#Not related to religions where hell exists because that's worse

[femalewerewolfff]

I low-key sometimes wish I was religious in some way.

[utilitycaster]

How do you think having a very pro-god party member right from the beginning would have affected campaign 3’s plot?

Hi anon,

So on some level it's impossible to say because we don't know what that character would be and which existing party member they'd replace and how that would change the story, nor what their personal missions and goals would be, nor their personal relationships, nor their character development, because any character change-up (or addition) would lead to a different campaign! But actually, assuming they're consistently pro-god but don't have any other major changes? Not much until pretty late in the game, and then not much later either.

Everything through getting to Yios isn't really god-centric. The only difference would be maybe if they were a follower of the Raven Queen and asked some questions of the Vanguard.

The Yios reveals are no different and presumably unless this character were themselves high up within Vasselheim (unlikely) they wouldn't know this information either.

Bells Hells already opposed the creation of the Malleus Keys, broke one of them, and fucked with Ludinus's shit during the solstice

If in Team Wildemount: might have had a more argumentative relationship with Deanna and FRIDA; might have had a vision like that of FCG and Deanna but otherwise probably not very different?

If in Team Issylra: depending on which god(s) they are affiliated they may have approached Hearthdell quite differently. Here's where we do diverge since I think refusing to attack the temple could have either led to an earlier attack from Bor'Dor, them having to flee Hearthdell without guidance, or otherwise a very different story. Maybe we would have run across Hishari! Maybe we would have gone to Vasselheim instead of Hevestro! Totally unclear!

However, I think the reunion/Keyleth/Shattered Teeth stuff would actually go pretty similarly except there might be someone more urgently interested in helping the Raven Queen.

Similarly I think the Shard/Feywild stuff would be unchanged as would the moon mission

So really that brings us to here and here's where we find out whether that character would find that Aeor changes their mind or not, but it didn't really change anyone else's mind for the worse except maybe Braius and that's unclear.

Honestly the main thing is that maybe we'd have had fewer drawn-out arguments that didn't actually result in anyone thinking differently or changing their behavior or opinion because someone might be like "well this is a waste of time".

I think we're far enough in that you can't say what would happen differently, much like how you can't walk through what Campaign 2 would be if Molly didn't die other than as fanfic - it's so speculative it stops being meta/theory - but actually the bigger game-changer would be if this party had a wizard or artificer or someone who had any sort of lore INT-related proficiencies, though someone with a good religion score would have helped.

[savior-of-humanity]

I like to imagine that Y'shua's relationship with religion in general (especially God) is... very complicated.

First and foremost, it should be clarified that he's a (former) Jew. He abandoned Judaism because basically TL;DR the experience of losing his entire family - much less the extinction of the human race - during the events of Doom 1/2 impacted him so severely that his logical conclusion to the question of "Why would God allow this?" basically boils down to "God allowed this because He doesn't fucking exist".

I'd elaborate more about his relationship with Judaism before Hell, but I am not a Jew, and I do not want to misrepresent a religion I frankly don't have a lot of knowledge about. "But Sharky," you're probably asking, "Why the fuck did you make him a Jew if you're not a Jew yourself?"

Y'shua is related to BJ Blazkowicz, as in his universe, the events of Doom 1/2 take place around under a hundred years after the events of The New Colossus/Youngblood. BJ is canonically a Jew himself (specifically, he's a mix of American and Polish-Jewish ancestry) - so I'd imagine that, you know, it'd be a pretty prevalent and persistent among BJ's descendants over the next five generations between himself and Y'shua. It's just a consistency thing. I'd go into more detail but like I said, I don't want to accidentally disrespect the religion.

Anyways!

I think after the events of Doom 1 and 2, Y'shua would've hated the idea of being revered in any way whatsoever, whether it's by demons (though it's obviously not in the sense of them actually idolizing him) or by the Night Sentinels. The idea of him being worshipped, let alone him bowing down to any god-like authority, genuinely makes him sick to his stomach. After all, God isn't real - only the hungering darkness that lies in the space between voids is.

That being said.

There's a very interesting scenario where, if God really did exist and it turned out He did absolutely fucking nothing to stop the events of Doom 1/2, and if you told Y'shua that?

He would break.

Like. You have to understand the sheer amount of rage and hate and anguish and so many other emotions he experienced after witnessing the death of the human race, and his loved ones being slaughtered. He fought in Hell, almost non-stop, for HUNDREDS OF YEARS. He literally has DIED and willed himself back to life because he was too fucking angry to stay dead.

What do you think is going to happen when Y'shua finds out that the very God he abandoned was not only real, but ignored his desperate prayers for the safety of his loved ones? Did absolutely nothing to stop the apocalypse that left the Earth devoid of all human life?

There are no words to describe the apocalypse that would follow, except for one phrase.

They are rage. Brutal. Without mercy.

But you?

YOU WILL BE WORSE.

[luimagines]

Before I go into this, Altered Beast starts with an outbreak as the organization behind the project ends up causing a city-wide pandemic when a helicopter carrying stuff that changed the main character crashes. Anyone without those enhancements got mutated into monsters.

Reader was stuck cleaning up the mess and still doesn't know if all the monsters have been dealt with so I imagine the Links' reactions hearing more about their past.

Reader: It was pure hell. Ending abominations of all kinds that used to be normal people. Only made worse when I had to fight ones that were once innocent children. The isolation only made it worse as there was no one to talk to. No one to tell me that things would get better or it wasn't your fault.

Sky: Dear Hylia...

Some of Reader's forms have access to some minor element manipulation. Merman can conduct electricity due to being made with electric eel genes. Garuda can whip up minor twisters. Gravity manipulation for UWH. Minotaur has fire breath and can harden. Dragon can breath bolts of lightning. The group being taught about bits of various mythology based on their forms.

Reader: My forms were made with the idea of mythological creatures and cryptids. Whether the real beasts exist is unknown. The Garuda is actually depicted as a protector to even sacred beast and servant to a deity in various religions or tribes.

Time: Interesting...

It definitely puts a lot of perspective into Reader's transformations. Also I can see the Links interacting more with them in their different forms. Definitely see Wind and Four hitching a ride on Reader's back for airborne forms like Garuda or Dragon.

Also Captain is gonna get picked up often by Reader in Abominable Snowman form cause he sucks at taking care of himself. Hyrule probably warms up better to Dragon than the actual creatures from Hyrule.

Garuda probably helps Sky feel less homesick as he must've miss his Loftwing or the feeling of flying. I can see Four making something similar to a hang glider seat so Reader can carry the bigger Links with their winged forms.

UWH with Time cause I can see Reader share the feeling of flight similar to fairies via zero gravity. Like a Peter Pan moment by holding his hand and guide him through it. Merman with Wind as he relate more with a form suited for the seas. Plus the Mermen from his era helped him during his first journey.

Werewolf and Twilight since having another wolf around makes him feel less lonely with his wolf side. Even if Reader is a different kind of wolf, they definitely goof off together. Also Twilight would definitely try to wrestle Werewolf Reader. I leaning towards Minotaur with Four especially since they can help him at the forge in this form. Lighting the fire made a lot easier.

Wild and Were-Bear/Grizzly as bears are one animal you can tame in BotW so having a constant ursa companion is definitely a plus. Especially since he would wrestle Reader like this. Legend and Were-Tiger partly cause I headcanon him as a cat person. Reader definitely intimidated blokes who got too close, kinda like Jasmine and Rajah from Aladdin.

Oh my goodness, I might have to do more research on this ^.^*

I'm inclined to agree with all of this. You've put a lot fo thought onto it and there's not mch I can add ot be ohonest.

But I think that Wild will also warm up to the Garuda because sacred beast. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Not to mention that Wild is a bit protective of Twilight being a divine beast as well.

But he would also wrestle a bear, no doubt about it XD

Maybe UWH can Time with like... weightless therapy. Like in those salt baths where you just float in completely silence. I am forgetting the name of the stuff but you know what I'm talking about, right? It's not necessarily a sensory deprivation chamber. Just a pool of heavily salted water where you float since it equals the buoyancy of the person. Man, I wish I coudl think of the name.

But anyway- that.

[blackosprey]

Gods as a positive emotion parasite is honestly something that I don't think most people who use "gods' power comes from faith" actually think about, at least not when those gods are portrayed as necessary or legitimate pillars of reality. You see it more when the god is cast explicitly as an antagonist and unnecessary for reality to continue.

It does make some intuitive sense. A story that's completely lost effectively never existed at all and cannot influence anyone in the present, and a religion with more followers can do more things in its god's name through those followers. But that only works when you're assuming "gods" are not elemental fixtures of reality, but rather metaphysical concepts locked out of direct influence. A bacterium doesn't need people to know about it or believe it can multiply and cause plague, it simply is. A faith-powered god is an existence less stable and independent than that of a single celled organism.

I mean, really, it's a being a clout chaser. And I think we can all agree being a clout chaser is not a divine existence at all.

___

Although I'm not so depressed by reality, I also have an issue with leaning on this trope too much: it utterly discounts the magic that absolutely still exists and is even enhanced by greater understanding.

I know what clouds are. I understand that water is a molecule formed by hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and what atoms are. I know lightning is enormous static discharges and that rain is vapor condensed in the sky.

None of that changes the enormity of a thunderstorm, the feeling of thunder rattling your core, the explosion of plant and fungal and animal life afterwards. How peaceful it is before, how nice the rain smells during and after.

It's only by our own arrogance and indifference that magic actually fades. That's not caused by "knowledge," but by assuming that we know all there is to know and that none of it is interesting. It's only because of scientific study that we know that our five senses are only an extremely limited way to experience reality, that there are sights and sensations that a human being is simply incapable of experiencing first-hand. We know the universe is bigger than our ancestors could've possibly known, most of it is populated by Dark Matter that we have no way of directly perceiving, that the very building blocks of reality operate on rules and physics that act completely different from what we perceive, and that we aren't privy to a huge chunk of reality that isn't even Dark Matter simply because our five senses aren't attuned to those degrees. Hell, one of the fundamentals of quantum physics is that objective factual knowledge about where a particle actually is an impossibility (because by the mere act of looking at it, you introduce enough force to alter its position). It's probably safe to say that our knowledge has only reinforced the idea that we don't truly know anything!

But that's not really the problem. People don't actually want possibility, they want satisfying answers. The scientific stuff is too granular and removed from your day-to-day perceived experiences to feel relatably understandable, and worse, it exposes the chaos and lack of intent underlying reality. The comfort of myth is that the world is controlled by forces that, despite immense power, can still be understood (and manipulated) like humans, that things are the way they are because they feel and think like you do. The fact that "eldritch horror" is defined by uncaring all-powerful beings that defy all comprehension kinda exposes an assumption that "conventional gods" ARE comprehensible and NOT utterly indifferent to humans.

Well, that, and the power fantasy of breaking the game like no one else can. Even if people gained super strength and speed and flight they'd still think up other ways to be even more special in a way not currently possible. Imagination's endless and people will always find a way to be disappointed with the limits of reality no matter how much we progress.

All this might be just another manifestation of people's tendency to glorify the past Good Old Days too. We lament how much lesser people are since those times, but truth is, the past we glorify very likely felt disappointed and disillusioned with its present and future too. Ancient Greeks complained about how children are rude and that most men only aspire for petty things Unlike The Heroes Of Old. This ain't new and it ain't special. Just people disappointed that their imaginations are cooler than reality (it always will be bc you can always imagine "like now, but better!") and projecting that imagined reality onto the past.

When stories set their worlds in Decline

Where to start?

I am not sure how to start this or really frame it so I will just ramble about it. I'm not even sure if I put the right tags for this since Fate put the thought in my brain but many stories aside Fate do similar.

I'm not sure if it is even a trope but the thought on my mind lately is an irk I've developed when stories set their world amongst a decline.

Whether it's the slow death of gods, magic, or both.

The entire Fate series, for those not aware, is such a story. The magic wielded by fan fans like Rin Tohsaka is really second hand magic referred to as "magecraft". Within Fate a true magician is someone who has a power that fundamentally breaks the rules.

