#basically I just like theology and was a little disappointed

[diminished-responsibility-owos]

Oh lest I forget I actually disagree with a lot of the stock criticisms of Hazbin, like as a trans woman Angel Dust never bothered me, and I do actually think a lot of the character designs are cool and interesting and really bold. Alistair is honestly a low point for me but I'm a sucker for multiple arms and I like Zestial and Valentino and Carmilla. I hear people say that the show overuses red but like... it's set in hell I dunno how you'd avoid that. It is also true that a lot of the characters look alike but A) in a lot of cases there are good explanations for that (Alistair and Vox are supposed to be foils it makes sense they look similar) and also the spinoffs show that the team is very capable of making characters with different body types and styles, so Hazbin's designs are a choice, and a choice that doesn't really bother me. Also a lot of the "plot holes" I see people complain about don't make any sense, like yes I think a lot of the plot doesn't make any sense, but there being Angel weapons in hell makes perfect sense to me. Like even if it only happens once every thousand years or so that an angel drops a spear or something down a hole they can't get it out of, eventually there will be a shit ton of weapons in hell, because we're talking about eternity, and it makes sense that they wouldn't care to retrieve it because it's established over and over again that the angels primary weakness is hubris. That's said basically verbatim.

I also thought I hated the songs, but I think the show just happened to be front loaded with songs I didn't like because I like them more and more as the show goes on. I'm not gonna spend time talking about this because I am a musicology illiterate.

Oh also one of my friends tells me that there's discourse over the like... moral character of people who like various media on Tumblr (I'm not really a tumblrite) and I'd just like to say I'm generally opposed to speculating on what a person might be like based on the media they like.

You know what, fuck it naw I am gonna talk a little bit more about this, I thought Hazbin Hotel was just really fucking boring and uninteresting, and to be honest the fact that it's got an idiot plot and the random details that don't make any sense aren't the main reason why. Like no it doesn't make any sense that sinners can get their hands on so many angelic weapons, and nothing the vees do makes an ounce of sense etc. etc. the main reason I don't like it is that it doesn't take its premise seriously at all. When you're writing about Christianity one thing you have to accept is that there is no aspect of Christianity you're going to be able to think of that hasn't already been written about to death, and obviously Hazbin is no exception. The question of how it can be fair for a finite crime to be corrected by an infinite punishment has been going on for a long long time, with like two minutes of googling I was able to find Kant's response to this exact argument, and that's what I want to comment on, there are responses to this criticism. There are so so so many responses to this criticism, none that I personally agree with, mind, but there are genuine good faith attempts to respond to this argument or to communicate why it's fair that "hell is forever". The show however is either incapable or unwilling to communicate these justifications to us, none of the antagonists have anything to say for themselves. Now to stress I agree with the show, having already been familiar with the justifications of an infinite punishment I was genuinely excited to hear that a cartoon that took the question of redeeming those in hell seriously was in the works, but then to see the show get made and the two primary angelic antagonists (Sera and Adam) be either completely incapable or totally uninterested in offering any defense for their actions, any justifications or rationale why what they do is right is bad writing not just because it makes them seem like two dimensional characters that exist solely to portray heaven as weak and evil but also because it denies the protagonist character as well. Charlie doesn't have anything to say because no one ever demands an explanation of her. "If hell is forever then heaven must be a lie", is that not good enough for you? Eat shit, Sera and Adam are both present for this line, and neither say anything substantial in response. To be clear I'm not even saying you should avoid strawmanning the opposition, by all means have Adam offer Kant's defense (which, very simply put, is that some people are born bad and just deserve to suffer for eternity) it would be really funny to watch the weasel squirm having to defend that point against Charlie, who could happily point out that in that case some of those "inherently evil people" are both of his first two wives. Sera could offer that any repentance inside of hell is inherently suspect because people could just be trying to escape hell, Charlie could point out (probably not in these words) that that's a brutal catch 22 that leads to eternal suffering etc. etc. and so on and so forth. A dialogue between these ideas would be interesting and cathartic, as it stands given how everyone perceives Charlie's idea as stupid, and that at the end of the show it's revealed that those who redeem themselves just automatically go to heaven it seems to me that Adam is basically being portrayed as correct, like if anyone was deserving of not suffering in hell they would have been saved, and he's in heaven so...

[testudoaubrei-blog]

Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

[solasan]

👪🐺📚 for olenna?

OC EMOJIS

[ 👪 ] what is your muse’s relationship with their parents like? was it always this way?

oof. complicated. she remembers her father fondly, but theirs was an odd dynamic; with three sons, willem didn't really know how to talk to a daughter, let alone what to do with her, for all that he loved her dearly. they had little overlapping interests before he died, though she took up his bookishness out of grief once he'd been buried and has since begun to feel closer to him when she reads.

her relationship with her mother is... complex. she trusts danelle; she trusts that she has olenna's best interests in mind, that she loves her, that she protects her. but danelle's parenting became pretty isolating and controlling after willem, rymund, and theomar died, so things are definitely unhealthy and a little codependent between them. during the war they kind of only had each other to talk to, so they're extremely close, but definitely not in a way that should be envied.

danelle also holds olenna to a very high standard; she expects her daughter to be perfect in every way (spiritually, physically, emotionally) and her disappointment whenever this proves untrue is very difficult for olenna to handle. it's in a bid to seek out her mother's approval that she becomes queen in the first place, even though it isn't what she wants at all, and for all that she and aegon luckily end up being very well-matched, she'll always harbour a small, secret resentment for danelle for basically forcing her down a life path she wouldn't have chosen for herself.

[ 🐺 ] does your muse like solitude? do they prefer it to being around others? how easily does your muse get lonely?

she thinks she likes solitude dsshdsjk. really, she's just been alone for so long that it's what she's used to? the oakhearts spent most of the dance of the dragons holed up in old oak, being regarded suspiciously by their neighbours and mourning their loved ones. she spent a lot of hours alone. and honestly she doesn't like being around a lot of people after that kind of isolation, bc it scares her, but some limited company (coughaegoncough) is nice. she'd prefer to be alone than surrounded by people at a tourney, definitely, because she'll never like crowds, but she'd also prefer to sit and read with aegon than do it on her lonesome. she finds it difficult to make friends at court (bc she can't stand politicking and everyone who talks to her seems to want something from her) and she's lonely then, but once baela and rhaena extend a hand of friendship to her, she wants for nothing.

