#I belong to that church

[doodlee-a]

A good example of this is to look at the "annoying activist" in TV and film. Where the show can say "look, see? We're representing the marginalized" but they do it in such a way that the character drives you nuts. I think of Lily on Princess Diaries, Sam on Danny Phantom, and whichever robot activist was on Solo. They may have very valid points, but it's presented in such a way that the character grates on you and you maybe DON'T want to listen to them because of how annoying they can come across.

So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?

I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we're acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it's actually meant to do.

[technically-human]

The infamous puppy debacle of '94

[eve-ate-the-right-fruit]

Things that did NOT make me consider leaving the church:

coming out as queer

every time I find out another cool thing about Quakerism

Things that did make me consider leaving the church:

seeing 2 (TWO!) cybertrucks in the temple parking lot

[miserablejester]

Vinculus stared at the man suspiciously. "You are no more a milliner than I am a... a..." "A magician?" suggested the unlikely milliner. "You must certainly admit that is not your only profession. After all you just picked my pockets."

Incredibly fascinated by the fact that the yellow tents are spoken of as something of the past, especially considering the fact that the church which Vinculus' tent is placed in front of (St Christopher's le stocks) was demolished in 1781, almost thirty years before the book takes place.

I had to make use of sketches and copper engravings as well as someone's minecraft model to draw it!

[canisalbus]

the ask about marriage recently made me think of that thing i thought up when we were chatting about Separation: Machete reading up about how there were some same sex marriages in pagan Rome ages before and disregarding the church for once to have a little ceremony with Vasco out in the countryside. and i thought your tumblr readers would like to think on that

Oh yeah, I remember that! I actually think about it every now and then, but I've yet to do any meaningful research on the idea.

Machete is kind of an antiquity fanboy and it wouldn't be far fetched to say that his fascination and admiration for ancient Greece and Rome might've made it a tiny bit easier for him to accept his orientation. And even if he'd feel uneasy about acting behind his church's back and the ceremony would be purely symbolic, the need to have their union recognized and sealed in some type of way would be immense.

[radarsteddybear]

Question for my followers who know things about Catholicism--

WHAT is this little alter thing that Father Mulcahy's got in his tent? I'd like to do some research for a fic and I don't know what to search up.

[laces-and-pearls]

Hello, friends!

Could I please ask you for prayers?

I've had a worsening of eye symptoms in the last week despite following the doctor's instructions. Maybe it's connected to my digestive system treatment (I'm taking prescribed meds at the moment). Maybe it's just a worsening for no reason. I feel this constant stinging on my lower eyelids, and that's unpleasant at best. I've been praying for relief, too, but maybe I just need to endure it for longer.

Thank you!

[cath-lic]

when are we gonna break it to american conservatives that we already HAVE schools that teach the bible and they are called private christian schools. oh right i forgot they don’t actually care about that and are trying to enforce a state religion

[glownery]

wishing everyone who celebrates a happy easter and an even happier transgender day of visibility 🐣🪩🫶🪽

[bluesidedown]

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[growinguparo]

Hi! I just wanted to jump in and say thank you, because your blog has actually helped me a lot recently. I read your post from a while back (like a WHILE, 4ish years ago) about the aro/ace future and what that looks like as we get older. I’ve been coming to terms on and off in the past few years about how averse I am to relationships and dating, and with the fact that really don’t care if I’m single for the rest of my life. But you very nearly articulated the main concern: what happens when everyone else is wrapped up in their marriages and their families I am truly alone? I’m still not sure that the aromantic identity is accurate for me, but it feels pretty close and so thank you, again, for opening this world up to me and putting words to my feelings. :)

Aww thank you for telling me!! 💚

I still feel the way I did when I wrote that post, although it occupies less of my brainspace than it used to. However, I will take this opportunity to talk about the big thing in my social life that changed since 2020: I dove hard into my local community. Any local community will do I think, but the main one for me was my local trans community. I was also in a community music ensemble, I spent a couple years in a survivor support group, and I went to local queer events. I valued those communities highly enough that they were the main reason I was upset to be moving to a new city.

Community made a huge difference for me. I wasn’t really friends with any of them exactly (like I rarely hung out with any of them outside of whatever thing we had together), and community definitely doesn’t occupy the same niche of social requirements as friends or a partner. But it HELPS. It helps with social support, feeling connected to other people, having regular social interaction, and (crucially imo) meeting people who are older than you in a peer environment instead of one where they are of higher status than you.

I know so many trans people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, even 70s, from my local trans community - variously single, married, divorced, multiply divorced, dating, polyamorous, nonamorous, etc. It really broadened my view of what people older than me are actually doing in real life, not just what the twenty-somethings around me anticipate they will be doing when they are that age. People who are like me too, queer transgender people who will never fit the conventional narrative. It enriched my life in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I still don’t know what an aroace future looks like and it’s still scary but at least now I know that mine will include local communities and that I can get a fair amount of the social fulfillment I’m seeking from them.

[thevalleyisjolly]

The biggest source of information that we have about the details of the Prophidian Heresy comes, in-canon, from the book that Jet reads in ACOC when she began researching the Bulb.  In that book, she learns not only about the Prophidian Heresy but also the Ramsian Doctrine.  We also later find out that that’s not the only connection the two philosophies have - Belizabeth Brassica, a champion of the Ramsian Doctrine, was mentored and first ordained by a priest who adhered to (and was executed for) the Prophidian Heresy.

