#Genuine Orthodoxy

[kaurwreck]

we all need to get a little more eastern orthodox about fyodor.

[big-bird-nerd]

I know people have grown immune to the notions of “both sides-ism,” which is the proper move when you’re dealing with politics and history that you have direct experience with, are directly affected by, and know the history of. I think what people don’t realize is that the bourgeoisie will and does weaponize this to promote belief in racist myths, using it as a method to make people resistant to or outright immune to actually studying the conditions and history of the place they are trying to make you hate. I really think people would do well to understand why and how the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion functioned well as propaganda despite being complete and total bullshit, and yes it’s because people wouldn’t listen to Jewish people who told you it was bullshit because it played on very real hatred of Jewish people and of fears born of violence and oppression people faced in their everyday lives (which was not from Jewish people, but the bullshit protocols tell you otherwise).

Like, if someone is making a massive claim about something occurring in another place, particularly if it’s weirdly familiar to things happening where you’re living, and there is a large amount of people *from within the groups being talked about* who deny the claims, you should probably at least be ambivalent, if not use that as a sign for further research.

“But information from the other side is biased!” It is good to be aware of biased information. Understand that there is no unbiased information; the information you know is also biased info. It requires research of multiple perspectives to determine the truth from biased sources. The best way to determine degrees of truth within biased sources is to study the histories of the locations and relations between the cultures in question.

“Information from the other side is propaganda!” It is good that you’ve grown aware to the basic functioning of propaganda and are staying aware of how information manipulated you. Keep in mind; people said the same thing about Jews denying the Elders Of The Protocols Of Zion, a document that any sensible modern person knows was bullshit. If you’re afraid of being manipulated through misinformation, then read critically, but do not deny something just because it’s inconvenient to your current understanding of social oppression, one that is itself still biased. Also understand that since all information is biased, any political information is necessarily propaganda, which includes the sources of whatever has given you your current information; you should be reading that critcally too to avoid being manipulated. In fact, you’re vastly more susceptible to propaganda from home since the propaganda is actively targeting you, as propaganda tends to focus largely if not entirely within the confines of the country the government operates; nobody gives a shit how Americans feel about their country insofar as Americans aren’t actively calling to blow them up.

“Oppression isn’t unique to America/the west, and we must stand with all people who are oppressed!” This is correct information; oppression has a history across the entirety of the world. However, what it’s missing is an understanding of the meaning behind the fact that oppression is systemic and how this relates to being part of a colonial, imperial country. While your energy is not wrong on an individual level, the fact that it doesn’t account for your own racist colonial government makes it misguided in a way that supports the racist colonial system where you live. Racist misinformation and myths are used to manufacture consent for colonial and imperial violence upon another nation. That means uncritically spreading and believing such information promotes the colonial and imperial characteristics of your government.

To stop dancing around the biggest example of this; while you may have only the best of intentions for people in North Korea, the fact is that misinformation that makes people afraid and hateful of the DPRK, yes even its government, exists to justify the imperial history and ongoing actions that your governments take part in. They aren’t interested in saving the people of Korea any more than they were when they were “spreading Christianity to the natives to save their souls.” Their interest is in stealing the trillions of dollars worth of minerals in the DPRK, which necessarily means massacring the people who currently live and work there and devastating the landscape in potentially irreparable ways. This is already well proven from how the Korean War went, with some villages completely and totally destroyed by US bombing, as well as the use of biological warfare, which has had long term consequences on Korea as a whole and beyond; the US doesn’t care because protecting the people isn’t on their agenda, they just want the minerals.

Discussing the nature of misinformation is not overlooking or erasing the existence of oppression and bigotry in other countries any more than acknowledging The Elders Of The Protocols Of Zion is complete and total misinformation is denying the existence of Jewish bourgeoisie (a minority but still technically existing) or denying the imperial colonial violence enacted by the Israeli government on Palestine. People did not spread the Protocols because they predicted the current state of Israel and wanted to stop it, they wanted an excuse for perfoming and enacting pogroms on Jewish people, up to and including Shoah.

