew signs on, Clemens signs on (he was almost left behind but Cpatain actually took him on bc Clemens saved his grandson's life and he was grateful, I like that part of the movie) and they take on cargo from a weird rich guy in translyvania

[9:57 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: MAIN DIFFERENCE is that on the voyage, pretty early on TOby starts getting sick. Clemens takes him into his care, but despite his efforts poor kid passes away

[9:57 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: everyone is devastated , captain beside himself yada yada

[9:58 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: maybe some crew members bit distrustful of Clemens

[9:58 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: anyway they're about to dump his body at sea when captain says wait I see movement, and everyone thinks its just an old man in mourning, but wait the shroud is moving, and wow Toby's alive !

[9:58 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: his prayers have been answered its a miracle !

[9:59 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: and theres some sailors joking later - about how hey Cambridge standards are pretty low maybe they're sign on and try the whole doctor thing once they hit land - but Clemens isn't laughing

[10:05 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: no matter what anyone says he knows his shit, and he knows the difference between almost dead and dead dead , and that kid was dead he should not being walking around now

[10:06 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: (in the movie the ships cook is big on religion maybe he can throw out some lazarus verses or something)

[10:06 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: point is Clemens uses his love of logic and science to go towards the supernatural here, rather than denying it

[10:06 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: he observes Toby and notices that the kid is def different - the ships dog keeps growling at him, and the livestock animals he cares for seem to freak out whenever he's around

[10:07 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: later on they find that all the chickens and goats have been murdered (this happened in the movie too) and like, idk they blame it on ship dog, even though clemens examines the bodies and finds that they don't look like dog maulings

[10:08 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: Toby gets paler and weirder. eventually ship captain says that he's still sick, so he stays in his quarters from now on. Clemens offers to examine the boy but the Captain straight up refuses

[10:08 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: other crew members start getting ill, paler and sickly. Clemens tries to treat them, but their ailments continue. he doesn't recognize the disease, but finds that many have strange marks on their necks, almost like a bite

[10:11 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: THEN at this point things escalate. first crew member vanishes. no blood on deck or anything he's just gone

[10:11 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: people are on edge, assume that he fell overboard, keep working

[10:12 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: few sailors are so sick theyve collapsed, Clemens is suspecting something is like, SUPER wrong.

[10:12 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: if he has a Watson esque sidekick (maybe picked young sailor to be his assistant) he has to tell him "look if captain hears me he might throw me overboard but I'm like 80% sure he fed a crew member to his grandson"

[10:13 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: and it sounds insane, but i want him to use his science and logic schtick to lead him to the source of the disaster befalling the ship

[10:13 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: how does dracula factor in? honestly idk - maybe he turned toby into a vamp for kicks after the kid was sneaking into the cargo hold to mess around

[10:13 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: anyway thats it thats my pitch, thank you for coming to me TED talk

[10:26 AM, 10/19/2024] Owl: i almost sent a text yeasterday saying a new horror game, mouthwashing, wasn't that scary ( watched whole lets play yesterday) but the game was enough to give me a night of very anxious dreams so I retract my retracted statement

[straynoahide]

16, 24, 35

Do theoretical ethical debates have any value? Is it important people discuss ethical dilemmas, e.g. the trolley problem?

Yes they do!

I think philosophy in general is extremely important in public education and high school, we've had social debates around this. The swings between parties means our education laws are really unstable... it is important because it teaches teenagers critical thinking, civic values, and also because it teaches history of ideas.

Adults need to grow inoculated to uncritical thinking, conspiracies and pseudo-science if we want to retain our standards of living and political freedoms.

Do you think you really understand your gender and sexuality?

I have always understood my sexuality really well and I've never had any sort of inner tension because of it. It's been completely unrelated to religion in my life so no problem on that end.

As early as 5 years old I remember reflecting "mmm I don't think about boys the same way I think about girls? can I think about girls that way? nope, not the same. ok". My sexuality is also not just atypical in that, but also in that, on the fantasy end, I find violence and dark erotism very resonant.