[ 📚 ] what books does your muse have on their bookshelf? what books would they like to have? if your muse isn’t an avid reader, is there anything they collect or might like to collect?

oh god so many. olenna's a huge bookworm; she's read the entire library at old oak many times and once she becomes queen, it doesn't take her long to start making her way through the one in the red keep. some of them are silly fairytales, but a lot of them are actually tomes on history and theology; she owns an extremely ornate copy of the seven pointed star that, for the first twenty years of her reign, she reads every night before bed. (it... probably gets thrown in her fireplace when she abandons the faith, but whatever.) she also has several compilations of reacher stories (like ones about garth greenhand, for example), which she reads from whenever she puts the children to bed. i imagine she'd be really interested in acquiring a history of john the oak, the founder of her house.

[dearamericaroyaldiaries]

Get In Losers. We’re Going Witch Hunting

I Walk in Dread- 1691(-1692), Deliverance Trembly

By Lisa Rowe Fraustino

Don’t judge the picture. Google had no images that I felt comfortable using license wise so I took a (bad) picture of my copy.

Age of Protagonist: 12

#ReadingThoughts

-Before I even start I am digging the Puritan names. First Remember Patience and now Deliverance (and I would come to find ANOTHER MEM!!).

-My edition looses points or not having a ribbon even though it’s hardcover. This negatively impacts my reading experience for Reasons.

-Hold it. Is her uncles’ name really Razor Strap? I know Puritans were big on using random phrases from the Bible for their naming, but is that really a phrase in the Bible? Also, Sister Mem had me confused it was Mem from the last book for a hot second.

-SO do Mem and Deliverance just live with their uncle? Just the three of them? (The answer I quickly found was yes.)

-I appreciate the lesson on town politics. That's important for the Salem area in 1692ish.

-I am confused by what’s happening with the year. Why is it Dec 31, 1691, then Jan. 1, 1691, and then Jan. 2, 1691/2. There is a bullshit explanation in the about the author section. If you’re worried about Accuracy when it comes to the Julian vs Gregorian calendar, put something in the text. You’re average grade schooler isn’t going to jump to that . If I remember correctly, there’s something about the Gregorian calendar differing from the Julian calendar in the Anastasia book that is handled better. Liv explains other things to the reader, why not this?

-Why is a 12 year old more responsible than a 17 year old? Especially in 1692. Mem should at least have a higher opinion of herself in the family hierarchy and be preparing to keep her own house as a wife.

-Again, I feel Mem should be more mature than Liv.

-Liv can use her sister’s boy-craziness to her advantage. Mem is willing to shovel shit if there are attractive members of the opposite sex in the vicinity.

-Allergies=Witchcraft. That explains so much about me and my life. Though I suppose it makes sense from a 17th century Puritan POV.

-Mem wants to be a stepmom to 9 kids all of whom are most likely closer to her age than she would be to the potential husband?  The last part might not be a big concern in the time period but good gracious that’s too many kids for my liking.

-Age update- some of the kids would be older than her or her age.

-I feel the average target reader would need an explanation of what “God’s Elect” means. Most 12 year olds don’t have a strong grasp on post-Reformation Protestant Theology.

-Poor Liv. She wants to fit un but is failing spectacularly.

-Is Liv going to be among the accused? She’s not on the best of terms with the accusers and has been or will be associated with at least three people who were accused and killed.

- They used the strong trick for loose teeth in the 17th century? I have no evidence or data to argue one side or the other but I am suspicious. Somewhat amused, but suspicious.

-I find the tithing man hilarious. I want a stick with a fuzzy rabbit foot on one end and a knob for whacking people on the other. Also, he deserved getting thumped back by the one guy,

-I am calling bullshit on Goody Corey sniffing out only girl scent. Either it’s a bit or she’s a witch, not her husband. (Spoilers: He’s accused and refuses to confess so the town can’t take his land and is pressed to death while trying to get a confession. Post reading note: I totally forgot/didn’t know that Goody Corey was also accused and killed.)

-I don’t know really anything about the real Goody Corey, but she seems like a stand-in for an enlightened modern person, above the provincial notions of witchcraft and the commonplace racism toward Amer Indians. I’m not saying everyone thought they were the devil, but a majority thought that they were superior to the indigenous peoples of the American colonies.

-Mr. Cooper’s letter is too vague! We need deets!

-Because this is told through Livs’ eyes everyone asking about their uncle and checking in on them comes off as invasive and nosy but as an adult, a twelve year old and a seventeen year old have been left on a farm by themselves for almost two months at this point is an issue. Is he ever coming back?

-WHAT!? Goody Corey has a bi-racial son born when she was estranged from her first husband? Prepare for a wikipedia tangent because I had to a a google to corroborate this. Wikepedia backs this up but what it doesn’t back up is the timeline. I read her as in her 40s or 50s in the book. According to wikepedia (don’t judge me, it’s good for basic facts and a starting point) she was 72ish in 1692 and this biracial son was her first child who would have been 50ish at this point and was born before Martha Corey was ever married. *End Tangent* Good for her though if she did indeed five her husband an earful after Liv left.

-Hold on. Mr. Cooper wants to talk to Uncle Razor Strap about Mem marrying Darcy, not him. Mem is gonna be devastated.

-Would electricity have been a concept a) known in 1692 and b) be well enough known that a random 12 year old in the colonies with little formal schooling would be comfortable enough using the phrase “electrical lightning.” No, I will not be googling this. Googling historical facts is one thing, googling sciencey things is another thing entirely,

-Did the girls hear the stories and then claim to have witnessed ZYX or did they independently corroborate the stories? One is much less suspect than the other.

-At this point I wonder will we ever meet Uncle Razor Strap? Is he dead? Is he trying to get back to Salem? Is he abandoning them?

-I feel the leap to “Am I a witch?” after having a weird dream about nursing a baby Sarah Goode is sensible as someone who has been about to call the Vatican several times when their period was late. In those cases clearly the only explanation was pregnancy, even when physically impossible just as being a witch is Livs’ conclusion here. 

-Hopefully the girls can just get out of the Salem area soon and the landlord giving them to the end of the month is a neat enough excuse.

-So Mem thinks that Goody Corey is a witch but is okay with Liv going over there?

-How scary it would be to worry that the one family member you have in the area, who should be protecting you because you’re 12, might accuse you of witchcraft.

-I am delighted the the horse can act as a chaperone. Really? Okay.