To use a more historic example, there was a lot of oppression and systemic violence in the Aztec Empire. According to surviving reports, it was an expansionist slave empire, not exactly the best of places to live. However, you see I said ‘surviving.’ The remaining accounts are largely Spanish colonial accounts, as the Spanish completely destroyed the empire, massacred the peoples across South America, assimilating and genociding peoples wherever they went. Even if all accounts of the horrors of the Aztecs were completely and totally true (which is rather doubtful but I’m not an expert), it does not mean the information was learned and spread because the Spanish wanted to save the Aztecs. It is an excuse for the genocide was enacted upon people. People back in Spain probably had good intentions when they talked about improving the life conditions of people in Spain. Improvement to life conditions did not occur; life was destroyed and people were enslaved to a genocidal power, and to this day are still fighting back strongly against the systems of oppression that continue trying to kill everyone off. Even if the entirety of the Spanish colonizers said they only hated the Aztec government, it doesn’t mean the violence they perpetrated did not primarily target the civilians and even the oppressed groups and slaves.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a lie, I’m not going to be acting on it and I don’t support the state anyway.” People do not make up lies about a hated national group with good intentions in their heart, and the existence of such lies should immediately alert you to violent intent, and spreading those lies must be understood as supporting those violent intentions and actions. This is what it means for racism to be systemic; your individuals beliefs and intentions don’t matter if your actions allow for the systemic oppression and violence towards these groups.

Western governments, and particularly the US, represent the most powerful global imperial force. They do and will continue to use misinformation to manipulate people into submitting to its systems of violence that seeks to oppress not just people in its own borders, but those in other borders too. You don’t have to like the governments of other countries, feel free to dislike the governments of China, Russia, DPRK, Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, or whatever. If you are truly anti-racist though, you must not spread racist misinformation, even if to you it only would be harmful to the governments of those cultural groups; the government doesn’t lie to criticize the governments of other nations, but to push towards war to crush, rob, rape, and murder the people who live in their borders. Being anti-racist must necessarily mean not spreading these lies and even better, not allowing those you know to believe and spread such lies, for the good of the oppressed people in your own country as much as around the world. After all, misinformation spreads and creates hatred, and the people living within your own borders will enact that hatred on the people in your country, even if you won’t.

[tanadrin]

I know there are only so many ways to phrase the insight "Tsar Nicholas II has no idea what he was doing" in a way that makes it interesting, but I do wonder what the endgame of Nicholas and the reactionaries really was in Russia in the 1900s and 1910s. Let's say he's right about everything: let's say orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality can work as an ideology, that the Tsarist state isn't a creaking old half-rotted machine that has embarrassingly poor capacity (and stops abruptly above the local level relevant to 75% of the population), let's say all your loyal-but-reformist-ministers like Witte and Stolypin are wrong, conditions are fine, this agitation really is the pernicious influence of foreigners and Jews, and "true Russians" (whatever that means) really do love you.

You still got your ass kicked by the Japanese, you still rule a country which is embarrassingly poor given its size and population, your tiny middle class still has very little capital to invest in industry because all the surplus is getting hoovered up by your nobles and you, personally. Russia, as a military and economic engine to which your family's fortunes are irrevocably yoked (unless you abdicate and go into exile, which we all know you won't), is still well behind other European great powers, and the next big war you fight against a peer nation is going to go even worse than the one with Japan, if it happens in your backyard--which is inevitable, because you are playing great power politics like you are the German Kaiser, and not the Russian Tsar.

So what is your endgame? Stagnate forever? I guess this is demanding too much from a man who genuinely thought God was on his side, who was totally out of touch with the events of the day, and whose interest in the affairs of state far outstripped his understanding of those affairs. But there were a lot of reactionaries in Russia in those days, who seemed to share Nicholas's passion for stasis and autocracy. And no matter how many anti-semitic conspiracies you fund in occupied Poland, it's not gonna keep the Prussians at bay come 1914! And it's not like he didn't have a ton of loyal ministers who were 1000% on board with a strong monarchy and who also had clever ideas on how to improve state capacity and expand industry.

[physicsgoblin]

This is coming from personal experience. I am a convert to Catholicism. I meet very few older women and no young woman (like 35 and younger) who are converting to Catholicism (or Orthodoxy). All the Catholic /Orthodox women I have met were raised in the church. It's honestly makes me feel a bit out of place sometimes.

I have met a massive amount of men, mostly young men, who have converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. I tried looking up demographics but there really aren't any on conversion rates for men vs women. I want to know if this is just where I live or if this is possibly a larger trend. I find it interesting. So:

(Raised could mean either your parents were cradle orthodox or catholic or as a family you converted when you were a kid)

(Convert means you made the personal choice to convert as an adult)

Please reblog, I am genuinely curious about this

[orthopunkfox]

Being queer and a Christian is often very difficult. I experience alienation from both sides. Often these two parts of myself feel impossible to reconcile. But, I want to share something beautiful that my priest does that nearly makes me weep every time. The Orthodox Church is not known for its inclusivity or progressiveness. It is ancient and its gears turn slowly. During Holy Communion, those who are not confirmed members of the Church may come forward for a blessing. The blessing is done by gender.