As for gender, I've always known I'm "genderqueer" or not normative about gender. I have lived a boyhood in which I've always felt alienated from other boys, and I've always naturally had more affinity for hanging with the "opposite sex", despite not being 'girly' in any sense, although also lacking any interest in 'boyish' stuff. I've also always been more intimate with women and avoided only-guy groups, for obvious reasons. It's often been the case I'm like the only guy at a girls' group but only-girl groups are also uncomfy to me.

I've "identified" as lot of things, including as 'genderless' (agender); gender development is a process into adulthood too, but the realization I have gender dysphoria/am trans did come later in life though now a lot makes more sense in retrospect, too.

It's kinda funny but the first time I realized (in my view) society was 'stupid about gender' was when I was also 5 or 6 and my "girlfriend" was upset and girls were jerks and that's when I was like "wait this is real to you?". It even involved bathroom drama😂😂😂 bless kids

What are you missing from your life?

I have come out of some very difficult years and I have mourned a lot and come to difficult decisions and realizations. But luckily now I can say I lack nothing✝️ I am in His hands. And my life is in my own.

[quasi-normalcy]

Okay, so I've been thinking about it and I figure:

The captain is some legendary hero(ine) who has since become jaded. Like, maybe they're a captain from a few thousand years in the past who fell through a time portal and they're high-key disgusted at what the Federation has become because they're used to thinking of the Borg as implacable monsters and now Starfleet is flying around in "friendly" looking cubes with rounded edges and blue lighting. Or maybe they just resent the fact that the Forg have already discovered everything in the galaxy and so there's nothing left to explore. Anyways, they've retired to Earth, which has become one of these wilderness-preserve planets, and they're trying to find their purpose in the necessarily gradual, difficult process of restoring all of the biodiversity that was lost thousands of years ago in World War 3; but then the Forg come to recruit them and they know exactly what to say because of course they know that this captain can never be truly happy doing anything besides flying off into the unknown. And the captain knows that they're being manipulated but also knows that the Forg are right and really kind of resents them over this.

Of course, the captain wants their first officer from the old ship to serve with them again, but the Forg impose a different first officer whom they have mathematically calculated to be perfect for the mission and this breeds resentment; but there's not really anything that the captain can do about it, so their old first officer becomes second officer and tactical chief (and they're a Bolian or they belong to some new but relatively mundane alien race because I don't want too many humans)

The Forg-imposed First Officer is a Siskoist priest. Like, I figure that, in the millennia after Deep Space Nine, a new religion arose that was loosely based around traditional Bajoran teachings, but focused on Sisko as some kind of universal messiah, and it gained adherents from all kinds of other species; and, of course, this religion is one of the most opposed to joining the Forg because of Sisko's personal convictions. Which is fine, except...they also regard Earth as their ultimate holy site, since the Sisko was born there, and they launched a holy war to claim it in the recent past that was only halted by Forg intervention, much to the dissatisfaction of both sides in the conflict. Anyways, I think that the captain and this first officer were on opposite sides during this abortive war, and now there's sexual tension between them.

The Chief Engineer is this vast, jolly, Cthulhu-type thing with some incredibly long, unpronounceable name, but who just goes by "Gus." Gus lives in an ocean-sized vat in the galaxy ship. He's the only one who can look directly at the ship's drive system without going insane. This whole trip is just a fun diversion for him. He has humanoid acolytes / symbionts for the finesse work, belonging to some never-before-shown mushroom-looking race.

The doctor is from a carrion scavenger species and looks quite fearsome, except they're really nice when you get to know them. They are fascinated by dead things, but they keep their interest in gourmet cuisine separate from that in medicine.

The science officer is some adorable little naif who really wanted to join the Forg but whose brain structure couldn't be assimilated. They're secretly hoping to make some discovery that will make it possible for them to join a hivemind. This, of course, makes the captain really uncomfortable.