-How does the horse give permission to whisk a fainted person into the house? It’s a horse.

-So now Mem is forcing Liv to read her diary to her. Rude.

Thoughts on the Afterward

Meh. Mem marries Darcy but dies young so Liv gets her man. They return to Salem. They don’t go West like they talked about. Liv has a gagillion great grands. No one ever fount her journal. Meh. I’m happy she was happy and all but meh.

Overall Thoughts After Reading

It took almost 200 pages to get through four months. I think I just don’t care for the author. I should have liked this book. It ticks multiple boxes that should be my jam but something about it just... is a no for me. Maybe it’s because I have zero nostalgia for this book. It took me about 4.5 months to get through this book and finding it boring is one of them. No one seems like a well rounded character who has any growth. Last book Mem had a whole arc where she came to terms with losing her mother  but this time Liv didn’t really seem to change or grow.

I had high hopes. This book came out right as I was aging out of Dear America but I remember the hype around it on the Scholastic website. (Yes I was a wee nerd who hung out on the Scholastic website.) Sadly I was disappointed.

Also, we nope out of the actual trials. The first trial wasn’t held until JUNE. The book ends on April 30. Yes, we get to see the initial hysteria and flurry of accusations and arrests, but this was just the beginning. This seems like a cop-out.

Rating: 3/10 Sisterly Cat-Fights

Other contenders included False Accusations (this one seemed unfair because while I believe no one who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Hysteria was actually practicing witchcraft, I can’t say with confidence that the accusers were all lying. They may have believed honestly that they were afflicted by witches so calling them false accusations seem disingenuous.) and Bible Verses because Puritans. In the end, I had to honor the brutal way Mem and Live went after each other. Apparently in addition to being sickly, Mem was also small because how else could a 12 year old take her 17 year old sister like that. 

[theycallmequeenie]

Not Strong enough to let go

Gabriel x Reader One Shot

Note: Gif not mine. Credit to the original creator/ owner which I believe is @astralgabriel but I may be incorrect. Kinda AU, established Gabriel x Reader romantic relationship. Established Reader x Winchester friendship. Set in season 13. Cannon level violence. Word count is at roughly 2140.

 Master List

Y/N had known the Winchesters for a couple of years now and through them she had been introduce to Gabriel. The pair had hit it off from the start and were now inseparable. Y/N before joining the Winchesters had studied theology which seemingly gave her an edge on dealing with some of the things the hunter’s life had to deal with and gave her and Gabriel something to talk about and bond over in a sense. She would always take down meticulous notes anytime Gabriel would finally open up about his family or his time in heaven.

Gabriel found some joy in talking with Y/N about the past. This was something that never happened with him before, He was at ease around her and he noted to himself that for him wasn’t a usual thing for him ever. This feeling of easiness and comfort was enjoyable to him which helped him decide that hanging around the bunker wasn’t such a terrible idea. Staying would in turn move his relationship with Y/N along, which was something he truly desired for the first time since he was with Kali and would give him a chance to get to know his nephew, by Lucifer, Jack. Something he thought was a nifty bonus.

Y/N was in the bunker’s library reading something to help the Winchester brothers find a way to reopen the portal to the ‘Apocalypse World’ so that they could save their mom. She was trying to find even hint of an idea of how to help. As she was sitting with her back to the rest of the bunker sort of in her own little world, Gabe decided to check on her and in return he startled her and luckily was able to catch the flying book that was previously in her hands.

Gabe sheepishly chuckled, “Sorry Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to scare ya.” He lowered himself just enough to wrap his arms around Y/N’s shoulders as she sat in the chair trying to calm her racing heartrate. “Since we have the place to ourselves, I thought maybe me and my Special Girl could maybe get some alone time together, what do ya say Babes?”  He waggled his eyebrows as he spoke but frowned when he saw her shake her head no.

She sighed as she shook her head in response to his offer. She knew that frustrated him to no end and she felt terrible about it. For a few weeks now that had been the same answer to his same question. She was focused on the task that was given to her and she would slave over the lore books to the point of exhaustion. She would stumble to their shared room nap for a few hours and do it all over again. She knew it was worrying Gabe, but she also knew it had to be done. The longer it took to find answers the more of a chance that they weren’t going to find Mary alive and well. “I’m sorry Gabe but if I don’t do this research who will? We still need answers and the boys are off in a hunt…”

Gabe stopped her before she could continue annoyed and slightly angered. He was really feeling rejected by her in that aspect lately and had finally had enough. He did his best to reign in as much of his anger at the situation as he could but some of it seeped through into his words and his tone. “I don’t know, maybe the two whose mother is trapped over there?! They are using you as their research bitch, Y/N! Can’t you see that?” His whiskey colored eyes blazed with all his pent-up emotion. “Or are you using their research as an excuse because you don’t want me anymore?” He almost whispered, the thought of the woman that he was so in love with had possible fallen out of love with him crushed him to the core.

Seeing the pain in his eyes broke her heart. “Gabe. That is so far from the truth and you should know that. Hell, you are basically all I think about. All you ever need to do is read my mind if you feel any doubt about my feelings for you.” She stood and placed her forehead to his and focused all her energy on making him feel her love she held for him. She wanted it to wrap around him like his wings would often wrap around her in the times she needed comforted. “I know we have been up to our necks in it lately and I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you, but Gabe, I am to the point that I feel guilty for needing sleep because it takes time away from possibly finding what we need to get her home. I’m sorry…” Her voice cracked at her last two words and she walked away from the archangel, leaving him essentially speechless.

He watched as Y/N stormed off toward their room and jumped slightly as he heard the door slam shut. “Okay, how is this my fault?!” He exclaimed, as he stomped back to their room to try and talk to her. “C’mon, Sugar. Talk to me.” He spoke as he opened the door expecting to see her curled up on their bed but instead, he saw her quickly packing her go bag. He frowned deeply. “You’re leaving…” It was meant as a question but came out as more of a statement almost feeling rejected again.

Looking up from what she was doing she shook her head no once again. “No, Feathers. We are leaving. Sam called they need our help. Dean got hurt and is on the shelf. He needs a couple extra sets of hands. Hunters work is never finished, Handsome.” She frowned seemingly a little disappointed. As she walked by him, she put her hand on his forearm. “Looks like Willy Wonka and cuddling will have to wait, again.”