"The servant of God [Name] is blessed..." for men,

"The handmaid of God [Name] is blessed..." for women.

The first time I went up for a blessing, I was hesitant. My gender is no secret and I do not try to hide my queerness. Which blessing would I receive? With sadness, I concluded the priest would do what was simplest and default to my assigned gender.

I stood before him and bowed my head, arms crossed over my (noticeably growing) chest. He raised the golden chalice over my head and lovingly said:

"The beloved of God Quinn is blessed, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen "

He has done this ever since and with this simple action, preaches one of the main, if oft forgotten pillars of Orthodoxy: It does not matter who you are, what pronouns you use, what colour your hair is, what clothes you wear, what mistakes you've made, what trials you have overcome, where you came from or where you are. You are beloved of God just as you are. You are created in the Image of God and are a sacred vessel of beauty, and there is a place for you here.

This is true inclusivity. Not the white liberal veneer placed on so many churches where the cishet, boomer congregation pats themselves on the back for the rainbow flag outside while actively misgendering the trans person sitting in the pew. My priest has not given any big speeches talking about how everyone is loved here. He doesn't have to. His genuine kindness and that of my fellow parishioners are the only sermon marginalised people need to hear. In these moments, the two parts of myself become one and I truly believe that the God I love delights in me.

[hailruth]

Good time of a day!

I'm not Jew or Jewish, but I genuinely want to learn more about Judaism and Jewish culture. I recently found out about kosher clothes for girls who are 13 and higher (that the clothes must cover the elbows, etc) and wanted to know: are these rules strictly followed by Jewish girls in reality? Is it voluntary? Do secular Jews obey it?

I'd be glad if you answered these questions! Have a great day! Wish you all the best!

so, first things first, you will never be able to say that every single member of one ethnicity, religion, race, country, etc. definitively does one particular thing. so, something like how one dresses will not be universal among any group, including jews. the idea of how one should dress is also very broad; a simple yes or no answer is impossible to give on this topic. i am not a rabbi nor extremely educated on these ideas, so keep an eye out on the comments/reblogs from people who can provide more insight. also, keep in mind that i'm typing this on mobile while waiting at a gate for a flight.

there is an extremely large amount of secular jews out there and just as many religious jews who do not follow the laws of צניעות (tznius/tznuit, "modesty"). even then, how tznius is defined varies between communities (it is largely shaped by the minhag hamakom, the "custom of the place"). it also varies between streams of judaism. for example, the reform movement does not require a certain kind of dress (this does not mean that there aren't reform jews who choose to dress modestly / according to tznius), while orthodox and conservative movements will have guidelines. those are not all the branches of judaism, but they are the "big three." even within orthodoxy, which is probably what you're thinking of when you talk about "kosher clothes," there are many different ways in which people follow tznius.

there seem to be a few other misconceptions that you are approaching the topic with, so i would like to correct them.

tznius is absolutely not gender-specific (as in, only for women). modesty applies to every jew, regardless of gender. there are requirements for both men and women. there are, additionally, very interesting discussions among jews who are not cisgender or are gender nonconforming and how they interact with tznius. i do not have a personal gender identity but choose to practice judaism according to the laws given to women, and that is the only way in which i identify with any gender at all.

i am not completely sure where the "13 and higher" idea comes from. i am not educated on every single movement, but within orthodoxy, parents who choose to dress according to tznius generally start their children much earlier than that (anywhere from 2-6 years old, this is also dependent on minhag, but often is thought to only start once the child can understand the concept). there *could* be some communities that instead do this at the age of 13, but not that i personally know of. there is no strict answer as to exactly when children should begin dressing modestly.

like i said before, the idea of exactly what is modest is different between communities. modern orthodox and conservative movements, for example, follow tznius but do not always believe that this includes the need to cover elbows, according to the example you gave. as another example, not all orthodox jewish women wear strictly skirts, modern orthodox women often wear pants.

now onto your specific questions.

are these rules strictly followed by jewish girls in reality? i have largely answered this already, but to reiterate, there is no one mode of dress which you can assign to the whole of judaism or jewish women. but there are many who do follow these rules. i am an example of someone who is working towards having a modest wardrobe. in synagogue, i cover my collarbones and elbows, i also wear long skirts that are mid-calf length at the shortest. once i am married that will most likely be the entirety of my closet, though i am still personally working through whether or not i will continue to wear pants. as you can see, it is a very personal journey as clothing is so central to one's identity and mode of self-expression.

is it voluntary? again, it is impossible to give a universal answer to this question. i already have a multi-paragraph response in my mind to this, but i don't think i will get into the complexities of cultural expectations, societal norms, religious thought, and intracommunity disagreements. ideally, hopefully, and in the best scenarios, one will never, ever be forced to dress in a way that they do not want. but the world we live in is far more complex than that. however, most people who follow these laws do so because they believe in them deeply.