There's a Changeling Saboteur on board. See, the Changelings occupy this really awkward position in the setting because the Great Link remembers everything that ever happened to it and still bitterly resents the Federation for things that happened thousands of years ago. But they've also long since lost the Dominion, and so there's nothing they can really do about it anymore--they're just one little isolationist planet, surrounded by the Forg and too convinced of the own superiority to even try to find common cause with the other isolationist planets the Forg allow to live in their midst. Anyways, they think they're sabotaging the mission, but unbeknownst to them, the Forg actually included the presence of a Changeling saboteur in their calculation of a mathematically ideal crew. And now they're just kind of stuck out there in intergalactic space and need to learn to get along with the crew.

Actually my concept for a Star Trek series would be something like:

It's 10,000 years in the future (or some big number, it's kind of arbitrary. It's a hell of a long time after anything we've seen, anyways)

The Federation and the Borg have long-since merged into a galaxy-spanning hyper civilization

Most sentient life in the galaxy is connected in a sort of utopian hivemind, but you can opt out. There are entire worlds that are just like...wilderness preserves for weird "throwback" types who value their individuality, unique cultures, etc.

The Civilization basically has a sort of collective midlife crisis and decides that it's stagnated; it hasn't really changed its technology or modes of living in thousands of years and it decides that cultural stasis is a sort of death (there's probably some kind of event to touch this off in the pilot)

Their solution is that they need to start exploring again to encounter new ideas, but all of the other galaxies are damn far away

But the Federation-Borg (Forg?) can't really operate over those distances, because they're out of direct contact with the rest of the hive and their units find this existentially terrifying

So they need to recruit a bunch of people from these weird throwback planets to go out and explore for them in a fleet (or in one really big ship with a bunch of, like, Enterprise-sized support craft)

Except these people have tensions because they all come from different sorts of cultural perserves. And some of them don't even think that they *should* be helping the Forg expand

The entire first season just shows their long, long journey through intergalactic space toward the Andromeda galaxy with just a few rare pit stops at isolated star systems all alone in the void

(Maybe, like...a haunted starship that has been floating in the night for half a billion years or something)

All of the aliens that they encounter are really weird and gnarly because this is outside the galaxy, so there should be no humanoids

They eventually get caught up in a bunch of shenanigans between rival gods and the like.

[dbunicorn]

Its like a national straight jacket.

Religion has NO place in scientific policy decisions.

Your denial of science is insane.

Your intellectual dishonesty is disgusting. Particularly in the name of a partraichichal God.

You need a better understanding of a woman's body. A fetus cannot survive outside the womb before 20-24 weeks.

I'd argue forcing any woman to carry a corpse to term is a form of torture.

In the west I'd say ask every woman who had the privilege/hard fought right to contraception, What would you say to the women of the rest of the world?

It's inconceivable to worship Mary, Tara, Earth mother figures, Hindu goddesses and deny women's rights. The logical inconsistency is absurd.

PS - Naive as I am I don't think you're a fascist Nazi.💋

Just not understanding what your daughter's reality could be. Even if she hunts, fishes, is an excellent shot and has survival skills. Civilization and social contracts are better options. CHOOSE

Isolating ANY group is a race to the bottom. Immigrants do many undesirable jobs no one wants in the search for a better life. Our research facilities are a global pinnacle of what human connection can achieve.

- horrible feminist that survive idiots.

I really like the game of old, brown, bitter libtard delusional scientist vs freedom living, white, God fearing badass.