Gabriel was pleasantly surprised at her words and thought, ‘Hey at least she was considering more than just napping in here for three hours and running back to that Dad damn library again.’ He smiled and followed Y/N out to her car. “Alright. Let’s go gank this sucker so we can get back here and get our snuggle on.”

The two drove the few hours to meet up with Sam and the injured Dean and listened to Sam filled them in on what happened and what they were hunting. Seems they underestimated a nest of vampires and one of them had gotten the drop on Dean which resulted in a concussion and him having to sit the rest of the hunt out. So, they sat and planed it all out and waiting for night to come.

As it started getting dark Y/N, Sam, and Gabriel piled into the Impala and headed toward the nest’s location Y/N and Gabriel were in the back seat together leaving Sam in the front by himself to drive. Gabriel insisted that she sat with him. They held onto each other’s hands the entire drive there. He knew Y/N still had some doubts about her hunting abilities and was doing his best to help her psych herself up for the battle that lay ahead of the three of them.

Sam put the impala in park and cleared his throat to let the two know they were there. Y/N got out of the back seat first and met Sam at the trunk where he handed her a machete and made sure she was ready for the coming battle. With a nod and a glance over her shoulder to make sure Gabriel was right behind her they made their way into the nest and started fighting.

Sam had managed to kill two vampires so far and Y/N managed to get one but was tussling with another that happened to be three times the size of her.  Sam went to help her when one jumped on his back and Gabriel was fighting another vampire leaving Y/N to fend off the large vampire by herself. She was losing the fight. The Vampire had managed to get several solid hits in on her and knocking her machete out of her grasp. The vampire that was fighting her pinned her to the wall with one hand forcing a terrified squeak out of her throat and picking up the blade in his other hand. Gabriel looked up in time to watch the monster shove the machete into Y/N’s abdomen. He saw her eyes go wide from the shock of being run through with her own blade.

Gabriel smites the vampire he was fighting and yells to Sam, who had just finished beheading the vampire that he was fighting with. Sam yells “No!” Gabriel snaps his fingers and the vampire that stabbed Y/N disintegrates on the spot. Before Sam knows it, Gabe is next to Y/N cradling her trying to heal her, but it wasn’t working for some reason which was only adding to Gabriel’s panic.

“No no no no… You gotta stay with me, Love. Please don’t leave me, Sugar.” There were tears in his voice as he kept trying to heal Y/N but to no avail. He couldn’t figure out why, he had never not been able to heal her before. He sent up a silent prayer to his father asking him for help, but he knew it was all for naught. As he cradled his dying love to him, he did his best to contain his emotions, but his eyes were betraying him. He started murmuring to her softly in Enochian because he knew it would bring her comfort.

Y/N whimpered softly against him fighting back a cough, “Gabe. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” She had to pause to take a few ragged breaths before continuing, “Gabriel, I need to tell you this before…”

Y/N had to pause again but this time Gabriel tried to shush her, “Baby save your strength, okay? You don’t need to tell me anything. I’m going to get you beck to the motel room and we are going to get you patched up and everything is going to be just peaches and cream.” He looked to Sam and nodded silently telling him that he would see him back at the motel and disappeared whit Y/N.

Gabriel arrived with a dying Y/N in his arms about the same time Sam got back to the motel. Sam somehow made land speed records to be there. Dean jumped up despite the concussion. Gabe laid Y/N down on the bed that wasn’t occupied though he stayed close to her. He tried in vain to heal her would again. Though he knew deep down it wasn’t going to work.

As Sam started to explain to his brother what transpired, Gabriel felt Y/n weakly clutch his hand to get his attention. She knew her time was drawing close and she could see the reaper in the corner of the room waiting for her. She mustered her last bit of energy to speak to Gabriel.

“Gabriel…” She gasped for air, “You need to hear this.” She paused again feeling weaker and weaker by the second. “I love you, Feathers.” As she forced the words out, she heard the Reaper speak in a gentle voice to her telling her it was her time to go. Y/N reluctantly went with the Reaper that had come to collect her, as she crossed to the other side her body went limp in Gabriel’s arms.

Gabriel felt her leave him and let out a pained scream the likes of which the Winchesters never heard. Sam and Dean simply watched as the archangel before them mourn the loss of his love in awe. Gabriel wept openly over the loss of Y/N as he held her now lifeless body to him.

Sam and Dean let him have an hour with Y/N’s body before they suggested moving on with the process of her passing and getting her Hunter’s Funeral in the works.  Which Gabriel didn’t react positively to, but they knew that was going to be the case. It took them some time to talk Gabe into going through the proper motions, but it was done and it about broke Gabriel to say goodbye to her in that final way. Sam told Gabe that they had found a spell to open the portal to get their mom back. Gabe gave them a bitter laugh but said he was in. He figured that would be an easy way out of his pain that wouldn’t offend his father. He was going with the boys to Apocalypse World with no plan in coming back…

The End

[fantasiavii]

Can you tell me a little something about being a religion major? About what all you have studied? Because it sounds very interesting!

Yeah!!! Sorry it took me so long to reply to this (holidays lol) but I just want to let you know when I saw this come in, it made my week!  I LOVE talking about religion/what I study (so maybe this is a little more than what you asked for lol). 

The first thing I want to say is kind of a disclaimer; I studied religion, not theology, so this wasn’t like training to be a priest or an imam or anything (though some students do go on to do that!). It’s all from an outsider (etic), academic perspective. Of course, I have studied theological works but I’ve also done history and theory and ethnography, etc., etc. (Sometimes it helps people understand if I say I did religious studies? Not that I don’t think you understand, just for other readers who might not know.) 

So I majored in religion with a focus on Islamic studies (basically meaning I just took mostly Islam classes and wrote my thesis on Islam and Islamophobia in France) but I’ve also studied Hinduism, theory of religion, Christianity (specifically: Eastern Orthodoxy), and Buddhism (listed in order of what I’ve studied most to least). 

Major highlights were my Sufism class (so much fun but also very difficult and esoteric (as it’s meant to be lol), also gave me a healthy distrust of most translations of Rumi), my Islamic Thought in the 19th and 20th Centuries class (fascinating bc a lot of it was about nationalism and responses to colonization and imperialism, etc.) and my junior seminar (I got to do ethnographic work and interviews at an Orthodox church and the community and services were just so lovely; sometimes I miss it even though I have no desire to convert) (still kicking myself over missing the Eastern Orthodoxy class and instead taking Religion and Media, which was not what it sounds like, and I am just as disappointed as you are it was actually the worst class I took in college oops). 