In a sense, magecraft is a type of science in it's own right while true magic will let you do crazy shit like how the mage Aoko can manipulate time.

Or there is the "second magic" wielded by Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg which lets him see and visit alternative timelines. However, this "true magic" isn't easily obtained and even the knockoff magecraft is a slowly dwindling system.

Within Fate the "age of gods" ended and magic nearly vanished. As humans understand more of their world, the less mysterious it becomes, and since magic/magecraft rely on mystery that means it's dying slowly.

In essence, as humans grow the mystery and magic it offers dies. Within Fates "age of man" the gods and nearly every magical creature has done retreated from it. In time humans will progress beyond their Earth leaving it all behind.

Faith as a Fuel?

Another aspect of the series is how "gods" are designated by faith. When enough humans believe in something the planet will grant that entity "authority" and make them what humans view as gods.

The oldest were nature spirits, some were even of ET origin, while later gods were men whose legends grew well beyond their breadth.

And, like mentioned, Fate isn't the only story with these ideals. Using faith as a fuel source is prominent in many throw away manga, stories, or even western movies like both versions of the film 'Clash of the Titans'.

Hell, even something like God of War initially had this premise. The creator of the series initially planned for Kratos to kill all the gods which would then lead to monotheism. You'll even see abandoned hints for this in something like God of War 1 with it's mural of the magi following the star.

And while I am thankful that God of war has seemingly abandoned this idea traces of it remain which add to some inconsistency. Granted, the classic games have a few plot holes and more than one inconsistent moment if you pick it apart but they're more glaring in the new Norse titles due to it's heavier story focus.

Like the idea that magic is "tied to the land". Their excuse for Kratos loss of powers is him literally murdering Greece yet he -somehow- is cursed to have his Blades of Chaos follow him. They even retain their magical properties which the dwarf Brok notices instantly referring to it as "foreign magic".

And I wont even get into the idea of Kratos being a god when he explicitly lost his godhood in the second game. A born demigod sure but the Norse pantheon treat him like a full/true god even if of another land.

Never explain the magic

Now I know all of this seems disjointed but they do share a common trend that I have issue with. The root of what's annoying me lately with such stories.

They're explaining the magic

Rather, it's adjacent to explaining the magic. It's the idea that a world loses it's luster as you learn more about it. The idea that knowing what a god is or how magic works makes it less potent.

Sure, it's less mystical, but I do not like this idea that it's less wonderful. I can't take the gods of your world seriously when they need human faith to function. That undermines the whole point to me.

There's nothing godly about what boils down to a being that leeches off positive thoughts. There's nothing magical about a world that is not only less so as science progress but also dying because of it.

Imagine how much interest I lost when I learned that Fate's Earth is slowly dying. Magic barely appears and the mana used to do magecraft or other supernatural feats is a finite resource. It's a whole other meaning to the idea that humans are slowly killing the world they inhabit.

And I know this is a fully subjective problem. I wont make the mistake as considering this an objective issue. It is something I have misgivings about because when I seek stories I seek something fantastical.

I live in the real world, I keep a very hard line between that and anything else, so I do not wish to be reminded of the real world in a story. I'm seeking an escape from my boring reality not a reminder of how it got here.

I'll stop now

I guess the blunt way to put this is that it ruins the joy of a world. It's related but a specific, grander, issue than "explaining the magic". After all, at minimum, to explain something can be meh or annoying at the most. It's a minor problem.

But to take that idea on a grander scale to make a world more realistic, a god more human, or explain how someone can do the impossible? No. That's not impressing me that's depressing me.

This may be why I rarely find Final Fantasy or Shin Megami Tensei games that I can enjoy because most boil down to killing god or some stand in for a false god.

I'm not very invested nor do I feel like something grand took place when a world is "left in human hands". I live in a world ran by human hands, I'm not impressed with what I see.

A GoW:Ragnarok review I watched the other day said it best- no. More like he said something that just aligned heavily with my issues on it all.

While I love Kratos story of learning to be a decent father and less violent god I do, like that reviewer, find it silly to seek humanizing gods or supernatural beings.

For storytelling purposes, yes, some level of comprehension is needed. This is the whole reason why "nobodies" from Kingdom Hearts act so human despite lacking the core "heart" needed to feeling.

But that doesn't mean I want them to be human. I'd totally buy something fundamentally not human doing or planning something in a way that makes no sense to me.

That creature, be it god, fae, or otherwise, is not human. It's similar but it isn't human. It may think on a grander scale due to it's immortality or it may not plan at all due to it's mischievous nature.

Bah! I'll stop now. I've ranted enough to feel better. Have a nice day assuming you read this far.

[butwhatifidothis]

I also think that part of the reason why the church gets so much hate is because of how much general distrust there is in organized religion in real life. Like I went into Three Houses trying to keep an open mind and during White Clouds I really couldn't see what was so heinously wrong with the church even during the Lonato thing that made the institution so much worse than what Edelgard was inciting. I could be totally wrong but I was under the impression that Rhea didn't squash the insurrection because they were a part of the Western Church but because they were actively rebelling and, on top of that, Lonato was bringing civilians into the conflict. That, along with the fact that Rhea knows for an absolute fact that the goddess existed and that she herself is old as dirt (trauma included) makes her decisions make a lot of sense.

I'm playing through AM with my friend who's never played before and they IMMEDIATELY said they distrusted the church because Jeralt doesn't like Rhea (for understandable reasons but my friend also ignored his very sus behavior of not explaining literally anything to Byleth) and because organized religions must be inherently bad.

It’s something that’s heavily related to a player’s inability to separate the reality of their specific circumstances with those of the fiction they’re consuming. They implant their experiences onto things that are only somewhat related and then extrapolate “facts” about the fiction that are, many times, actively shut down and/or disproven by that fictions lore or story or plot.

And, like, it’s normal to relate fictional things to your personal stories if you see connections to them. I’d wager a good amount of people find some aspect of a character they like/love that sticks out to them specifically because of a similarity they share of some kind, whether big or small. I know of people who’s fave superhero is The Flash because The Flash is fast and they ran track and hey, that’s cool, a superhero who’s ability is running really fuckin’ fast and I wanna be really fuckin’ fast. To use myself as an example, I can relate to the struggles Claude specifically has with race because many of the things he says correlate very well to my personal experiences with race. So, going by that line of logic, the opposite is clearly going to happen as well; there are many villains, or characters of either or neither allegiance towards good and evil, who have traits that personally affect someone in a negative way.

But here’s the thing about that... Claude and I have similar experiences with race. He’s still a prince, and I’m still someone who’s never seen above the poverty line in terms of income. He’s never had to live off a box of Whoppers he happened to find under his bed for three days to hold off until the food stamps come in because there’s just no food and no money to get any food. And on the flip side, I’ve never had people try to kill me just cuz I’m mixed. I’ve never felt the pressure of having to lead thousands of people to safety or have them die, directly due to my inability to lead them well enough. We still have extremely different lives and I can acknowledge those differences when looking into his character, regardless of whatever connection I may have with him otherwise, and that’s where these people fail in terms of critically consuming 3H as a piece of media.

These people - understandably, to an extent - look at Rhea, this devout religious woman who heads a major religious institution, and they automatically connect the language she uses as a devout religious person to the negative experiences they personally had with religion... without acknowledging the differences between the two. They see Rhea and they don’t see a bisexual who surrounds herself with and gives shelter to former criminals, foreigners, and people in need of a home while asking for little in return - they see their local pastor, or some other religious leader/person, who’ve done them wrong, and thus Rhea hates gay people, she hates POC, she’s a zealot and unreasonable and she’s this terrible person with no redeeming qualities. And this isn’t me arm-chair psychology-ing these people - they poke fun at themselves about how much they let their personal experiences cloud their judgement of the game and its characters with bingo cards for liking Edelgard having “raised with religion” be one of the slots and things like that. 

And really, why else would “religious institution led by white-presenting race of people” be automatically turned into “racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and violent to any who aren’t their religion” when 1) one of the main characters - the one calling Rhea racist - himself eventually says that racial diversity fits well and snug in the Seiros faith, 2) not only is the leader and founder of the religion a bisexual woman, but no one says anything about having their love be confined to one specific gender anywhere, with heavily coded LGBT relationships like Shamir+Catherine and Dorothea+Petra being just as LGBT coded in SS - where Rhea can potentially come back as archbishop - as anywhere else - hell, when one of the most devout followers of Rhea clearly is romantically interested in her and faces no repercussions or consequences for openly being so despite being female herself, and 3) the Church only ever uses violence when either called from the outside for help or forced to when outside forces try to attack them? Why are we hearing all of these awful things about the Church when it sometimes is never even implied? 

It’s in large part due to religion being such a sensitive part of people’s lives that they are unable to disconnect their personal experiences with religion with the fictional religion the media they’re interacting with provides them. Rhea, as a devout religious leader, especially with how genuinely morally gray she is, was never going to land well over here in the west, double especially to an audience of people that very clearly are already inclined to ignore pieces of the game’s story, lore, plot, and character interactions to fit their own preferred version of what’s happening. Triple fuckin’ wombo-combo especially since the game itself fails to do Rhea any favors until the literal last second of two out of four routes and only shove in her directly admitting she was wrong in her actions in the hardest support chain to build up in the entire game, and even then only at the last part of it. Poor girly didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell

[filipinoizukuu]

Pls share about the Gospel of Judas 👀

, im SO glad someone asked because this topic is nigh always pingponging around in my head and the fact i get to ramble about it means the WORLD to me. TW ahead for canon-typical violence, gore, and other such discussions of all that fun heretical stuff!

 Now, to preface this, I just wanted to say that I’m not a licensed professional in anything related to theology nor religion nor historical artifacts. I am. as we all are deep down inside, a simple teenager with ridiculous hyper-fixations and a vast ocean of random information that will not be of any importance to my career or home life whatsoever. Easily, many of the things I talk about could either be wrong or debunked, but I will try my best to explain the Book of Judas as I understood it.

Among the many books that make up what we know as the Bible today, there were various seemingly ‘missing perspectives’ and inconsistencies that existed between gospels. One of the reasons for this was the fact that the Bible in and of itself was a compiled work that was originally recorded years after the oral tradition had passed. What is or isn’t ‘canon’ often depended on the rulings of past Popes who worked with historians to determine the authenticity of ancient artifacts that either proved or contested the canonical teachings of the Bible--one of the more popular debunked samples being The Shroud of Turin, which while being ruled as a fake by Pope Clement the VII a long time ago, still has its authenticity being debated until today.

It’s important to remember that the canon status of ancient artifacts. while somewhat reliant on Papal confirmation, can sometimes be contested and interpreted to each individual’s discretion.

And among all of these artifacts, there is my favorite one of all--The Book of Judas. Now, factually speaking, the Gospel of Judas was written in (somewhere between 2 to) 5 A.D., not actually that farfetched considering that only in 1 A.D. was the first version of the Bible we know today written. It was found somewhere in Ancient Egypt but was declared as fiction at some point in 180 A.D. by St. Iranaeus of Lyon. To understand the impact that The Book of Judas would have on the Bible (which, to put it simply, was revolutionary), you’d first have to have a quick review and understanding of who Judas Iscariot was in the gospels that we know today. 

Judas was a disciple.

He was one of the 12 disciples that were closest to Jesus and a disciple that most accounts of the story would say actually truly deeply loved him at some point. Judas was, as all memes about Christianity are fond of reminding, also the traitor that eventually chose money and greed over his love for God’s son and turned him in with a kiss in a garden that led to Jesus Christ’s death at the cross.

That is until you read the translations of the Book of Judas.

In the original books--whether it was because he was possessed by the Devil or simply a man who had fallen into greed--Judas was portrayed to be a sinner and a horrible traitor. After his betrayal and Jesus’ eventual death, Judas had then become guilt-ridden and anguished, choosing to end his own life in the Gospel of Matthew and even tarnishing a field with his blood and sins according to St. Luke in Acts. 