do secular jews obey it? well, again, this isn't a yes/no question. if they are secular, though, they definitely aren't doing it for religious reasons. i know of many jewish movements that adopt jewish forms of dress as cultural markers (such as women who cover their hair as a symbol of judaism, even if they aren't married). it's simply more comfortable and freeing for some to be more covered up, too. the reasons are endless and always personal. while most secular jews one meets probably do not choose to follow jewish modesty, there are absolutely those who do.

i hope these answers suffice. i would greatly appreciate it if any jews could share their personal beliefs and habits when it comes to how you dress. it would be most helpful for the asker to see the immense variation among movements, communities, and individuals.

[keow]

I know the theological explanation behind only men being priests. I just wonder why God designed the Church hierarchy to exclude women so efficiently unless He intended for women to be subservient to the teachings and guidance of men (who often preach that women obey their husbands and be good little wives at home rather than leading anything other than her children).

Surely there should have been a way for our all-knowing Creator to figure out how to give women an important role in Mass/the Church hierarchy that allows our voices to actually be heard, since we’re apparently equal in His eyes.

And yet there isn’t a real role for us. We aren’t heard and our thoughts have been considered illegitimate and irrelevant throughout Church history. But hey, at least the amount of women working in the Vatican has increased from 19.2% to 23.4% in the past decade. Maybe one day we’ll make it to 50%?

I love God but then I look at what is supposed to be a beacon of His Divine Truth, a safe haven away from the erring of the rest of the world, and find it incredibly discrediting. I would have intervened personally if I saw my Church was so full of terrible people who have apparently misinterpreted my message so badly.

Struggling with my faith because if the doctrines of the Church are true then that means God wants to condemn women to either a lifetime of suffering or an eternity of suffering if they go against it. Like tradcaths want to create a society where women are abused much more and men always get away with it. “That’s not what we believe! Abuse is bad!” But that type of society will always breed abuse because women won’t have the same freedoms and rights as men and those men will abuse that power. It happens in every “traditional”/conservative society even today.

So if that’s what God wants then that’s not a god I can believe in because that’s a god who delights in cruelty

[shamebats]

When people are ejected [...] from our social networks-whether online or in our daily lives — they can genuinely seem to have disappeared, to have been muted for real. But that is very far from the truth. When someone is pushed out of progressive conversations or communities because they said or did something hurtful or ignorant, or questioned an identity orthodoxy, or got too successful too fast and was deemed due for a takedown, their absence is frequently met with celebration, as [Naomi] Wolf's exile from Twitter was. But these people don't disappear just because we can no longer see them. They go somewhere else. And many of them go to the Mirror World: a world uncannily like our own, but quite obviously warped.

Kicked off Twitter? Sign up for the copycat site Gettr, the right-wing Twitter rival started by the former Trump aide Jason Miller [...] (Wolf has nearly 200,000 followers there, more than on Twitter before she got booted.)

— Doppelganger by Naomi Klein.

[gemsofgreece]

With all these events that are happening i can't help but wonder about the cycle of rise and fall of civilizations especially for us Greeks

Did the ancient Greeks think it was hopeless when society as they knew it changed and collapsed in front of them? Did the Byzantines thought about the end of times when the Ottomans invaded?

How are many Greeks nostalgic about the past but don't want to make modern Greece better and the cycle repeats.

To be honest, I don't think this way a lot. I think the "fall of a civilization" applies only to people whose culture and identity both faded forever (i.e Hittites, Babylonians, Inca). Other than that, a civilization may diminish or adapt to its times in order to survive. The historian Roderick Beaton says Greeks were at a constant process of reinventing themselves and thus surviving and I find myself agreeing with this perspective. If the Greek civilization had fallen, then there would be nothing for us to hold on to or build our identity on, no language surviving, no Greek Orthodoxy practiced, no extant folklore and legends (modern groups of people who suddenly build up a lore to connect themselves with old civilizations on the basis of fabricated data obviously don't count). Admittedly, to the outside eye those nuances may be hard to spot, I mean, what makes one culture an adaptable survivor or fallen and replaced by a similar yet disconnected one or downright fabricated but either way I don't think the Greek civilization has ever fallen. I think similarly about the Iranians (Persians), the Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese etc None of these cultures are exactly what they were like but they are adapting, evolving and surviving... our era is not an era cultivating cultures after all. Despite their positives, technology and globalisation have caused the dramatic decrease of independent thought and expression.