More about my thesis, my department, and studying religion below the cut!

My thesis was another ordeal unto itself (I have a tag, “The Reign of Thesis” which might be interesting to look at provided tumblr’s search function works, thought tbh I don’t remember most of what I posted there). It was like taking my two loves (Islam and France/French republicanism) and making them fight (or, more like, tearing my heart in two). I say this because half of my thesis was tracing the historical origins of modern day Islamophobia, most of which boils down to the fact that the creation of the modern French republic happened at the same time as the colonization of a lot of Muslim majority countries (I focused on Algeria) and Muslims/Islam became the Other against which French (republican) identity was defined (essentially making the modern state/French identity inherently Islamophobic and making it very difficult to exist as Muslim and French). I love studying the French Revolution (and took a wonderful class on it in college) and the following revolutions (hello Les Mis fandom) and I find French republicanism/republican universalism quite inspiring but I also had to come to terms with the fact that it was used and still is used in actively Islamophobic ways. This is getting long (I did write like 80 pages about this so please forgive me for broad statements with no evidence; I did do my research) but yeah, it was a difficult thesis to write, I’m glad I did it, but it made me very burnt out and depressed. Still love studying religion and the French Revolution though lol. Just sometimes it makes me very angry. (I can recommend books, though, to any Frev or Les Mis friends who might be reading this and want to know more.)

AN IMPORTANT FINAL NOTE: I had such a fun time being a religion major, half because I really love the subject but also because I really love my department and my professors and my classmates. The religion department at my school felt a bit like a family and everyone was friendly with each other and there was very little drama. (That’s one of the main things holding me back from grad school--the fear that I won’t find the same kind of community. Because there are ways to teach religion really badly and major scholarly disputes and I don’t want to have to fight people lol.) So if you’re interested in studying religion, I would definitely say go for it! But also know that the environment you’re in and the people you’re with really matter. 

(Also I distrust survey classes, the “Introduction to World Religions” kind, but I recognize that they’re sometimes they only intro-level options. They just don’t have enough depth imo and that can make the study quite boring or they might generalize to the point of incorrectness. As my advisor likes to say, “there are as many Islams as there are Muslims,” and we can’t even hope to account for all the beautiful diversity and complexity there is in religious practice and belief if we only have one semester and two weeks per religion.)

[urfavmurtad]

What are some things about Judaism and Christianity that you learned that surprised you? What about polytheistic religions like native american animism, Buddhism, Shinto and Jainism? Zoroastrians? Baha’i? Yazidi?

Anon this is… such an in-depth question! Idek where to begin here. Of all those religions, I have learned the most about Judaism since I stopped being religious. What I knew about Judaism prior to maybe 5 years ago was mostly just what Islam says about Judaism. Meaning, you know, from Adam to Moses, then it skips ahead to David/Solomon/Saul, then there are some brief mentions of Jonah and Ezekiel and that’s really it.

So I didn’t know a lot, and I wasn’t very interested in what I did know tbh. The only reason why I started reading the Bible is bc I wanted to compare it to the Quranic versions of the stories and see how much Mohammed fucked them up. And that was fun but I didn’t bother to look much further into Judaism past that. The Books of Kings and Chronicles, for example, I took one look at them, decided they were boring, and didn’t read them until only a couple of years ago. That’s when I first got into the whole Biblical history thing. I tried reading a book about how the Bible was put together and realized I didn’t know enough about the Bible itself to even begin.

I forced myself to read those four books and then some of the prophet books (side note: all of the female prophets were left out of Islam, I didn’t even know they existed. Damn it Mohammed!!!). And I’m glad I did, because it changed my whole view of the Jewish Bible. It’s a history book!! Like… that’s literally what it’s supposed to be, a (legendary) history of Israel/Judah, and every bad thing that happens to them is ascribed to YHWH getting pissed off at them, but then like my friend and her trash boyfriend he always forgives them and takes them back even tho they just go on to disappoint him again. The Bible is the world’s oldest and greatest self-drag!!!

Once I actually knew the general chronology of the Biblical kings and shit I could actually make my way through this book without getting confused (mostly). Highly recommend this one for beginners btw, there is a PDF online and it’s not overly long.

And damn… I know there’s some debate about certain elements of it like the exact nature of the “documentary hypothesis” but even just focusing on the stuff that people agree upon, I didn’t know any of it before reading this, beyond there being no evidence for the Exodus/the huge kingdom of Solomon etc. I also knew that early Judaism was a system where multiple gods existed but YHWH was just their patron god, but I didn’t fully understand the process in how he got conflated with El and became the god.

More relevant to this topic, though, I didn’t understand the history behind the Bible itself. Deuteronomy being written separately/earlier than the rest and the Bible claiming that it was “found” in the Temple after like 900 years in Josiah’s time… like I had never even heard of Josiah prior to a few years ago and here I am realizing that this bitch perpetrated fraud that would make Linda Taylor proud. Tf. AND, the whole thing with Judah being way, way less developed than Israel, and Israel was actually a multi-ethnic and prosperous society, but then after the Assyrians handed Israel its ass the Judeans were suddenly the top bitch in school and wrote the whole Bible to make their former northern neighbors out to be assholes?? Wow Team Israel tbh.

Then when you get to the time of the Babylonian Exile tho you have to feel a bit bad for the people of Jerusalem, like the Babylonians were uncommonly dickish even for their time and the ppl of the city were clearly traumatized tbh… a lot of the stories in the Bible, especially those believed to have been added only after the exile, make a hell of a lot more sense when you realize the huge changes occurring in Jewish society at the time. The transition from “there are lots of gods but YHWH is our god” to “YHWH is the god” is completely understandable when you realize that people were searching for some explanation as to why they had all been uprooted and thrown out of their homes, and the obvious explanation is that, yet again, they had pissed YHWH the fuck off by worshiping other gods.

I feel like both Christianity and Islam (but especially Islam) try to separate many of Judaism’s better-known stories from the context of ancient Israel/Judah itself, presenting them as more universal stories that apply to everyone, but tbh the whole over-arching story doesn’t work unless you look at it as a history written by and for Jews who were rebuilding their religion and society in a volatile period. I’m reading this rn and it’s relevant to that topic.