The Book of Judas, however, CHALLENGES these motives. Instead, it takes what brought all past Christian texts together by changing the portrayal of Judas on its head and putting the previous ‘traitor’ under the light of something else entirely.

According to the Book of Judas, Jesus had asked Judas to betray him.

The 26-page manuscript was a brief retelling of the dynamics we were lead to believe in the story told by the main four books. In the Book of Judas, we were told that the original other 12 disciples were actually quite... foolish. They were described to be sort of arrogant and clueless, constantly misinterpreting and forgetting Jesus’ words because while he was teaching them to be better and to spread the words of God, the disciples were still, at their core, human sinners. The manuscript was believed to have reported that of the disciples that were closest, or at least best tolerated by Jesus--Judas was by far the most understanding of His words.

Judas, in accordance with his book, was the only one who could understand the significance and cryptic lessons behind Jesus’ teachings. Because of this, Jesus knew he was the only capable one to serve him in what was to come.

You see, part of the prophecy was that Jesus had to die. He had to suffer and fall for humanity’s sake so that we would be able to be forgiven. As much as it sucks to even think about it, Jesus had come to expect that someone would need to cause his death and hurt him all so that he could fulfill his purpose.

In the end, he thought that death by the hand of an enemy was far worse than a death at the hands of a friend.

During the Last Supper, Jesus approached Judas and placed him into a vision. He placed Judas in a fantastical, wonderful dream where Judas sat facing the house of heaven and saw Jesus. Jesus, who looked at his beloved friend and said: “you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” Judas will exceed all of them. And he will sacrifice the man that clothed Jesus.

In this interpretation, Judas was essentially told that he was the one who would finally free Jesus from his physical form. Judas, the supposed traitor disciple, would be the one to fulfill Jesus’ prophecy and thus sacrificed his beloved friend to bring about forgiveness for humanity.

And he understands.

In this manuscript, Judas Iscariot understands the will of God and what he has to do. He understands the weight of his betrayal and what he has to do in order to obey Jesus--so then it isn’t money or fear or anger or evil that motivates him to surrender Jesus to the soldiers but utter obedience and adoration for the Son of God. Judas gives his ‘yes’, knowing that for years and years he will be slandered and labeled as a traitor but at his core, Judas knows that it was not a betrayal to begin with.

So he led the soldiers to Jesus in the garden. He kissed him and let him be taken away and let him die.

-

This was the official translation approved by BBC and National Geographic according to the original translations done by Stephen Emmel, a Coptic studies professional.

Later on, this interpretation would be challenged by Dr. April DeConick, who claims that the mistreatment and mistranslation of the paper actually told the complete opposite, in the way that the revelation in the Last Supper was not created by Jesus but, in fact, by Judas, who had revealed himself to be the 13th demon of hell. This interpretation, while less popular, served as a direct challenge to the recharacterization BBC and NatGeo had approved of. I don’t really know too much about this debate, but I do know that this second interpretation does exist.

Of course, the original Judas text itself is currently impossible to truly translate to be sure. It was torn and shuffled, put into a freezer, and possibly even missing a few pages (which you can blame Bruce Ferinni for), ultimately making the authentic manuscript really difficult to properly restore.

The takeaway from this whole Book though--whether you accept it as canon or not--is that there were many interpretations and beliefs early Christians and Gnostics had that the time that criticized the way the four main gospels had passed down God’s teachings. People believed what they thought supported their own beliefs and at the end of the day. it's all still just a matter of who we choose to credit.

The real author to the Book of Judas remains anonymous to this day, but I am very glad to have been able to share this with you all :) 

not proofread since i did this at like 4 am    |    x   x   x

[slytherinsnekxvii]

let's talk about severus snape. he's one of the most controversial characters the internet has to offer, with several blogs, channels and pages dedicated specifically to hating him, despite him having one of the most—if not the most—intriguing character arcs the series has to offer. so, as a result of me coming across far too many of said blogs, channels or pages, here's an extremely detailed explanation of why i like him and think he's easily one of my favourite characters :)

1. he's not that bad of a teacher.

just so you know, i'm a teenage girl fresh out of high school. so, my experience with teachers? still keeps me up at night :)

my family is pretty strict about religion. you can guess what that means. anything that was magic-adjacent, especially something that, god forbid, had an entire school dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry was a hard no if i wanted to have any sort of freedom over the media i paid attention to, and any opportunity to go about my life without being monitored to make sure i wasn't suddenly possessed or something. thanks to this, i ended up secretly reading the philosopher's stone in my last year of primary school. i would've been 11 at the time, just about to turn 12, so a little bit older than harry and co. going on what i'd heard from those who had already read the series, i went in expecting to absolutely despise this man. i went in expecting to read a demon. i finished the book and came out thinking... that really wasn't that bad.

my mom found out, so i didn't get to read the rest of the series until i ended up on the executive committee for my school's book club and my friends were appalled that i'd only read the first book. at this point, i'm still expecting him to get worse and... he just doesn't. when i was in primary school, i had multiple teachers break wooden meter-long rulers across my classmates' backs. the first time it happened, i was in infant year 2 (about 6/7 years old). i had teachers who would insult us, based on anything from hygiene to behaviour to intelligence if you looked at them wrong. my sister (who was three years ahead of me) had a teacher who kept her in hours after school was over because the teacher had a written a note in her workbook upside down, and when my sister corrected her, the teacher made her rewrite it, turning the book each time the note was written so it would never be done the correct way.

in secondary school, i had teachers who would actively humiliate us in front of the class if we didn't do as well as they wanted. i had teachers who would throw markers and whiteboard erasers at us if we did something they didn't like during class. i had a teacher who looked for a friend of mine who was petrified of attention and then mercilessly picked on her until she went to the bathrooms to cry. these are the kinds of teachers that i was used to. so, when i read harry potter and read snape, who would have probably been one of the nicer teachers i met in my lifetime, i thought to myself, he's really not that bad. he's just... strict.

antis claim that he traumatised every kid that ever went through his class, that he straight up abused them and... no. he didn't. all of them are comfortable talking back, they talk during his class, no one trembles when he walks past, except for neville, who usually bore the brunt of snape's anger because he was consistently messing up in a potentially lethal class.

after school, i hated the thought of formal education, so now i'm working until i feel ready to do university. coincidentally, one of my jobs is teaching maths and english to kids writing the end of primary and secondary school exams. given the sheer amount of annoyance i feel sometimes, i actually respect him for not being more harsh with them, especially when they're all running off into danger or exploding cauldrons.

he really isn't that bad of a teacher, and we know this, since his classes' owl results are said to be consistently good.

plus, he was written in the 90's when all this was okay behaviour for teachers. hell, compared to some of the teachers in text, given that he goes out of his way to make sure the students are always protected, he's a lot better than most people give him credit for.

2. i relate to him.

come on, the man grew up to be a dramatic, queer-coded, petty bitch who wears all black all the time and likely has at least one mental disorder. i'm a petty, emo bisexual with (actually diagnosed, don't worry) depression and anxiety and I'm in a theatre group. what did you really expect from me?

on a serious note, both of the schools i went to were considered "prestigious". i got into my primary school because of a teacher's recommendation (she was a family friend). the second school i got into was because i scored ridiculously high on the placement test that would determine which school i went to. in primary school, i was the poor, really awkward, really smart kid who got left out of everything, and my best friend was the only kid who was worse off than me.

in secondary school, i was just as smart as everyone else... but i was still poorer, and still more awkward and still got left out of everything.

i got that isolated feeling, that feeling of not being good enough, that feeling where life always seems to have it out for you and that's even though i still got dealt a better hand than snape ever did. so, i get it. i'm never ever going to have it as bad as he did, but i acknowledge what he went through and i sympathise, because i have a chance, but it only ever got worse for him.

3. i genuinely enjoy his character.

this dude went through absolute hell for basically his entire life. the best years he had were probably when he was neck-deep in the group of people who hated witches and wizards like him, but somehow managed to treat him better than the good guys.

all of that, and he still manages to be one of the most entertaining motherfuckers in the whole series, with one of the most interesting character arcs ever. it's the witty lines, the sheer dynamic of his character, the change from the twitchy, hypervigilant kid from the slums to the adult that managed to spy on the Dark Lord himself and save the wizarding world in the process, while still being a hot mess of a person. it's the managing to get shit done while everybody hated him and everything was going to hell. it's the everything, and i haven't even talked about how badass he is.

come on, potions prodigy turned master, exemplary duellist (cough, cough, winning 4-on-1 vs McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn, and leaving a scratch on nobody, while managing to not take a single hit himself, cough, cough), spellcrafter, spy and one of the only wizards to ever figure out unaided flight. dark arts master, proficient at healing (dumbledore would've been dead a lot sooner, if it weren't for him, most likely). he's one of the most powerful wizards of his time. i've said that any universe where he's actually a bad guy—or just legitimately loyal to the death eaters—is a universe where voldemort wins and this is why. if he was motivated by literally anything other than lily, the wizarding world was more than likely fucked.

the point is, i just think he's neat.

4. spite.

every time i appreciate snape, a snater feels like someone is walking over their grave. every time i appreciate snape, a snater turns blue out of sheer rage. every time i appreciate snape, a snater loses their mind looking for their non-existent reading comprehension.

the spite in my veins is tempered only by the broth of instant ramen and ungodly amounts of sugar, and i'm going to use them all in my mission to cause antis pain when they refuse to acknowledge their lack of critical thinking and analysis skills.

so, yeah. why do i actually like snape?

tl;dr: he's not that bad. for a teacher written in the 90's and compared to teachers i've had within the decade, the guy's just strict. sure, he's a dick (who i personally think is hilarious), but he always makes sure the students are safe and he didn't leave any lasting effect on any of the students. he's really not that bad of a teacher. and hell, he's not even that bad of a person. i fully admit that he was an asshole and i entirely believe he was prone to self-destructive behaviour, but he still tried to atone for his mistakes and he did, is the thing, even though the odds were stacked more or less completely against him. i like him because he entertains me, and because i relate to him, as a teen who went through some shit and probably would have joined up with some bad people if it weren't for my friends and family, and as a teacher who really can't stand my students sometimes. i also like him because it irritates people who don't like him :)

also, istg if any of you respond to this with "bUt hE was ObseSsED with LiLY and just WAnTEd to FUCK hEr," i'm crawling into your bedroom window with the most unrealistic, mangled interpretations of your favourite characters and making sure they haunt you in your dreams. meet me in the fuckin' pit, babe. reread the series, actually think about it and come with receipts that aren't Voldemort, because i don't think you want to have the same opinion as the character who canonically doesn't understand love, now, do you, sweetheart? when you do that, then, and only then, will i consider entertaining your bullshit :)

that's about it from me, thanks for reading!