We could make a 300 year long trope about it. Impressive

[anikablog2]

Revealing Facts: Understanding Denny Ja’s views in the interpretation of religious understanding

In this increasingly complex world, the existence of religion and understanding of religion becomes very important. Religion does not only function as a spiritual guideline, but also has a significant impact on everyday life. One of the figures who often give views and interpretations about religion is Denny JA. In this article, we will reveal the facts and understand Denny JA’s view in the interpretation of religious understanding.    First, we need to understand who Denny JA really is. Denny Ja is an intellectual and political observer who is also known as a writer and speaker. He has a strong educational background in the fields of politics and social science, which makes him have broad insights in various aspects of life.    In the context of religion, Denny Ja often gives a different view with traditional understanding. He often expresses his views openly and controversially. These views often include issues such as pluralism, human rights, and tolerance.    One of the views that Denny Ja often expressed is about the importance of maintaining a balance between religion and daily life. According to him, religion should not only be the fulfillment of spiritual needs, but must also be applied in everyday life. In other words, religion should be a guide in acting and interacting with others.    However, Denny Ja’s view also often reaps controversy. Many argue that religion should be a personal matter and does not need to be widely applied in everyday life. According to them, each individual has the freedom to interpret and practice religion in accordance with their respective beliefs.    In the interpretation of religious understanding, Denny Ja also often emphasizes the importance of pluralism and tolerance. According to him, different religions should be able to coexist with mutual respect for one another. He rejects a narrow view that often produces conflict and interfaith tension.    In Denny Ja’s view, pluralism and tolerance are the key to creating a harmonious and peaceful society. He often highlights the importance of dialogue between religious believers as a means to understand differences and build mutually beneficial cooperation.    However, not all parties agreed with Denny Ja’s view. Some people argue that putting forward pluralism and tolerance in religion can obscure the boundaries of the truth of religion itself. They argue that religion should have clear principles and should not be compromised.    In his conclusion, Denny Ja’s view in the interpretation of religious understanding is often controversial but gives a deep thought in the context of modern life. He stressed the importance of maintaining a balance between religion and daily life, as well as promoting pluralism and tolerance as a means to create a harmonious society. Although his views are not always accepted by all parties, but he remains one of the intellectuals that makes an important contribution in understanding religion in this modern era.    This article gives a brief picture of Denny Ja’s view in the interpretation of religious understanding. In this increasingly complex context, a deep and open understanding of various views is important. By understanding Denny Ja’s view, we can explore new ideas that can help us in understanding religion and daily life better.

Check more: reveal the facts: Understanding Denny JA’s view in the interpretation of religious understanding

[a-s-fischer]

OH ALSO do you have any tips for creating a religions when you are world-building?

This is such a rabbithole, as ultimately any sufficiently broad world building topic is. The thing is to decide what role religion plays in your story, the societies you're writing about, and in the lives of your characters, and to build your religion or religions around that. I find it most useful to ask myself a series of questions about the religion and then to formulate answers. This will be a theme, because this is a standard world building and general writing technique for me. But anyway, here are some of the questions I use.

Are any of your main characters religious? If so, what is most important to them about their religion? Is it the ritual? The codes of behavior or moral philosophy? A sense of community? A sense of certainty in how the world works? The stories and myths? A personal relationship with an individual diety? Does the religion give them a sense of control or security? Are they a normal practicioner, or do they have an unusual role, such as being a priest or priestess? How do the most important parts of the religions to your main characters compare to the parts important to other people or the most emphasized within the religion itself?

Are there differences in observance and practice across different segments of society? Across class, gender, age, or position? If there are various gods, saints, or cults within a single religion, what would influence someone to choose one or another? Are soldiers drawn to certain ones? Mothers to another? Are they associated with specific places or communities?

What parts of a character's religious practice are taken for granted by the character, and might not be usually thought of as religious, for example diet or clothing? Is there a line between religious and other cultural practice, or is it fuzzy? Are there strong religious taboos that your characters or societies buy into? What happens when those taboos are violated, or when they come into contact with societies that don't share those taboos?

Are there mulitiple religions represented in your society? Are some of the religions considered more or less presigious or powerful? Are any of minority religions associated with minority ethnicities, or with foreign elements?

Where do the different religions come from? Are any originally from the culture your story takes place within, or are they foreign imports? Do any of them have antecedent religions that they evolved out of, and if so, are those antecedent religions still around, ala Judaism and Christianity? Do any of the religions seem as if they have been around since time immemorial? How have any imported religions been modified to suit the local culture? Are there variations within the religion across geography or culture?