It’s truly a damn shame that pretty much like 0% of Muslims have been exposed to any of this tbh? I feel like almost all scholars of Biblical history come from non-Muslim countries. I have more feelings on this subject but let me answer the rest of your question. First of all, Christianity. I read the New Testament in full a couple of years ago as well. It was obviously way easier to read because the Gospels are all different versions of the same story and the rest is just supplementary material, basically. I think the text itself is pleasant and Jesus was a chill dude. I like him. And the whole… sequence of events made much more sense after I’d read the Book of Isaiah and realized that the authors of the Gospels were viewing Jesus in light of those prophecies. Revelation is a fascinating shrooms trip. The Acts of the Apostles were fun to read, but all the letters were just like w/e. More historically interesting (if they’re real) than interesting in terms of content. Though I do think some of the content in them is very nice, idk if people know this but Muslims think Paul was responsible for perverting the (non-existent) “real” Gospel of Jesus and paint him very poorly. But I dunno, the letters seemed fine to me.

Tbh I was surprised to see how different Islam’s version of Christianity/Christian stories is compared to the “real thing”. I don’t even mean his disastrous misconceptions of Christian theology but just like… with the stories Mohammed pulled from the Jewish Bible (and the Talmud–which I also enjoyed flipping through btw, it’s like a bunch of old guys yelling at each other in written form), he gets details wrong but the overall stories are basically the same. But with the Christian stories, barely anything in the Quran is from the Bible. I think I’ve said this before but like 90% of the stuff pulled from Christianity in Islam is about baby Jesus, not adult Jesus, and even that stuff isn’t from the Bible. It’s understandable when you realize that he was listening to these stories, not reading them, and just picked the ones he liked best… which happened to be later texts. That brings me to a subject that is near and dear to my heart:

Apocryphal texts bih. I love this shit, with full sincerity and zero irony. The weirder it gets, the better. I started out just reading the ones that made it into the Quran, like the Life of Adam and Eve, the Infancy Gospels that I’ve mentioned before, and the Testament of Solomon. Then some Gnostic stuff, which I only read because it has the same substitute-crucifixion thing going on as Islam, but WHEW chile the DRUGS these ppl were on while writing this shit…! The Sethians and the Nag Hammadi library produced such treasures of crazy-ass literature. It makes me sad how so much of this stuff is just totally forgotten now that Christianity is mostly just Catholic/Protestant+Orthodox. There were so many sects and people had so many divergent ideas, some more drug-assisted than others probably!! And Middle Eastern Christianity was very diverse even in the 7th century. Some of the stories they produced had such rich lore. My fave right now is this Syriac collection:

I came across this one while looking for the origins of the al-Khidr story in the Quran. There were all sorts of opinions about who he was, bc Mohammed never really gave any details on his life, but Ibn Ishaq recorded an opinion that al-Khidr was the one who buried Adam and Allah granted him long life in return. So I looked for the source of that story and it was the story of Melchizedek in this book. Then I read the whole thing and man this would make for some weird psychedelic series or sth. It’s online, look it over and you’ll see how trippy it is.

Um… anon this is getting rly long tbh so let me sum up my knowledge of Shinto, Native American animism, and Jainism: not much!! Buddhism I have only an intro-level knowledge of, I know the basics but I don’t know more than that. The beliefs of Yazidis I don’t fully understand, but the little I know is pretty cool. From what I understand it’s a blend of pre-Islamic Kurdish religion + early Islamic influence + some other influences thrown in. It’s sad how they’re branded as devil-worshipers or w/e when the story of Melek Taus is actually really interesting and has a good moral and is way, way better than the story of Iblis. I also enjoy Yazidi architecture and that unique ribbed cone top of theirs. I hope they’re able to live on as a community after, uh, recent events.

I actually was taught about Bahai people growing up but I was told it was some heretical offshoot of Islam comparable to Ahmadiyya people. I didn’t realize it was considered its own religion until fairly recently tbh. I did read the Kitab al-Aqdas (which is blessedly short, this makes Bahai a great religion automatically!!) once. It’s definitely super inspired by the Quran in terms of style and to me clearly seems to be an attempt to make a Kinder And Also More Iranian Islam. I think it’s pretty neat. In fact I think a lot of attempts to magically make Islam “nicer” would just end up making it more like Bahai tbh. And it has a really fascinating history, with the Bab basically being a new John the Baptist and Bahaullah being the one he foretold. He even accidentally ended up in Israel lmao. I also really love Bahai architecture in terms of how diverse it is, with the only unifying feature being visual interest, and I would love to see the temple in India irl one day. India always has the best architecture anyway.

I saved Zoroastrians for last bc I have to be honest here. I tried to look into it, because it’s ancient and had an influence on Judaism etc and that makes it important. Fam I got about 3% of the way through the Avesta before giving up. I was still in the hymns part and just like… every other word was something I didn’t understand. I will go back and try again one day but for now the answer is “lol idk”.

ANYWAY… yeah… I’ve enjoyed reading about religion way more now that I’m not religious, both in terms of Islam and other religions, I can appreciate the process or w/e now that I’m not constantly trying to make it fit into Islam or panicking every time I spot something that makes me question my faith. I know a lot of atheists either fall away from religion altogether or just look at it like it’s something dumb, but even if it’s fake, that doesn’t make it worthless imo. The history itself is always worth studying.

[narrative-prospector]

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Game Review (7.5 / 10)

**SPOILER ALERT** (If you’d like to avoid spoilers, but still receive my input on the game, the Intro and Final Thoughts will always remain spoiler free.)

Intro:

I was recently speaking with a friend who described herself as “anti-video game.” When I asked her about it, she responded with the common belief that she found them a waste of time. In a market dominated by MOBAs and Battle Royales, I decided to make my case for video games from the narrative side of things, asking her if she had heard of (the original) Life is Strange game. She hadn’t, but immediately wanted to know why it was any different, why it wasn’t a waste of time, and how it changed / impacted me for the better.

I explained to her that Life is Strange reminded me of the great struggles each and every person faces. It shed light on the everyday ways, big and small, that I could help make burdens lighter for others. It reminded me that every choice in life matters, and not only did it show me ways to love, but it inspired me to love better, to cherish every beautiful moment, and to be grateful for every person whose life touches mine, or at the very least not to take their presence for granted. Needless to say, after our conversation, she was very interested in playing the game.