[gothicprep]

so “the meme” in eastern pennsylvania is whether your loyalty belongs to wawa or sheetz, two similar convenience store chains that sell fast food. and if you’re not from around here, you’re probably thinking “you guys go to the gas station to eat? on purpose?” at which point I should remind you that the standards you hold pennsy to need not be very high. people are also really rabid about this, to the point where many ~pennsy things~ groups I’m in have flat-out banned wawa/sheetz talk. like, youtube comment arguments about religion are more civil than this

well anyway, my preference on the matter is sheetz. they actually have a deep fryer and a pretty rad loyalty program. plus, vegan burgers, which is a nice touch. i also like to judge the hell out of people who disparage it because I’m, like, not a good person.

anyway, we have a local idiot who likes to throw superspreader parties and post facebook livestreams of him getting really drunk and falling down the stairs or him being a public nuisance. which is already... something. but what doesn’t help his case is that he’s 38 and has two kids. this mans baffling existence as an aside, he’s also a really avid sheetz hater and brings it up unprompted. I’d posit these things are all related, but I’m not trying to get into conspiracy theories about fast food preferences and the content of someone’s character.

well, local idiot decided to try five guys for the first time and declared their burgers “worse than sheetz”. which is... okay. like, i know everyone’s tastes are different, but where it concerns fast food burgers, five guys is largely understood as being one of the better ones. so this indictment of them also doubles as an endorsement for sheetz amongst literally anyone with a functioning mouth

if you’re thinking this was a very useless thing for me to take time out of my day to type, I completely agree with you. I’m just, like, miffed that one guy can be so incorrect about all components of existence

[my-reality-my-rules]

to any naruto shifters out there

my take on: trauma and violence in your DR

this is something that i believe should really be addressed, be it any world that you’ve decided to shift to [this mostly focuses on the naruto world though].

it had been when i started writing my script for my naruto DR, that i remembered something very important when shifting to that world.

initially, i realised i had a reason to finally get back on some of the old lessons in school that i thought might come in useful one day. it’s not even limited to just academic material, i also saw this as a way to familiarise myself with the dusty and unused books in my family’s library. I’m currently sorting through my parents’ old college things—books and notes related to engineering, communication, political science, and just about anything else i could find. any other science book that i might have stumbled upon, i also took. i also managed to find some of last year’s notes from religion class.

this was a way for me to study and theorise how chakra works in the naruto world. i thought, if i could at least have an idea of how different biology and chemistry works there, i might be able to have a better shifting session when i do visit. i might be able to know how the hell the people there manage to release and manipulate life energies, how a yin or yang release feels like, how different their anatomies are from ours, how genetics and inbreeding work in clans, ethnicity across the elemental nations, how the elemental bending in avatar differs from elemental jutsu—and literally everything else that could be fundamentally unlike anything from this reality.

i had been in the middle of searching about fatal stab wounds when i remembered—if you’re going to shift to naruto as a shinobi, then that means you’re going to deal with violence. the anime portrays the ninja life in a lighthearted manner, but we all know that it’s anything but. we know konoha was considered to be the ‘friendliest’ of the major 5, but it’s still a ninja village, and it would be that first before anything else. come on, this is a world filled with assassins. violence is the lifeblood of likely more than half of the population in the elemental nations.

you have bloodline theft, ROOT, 4 major wars, orochimaru, akatsuki, child prodigies, dictatorship, fucking sages, feudalism, jashin, the shinigami, aliens from the moon, literal mind-reading, brainwashing, overrated eye powers, propaganda. rapists, liars, killers. it’s a ruthless, fast-paced world, where no one will stop for you. a continent where no one waits for the weary. their societies, in retrospect, can be considered barbaric. do you realise how that sounds? imagine living that kind of life here. it’s bad enough as it is today, in this reality, how much worse do you think it would be in there?

let’s be real. if we were going to shift into an anime world that’s filled with war and blood and gore, we’d likely die in the first 20 minutes of being there. the most i do in a day is go up and down the stairs. even just the simple action of reaching up to fix my hair is a hassle. it’s very telling on the kind of lifestyle that i have, but just imagine how mentally and physically taxing it is if you decide to become a ninja. we all know how that turned out for people like kakashi. I’m not saying that you have to go down the same path that he did, but I am asking you to consider the implications of trauma in your DR.

[it really is a wonder how people like gai, lee, or the jinchūriki are still able to smile or push through despite their struggles—that is just . mad respect bro]

the thing is, it doesn’t matter what world you want to shift to, because the idea remains that there’s expectations in every reality that could exist. and sometimes, failing to reach those expectations can (and will) prove to be detrimental. there’s a reason why most shifters advise others to script out your trauma, or that it doesn’t affect you here.

while my experiences while shifting have all been brief, most of them followed a common theme: trauma. in one way or another, my penchant for the ‘act now, think later’ mindset manifested, and it affected me greatly. even now, thinking about shifting to naruto, in the warring states period of all things, my hesitance is justified. regardless, i might as well make the most of it even with the heightened chance of death and the lack of medicine.

as i was writing this post, two questions kept nagging at my mind: are you sure you want to do this? and, is it worth it?

any lasting trauma that i might collect in my DR can easily be scripted out. give me a few words on my screen, and i don’t need to worry about it much. i don’t think it makes you forget about it entirely, though. even if your emotions were dulled or repressed, i don’t think you could just . casually dismiss the things that happened as if they never happened at all. because honestly? what does that say about your morality? granted, maybe if it’s something to a lesser degree (like, say minor fights), then MAYBE it’s not as bad. and if we actually were born and were living in the naruto world, then maybe, it would be dismissed. but we’re here, not there. it’s different here.

say i was a member of ANBU. I’ve been tasked with eliminating the son of a noble. the boy is 8 years old, civilian, with no formal training whatsoever. the 8th of his 12 siblings, and nothing special. the boy’s father has been engaged in a controversial political campaign that directly opposes the client’s. it’s the simple task of offing the target, a way for the father to receive a warning.

do you even realise what that sounds like?

my point is, you can’t just dismiss trauma from your DR. it doesn't matter if you scripted your trauma out. it doesn’t matter if you’re the one being affected, or if you’re the one creating it for others. the matter is that it needs to be addressed. the least you can do is acknowledge it, and work through it. instead of downplaying or ignoring it; you can try to think of who did what wrong, why it was wrong, and how something happened in the first place.

now, while i understand the appeal in stories, it’s morally degrading in real life on so many levels. i just—i absolutely hate it when trauma is romanticised in posts or fanfiction. like, is that what it is to you? is that your entertainment? banish all your thoughts of amusement for characters, because I’m being serious here. how do you think it’d feel if you were the one on the receiving end?

i know you're basically god in your desired reality, but you're not the god here. think about it.

when you shift, you’re entering a different reality. take note—reality. it’s not a story anymore. it’s real life. it’s actually happening. these people are real. and to them, you are too. when you wake up in a different body, in a different world, nothing is inside your head anymore. but when you wake up here, remember that it's not just you in this reality. you can't just set aside negative memories and emotions from your DR. you need to sort it out, and actually ponder upon it.

I'm sorry this post took a slightly dark turn, but this needs to be heard. it's only my opinion, but i really do think that being able to work through your DR trauma—whether or not you scripted it out—being able to live with the decisions you've made, and being able to acknowledge the implications of what you've done or what has been done to you—it can, at the very least, set you on a healthier path.

[nothorses]

i've been thinking about this for a few days and trying to finally kind of put this into words. sorry if this turns out to be really long. ^^;

growing up queer in romania (which is..not the most accepting place, to put it mildly), english speaking online spaces were where i first found some kind of acceptance. i've been active on the internet since i was around 12 or 13, aka when i first started questioning, and the more i found out about myself, the more i distanced myself from my country and culture out of fear and shame, to the point where i almost exclusively think in english and have even had a few dreams partially or exclusively in english. i've only now started to realise how deep this disconnect actually goes and i'm kinda having an existential crisis over not feeling like i belong anywhere.

being a queer person here is no walk in the park. religion is a huge part of most romanian people's lives (i'm pretty sure around 90% of romanian citizens are orthodox christians), so the vast, vast majority of the population is agressively conservative. when it comes to social justice causes progress is very stagnant, younger generations which are still raised by conservative parents refuse change and i've seen and gotten much more homophobia and transphobia from people close to my age (late teens/early 20s) than from others. i know of next to no trans people who were able to live normal, happy lives here. and sadly i think this will only get worse seeing the measures that neighbouring countries like hungary and poland are taking.

even before i realised i was trans, i couldn't relate to cis people and have always felt somewhat disconnected from my country. then, as i finally felt like i found a place for myself in (mostly american-centric) english speaking queer spaces, the disconnect only worsened. i felt like a foreigner in the country where i was born and where i still live. however there is only so much that i can learn about other places in the world without actually living there, and in a lot of cases a lot of stuff that applies there doesn't apply here at all. i have no language to express myself authentically, words like "gay", "lesbian", "trans" etc have been transformed into insults. there are barely any lgbt resources here, and even those are vastly targeted towards cis people. but i can't turn to a completley foreign community from mine for help either because they are mostly or almost exclusively by and for americans.

all of this leaves me completley confused. i plan on emigrating later in my life, but no matter what i will do the country and culture that i was born in will still be a part of me, no matter what i do to reject it. i don't know whether to push it away even further or embrace it. it's kind of a weird situation and i haven't seen this discussion anywhere else yet, which is why i wanted to put it in words. not sure if you can even relate to this at all, but thank you for listening anyway. love your blog!

I also really haven’t seen folks talk about this elsewhere, and I really appreciate you speaking up about it. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

I don’t think this is a weird experience; queer people exist everywhere, no matter what, and we always have. I can say with certainty that you aren’t the only trans person in that situation; you just don’t have contact with the others. Hell, until recent years, this was the most common experience for queer people worldwide!

Even the U.S. hasn’t always been as safe for queer people as it is today, and certain areas here are definitely more dangerous than others. You may find some historical accounts of queer experiences, even in the U.S., resonate with you more; like Stone Butch Blues, which talks quite a bit about what it was like trying to find community while trans in the 1950′s & onward.

I don’t personally have experience with this, and can’t offer much advice that I’m not sure you know already; there is likely some more underground community there, there are others like you, and hopefully you can build at least a few connections. Something is better than nothing, wherever and however you can get it.

Maybe others have more to add- and if not, maybe this will, at the very least, resonate with others & help someone feel less alone.

[giftofshewbread]

Why God HAD to Create the Universe

: By David Cogburn     Published on: September 29, 2021

We live in an amazing universe created by God. Its vastness seems infinite and almost more than we can comprehend. But here is a good question: Why did God even create a universe in the first place? God is eternal and lives inside eternity, so why go to the trouble of creating something like our universe? The truth is God “had to.” This article will explain why, but first, let me digress a moment.

As we all know, God is a Trinity God existing as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as water can be a solid, liquid and gas helps explain how God can be one God with three essences. We also all know God is a God of love, and this occurs because God “IS” a “Relationship” through the Trinity, and relationship is what brings God His greatest joy. You can only have love if there is free will, which means you cannot have love unless you have the ability not to love.

He enjoys it so much that He decided to create more of it by creating angels to have a personal relationship with Him and with each other. Each angel was created perfect, sinless and holy in heaven. God loves them, and they love Him back, and each one is receiving the “best” God has to offer.

But then the unthinkable happened. Lucifer, God’s greatest angel, decided he, too, wanted to be worshipped like God. He took his eyes off God, put them onto himself, and committed the first sin in the Bible – pride. He rejected what God had to offer. Love is putting others first. Pride is putting yourself first, and Lucifer was powerful enough that his influence with the other angels caused one-third of the angels to also reject what God had to offer. They, too, fell from God’s grace.

God, knowing all things, obviously knew this would occur. It certainly saddened Him to know that His best was not good enough for one-third of His angels, and this appears to be about the time God may have decided to do something “incredibly different.” It’s easy for sinless, holy angels living in heaven with God to know Him and enjoy everything He offers. What would happen if God created a different kind of being to have a relationship with – human beings – whom He knew would sin from the beginning and would not be holy, sinless beings living in His presence and receiving the best He had to offer?

There is a saying in Las Vegas that applies to eternity. What happens in eternity STAYS in eternity. Once one-third of God’s angels fell from His grace inside eternity, there is “no way” for them to ever receive redemption and have their sin forgiven. God’s eternity is a perfect, holy, sinless eternity, and no sin can dwell there. Thus, God had to create a place inside eternity that was separate from where He dwells; this is why He created hell.

The Bible seems to show that once God creates a sentient being like an angel or a human being that He does not allow an eternal “annihilation” type of death to occur where you die and don’t exist anymore. It is an eternal “separation” type of death, which is actually far worse than an annihilation type of death. And since there is no physical death in eternity, there is no way to have “someone” die and pay the price for your sins, like in the case of angels. This is why Jesus said it is better never to have been born than to be born and end up not being saved.

The name of the game for everything is ETERNITY, period. Everything revolves around God, and life is not about some temporary 100-year life span on earth; it is about eternity with God or separated from God. How important is everything we do while alive for one second on earth compared to infinite trillions of years in eternity, and especially WHERE we live in eternity?

So now we get to the question of why God “had to” create a physical universe.