Do any of your religions proselytize? Why or why not? What doctrinally within the religion, outside the religion socially, might encourage or discourage proselytizing or conversion? If any of the religions proselytize, does this cause tension with other religions? (It does, the question is what kind of tension). Are all of the religions mutually exclusive, or is it possible to be a devotee of a combination, as for example it is possible to be a Buddhist and Taoist at the same time? Are there syncretic combinations of religions? If so, are there non-syncretic versions of the componant religions around, and how do they feel about the syncretic forms?

That is a lot of questions, I know, and obviously you don't have to focus on all of them. Take from these questions the ones that make you go "hmmmm".

And of course, there are always the pitfalls to avoid. As a reader, the two things that bother me most are authors who project their own disdain for religion into the world, and when the religions of the world in question are re-skins of Christianity. Also that weird tabletop roleplaying inspired thing where there are actual evil gods in a pantheon, and they have evil followers, and everybody technically belongs to the same religion, but these are the bad guys with their bad gods, and this is totally the way it would ever actually work. But I actually suspect that this is a weird little subset of the second problem of way too much Christianity getting into fictional religions that are probably not meant to look that Christian.

The first of these is the easiest to avoid as a writer. If you feel that all religion is ridiculous superstition that was invented to enslave the masses, just don't include it in your world building. That's fine. Plenty of writers don't. It's okay to leave out the things that don't interest you. Just don't be obnoxious and smug about it and talk about how your favorite civilization has moved past such silly primative things. Religion is still an important part of the human experience for many people, and you aren't better or smarter because it isn't part of yours. Be nice. Looking at you science fiction writers.

This holds true for anyone being smug and self righteous about their personal religious beliefs in fact, but the religious version tends to be something I run across less in my fiction reading.

For the second, I want to give an example. The Jedi are so very Christian. Specifically, they are so very midwest American Protestant. They have an outer covering of Buddhism and Taoism (and other "mysterious Eastern traditions") but they take their fundemental moralities and ideas about how the world works from Christianity. Strikingly, the Jedi are really big on negative emotions being a path to the dark side, and Christianity is pretty big on thoughts and pure vs. impure intent being the determinator of sinfulness, much more so than most religions.

This Christianess of the Jedi becomes so much more blatant when you bring in the Sith. The Sith are an example of the "religion of people who believe all the same things we do but side with evil" thing I talked about before. They believe in all of the same cosmological things as the Jedi, and have a code that is heavily based on the Jedi code but flipped. They are evil Jedi. And this makes them the same kind of evil mirror image that Christians have historically imagined their supposed religious enemies to be.

So how do you avoid this level of Christianity seeping in? To be frank, it's impossible to avoid letting your own cultural background into the worlds you create. You are human, and the world you are part of is the foundation for the worlds you create. But you can widen your view of religions by learning about other religions at a philisophical and structural level. And look, I know that I am a huge proponent of having a strong knowledge base as a writer, and I know that this is a hard, time consumjng thing to accumulate. I get that. I got mine over three decades of letting my natural ravenous acquisitiveness toward historical knowledge to run free. It was fun for me and that's why I did it. I get that research is something that can just eat up all your time and never let you get to writing. I do get that. But a broad knowledge base on a subject not only means you know a lot, it means you usually know what you don't know, and can plan your research accordingly.

And unfortunately, the problem of fictional religions overwhelmimgly reflecting Western culturally Christian understandings of what religion looks like, is primarily a problem of people from that cultural background not knowing what they don't know.

And I am definitely not telling you not to take fictional inspiration from Christianity. If that's what you want to do, great! You can do some really interesting and nuanced things with that. I come from a Jewish background, and the religious group the main character of one of my stories is part of, is heavily based on Judaism. That is a deliberate choice that fits into the world I have created. And I have another society in another novel whose religion is heavily based on 14 and 15 hundreds Catholicism. The above advice is about avoiding doing it unintentionally, not to convince you that you should never do it intentionally!