Which led me to think, what is the point of connection?  How do these ideologies relate to each other, apart from being fringe beliefs of the Church?  With what we’ve learned this season about the FDA, who uphold the Prophidian Heresy, the followers of the two beliefs seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.  The FDA wants to stop the end of the world by filling the world with rot and decay, while Belizabeth wants to bring about the end of the world by ensuring that it is only made out of “healthy” food - hence the attempt to annihilate Candia in ACOC.  On the surface, they appear to be foes, and Raphaniel even promotes the Ramsian Doctrine in an attempt to undermine the FDA.

Then I realized: sugar doesn’t rot.  It can spoil if moisture gets in -Candians are more vulnerable than anyone else in Calorum to watersteel daggers- but sugar acts as a preservative.  And so far, there aren’t any known Candians in the FDA.

It’s not about what they have in common ideologically but rather it’s what stands against them both.  Although they may seem to have opposite goals -the FDA and the Prophidian Heresy want to “save” the world by preventing its destruction while the Ramsian Doctrine headed by Belizabeth wants the end of the world to come- where they are both similar is that there is room in neither philosophy for Candians.  Sugar does not rot, that is a whole part of the world that theoretically remains palatable to the Hungry One.  Sugar is “junk food” (according to the Ramsian Doctrine), the Hungry One will not eat the world so long as it is unhealthy.  The followers of both heresies may be working to different ends but as per the details of their beliefs, neither group can succeed in their desired goals as long as Candians continue to exist.

I don’t know what, if anything, this means for The Ravening War.  We know that the FDA’s plan does not succeed, although we don’t know how it happens.  But I think it’s significant to the worldbuilding of Calorum that the biggest heresies of the Church (that we know of), the heresies which so many prominent Church leaders seem to hold to, are fundamentally hostile to the existence of Candia.  And I think that even if the vast majority of ordinary Bulbians probably consider these beliefs fringe and heretical, it doesn’t mean that the leaders at the top who do adhere to them aren’t using their influence to promote subtler anti-Candian ideologies.

You don’t get to a genocidal crusade from nowhere.  You don’t just declare one day that it’s going to happen, everyone get your armour on and grab a blade and torch, and people just listen to you.  But if you spend years cultivating mystery and fear, spreading rumours but never confirmed facts of strange Candian alchemy, that’s how you start to other Candians so that by the time you get to the point where you’re ready to make a move against them, people perceive them as mysterious heathen others “not like us.”

[princessg3rard]

I was singing foundations of decay in the showers yesterday and some girl goes “what is this horror movie shit”

I’m never singing with echo again

[kezcore]

seeing other queer people talk about their positive relationships with religion really gets me thinking about my own faith. the thing is, i haven't believed in anything for five years now. i don't know if i'll ever be able to start believing in anything again. it just doesn't register in my mind. i don't like when people try to preach to me, even if i express interest in learning about religion. it makes me wish that i never stopped believing in god, because the happiness these other people experience is so beautiful. i'm honestly jealous sometimes.

and now, apparently, i am directing this want for a spiritual connection into minecraft diaries fanfiction. because why have real life deities when you can have lady irene? (guys seriously i am so obsessed with her im about to have a snapewives arc about it)

[katyahina]

Seems like Gold Pendant was not a single use one?

^^^ I have not seen these model rips before! Found them here ( x ), and apparently they were extracted by AstralLace (same person who we owe that high-quality Gratia model reference to)? This oval inside structure is rather interesting, too?

I have been thinking it was strange that a blood gem would be golden, but seeing that hollow place inside of the pendant, I feel like what Vicars were doing was adding blood (their own?) inside and locking the gem, allowing it to solidfy into mini Frenzy Spears from within! But since the blood would be trapped inside, it could easily make an amalgam and change its properties to golden!

I just think that I can finally be at rest with this line:

The description made it sound strange, because not only it implies there were other Vicars in the timeline between Laurence and Emilia, but also that they had to rely on this pendant consistently TO put down the Clerics that turned! So, if the gold blood gem was made upon ruining the pendant somehow, that'd mean it has not been used before, which would make the description pointless.

...unless! The golden gem formed within WAS used at least several times, and became a tradition within the walls of the Healing Church! Because the pendant is not the gem itself, but a small tool to MAKE this special gem!

Besides, rune Beast's Embrace is dropped by Laurence, and it is the second instance where the emphasis is made on "horrible/abhorrent" beasts, not just any type of beasts in general. Gold gem says it grants properties against the most horrible beasts too, which only further feels like it IS reserved to put down the Clerics in particular.

Soooo.... yeahhhhh. They've placed the lore inside of a small 3D model that its impossible to see without datamining. I don't know what else I expected from Fromsoft, really. -_-"

[silverjurors]

Thinking about the difference between devotion and duty. Thinking about doing something because you want to and doing something because you have to. Thinking about love and violence and how they can be the same thing. Thinking about how taking away a stranger's loved one can be a part of duty. Thinking about how taking away a stranger's loved one can be the ultimate act of devotion. Thinking about how duty can become devotion. How you gain new forms of duty through devotion to someone. Thinking about-