The answer is as simple as the nose on our faces. He had to create TIME, and that’s what the universe does. It creates TIME, which is temporary. Obviously, God does not need time, but when He decided to create human beings –knowing they would fall from His grace at the beginning and that all of humanity from that point forward would be born spiritually dead with a sin nature – God HAD to make sure we were not created and born with a sin nature INSIDE ETERNITY. What happens inside eternity “stays” inside eternity, so He had to provide us “time” to come to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ so that when we “do” enter eternity at our physical death, we enter “eternity” either saved through Jesus or not saved without Jesus.

Now, let’s sit back for a moment and try to contemplate what God has actually done. We know from His word that His plan has always been to spend eternity on earth with us human beings, so it appears He creates this incredible infinite-type universe for one main reason – to give us “time” to know Him and be saved, and that would mean this WHOLE UNIVERSE was created for one MAIN reason – for US and just us.

Just about everyone, it seems, believes in extra-terrestrial aliens, and most of them think of them as aliens from other planets. But the best answer is they are demonic and come from another dimension vs other planets. We know from Genesis that at one point, some of God’s fallen angels were allowed to become visible and have relations with human women to produce the Nephilim, the giants of the Old Testament. The Bible says the end times will be as they were in the days of Noah, so demonic beings becoming more and more active these past few decades could easily explain what is going on.

But surely, God would not create a universe as vast as ours for only us, would He? Why not? We know from His word that His plan is for His saved children to spend eternity on “earth” with Him forever, and we also know from His word that not only is this what happens but also when that happens.

After Jesus comes back and rules our planet for His millennial 1,000-year reign, Satan will be released to gather up his great multitude of people who have rejected Christ with their sin nature during His millennial reign. They are destroyed, and then we have God’s great White Throne judgment in which all unbelievers of all ages will be judged and be separated from God forever in hell. It is THEN that the sinful human race is over with. God ends up creating new heavens and a new earth in which the New Jerusalem in heaven comes down onto the new earth. There is no more sin due to no more mortal human beings, and we spend eternity with God just like He planned all along.

But here is another good question: God created perfect, sinless, holy angels inside eternity where there is no sin. Why would God now want to create a whole different kind of being in His image that “is” sinful, cannot live in His presence, will have to live our lives in this sinful universe, and have to fend for ourselves due to sin?

In heaven, God takes care of “everything” for us. We will want for “nothing.” On earth, WE have to provide everything for ourselves. We don’t live in God’s presence, but He’s still here, watches everything we do, and has given us His word, which explains His plan from the beginning to the end. It explains everything we need to know about how to live our lives from every perspective. Best of all, how to come to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus and go from being spiritually dead for all eternity to being spiritually alive for all eternity.

Time is a paradox. It is the greatest blessing God ever gave us and also the greatest curse God ever gave us at the same time. With “time,” the greatest blessing is that we can become saved for eternity through Christ. And it’s the greatest curse because “time” destroys “everything.” Nothing in the whole universe can survive time, including the sun, moon and stars, as well as ourselves when we physically die.

What is the greatest difference between us sinful human beings and God’s holy angels? The difference is the GREATEST thing that God has ever done, and this appears to be the MAIN reason why God created us in the first place. It certainly pleases God when His angels serve Him, but angels do not have to have “faith.” You don’t need faith in heaven. There is symmetry in the Bible, and we know that one-third of the “saved” angels fell from God’s grace. And the symmetry is that it also appears from the Bible that approximately one-third of the “lost” human beings will be “saved.”

ALL human beings are born LOST and are spiritually DEAD. It appears all religions think you are saved if you do enough good works. However, you could be a Mother Theresa 1,000 times over, and you are still spiritually DEAD without Jesus, who paid the price to remove ALL of our sins. The name of the game on entering eternity is sin or no sin. It’s as simple as that when it comes to heaven and hell, and ONLY God could remove our sins by sacrificing His Son Jesus on a cross to pay for our sins.

So, what is it that God really wants from us sinful human beings? He wants to get MARRIED. He wants a BRIDE for His Son. God has set up marriage to be the most INTIMATE relationship there is when TWO become ONE in every aspect. Soul mates, as we like to say. This is why the church is called the bride of Christ. God did something far, far greater than most people, including born-again Christians, even have a clue about. It is such a big deal to God when an eternally lost human being comes to know Him through faith in Christ that He decided to share HIMSELF with us.

In John 14, Jesus tells us, “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” God the Holy Spirit comes to indwell all born-again believers. We literally become CONNECTED to God in a small way. Think of God as Windows and angels as Mac. Mac is separate from Windows but serves Windows. We are a Windows upgrade or update. We are a part of God now; chew on that a bit. WE ARE A PART OF GOD NOW! As in marriage, we are now TWO become ONE, and this also helps to understand why the Bible says we shall rule over angels in eternity. We have more “rank,” if you will.

We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. God did not share Himself with His angels. It took eternally lost human beings, who never see God visibly and who are not now receiving the best He has to offer, to still come to have faith and love Him through His Son Jesus and become His bride for now and forever. WOW!!! How incredible is that? Of course, we will not truly know what all of this means until we enter heaven.

I used to be concerned that since some angels used their free will and goofed up and sinned, does that mean there’s a chance that I, too, might goof up and sin somehow inside eternity? The answer is that would be impossible for one simple reason: We are connected to God, and just as God would never sin, we will never sin. We will be able to love like God loves, and a myriad of other things too incredible to even know right now. As the Bible says, there is no way we can grasp all of the incredible, wonderful things God has in store for us in eternity. And this is why God wants us to be His ambassadors and share Jesus with others. He wants us to live our lives in a way that shows Jesus to others so that they, too, might desire to come to know Him as Lord and Savior.

One final thought: Let’s look at how God views things from a color perspective. Everything with God represents the color white, which is associated with Holiness, goodness, joy, pleasure, and ALL things good because they come from God, and this is what you have in heaven. God is Light, and white light is a “combination” of ALL colors in the color spectrum, which you would expect with God. In hell, where God does not dwell, everything is the total opposite of what you get with God in heaven, such as darkness because there is no light without God, unholiness, no joy, pain, suffering and torment, and all things bad. Black is the “absence” of ALL colors in the color spectrum. Thus, inside eternity “everything is ALL good with God or ALL bad without God, and it is impossible to combine any part of good with any part of bad.

BUT the universe is Gray. It is the ONLY place located inside “time” that God allows good and evil to co-exist together. Why would God do this? Because the universe with “time” is a sinful universe due to Adam’s sin and our sin natures. And God, knowing He would be invisible to us, does manage to make Himself “visible” in a different way through ALL of His incredible creation and through His holy word in the Bible. “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” is the perfect acronym because God tells us everything we need to know about Him and about everything else.

As I mentioned a moment ago, God wants to get married and have a bride for His Son. But why would God pick as His bride the sinful human race over His holy angels? The answer is simple – opposites ATTRACT. We humans are one hundred percent the opposite of God in every aspect. Angels are too much like God and thus not a good match for a bride.

God, being a God of love, loves and is attracted to ALL human beings as marriage material. But just like us humans, He, too, is only interested in a soul mate who also loves Him back. Opposite attraction works both ways. God is 100 percent the opposite of us, and you would think we would be attracted to Him for that. But the huge problem is that humans have a sin nature that prevents us from being naturally attracted to God.

But because God has revealed Himself through ALL of His creation and through His word in the Bible, many humans DO see Him and fall in love with Him and want to get married to Him since He has made that possible.

As humans, most all of us desire to grow up, find our soul mate to marry, and hopefully have a wonderful and perfect, loving marriage relationship for the rest of our lives with each other. Our sin nature makes it less than perfect, but it seems that marriages between couples who love the Lord and are connected to Him do much better than those couples who do not know Him. Here is the best news: Our marriage to God “IS” the ONLY perfect, intimate loving relationship that is even possible, and it lasts forever. There is no divorce with God.

I am guessing that many of us have never even thought of our relationship with the Lord in these terms, but we will be officially married to Jesus when He comes for His bride at the rapture, which could be super soon. We will go back to celebrate with Him our 7-day/year wedding feast, and then we come back with Him for His 1,000-year millennial reign. If all of this doesn’t get us excited big time, I don’t know what will.

I hope this article has helped to not only show why God created the universe but also to show why He created us, which is to be a perfect, holy, loving bride to His Son and be joined to Him now and forever. There are simply no words to describe how truly GREAT He is, and the good news for us is that Jesus is coming SOON!

Maranatha, Lord Jesus.

David Cogburn

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (12)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

WARNING: This chapter include a rather disturbing scene that is an organ exit, specifically, the intestines and...Other things. If you are a sensitive potato, I apologize for the potential disgust or potential nightmare following this passage. But if you are one of those who has already seen much worse with the saga Saw or Leatherface ... I don't know what to say.  ('-') Well then... Have a good read!

***

Do you like to go out at night, when the starry sky honors you with its presence? It's always a fascinating show and it's even more so when a shooting star or an aurora borealis appear. For some, it's the perfect view, the perfect time to show your feelings to the person you love. For others, it’s the spirits of those who have left us who, from heaven, look at us and protect us. And for the Nordics, the aurora borealis is the bridge that connects Midgard and Asgard.

But tonight, it was just a starry sky. A beautiful and mesmerizing starry sky that Danny was looking, leaning against his van. If he had a cigarette on him, he would have smoked it while watching the sky. But Danny wasn't a big fan of cigarettes, in fact he didn't like it at all. He didn't understand why people were ruining their health with such a poison. And the same was true for alcohol. He had no more than two drinks. He had already had the bitter experience of both too many times with his parents.

Hmph. His "parents." Danny calls them his tormentors instead. He remembers his “life” with his parents, his HELL’S life. Since he was young, Danny’s parents treated him like a dog, beating him and insulting him every time for nothing. He did everything to have the attention and love that a child must have. But he received nothing but hatred and disgust from them. His father was an alcoholic and a huge smoker. His mother smoked very little but was obsessed with religion.

For them, Danny was just a mistake, an unwanted child that they had to treat as such. And that's what they did. And if he thought he would find solace in making friends... he was wrong. His classmates made fun of him, and he found himself alone... always alone. He always avoided problems, but when he had to defend himself from the bullies of his school... He did. And if his parents played the comedy in front of the teachers, once at home, Danny was beaten to the point of losing consciousness once.

His years of college and high school were no better... but no worse either. In high school, he had managed to make friends, with whom he often made the wall to go and have fun at night. At that time, he no longer feared the wrath of his parents, especially his "father". He was a cute little boy when he was a child, and as a teenager he was a handsome boy, who attracted a lot of attention. His current appearance, apart from size, has not changed since.

How many girls wanted to go out with him? hundreds. How much did he have been in a relationship? Just two. And one of those two relationships ended badly. Yet he remembered an evening at the fair where he and his friends consulted a fortune teller. He didn't believe in this stuff but it was always a good time to have fun.

“Your life has been nothing but sadness and suffering my boy. But soon, a new life will be offered to you and one day you will finally find the one that is linked to you. The chosen one of your heart, is not here young man, but elsewhere.” she said. He remembers smiling, holding a laugh so as not to offend the old woman. But later, one of his visions proved correct.

“Where do you think you're going like that, you dirty little jerk?! You're not going anywhere! you hear me??” His Dad shout, beating him again.  

But this time... It had to stop. He had struck him in return, with a force he did not know himself. Her mother squeaked when she saw her husband on the ground, slightly frightened but still angry.

“I've done everything. Absolutely EVERYTHING to have even a little love! AND WHAT DID I GET?! ONLY BEATINGS AND INSULTS! ... But it's over. I get out of here and believe me that you will have NOTHING of me. You can both go to hell. I hope you die in the worst way there is in this f****ng world.”

And since that day, he has never felt so free and so alive. But what this fortune teller told him always kept him in mind. And if that person with whom he was related... the chosen one of his heart... was simply... You?

Since you both met, you are the only person who has been so pleasant, innocent and... kind to him. Of course, you’re acting like this because he was acting as Jed. But if Jed had never existed, if he had only been himself... Would it have been the same thing?  