So anyway, I hope this is helpful.

[rhetoricandlogic]

Airships and Intrigue: An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors by Curtis Craddock

Liz Bourke

Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:00pm

As a reviewer, it’s easy to get jaded. You read a lot of books, and a lot of books by people at the beginning of their careers. Things that seem fresh and new to almost everyone else become as familiar as well-worn socks: threadbare, with holes, and frequently odiferous.

And then you come across a debut like Curtis Craddock’s An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors, and it makes the effort worthwhile.

Of course, that could be in part because it takes me back to my undergraduate years, recalling as it does several elements from Final Fantasy XII—like airships, floating islands, weird and wacky worldbuilding, and a loyal guardsman—as well as a setting that recalls some of the batshit complexities of Max Gladstone’s Craft novels (albeit without the intense focus on the tensions of late-stage capitalism reified) while directly and deliberately bringing to mind the 17th-century tensions between the France of Louis Quatorze (also known as the Sun King) and the Spain of Philip IV (whose death precipitated the War of Devolution) and of Charles II.

L’Empire Céleste is ruled by a king, Leon (called Grand Leon, le roi de Tonerre), and an aristocracy who have a bloody sorcery. They can kill with their shadows, or hollow people out and take away their volition. Isabelle des Zephyrs is a Princess with connections to the royal blood. Her father, the Comte des Zephyrs, is one of the cruelest of the empire’s aristocrats. Isabelle has none of his magical inheritance, and a malformed hand to boot. She pursues a career in science and mathematics under a male pseudonym, for women are forbidden such things according to the religion of the day. And Isabelle’s despised by her father: her only ally is the King’s Own Musketeer Jean-Claude, who was there as her birth and whom the king assigned as her bodyguard.

She’s surprised, then, when her father assents to her marriage to a prince of Aragoth, who is considered to be likely next in line to the throne of that foreign nation. Tensions are high between l’Empire Céleste and Aragoth, for when the king of Aragoth dies, many consider a war of succession—which Grand Leon may take advantage of—to be probable. Aragoth’s aristocrats have a kind of mirror magic—and many, many factions.

The artifex Kantelvar—a religious official—has been pushing for her marriage. He promises her a great many things. The reader, and Isabelle, come to learn that Kantelvar has plans and secrets of his own, plans that may put Isabelle in a terrible position.

Among the court and factions of Aragoth, amid assassination attempts and betrayals, Isabelle is only sure of Jean-Claude’s loyalties. Jean-Claude, meanwhile, would do anything to keep Isabelle safe. He’s her loyal protector. And, fortunately, more clever than he looks.

One also feels for the Principe Julio, his elder brother Alejandro, and Alejandro’s wife Xaviera. Margareta, queen of Aragoth, is a fascinating foil for Isabelle: Margareta desires to hold on to power, while Isabelle is getting her first taste of what power and politics might mean.

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors is tightly paced. At times its tension is nailbiting. Craddock weaves a tangled web of intrigue leavened with swashbuckling acts of daring. It’s easy to care about Craddock’s characters, and to feel for their perils, for these are lively characters, vividly compelling, and very human. And his worldbuilding is immensely fun, despite its more sinister elements.

In this debut, Craddock also does something that is frequently done poorly, when it is done at all. Some still argue that it is difficult to set a story in a patriarchal society and have women be the focus. Craddock’s novel takes place in very patriarchal societies, but it centres on women and is driven by their choices. Jean-Claude, for all his competence—and he is very competent—is a loyal follower. This is Isabelle’s book. She navigates the limits placed on her as a woman, and as a woman with a malformed arm—a very bad thing in her culture—with aplomb and growing confidence as she learns how to wield the power she has.

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors is a really good book. If this is Craddock’s debut, I can’t wait to see what comes next.