This power to change me is what made the first Life is Strange so great, and additionally what made me so eager jump into the 2017 prequel series, Life is Strange: Before the Storm. However, from its early stages, developer Deck Nine made it clear that Before the Storm would be a different game, and after playing it, I found that indeed it was. In some ways it surprised and thrilled me, and in other ways it returned to that same nostalgia I missed from the original game. There were, of course, also some elements of the game I would have done differently. I’ll give my thoughts on the game below, focusing mostly on its narrative elements, and as always leave a summarized TLDR (spoiler free!) version in the Final Thoughts section. Thanks for giving me a read, and here’s to making and playing the best games possible!

What Worked:

Effectively chronicles the evolution of Chloe. Before the Storm (BTS) takes the player through key events of Chloe’s past, which made her into the familiar blue haired punk from the original Life is Strange (LIS 1). It explores flashbacks and dream sequences of her father’s death and Max’s departure, all while showcasing other significant moments of Chloe’s formation: David’s moving in, her expulsion from Blackwell, and, of course, the relationship with Rachel Amber, powerful enough to break her by its ending. Every step along the way of Chloe’s path seems appropriate and motivated, and it’s fascinating to witness the moments that make Chloe who she is when you meet her in LIS 1. It’s well done, and something I really enjoyed.

Equally satisfying paths of friendship and romance. Just like in the original game, BTS unapologetically allows the relationship between its strong female protagonists to take a romantic turn. However, in an even braver move, the game also allows the player to have them remain friends, sending the story down a path no less developed or fulfilling. In a world where saying "we're just friends" is a strategy for rejecting unwanted lovers and the friend zone is something to be dreaded (speaking from personal experience are we?), this series continues to advocate for emotional intimacy in friendships, inspiring us to go deeper, love better and in a more supportive way, reminding us how life-giving (and often under appreciated) our friendships can be. This was a thematic thread I was hoping to see expanded upon from the LIS I, and once again, Deck Nine didn't disappoint.

Beautifully interwoven symbols & motifs. Pay close attention to anything related to ravens, fire, eyes, or lying. These all start small, but build powerfully and are visited throughout, tying the story together. The game also revisits images from LIS 1: the doe, storm, totem pole, squirrels, etc. drawing parallels between the games through these symbols (Chloe’s raven to Max’s doe - the storm to the wildfire). And while Max left her mark on the world through her photography, Chloe prefers a more literal approach. Her graffiti pen tags (along with her outfit selections) allow the player to further interact with these symbols, in addition to making fun collectibles to hunt down. It was really neat to notice these little details which the writers and designers crafted with care, and it definitely added to the impact of the story.

A nostalgic return to Arcadia Bay. The contrast of new adventures unfolding in familiar locations was a really neat element of the prequel series. The game provides the player with plenty of moments to simply take in their surroundings alongside a killer soundtrack (more on that later), and I definitely took advantage of it, especially in Chloe’s room, Frank’s RV, the junkyard, and all over Blackwell. It was so evocative just to see these places again, and interesting to get Chloe’s reflections on them. Like Chloe, these places also evolve as her backstory plays out (e.g. junkyard hangout room, Chloe’s truck) providing the player with a deeper understanding of the LIS 1 world’s origins.

The soundtrack. Deck Nine placed their game’s music in different hands than Dontnod, but ones no less apt. Daughter did an amazing job creating haunting, emotional, nostalgic, atmospheric songs to accompany Chloe’s journey, both diegetic (like Skip’s song) and not. The game also features other singles like Speedy Ortiz’s “No Below,” which perfectly capture what Chloe’s going through at this point in her life. It’s a soundtrack I simply had to purchase after playing through the game, and when I’m out and about and the songs come up on shuffle, I’m immediately taken back. I almost start expecting to see objects highlighted in white as I look at them.

Morally and philosophically thought provoking themes. Of course, like LIS 1, the game explores friendship, love, care, and trust, but overall, the central question the game asks is: Is it better to protect someone you love with a lie, or honor them with the truth? Whether or not lying, or concealing the truth, is always wrong is a very interesting question, and it’s one I’ve thought a lot about (I’m actually working on a theology essay about it - but that’s another blog). And, while it’s a question other games have explored (I’m looking at you, The Last of Us) the game provides a unique take on the question by having the player answer it with his/her final choice, ending the game with a more philosophical but significantly less dramatic choice than LIS 1, but nonetheless thought provoking in its own right.

What Got in the Way:

Chloe resists player shaping too much, much more than Max. With Max, I felt like her power of time control was in my hands. I could wield it for mischief, exact my justice as judge, jury, and executioner, or show mercy and love. Also, this power combined with the game’s mechanic of allowing you to restart from any point in the story made it easier to play Max right, ensuring that her story played out the way you wanted it to. Naturally, without Max’s time powers, Chloe’s decisions weigh more and are harder to undo. While this choice was intentional on behalf of the studio, rather than teaching me something about Chloe or life, I just wound up Googling the results of the choices more often or regretting not doing so as I’m smashing buttons, desperately trying to skip cut-scenes after loading a previous save. Basically, reversing your choices is way too tedious. Before you make a choice, get ready to live with it.

Too many unconnected dots between BTS and the original game. While BTS uncovers much of LIS 1’s backstory, it still leaves many questions unanswered. For example, what kind of relationship did Rachel have with Frank? Or, how did Rachel first become involved with Nathan’s photography experiment gone-wrong? These were things I was expecting to understand before the game’s end, and I was surprised to see the credits roll first. If it were up to me, I would have gone through all of that and ended the game just after the start of LIS 1, when Chloe reunites with Max.

Humanizes the villains until there’s no one left to hate. Almost. At one point or another in the game, Chloe comes up against Drew, David, Principal Wells, Nathan, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Amber, Sheldon, and Damon as adversaries. With the exception of Damon, who is this game’s Mr. Jefferson (the creepy bad guy who’s evil to be evil) the game attempts to generate sympathy for nearly every antagonist. For example, Drew’s only a mean drug dealer because he’s trying to financially support his little brother and dad. David really cares about Chloe and Joyce, but he lost his best friend in the army. Wells is just trying to protect the school, Nathan was bullied into his perversions, Mr. Prescott loves Rachel too much and is trying to protect her, etc. Sheldon’s genuinely a creep but if you give him what he deserves and tell Damon he’s a snitch, you have to read his desperate texts begging for Mercy. 