Maybe... that you'd be in a relationship. He would love you as much as you would love him. He'd protect you, do anything to make you happy. Of course, he would never tell you about his... second "job." But what if you get sick? To the point of ending up in the hospital and dying just like...

“Danny...” He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to remember that. NEVER again.  

“Come on Danny. Stay focused. You can’t screw all you've made until now.” He whispers to himself before he puts his Ghostface’s mask on.  

He faced Mike's house. Certainly, Mckellan had to die first on the list but... the desire to eviscerate Mike was stronger, more enticing, more... Exciting. Danny licked his lips, thinking about how he was going to take care of his next victim. He had prepared everything, orchestrated and imagined the faces of the unfortunates who would find his corpse.

He's going to pay. Oh yes, he's going to pay SO MUCH for all the humiliation that Danny has endured since he started working at Roseville's Gazette. He's going to regret every fucking word he's said about him. Every fucking blow he's given her. And his attempt to strangle him... in front of everyone... will be the fatal blow that Danny will return to him.

Danny took a gift package and sneaked up to Mike's house. Even if he knows that at this time, everyone is asleep in this neighbourhood, it is better to be careful of a potential walker. He had parked in the same place as last time; he knew that no one ever went there.

He reached the kitchen window and saw it slightly open, so he took advantage of this opportunity to enter the interior without making any noise. He immediately walked to the basement, which was right in front of the kitchen, and went downstairs, realizing to the sound of the water that Mike was in his bathroom, taking a shower. Just perfect.

He rediscovered Mike's "playroom", the one in which he practiced his... disgusting and twisted fantasies. And he's the one we call f****ng psycho? Hmph, Danny found the champion in this category. He admits to being a little crooked sometimes, but really far from doing that kind of crap.  

He placed his "gift" on the table before taking an object heavy enough to knock Mike out. As well as a rope to be able to tie him. On the practical side, he didn't need to take anything. Everything was provided to him on the spot, for once.

"How nice you are Mickey... make it easier for me at this point, I would have almost taken you as an assistant ... if you weren’t a fucking pedophile and a drug addict. What a waste. Well, time to call.” Danny said taking out another disposable phone. He hid in a corner of the room, so that Mike would not see him and composed his number. Hoping he got out of the bathroom.

“Hello? Who the f**k is there?” said Mike on the other line. His voice was hoarse and tired. Looks like he smoked more than he should.  

“Hello Mickey...Miss me? I hope so.” respond Danny sneering about this situation.

“You little...motherf***er! I don’t know who the f**k you are but you gonna regret everything you do to me, you little shit!”  

“What a lovely language...Look since you didn't like my previous gift, I brought you another one... He's in the basement. Why don't you open it? I'm sure you'll like this one!”

“Go f**k yourself with your gift! You trapped me once! and it's already too much for me to leave you alive!” Said Mike enraged.  

“You could make an effort Mickey... I bend over backwards to find you a gift to make me forgive and you don't even want to go and see what it is. You're breaking my heart. Too bad... I guess I can send your photos to the authorities... they'll be happy to put you in jail.” Replied Danny getting ready to hang up.

“Rrrrr...Okay Okay ! I'm going to open your gift! You psycho...”  

He heard Mike heading towards the stairs before descending to the basement. the excitement caused Danny to tremble, he was waiting for only one thing: for Mike to open his "gift" and see his reaction before knocking him out. And once attached... the party can begin.

He went deeper into the darkness when he saw Mike advancing towards the table where the gift package was. Danny's hands trembled with excitement as Mike trembled with fear. After a moment of hesitation, Mike finally opened the package and backed away, swearing and holding back from vomiting.  

Remember when I said a "head was going to fall"? Well, a head actually fell. A man's head now stood on this table, and for Mike it was not unknown to him because he was one of his drug dealers, the one who offered him the best drugs.

The head was cut with sharpness and precision worthy of a surgeon. the face was marked by the drug that this man was consuming and dark circles almost as black as coal were plummeting before his eyes. Teeth had been torn off and tongue cut off.

Mike recoiled a few more metres before feeling a hand on his shoulder, when he turned, he had no time to react and received a blow, strong enough to knock him out. Danny looked at his unconscious body, a diabolical smile on his face. He took the rope and a chair, then lifted Mike's heavy body to attach it to it. He weighed his weight the animal!

“Look at this... What a beautiful sight. Ah Mickey... I will make you my most beautiful bloody work the world has ever seen... I'm going to make myself a huge pleasure to cut you pieces into pieces... make you suffer until your last breath.” Said Danny before laughing, thinking about all this.

Mike awoke after 30 minutes and, quickly noticing that he was tied to the chair, he tried to untie the ties. Unfortunately for him, Danny had tightened them up to the max. The latter came up to him, sneering, passing his gloved finger over the blade of his knife.

“Sleep well? I was starting to worry I thought I'd killed you too fast... it would have been a shame after everything I've planned for you... Don't you think so?” He said taking Mike's face with his hand.

“You’re f***ing twisted! You’re a crazy psycho! Let me go! Said Mike giggling in his chair.

“Oh... Not right now. We've just met face to face... I'm not going to shorten this moment so quickly.” replied Danny approaching his knife to Mike’s cheek. “So, do you like my gift? I must admit It wasn’t easy to find him because...He’s like a rat running everywhere in the house to steal some food. But he was so cooperative after I ripped off his tooth and cut off his tongue.

“P-P-Please...Don’t do this! Take everything you want!”

“Everything?” Said Danny before exploding with laughter. “But everything I want is your SCREAMS and you DEATH. After all you did, this is all you deserved. Fair enough don’t you think? But you know what? Since you're going to die... you’ll see your executioner's face.” He replied before taking off his mask.

“Ol...Olsen...”

“Oh, it’s true. My name is NOT Jed Olsen.” He said cutting off each of his hands with a blow, which made Mike scream a lot. “I’m Danny Johnson...The Ghostface. And I'm gonna take a real pleasure to slaughter you for everything you've done to me... You're not going to be a loss anyway. Because unlike you... I don't spend my fantasies on children."

He put on his mask on and thrust his knife deep into Mike's stomach, killing him like a pig. he pulled out the intestines that hung like ropes. he stabbed him many times, piercing his eyes, cutting his virility and his tongue before finishing him off with a sharp blow to the throat. Blood squirted everywhere, and in this show, Danny's crazy laugh was heard, he had nothing to fear, Mike had soundproofed the room for his... Fantasies. No one outside could hear it... and no one was going to come to Mike's house at this hour.

But it wasn't over oh no... He has to finish his work. He took Mike's intestines and cut them into fine pieces before throwing them all over his corpse like confetti that’s thrown at a party. After all, it's a party, isn't it? He took the drug dealer's decapitated head and carefully placed it in Mike's arms with a little message on it: "I, Mike Harris, killed this man without any remorse." And he placed Mike’s d**k on his mouth instead of his tongue which layed on the ground.

“I don't like being robbed of the star Mickey... but I confess that making you look like a murderer on this one makes me laugh a lot... We'll keep you the worst image of your existence, pedophile, drug addict and murderer. Jackpot. Now...Say Cheese!” Said Danny before taking a picture. “One down. There's one left. Sooner or later McKellan...you’ll meet the devil himself. And then... I could focus a little more on my sweet angel.”  

As with every murder, he erased all traces of his passage, and after making sure of it, he left as discreetly as he had arrived. Then he took the road to go home. But before sinking into the arms of Morpheus... A small visit is necessary.

The window of your bedroom was barely open, but that's more than enough for Danny to pass his knife and open the window just enough to pass. You were sleeping peacefully, the blanket almost covering your head but he could still see your face, your little and adorable angel face... He stood frozen in front of you for a few seconds, a smile on his face. Then he took a picture, an umpteenth trophy, an umpteenth memory.

“Don’t worry... Soon, all your problems will disappear... and I'd be the ONLY one to obstruct your thoughts. In a good way. Sleep well, my little sweet star...And never forget...” He said, kissing your forehead. “You’re mine. And only MINE.”

And then he vanished. As if no one had ever entered this intimate place... But little by little... The devil tightens his grip on you. Even if he will continue to scare you... He will do anything to be the only object of your obsessions.

And he won't let anyone near you.

***

(And it’s done! Phew thinking about Mike’s death wasn’t easy but I've made it! Again, I hope you’ll enjoy it like the other ones and if you got some questions or you just want to talk you can! For now, the French potato girl I am will get some rest! have a good week end everyone! See ya!)

[mortuarybees]

mr. Bees i sprained my ankle and am bedridden until further notice, please rec me ur fav fics under 8k (that adhd attention span is fun)

I’m so sorry to hear about your ankle!! I’d be happy to rec some fics. i’m only tagging authors if they have their urls listed with the fic! if you want me to add your url, just lmk :). also if my mutuals have posted fics feel free to put them in the replies bc yall have Taste:

salinity and other measurements of brackish water by drawlight / @drawlight - 3.5k - if you haven’t read salinity yet, drop absolutely everything and do it right now because it’s phenomenal and atmospheric and it absolutely aches!!! “It's an odd thing, getting on after the End of the World. Crowley takes to sea-watching.”

quiet light and ad astra (explicit) by drawlight @drawlight - the first clocks in at around 2k and the second at 8k. it’s the shortest and most effective slowburn i have ever read. quiet light is unconfessed love; ad astra is a love confession and first time and they’re beautiful

everything just stops by witching - 4.5k - idk how long you’ve been following me but when i first read it i FULLY had a meltdown and took all of you with me. it’s that “i love you deep, angel” shit “I love your silly aziraphale things” shit! they have the tenderest fucking conversation in literary history while crowley is drunk in a bath it’s wonderful

a culmination of miracles by prettydizzeed / @genderqueercrowley - 1.3k - an absolutely beautifully written fic about crowley having chronic pain and informing aziraphale about it six thousand years later

i keep a window for you (it’s always open) by prettydizzeed / @genderqueercrowley - 2.4k - a complete fkcing war crime of a fic of crowley getting emotional about romeo and juliet and continuing to be emotional about it for centuries and then, even worse, quoting r+j in a love confession.

such surpassing brightness by handful_of_silence - 7.7k - one of my favorite fics of all time! aziraphale is the patron of queer people and has been for thousands of years! fuck!

it’s the light (it’s the obstacle that casts it) by handful_of_silence - 5.7k - “The Patron Saint of London's LGBT Community is real, and he lives in Soho.” aziraphale and crowley speak polari. literally so up my alley i melted when i saw it

your hair was long when we first met by aziraphvle / @aziraphvle - 1.4k - crowley asks aziraphale to cut his hair and we are taken on a thousand-word journey about how aziraphale loves his hair and loves him and it’s. a whole lot. bringing samson by regina spektor into it was entirely uncalled for. again i am Weak for aziraphale loving and caring for crowley.

and then i will kneel down (explicit) - 5.4k - f. fleabag omens. it’s the confession scene but it’s aziraphale and crowley. it is More than you could ever possibly imagine

hard feelings/loveless by witching - 2.3k - "Aziraphale said it was like the opposite of the feeling you’re having when you say things like “this feels spooky.” Crowley didn’t know what to make of that, but he expected it was something like the opposite of the feeling you get when the only person who truly knows you makes a cryptic remark suggesting that you can’t understand love. Crowley understood love all too well.”

the saddest part of my day by witching - 3k - "crowley is preparing to leave on a demonic assignment, and he's very nervous about leaving aziraphale in charge in his absence.” they have a very open and honest and loving and very adult conversation about their feelings and tbh? That’s My Kink

summer and his pleasures by witching (explicit) - 7.2k - “absence makes the heart grow fonder, and crowley and aziraphale’s hearts were plenty fond to begin with. a story told through phone calls while they are separated for work-related reasons.”

penance by blissymbolics / @blissymbolics (explicit) - 5.9k - praise kink/crowley finally gets off after six thousand years of trying

like a prayer for which no words exist by lipsstainedbloodred - 8.1k - “In which Crowley and Aziraphale do not dine at the Ritz after that nasty business with Heaven and Hell, and Crowley has an existential crisis instead.”