Anyway, I don't think Ancient Greeks ever thought of a fall of their civilization or an end of an era. Perhaps they feared that during the Persian invasions, however ancient people were far more adaptable and pragmatic than nostalgic - it's no coincidence that the small city states did not oppose much to the Persian forces. It was only a few powerful city states like Athens and Sparta that could "afford" being romantic and organize a defense. But against all odds the defense proved strong and the Persian danger was dealt with.

When Greeks were conquered by the Romans, there wasn't a "change and collapse of the society as they knew it". Of course, it's rarely mentioned by all the Greco-Roman fans but initially Romans caused countless casualties and destroyed many great Greek cities. However, they rebuilt a lot of them and established a lifestyle very similar to the one Greeks already had and the Greeks were free to act exactly as they used to and prosper, so there ultimately wasn't a collapse of the Greek civilization or the society there as they knew it either.

The rise of Christianity would have only been viewed as the collapse of the society as they knew it to those who adhered very persistently to the old religion. But many Greeks also adopted the religion very eagerly. People keep on talking about the persecutions of pagans by Christians, which definitely happened, but they don't talk about why the Orthodox and the Catholic churches are full of proto-Christian martyr saints, aka Christian people who were persecuted, tortured and killed by pagans. A great number of them were Greeks who had eagerly adopted the new religion. The New Testament is proof of the Greeks' genuine interest in Christianity - not only it is written in Greek but a lot of it is the epistles of Paul to various Greek Christian groups i.e Thessalonians, Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians. Besides, nowadays we tend to perceive these things as one-time shocking changes. But this is not how things happened in reality; changes were slow, gradual, curiosity hand in hand with hesitation, periods of peace switching with ones of persecution from either side. So I don't think there was a certain point in time were Greeks would altogether think of the "fall of their civilization". Again, many of the Greeks wanted these changes to take place anyway.

The one time in early antiquity that could be perceived as a fall was the Dark Ages / the Homeric Age, about which too little historical evidence has been found. And yet I am a little sceptical about this too. The reason of my confusion is that after this 400 years long era of supposed nothingness and regression and civilization collapse the very first thing we get is BOOM! Homeric Epics! How is this even possible? Imagine this in pseudo - evolutionary terms; something happens to a horse and it immediately downgrades to a frog and then BOOM inexplicably it evolves to a chimpanzee! Something's not right there. I think even the Dark Ages were not as dark as historians believe and most of these speculations are caused due to a lack of archaeological evidence (whatever happened to it) than due to the factual fall of the civilization. However, something definitely happened there because there is a sense of nostalgia and admiration amongst the Archaic Greeks for the heroes of old... My personal speculation is that the Mycenaean Civilization was indeed pressed by the change of times, wars, social class revolutions, maybe natural disasters but it did go into a phase of incubation, adapting and reinventing itself, gradually morphing into the culture of Archaic Greece. It did not fall because if it had indeed fallen, then it would be impossible for the first thing to be produced after a civilization's fall to be epic poetry of the highest literary form of the very language the fallen civilization had! Oh, and the Olympic Games too! I don't think that's how civilization collapses work. I don't know why there is a lack of archaeological evidence but I think this very lack is skewing our perception of the Dark Ages, which I thus much prefer to call with its alternative name "Homeric Age". (It's also called "Geometric period" but that's not dramatic enough XD.)

The one time Greeks (or now Romans, but obviously not the Latin speaking Ancient Romans originating from where modern day Italy is, which is why it is so much more convenient to say Byzantines when speaking to foreigners that need to understand you're not talking about Latin speaking Ancient Romans) must have thought the end of an era was coming was indeed during the last years of the Eastern Roman Empire. Not just due to the Ottomans though, but also due to the Latins (Franks, Venetians, Crusaders) who were the ones who actually destroyed the empire and then the Ottomans just found shards to sit on. The last years of the Byzantine era is probably the first time we see true panic and despair and grief in all their majesty in the historical documents. Furthermore, after living in one single state for so long, Greeks had finally developed a communal sense of existing, a nationhood. Based on late Byzantine documents, it seems the Greeks now feared the end of Ancient Greek legacy and Roman / Romaic (medieval Christian Greek) culture was imminent with the emergence of the Ottoman Turks.

This is the one time the Greek civilization came close to fall for good. But it is true that the Ottoman Turks allowed subjects to practice their religion (obviously not in an equally free, safe and unapologetic way as the Muslims could but still) and speak their tongue (obviously not supporting it to be taught in schools - I mean, there weren't schools apart from religion focused very basic privately paid schools here and there, especially in the Greek mainland - but still) and with great difficulties and low odds working in its favour the Greek civilisation persists. Of course it's not the same as it was in 1500 BC or in 450 BC or in 1100 AD but that's not because it has fallen 50 times, it is because all surviving old cultures survived exactly because they were able to adjust according to their times, the changes and the dangers they confronted by adopting what they needed to adopt and preserving what they needed to preserve.