men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that by mercuryhatter - 713 words - Robbie Ross’ funeral. “Aziraphale finds an age slipping away from him.”

where you stay i will stay by mercuryhatter - 866 words - men at the Hundred Guineas Club went by women’s names. aziraphale chose naomi and paid to keep the name ruth available in case crowley woke up. aaaaa

the hour/the spot/the look/the words by planethunter - 2.5k - “Crowley watches Pride and Prejudice (2005) and it spurs a realisation.” you can imagine what a trial it is to read p+p 2005 being brought into good omens but life is nothing but suffering apparently, i’ve learned that this summer through this fandom

and the punchline to the joke is asking SOMEONE SAVE US by princex_N / @princex-n - 5.8k - “The fact of the matter is that Crowley was the first bitter cripple to limp across the face of this planet. It's been 6000 years and things don't seem to have gotten much better.”

birds of a feather by idiopathicsmile - 3.6k - idiopathicsmile of world ain’t ready fame. if your life can be divided into Before Les Mis and After Les Mis, you understand. “Aziraphale nests. Crowley relearns some crucial facts about angelic courtship rituals.”

covet by mirawonderfulstar / @mirawonderfulstar - 2.4k - “Aziraphale, little good though it did him, wanted desperately. He wanted with an urgency that scared him. He wanted wine, and cocoa, and the occasional tea. He wanted gravlax with dill sauce, and Pappardelle Bolognese, and those awful little iced biscuits they had at Tesco at Christmastime. He wanted dinners at the Ritz and long walks in the park and late nights in the back room of his shop. He wanted Crowley. Fervently, achingly, he wanted Crowley.”

indellible by greased_lightning_rod / @aziraphallist (explicit) - “It turns out glitter is miracle-proof and, also, that it itches. Crowley needs some help preening. He gets a bit more than he bargained for.” Wing kink. yall know i’m weak for aziraphale taking care of crowley sue me

get religion quick (cause you’re looking divine) by brinnanza - 4.2k - “So it was fine. Even if Crowley couldn’t love him, he clearly liked him well enough, and that was almost the same thing. It no doubt would have continued to be fine, or at least fine-adjacent, were it not for a narrowly averted apocalypse and several bottles of a really quite nice Riesling Aziraphale had found in the back room of his newly restored bookshop.”

the nuances of “together” by mirawonderfulstar @mirawonderfulstar  2.8k - “Everybody in the whole world can tell Aziraphale and Crowley are a couple. Everyone except, apparently, Crowley.”

listen (he’s already told you five times) by darcylindbergh / @forineffablereasons - 1.8k - “Not everything Crowley says is said out loud. Aziraphale doesn't always hear him at first, but he's learning to stop being surprised.” Love!!! Languages!

sudden and surprising moments of overwhelming affection by darcylindbergh @forineffablereasons - 2.7k - “Aziraphale has not shut up in thirty-four minutes. Crowley’s been counting.” O More I Love Your Silly Aziraphale Things Shit. if you’re a neurotic talkative gay and insecure about it that particular genre of good omens fic is ruinous.

things truly terrible by darcylindbergh / @forineffablereasons - 1.2k - “Crowley has said some truly terrible things over the years, but this was the worst.” tooth-rotting-sweet love song-fueled confession.

tell me all the ways by tinsnip - 1.6k - “Crowley was out in the garden. Aziraphale was in his study, most definitely not looking out the window. Really. Really. One little speck of sentiment: was it so much to ask?” More! Love! Languages!

a name for earth by regencysnuffboxes - 1.1k - “Demons can’t say holy names, and Aziraphael accommodates his new friend accordingly.”

a home at the beginning of the world by stereobone / @stereobone - 5.8k - crowley just kind of. moves in with aziraphale. Meaningful Interior Decorating! Couch Metaphor! yall know what i’m weak for

[earthstellar]

INTERVIEW: Transformers lore and characters as discussed with my 74 year old mother

Backstory: I talk about fandom stuff a lot with my mom (she’s one of the original Star Trek fangirls so she knows her fandom shit lmao) and recently I’ve been discussing Transformers with her. 

Me and my mom are very open with each other, and we have some interesting fandom conversations. 

Here are some lines from a recent call with her that I thought might be interesting, regarding Transformers stuff and especially some interesting elderly person perspective on Ratchet. There’s also some talk of the theology in Transformers lore, including Drift and Spectralism, and a bunch of other stuff too.

All conversations transcribed from a recent Skype call, with my mom’s permission.

M is my mom, Me is just me-- So that you can tell who’s talking, lol. When other real people are mentioned, their names are redacted and replaced with an X for privacy. 

Getting Started:

Me: Okay, there are a lot of younger fans for Transformers who might be interested in this kind of discussion, but I don’t see a lot of these conversations saved and shared anywhere, so if you don't mind I want to share some of your reactions to learning about Transformers stuff. 

M: That’s okay, very professional of you to ask! The internet is a job now, I guess. I’m being interviewed, fancy. 

On Ratchet’s Age/Health and older people in media:

Me: Ratchet’s the medic, he’s an old guy. Older than a lot of the other bots. In the comics (MTMTE/LL) he has a chronic illness and he eventually passes away from either that or complications related to it, although we don’t see it happen on the page. It made everyone sad; He’s a fan favourite. 

M: I know how that feels, getting old and dying! I had years of thyroid symptoms before they had to take it out, I had endometriosis and they told me I couldn't have you, it’s an unsure thing. Now I’ve had skin cancers removed, I have too much potassium in my blood, I have fibromyalgia. I never expected to live this long. 

Everyone is really just guessing at health stuff. It’s ironic that the doctor couldn’t diagnose himself, but I think he probably knew what was wrong and couldn't bring himself to accept it. Old people might accept that we can’t do some things any more but we tend to be depressed about it. Nobody really copes with it very well, you know X had a stroke and now she’s aphasic, can’t speak anymore, can’t read anymore, and she used to be a nurse. She’s older than I am, but it’s sad. She’s so smart and clever, and we’re just old. It’s what happens. 

I bet Ratchet was scared. As a doctor, he’d know what can happen when you get old and decrepit. I think he was in denial, a lot of old guys seem to be like that. 

Me: He was the medical lead on their ship, the Lost Light. I think you’re right and he wanted to be functional for as long as possible; He wants to be helpful and his job is his life. It would be hard for him; He struggles with retirement in the comics. 

M: Sounds about right. I’m old as hell and I still work! Although that’s mostly because we all need money to live, and not so much because anybody wants to have a job at this age, but still. If he liked his job, he wouldn’t want to be pushed out. I loved working at the park; When I had to quit, it was devastating, but I didn’t really have a choice. 

By the way, the audiobooks you sent me for X have really made her happy, she can read again, sort of! So thanks for that.

Me: I’m glad the audiobooks I sent you helped!

M: They have, you’re a life saver! 

Me: I’m just glad they’re useful for her! 

I think it’s interesting that his age is a part of his character in terms of personality and story arc; Do you enjoy seeing older characters in media that reflect the realities of age and being old, even when it’s difficult or possibly depressing? 

M: Yes! There aren’t a lot of old characters, and the ones that are out there are mostly just joke characters or you never see them too often. I think the creators must think that old people don’t watch TV or anything, but the reason we don’t tune in is because everything is all about young people, and that can be hard. Watching people run around when you can’t anymore can be painful for those of us who have lost that ability now that we’re elderly, or watching kid-focused stuff can make us miss our families. 

It would be nice to see old characters that are included and are competent. 

Me: Representation is important. 

M: Yes. 

On Religion in Transformers: 

Me: So, you work in a church. Just pointing it out so readers know where we’re coming from on this. 

M: Yep, Episcopalian on the beach here, a small church. Services are mostly online due to COVID so I’ve lost hours on Friday, unfortunately... But I’m not complaining. 

Me: And we both like the more spiritual lore type of content, it’s some good shit. 

M: Always love seeing ancient Gods in space! 

Me: So, there’s another old guy character, Alpha Trion, who’s a kind of sage-like mentor to Optimus Prime. 

M: Optimus! He’s the truck! Everyone knows him, he’s the main guy. 

Me: Yep! So Alpha Trion is an archivist, and when Optimus Prime was younger, depending on what version of the story we look at, he also used to be an archivist. 

M: Librarian truck! 

Me: Yes! 

M: I love it. You worked at a library for a little bit. 

Me: That work placement was the best, loved it. But Alpha Trion, depending on which version of the lore we look at, is hinted to be one of the formative deity-entities on their home planet, Cybertron. 

M: Cybertroooooon. Haha! Good robot planet name. I’m into this so far, very cool.

Me: It is! And Alpha Trion is sort of the living memory of the early days of their planet and civilisation, but nobody knows. Everyone just thinks he’s a kind of cryptic weird old guy. 

M: Relatable. I like this concept.

Me: It’s pretty good. So generally, things vary a lot from version to version of the story, but there are usually a handful of beings, early Transformers, who make up the character of their ancient lore. These are called the Primes, named after Primus, who pretty much always is depicted as their main God. Like Zeus, or Odin. 

M: Very cool. Optimus is a Prime! 

Me: Right! In a few versions of the story, he is the final Prime essentially reincarnated. The Thirteenth Prime. 

M: That’s very cool. 

Me: And in some other stories, Prime is mostly purely a title that has political connotations as well; It gets into a sort of weird Divine Right kind of area to help underscore some of the problems in their planetary political structure that led to the conflict that eventually became their civil war. 

M: That sucks, but unfortunately, also relatable. It’s very real world, especially right now. It’s interesting how Transformers is so incredibly in depth; I never would have guessed from the cartoon ads that were on TV when you were little. 

Me: Yeah, they seem to hide a lot of the lore, which is a shame. The comics are more adult than most of the TV shows, I think you’d like them. 

M: Sounds like it. I love the spiritual robot stuff. 

Me: In the comics, there is a religious practice called Spectralism that you might really like. They see auras by filtering different light wave bandwidths through their optics in order to detect mood, and all the colours have meanings assigned to them. They change their paint colours in accordance with those colour meanings as well, on some occasions. Meditation is part of the practice. One of the transformers, Drift, had at least one vision; It’s hinted there might be more to Spectralism, but we don’t see all that much of it in any further detail, unfortunately. They also believe in Primus as a deity. 

M: It’s a shame they don’t elaborate more on it. It sounds very cool, like the stuff we were doing in the sixties and seventies. I bet Drift has some black light posters in his room, we had tons of them. Loved the velvet ones. 

Me: He does have an altar, I think. Or a least a prayer area, it’s mentioned he meditates fairly frequently, from what I remember. 

M: (Starts singing Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple) That was the best, put some tunes on... Good driving music, too! 

On Femme Transformers and Sexism in Sci-Fi: 

Me: So there are some lady Transformers, too! 

M: Ooh! 

Me: There’s Arcee, who is the pink one you probably remember from the ads or the cartoons, and in the comics she’s officially transgender. 

M: Excellent! Trans-formers. Good. 

Me: Yes! And there’s not just her, there’s Nautica and Velocity in the comics as well, plus Elita-One... (I showed her pictures of each.) 

M: I like Velocity. I love the teal, the Thunderbird on the back is excellent. 

Me: I like Velocity, too. 

M: Elita has the head cones, not sure how I feel about that. She’s also pink, it’s hard to keep track of them all. I like Arcee, she has the Princess Leia hair helmet! 

Me: I figured you’d like that. It’s pretty good. 

M: I like Arcee and Velocity the best so far. 

Me: There’s quite a few female or femme transformers now. There didn't used to be, and there were some mistakes made here and there, but nowadays there’s a much wider cast. 

M: That’s good, I’m surprised, but in a good way. There were never women main characters in sci-fi stuff when I was a kid, it’s why Star Trek was such a big deal, and even then, it wasn’t all that great. There was Uhura, Nurse Chapel, but there were a lot of weird episodes...

Me: I love the Romulan Commander, though. 

M: She was the best! Wished we got to see her more. 

Me: Me too. But in Transformers, they’re doing a good job with the female coded characters, as least as far as I’ve seen.