I agree about the Modern Greeks though. The Modern Greeks have indeed lost their focus but I don't think it's going to be forever. The main problem of the Modern Greeks is how they are stuck on reminiscing a past long gone, a past they have not even experienced first hand or even studied thoroughly enough, instead of looking to the future and seing what they can do for it as the independent grown people that they are. They waste time and motivation at always comparing themselves unfavourably to what ancient ancestors would have done, which is an incredibly stupid way to evaluate challenges anyway, because ancestors were a product of their own times and we can not in any way predict how they would act or be like in our times.

By the way, I read a very interesting article about 1821 that I intend to translate in English and post here at some point, and I was thinking, people talk and talk about Greece having fallen, about Greece not being what it was, about Greece having a financial crisis and being weak, and I am just thinking... people have no idea about what kind of leaps Greece has done the last 200 years...

[cosmic-metanoia]

Femininity Concepts in FFXVI

***Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI***

Well, here I am again, now focusing on the female characters.

Like I did in the previous post, I will focus on the female Dominants first then highlight some secondary characters that really stood out.

*Jill - Come on, we gotta start with our beloved gal. She demonstrates this silent but strong (and even fearsome) spirit. She's very supportive of Clive but is not afraid to voice her opinions. She possesses a natural elegance and grace but demonstrates her fierce capabilities on the battlefield. She has a knack for negotiation and relating to others. We really see her unveil her dark side when she confronts her past head on in the Iron Kingdom. What's fantastic is that she asked for Clive's support and understanding but made it clear that she would be the one to face off against the Crystalline Orthodoxy's head priest (his name escapes me). Jill may not always make background commentary but her words are carefully selected and measured.

*Benedikta - She is your classic femme fatale that plays with men to further advance her position. Yet the one who she is in a love/hate relationship with is the one she can't have. She is ferocious yet what makes her different is that she contains this hidden sorrow and just wants to be genuinely loved. The way she frantically panicked when she lost her Eikon honestly brought tears to my eyes. She ended up with the wrong crowd and played this game of political chess in a room full of powerful men yet she instantly realized how useless she was to them in that moment of losing her most valuable piece.

*Side note: Let's hope that Leviathan the Lost is another female Eikon when the DLC hits in the next few months!! <3

*Jote - Okay, this awesome woman is HIGHLY underrated! She is incredibly enigmatic and we learn so much about her from the thoughts of other characters but never from her own lips! Initially players may brush her off as some unimportant maid servant but we see that she is so much more - a shield, a formidable fighter (though never witnessed!), a healer, a scout, etc. She's basically doing the jobs of Tarja, Clive, and Gav wrapped up in one! Yet her eyes give away her feelings towards Joshua and especially when she frets over his health. Yes, she longs for him but what makes it unique is that she loves him for who he is, not for what benefits his Eikon brings to the Undying that worships him.

*Mid - A freakin' prodigy. I mean, she is the head of the hideaway engineers! An occupation that is stereotypically masculine. She is 100% focused on her tasks and is not your typical 16 year old gal for sure. Her genius inventions, zest for life, and fast-talking mannerisms has all of the hideaway family wrapped around her finger (true, also because she is Cid's daughter). That whole scene with Joshua kneeling to kiss her hand upon meeting her cracked me up - she's the last woman who requires a chivalrous display but what I love is how she laughed and pulled him up and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

*Charon - What can I say, this woman does not take s--- from ANYONE. She's even intimidating to some of the men at the hideaway which is absolutely hilarious. She is a hardened woman that commands respect but has her softer side which takes time to reveal. Money is on her mind but eventually she learns that there should be more to life - using her abilities as a cunning merchant to help a cause greater than herself.

*Tarja - Like Charon, she also does not accept any B.S. and takes her job as the non-magical physicker very seriously. What's great is that she isn't a nurse but the actual (and only) doctor of the hideaway. Her extensive knowledge is incredibly valuable and the hideaway would definitely not have survived without her.

*Vivian - A woman held in high-esteem who is so focused on the garnering of knowledge that she even gets targeted by assassins. Her intelligence certainly tips the scales in favor of the Cursebreakers to gain the upper hand.

*Anabella - I have a huge post written about her but I figure it's worth mentioning a particular aspect. She possesses quite the evil ambitions and is able to persuade not just the theocratic Sanbrequois emperor but powerful men from other nations - NOT just through her looks but through her conniving strategies. She longs for a powerful legacy forged by the greatest possible noble blood and even views herself as the prized breeding cow.

Some other examples of different aspects of female characters include: Eloise who is an astute businesswoman who conducted deals and contracts while her brother Theodore (sob) became her trusted porter; Martha who is the tough protector of Martha's Rest - the Rosarians put their trust and faith in her; the same with the Northreach residents when it came to Isabelle. What's great about her is that she is a courtesan but we see her blossom into a strong and trustworthy leader that many held in high esteem.

Even the stoic Dorys is the commander of a Cursebreakers squad.

I love how the story had female characters each with their own drives and ambitions whether they were motivated by a just cause or for evil reasons.

[colorful-cryptid]

The Orthodox Church denies the doctrine that the Body and the Blood of the eucharist are merely intellectual or psychological symbols of Christ’s Body and Blood. If this doctrine were true, when the liturgy is celebrated and holy communion is given, the people would be called merely to think about Jesus and to commune with him “in their hearts.” In this way, the eucharist would be reduced to a simple memorial meal of the Lord’s last supper, and the union with God through its reception would come only on the level of thought or psychological recollection.

On the other hand, however, the Orthodox tradition does use the term “symbols” for the eucharistic gifts. It calls, the service a “mystery” and the sacrifice of the liturgy a “spiritual and bloodless sacrifice.” These terms are used by the holy fathers and the liturgy itself.

The Orthodox Church uses such expressions because in Orthodoxy what is real is not opposed to what is symbolical or mystical or spiritual. On the contrary! In the Orthodox view, all of reality��the world and man himself—is real to the extent that it is symbolical and mystical, to the extent that reality itself must reveal and manifest God to us. Thus, the eucharist in the Orthodox Church is understood to be the genuine Body and Blood of Christ precisely because bread and wine are the mysteries and symbols of God’s true and genuine presence and manifestation to us in Christ.

The Orthodox Faith - Volume II - Worship - The Sacraments - Holy Eucharist

(emphasis added)

[transmutationisms]

I also don’t like maintenance phase and share all of your issues with michael hobbes but i’m confused by your saying that they peddle the obesogenic environment theory bc in the episodes i’ve listened to they specifically critique multiple elements of that theory that are laid out in the article u linked? like they talk at length about why they have no interest in policing individuals’ choices and how the ���obesity epidemic” is totally socially constructed. i do get annoyed by how self congratulatory they are about their research though and imo they’re severely missing a racial critique in all their episodes

i have not listened to this podcast since my wet hot orthorexic summer & maybe they have changed their tune but i think they talk out both sides of their mouths because they absolutely do perpetuate the idea that fatness is caused by lack of access to 'healthy' foods, uncritically cite ppl like marion nestle, and try to critique ppl like michael pollan or alice waters solely on the grounds that their analyses lack calls for gov't regulation of 'fast food' / 'junk food'. these ARE the 'obesogenic environment' hypothesis, it's just gordon and hobbs are plugged in enough to superficially telegraph dissension, which makes it very annoying when it becomes clear they lack any actual alternative understanding of weight science, eg the actual relationship between metabolic syndrome & weight gain or the role of restrictive eating in contributing to the subjective lack of control many ppl report wrt 'hyperpalatable foods'. they have no genuine anticapitalist principles and little willingness to critique nutrition-sci orthodoxy, partly because as previously mentioned, they do no actual research and are consequently unable to push any of their ideas beyond what's already on the first 4 pages of google search results. but anyway i absolutely agree they are also sorely lacking any serious analysis of race.

[please-dont-pet-the-okapi]

13, 17, 22 📚

13: What were your least favorite books of the year?

My least-liked three books were... (edit: four. four books. I added a fourth :/ )

Lady Jayne Disappears by Joanna Davidson Politano was a Christian mystery romance that I read this year on a whim. It's definitely the thing I ranked the lowest on my Goodreads this year. Egregious historical anachronisms abounded! !he heroine was praised for having a cruel, eye-for-an-eye attitude towards her relatives! The characters' behavior didn't make sense! And the mystery itself didn't end in a satisfying way.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart was admittedly an interesting read, and I'll probably seek out other books in the series, but there were parts of it that bothered me. For one, a pretty important twist in the book relies on the characters forgetting they're living in a multilingual society, specifically a society where people might use Latinized forms of their names. This irritated me because otherwise Stewart has a pretty good grasp of how multilingual the Medieval world actually was. Aside from that, there was your average bizarrely anachronistic portrayal of Christianity that is typical of any Arthurian retelling written in the late 20th century. (She gets points, though, for not doing the same boring old Paganism Good, Christianity Bad cold take that a lot of her contemporaries did.)