M: That’s good to know. I’m glad that exists for girls who want to play Transformers, too. It always seemed like such a macho thing, the way they advertised it. 

Me: Yeah, that’s still a problem to some degree, but I remember it being way more aggressively worse in the 80s/90s. 

M: It was worse in the 50s when I was a kid! Cooking sets were the girl toy. They made Star Trek for boys, but when all the girls ended up being the main demographic that watched it, they cancelled it. It was Lucy from I Love Lucy who brought it back, I remember you told me that! 

Me: Yep!

M: I’m glad little girls have Arcee. And little boys. They’re robots, they don’t have gender! 

Me: Exactly! 

--

If this kind of interview/conversation excerpt type thing is interesting to anyone, we’re happy to keep doing it! 

Give me questions or things to ask my mom, she’s happy to give you some “old lady perspective”, lmao. ❤️ 

[things2mustdo]

As you probably have heard in the news, earlier in August a Pennsylvania grand jury handed down a 1,356-page account of sexual abuse which involved around 1,000 kids and 300 priests during a period of approximately 70 years. It is another pedophilia scandal within the Catholic Church that adds up to their collection of countless other ones reported in recent years.

The commie pope—while on his two-day visit to Ireland—begged for forgiveness again, just the way he did in Chile back in January of this year.

You can notice how quick and scathing the mainstream media is to denounce these recurring events, after all we know who owns the MSM and the (real) Church has a long, well-known history of “anti-semitism” and resistance against the tentacles of globalism. I wish the media had the same commitment to inform the existence of other pedophile rings full of high-ranking people as well.

Is the problem of the church’s innumerous sexual abuse allegations really pedophilia? To me there is a deeper explanation for it, and that explanation is: homosexualism. 81% of the alleged victims are male and three-fourths of them are post-pubescent. As you guys are certainly aware of, the Church has a very big issue with homosexualism among its clergymen.

I have a theory for the high presence of gay men inside priesthood: until not long ago being gay was definitely not ok, homosexuals were not accepted as they are now, so they became priests.

The developed Western world of today encourages people to become gay, it applauds individuals for their gayness, but it wasn’t always like that. Now, try to imagine a closeted homosexual man living in the 50s, for example. What a better place to go than the Catholic seminary? People wouldn’t look you down, you wouldn’t have to get married, the place was filled with other young men (potential sexual partners) and that’s how the Church got corrupted by perverts.

Pedophilia x Homosexualism

One normie could argue “how homosexualism relates to pedophilia?” Any red-pilled person who has ever wondered what causes someone to become gay will notice that there is an undeniable link between pedophilia and homosexualism.

Let’s remember the occasion of Milo Yiannopolous’ resignation from Breitbart over comments which seemed to endorse sex between “younger men” and older men. Something that is—as he pointed out—extremely common among gay men. A 2009 report revealed that 74 percent of bisexuals had been sexually abused as children, I am pretty sure homosexuals follow the same numbers.

I won’t say homosexual behavior is exclusively caused by pedophilia because human (or animal) sexuality is a very complex topic which can certainly involve many variables. I just don’t buy that “born this way” hype, until this day not a single reliable proof of the existence of a gay gene or anything like it was discovered.

The Vatican once bought a £21 million apartment block above ‘Europe’s largest gay sauna’.

Pope Francis, a champion of the left-leaning agenda inside the Church, has been accused of covering up former Cardinal McCarrick’s abuse allegations (one of the many cases in Pennsylvania). The accusations were made by Carlo Vigano, a former Vatican ambassador to the US, and if it proves to be true–I am positive it is—that should result in pope Francis’ resignation. As a traditionalist Catholic myself I would be delighted with such an event.

Francis has already been complacent with other pedos before. One good example is the 2015 ‘Synod on the Family’ when the pope invited Godfried Danneels, a Belgium Cardinal convicted of covering up pedophiles in the 90s, to attend the meeting. Danneels is a hard-left priest that tries to push the Church ” liberal reformation” and admitted that he was part of a plot against (right-leaning) Pope Benedict and in favor of the election of leftie Francis.

To affirm that the Church’s gay/pedos are exclusively part of the left-wing priesthood would be too Manichean. I am sure there are tons of sick people who lean right also. But it can’t be denied that the liberals make up the vast majority of these issues involving sexual misconduct.

“Religious progressives”

For those who don’t know, the Catholic Church, just as any other political institution, is divided in factions that tend to be more liberal or orthodox. The liberation theology, for instance, is a movement created inside the Catholic Church (and some Protestant denominations) which aims to mix Christianity and Marxism.

Even if you are an agnostic don’t underestimate the influence they played in various regions such as Europe, Latin America and even New England. Brazilian Workers’ Party attributed their success to this movement and Unions.

Be wary of any religious leader that tries to push a liberalization of dogmas and traditions. Because all religions are intrinsically conservative according to their respective contexts, they establish doctrines that dictate sets of rules that must be followed properly in order to attain their objectives (whether is Salvation in Christianity or Nirvana in Buddhism). There are no (real) religions without their traditions.

Whenever you see liberal religious men doubt their characters. There is a good chance they don’t even bother with religion or spirituality, perhaps they are closeted atheist. What they do care about is the religious platform, which can offer various benefits such as large audiences, political influence, money and even sex.

Estimates of the number of gays in the priesthood are all over the lot, from 20 percent to 60 percent, although a Los Angeles Times poll in 2002 found only 15 percent of priests saying they were homosexual or “somewhere in between but more on the homosexual side.”

Every time pedo priests’ cases pop up in the MSM, secular people are very quick to point fingers and show their moral superiority, but they “forget” the existence of secular institutions that are way more sexually perverted than the “gayish” modern Church, such as Hollywood, the political and corporate world.

Real Church x Sissy Church

It is also important to notice that the Church was emasculated, an emasculation that took place during the process of secularization and establishment of liberal democracies across the Western world (e.g. French Revolution).

The Church had to be softened, becoming an institution that barely resembles the once powerful and great Church of the Crusades or the Inquisitions. This same phenom of emasculation can also happen in other secular institutions too, the Military, mainstream Music, Politics, Sports and even Boys Scouts. And it will only get worse as liberal-democratic globalism advances, so secular people: watch out!

St. Basil the Great, a 4th century bishop and Doctor of the Church, defended that gay/pedo priests should be publicly flogged. That was the (real) Church, not this sissy catholicism created after the Second Vatican Council (a modernist reform imposed in the Church from 1962 to 1965). A lot of things got bad in the 60s.

The (real) Church has a very important and vigorous story in the construction of the West. Always being a target to the globalists and that breed who rules the world, a clear obstacle to their goals.

Examples are many: Gabriel García Moreno, Catholic Equatorian president, who made a terrific job in a Confessional Equator and was killed by the Freemasons; Saint José Sanchez del Rio, who was killed by Mexican secular, freemason and leftist government with the support of the US, for refusing to abbandon his faith.

Inconvenient truths are ignored

The media only goes after what is convenient to their narrative, don’t expect them to expose Hollywood pedos nor the obvious link between pedo priests and homosexualism. The left has already pushed the normalization of pedophilia many times and I didn’t see the indignation of the MSM.

Late Vatican’s Chief Exorcist Gabriele Amorth once said, “The Devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences”.

“The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops”. – St. Athanasius

Read More: The Vatican Has Disgraced True Catholic Values

I have noticed that many people have been falsely conflating what comes out of the Vatican as Catholic. Thus it is my duty to present to the esteemed readers of this fine site the true teachings of the Church which stand, ever more so today, in stark opposition to the rot of cultural Marxism and the effeminacy of the Papal pretenders in Rome.

Vicar of Christ?

Church authorities are not legitimate

It is a dogma of the Catholic faith that the Church cannot substantially change. This means that the church cannot contradict nor change her teaching from what has always been universally taught or has been solemnly defined. Any one who claims to be Catholic and knowingly professes a faith which contradicts a teaching of the Church is considered to be a heretic and is considered to have a removed himself from the Church.

As St. Thomas states: “[one] who disbelieves [even] one article of faith does not have faith, either formed or unformed.” This is known as the unity of faith which means that all Catholics profess the same faith. Likewise it means that heretics cannot hold a clerical office in the Church. Thus if a heretic were to be elected even to the Papacy they could not be considered a legitimate Pontiff because a heretic has separated himself from the Church (source).

Would a real Pope bow to a religion declared false by the Church?

Simply put, you have to be Catholic to be Pope, and the absurdity of a heretic claiming the See of Peter is where we find ourselves today. For just as the institutions in the West have been infiltrated and seized by the enemy, likewise have the institutions of the Church been usurped by apostate forces. The hierarchy currently residing in the Vatican are not legitimate authorities and do not represent the perennial teaching of the Church. Therefore I have listed for your benefit the actual Church’s positions on some current areas of contention.

The only time Francis has ever smiled at a Crucifix

On Communism

The Catholic Church is vehemently opposed to communism. Without Pius XII valiant efforts, communism would have prevailed over postwar France and Italy. The Pope went so far as to issue the Decree against Communism in 1949 which excommunicated any Christian who professed communist doctrine.

Catholicism is the enemy of Marxism as it teaches that there can be no separation of Church and state, and an atheist government is immoral. Catholicism believes private property is a natural right going so far to say that depriving workers of their wages is a sin which cries to heaven for vengeance (compare that to our socialist tax code!).

On Migration and Culture

The current Muslim invasion of Europe would be met with the utmost resistance. It has always been the Church which has sought to safeguard Catholic Culture and in ages past has gone so far as to issue a call to arms against non-Catholics who have sought to destroy it.

Pope Urban II issued the Crusades and Pope Leo the great even went so far as to personally travel into the heart of the Hun army—to Attila himself—to deliver Rome from the sack that was to come. In 1571, St. Pope Pius V formed the Holy League that would go on to defeat the great Muslim Turkish Armada that was plaguing the Mediterranean.

“Then I pointed like so and told them where to take their cultural enrichment”

The tradition of the Church has been to unite the West against external non-christian threats in order to preserve Western Christian culture.

“The natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we were born, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land…. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of engagement this mortal life affords.” – Sapientia Christiana Encyclical Pope Leo XIII

On Abortion and Contraception

So what is the real teaching of the Church in regards to abortion and contraception? The teaching is any member who has an abortion or supports abortion is automatically excommunicated from the Church. That’s right: every single Democrat who claims to be Catholic is actually excommunicated, including Nancy Pelosi who likes to sanctimoniously drone how she is a good Catholic grandmother.

Contraception is also considered a mortal sin because it is an unnatural stoppage of life.

“Hence, after the sin of homicide whereby a human life already in existence is destroyed, this type of sin appears to take next place, for by it the generation of human nature is impeded.” -St. Thomas Aquinas.

I know this is unpopular with the readers, but the teaching is that those who engage in contraception have already committed murder in their heart. Contraception is what allows people to engage in recreational sex, because the natural end of sex has been set aside so too then has the institution of marriage, whose end is children.

Likewise, because we have committed murder in our hearts, we have become a petulant, immature, vain, and a sterile people similar to any other people who have taken the risk from reward or the consequences from pleasure. This is the most difficult pill to swallow.

On Feminism

The Church condemns feminism in the strongest terms. There cannot exist feminism without birth control.

“…any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.” -Pius XI Casti Cannubi

The Church asserts that Man is the head of the household and that a woman finds her vocation from being a good mother and housewife:

“This … does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; … For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.” -Ibid

The Pope has even gone so far as to condemn women’s suffrage:

“Woman can never be man’s equal and cannot therefore enjoy equal rights. Few women would ever desire to legislate, and those who did would only be classed as eccentrics.” -St. Pius X

On Pacifism

The Catholic Church is not simply just a religion of love and mercy. Christianity is not a weak religion, for our God is a God of Battles. Catholic Tradition encourages us to live our lives in the manner of our Lord Jesus who spoke of the struggle that his Church would have to endure.

“Do not think that I am come to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”-Mathew 10:34

Christians are not meant to sit idly as bystanders to the great struggle of good and evil in this world.

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness: against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” -Ephesians 6:12