I feel bad saying I didn't especially like The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer, because I feel like everyone and their cat liked this book, but I didn't. It wasn't bad! I see why it spoke to a lot of people! And I'd be lying if I said I didn't learn from it! But I felt as though Comer's language risked turning the Christian life into a hip new self-help regimen. Like that was Jesus' whole point. I had to set the book down for a while when he swapped out the idea of "simplicity" with "minimalism".

Also, I didn't finish A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren, but I had to stop reading it because I found the man's tone insufferable.

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I learned about Take Me for a Ride by Mark Laxer from Atrocity Guide's video on Frederick Lenz, and I read it off of my phone while on vacation this summer (since it was free on Project Gutenberg).

I was not expecting this book to wow me in the way that it did. It's a memoir about a young man healing from his time in a cult and an analysis of why people join cults in the first place. It was fascinating, but also genuinely well-written. Definitely recommend checking it out.

22: What’s the longest book you read?

Going by page count for these, it was Fellowship of the Ring, which I re-read this year!

For stuff I read for the first time, it was The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, which I read in part because Mark Laxer references it several times in Take Me for a Ride.

[ask-the-praetors]

Ok, genuine question for you Norn

While I loathe you with every fiber of my being, while I point at the machine orthodoxy and laugh with two untapped blue, while I enjoy no greater sensation than your failure

How tf are you not cold? Disrespectfully, you’re mostly skinned-

When someone is flayed, hypothermia is a concern if bleeding doesn’t take them first if I remember correctly.

Your blasphemous attitudes aside--they will be corrected soon enough--the blessed ranks of the Orthodoxy are not merely "flayed." Flaying is the first necessary step to remove the sinful barrier preventing Phyrexia's unity. It is followed by further purification of the internal body, including adjustment of the temperature sensors.

None will know cold in the embrace of the Orthodoxy--unless, of course, they foolishly choose to forsake it.

-E

[insertsyscoursehere]

So um… I don’t see enough people talking about Sophie’s older claim that the Abrahamic God (specifically the Christian version) is a system.

Look, I get it, the whole three people are one person thing? Yes, I get how on the surface that is absolutely a plurality staple. But that’s like… a piss baby understanding of the Trinity.

First of all, not all Christians accept the Trinity in the first place, so if Sophie says the Christian God is a system I’d be asking “which version of the Christian God”.

Certainly not the version of God from the Latter Day Saints, because they believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct beings that are united in purpose known as “the Godhead”. And I’m sorry, despite what everyone says, they consider themselves a Christian creed, even if they are not a sect or denomination but a whole different religious group.

Certainly not the version of God observed by Jehovah’s Witnesses, who reject any divine claim of Christ and believe the Holy Spirit is an extension of God rather than any personified entity.

Certainly not Orthodoxy, which does not say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son.

Certainly not Christian Scientists, or Oneness Pentecostals, or La Luz del Mundo Christians, or Unitarian Universalist Christians (in some cases). None of these have Trinitarian beliefs and they’re all Christian.

But sure, tell me how it is that it’s fine to throw a blanket statement over all of the different flavors of Christianity like they’re all the same.

Maybe a non-religious person with no experience outside of American Christendom should NOT be speaking about religious topics.

If you wanna headcanon that for yourself, feel free to remember that you’re making a headcanon on someone else’s firmly and sincerely held beliefs like it’s an AO3 fic.

God, are you fucking 5? You act like you know better than experts and people who live through those experiences. Making a statement like that only serves to do two things: attract religious people who agree with you, and piss off religious people who don’t.

It’s not about research, it’s not about any sort of cultural delicacy, it’s not about genuine curiosity, it’s about numbers for your army of little keyboard goblins.

And you do the same to other religious groups, so I guess you’re an equal-opportunity employer of callous gestures. What gives you the right to discuss religion like that when you claim none and have no insight into the lives of the pious?

Elementary understanding of the Trinity, get that shit outta my sight.

—Jackalope and Proteus

[christmasintheloonybin]

it is funny how the trend among disaffected alienated losers in their late teens early 20s has shifted from neo-nazi stuff to religion. Islam a little bit, but mostly catholicism and orthodoxy. it's really odd. but its a lot like the communists or whatever the hell is going on these days with the left, I'm not so tuned into that side of things. I mean there are almost no people who have genuine political beliefs and want to organize and improve society, they're all just angry losers lashing out at the world. and the saddest thing is they're not even internally motivated, trying to find the edgiest ideology, going to the library to read Mein Kampf or Kapital. they're really victims, they're just online and this shit gets shoved in their face and repeated through algorithms.