I actually think the game did a great job humanizing certain characters (David, Drew, Mr. Amber), but I think it was confusing to try to arouse sympathy in the player for Nathan, for example, before his commits his terrible crime. What really put me over the edge was finding a letter in the hospital from Nathan’s dad where he offers to anonymously cover Mikey’s hospital costs. We see him bullying his son, he’s supposed to be the reason Nathan turns to his evil ways, and yet we’re supposed to believe deep down he’s really a good guy? 

I get the point. Real people aren’t black and white, good and evil, it’s always more complicated than that. Still, I would draw a distinction between understanding why someone is evil and actually feeling bad for them, and instead of cheapening his power as a threat, I would have left Mr. Prescott among the Darth Sidiouses of Before the Storm.

Initially jarring change of voice actors. It just so happens that I began playing Guerrilla Games’ Horizon: Zero Dawn as I started BTS, so I felt like Chloe pulled a Scooby-Doo: The Movie and transported her soul into Aloy’s body, (Ashly Burch voices Chloe in the original game and the protagonist of Horizon: Zero Dawn - quite excellently, in fact) but the change in voice actors shook me up at first. Though it seems like Deck Nine made an effort to get most of the original voice actors, you’ll notice the new voices for David and Chloe. This seems to be the result of a SAG-AFTRA strike, so it wasn’t really under anyone’s control, but still, it would have been nice to have the same actor for the game’s main character. Took me about an episode to get over it and used to it.

Ends on a sour note. Chloe’s relationship with Rachel made Before the Storm one of the most beautiful stories I’d experienced, and it almost ends on a nostalgic note, panning through photographs that capture their memories together. Instead, the game ends in that infamous dark room where Rachel is drugged and photographed before her murder, with Chloe’s missed calls blowing up her phone. This immediately ripped me from the warm, reflective feeling I experienced over Chloe and Rachel and instead brought back the rage and disgust I had for Nathan and Mr. Jefferson. Whether by ending the game when Chloe meets Max (as I’ve suggested earlier), or ending it on Chloe’s last moments with Rachel, maybe even allowing them to exchange some touching (final - as the player knows it) words, I would’ve ended the game in the mood it so effectively created where I felt both sad to let Rachel go, and grateful for the mark she made on Chloe. Ending it on that final scene seemed like a missed opportunity.

Final Thoughts: (Rating: 7.5/10)

For players who’ve never experienced Life is Strange before, I’d recommend starting with the original series. For those who enjoyed the game, Before the Storm is a definite should-play. It’s worth it for the return to Arcadia Bay’s landscapes and characters alone, but you’ll also discover what Blackwell looked like before Max, who the mysterious Rachel Amber really was, why nearly everyone adored her, and what transformed Chloe from Max’s pirate-obsessed childhood best friend into the blue-haired girl waving a gun around in the girl’s bathroom. However, if you’re expecting it to be too much like the first game, you may be disappointed. To get the most out of it, I’d recommend trying to step into Chloe’s shoes and playing the character as true to herself as possible, rather than trying to shape her choices according to your own preferences. Allow yourself to act impulsively, make mistakes, and brace for the consequences. Undoing Chloe’s actions proves a lot more tedious than those of the time-traveling Max, so try to do it right the first time. Oh, and don’t expect too many answers. You’ll get plenty of great ones, but just like the native spirits of the raven and doe, they have to leave some mysteries unsolved. In the words of Rachel Amber, “life needs a little mystery,”  and after all, it’s mystery that makes life strange. 

[amc589-blog]

Explicitly Honest

After witnessing several marriages of close friends over the last few months, I have come to realize a downfall that I have. However, I am most definitely not a lone wolf in this mindset. The world we have all come to know, at least locally, has tainted the view of intimacy. I have always known that sex is to happen within a marriage. This fact has always struck my curiosity from a young age. Due to curiosity, I was exposed to pornography at an extremely young age. That exposure led to further curiosity as a got older and became more independent and naively adventurous. The further along I have gotten in life, the more skewed my definition and image of a sexually intimate relationship became. Not only do I have a messed up version of a physically intimate relationship, but I also seem to have a terrible outlook on the meaning of marriage. I could preach all day on what the meaning of marriage is, but believing it to be true for myself has become impossible. You see, my whole pursuit of “relationships” has been primarily based on physical attraction. If I cannot keep my hands off of someone, that seemed to be a good start. Getting to know them was the secondhand way that I would determine if we were a match. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered I am capable of liking someone for who they are before being physically attracted to them. It is only after getting to know that person, that they became more physically attractive to me. At first, I was turned off by this, but over time, it seems to be more and more worth the wait. It is even more of a blessing to have the distraction of the need to pursue physical intimacy removed from the forefront of my mind. After noticing this about my current relationship, I realized that I am deeply rooted in adulterous tendencies. All these years, my goal has been to get mens’ eyes on me for my physical appearance. It took someone liking me for who I am to wake me up. I can see so vividly how much deception I have caused in this world. I have likely caused so many eyes to stray for the wrong reasons. To think that some of these men are my brothers...

This has been a revelation to bring repentance. The Lord led me to take a two year break from dating, wearing make up, and drinking September 3, 2017. I have had a few slip ups over the last several months, but I have remained true to my vow by repenting and seeking forgiveness. Approaching the one year mark seems surreal to me. Time has truly flown by. The past year has held much growth and love from God. I have gotten to know myself so much more, but, even more so, I have gotten closer with the Lord. 

In fact, God is beyond good. I am sure that you may have likely been distracted in your thoughts over the last paragraph. I mentioned my “current relationship” in the one previous, while following with talking about my current devotion to singleness. I will elaborate...

While spending a short three weeks at school, I worked at Publix nearby. It was there that I would meet someone who would change my life. Our first conversation was on theology. We had that passion of interest in common and that would be the beginning to many days and nights of hours of conversations. On our first “date” we were already speaking along the lines of marriage. Everything seems to line up, so it came up naturally. The next day, I had to share my commitment of singleness. I cannot explain to you the expectations I had. On one end, I expected a unicorn answer of, “I will wait.” On the other hand, I expected him to say, “I guess it just wasn’t meant to happen.” Guess what his response was...“I can wait.” Not only had he brought me a new level of self confidence with his chivalrous endeavors and affirming compliments, but he is now willing to wait over a year to even ask me to be more than friends. 

Let me just stop there...

No one has any clue the amount of anxiety and stress that I have gone through all of these years, lowering my standards while maintaining a stupid fantasy that I never thought would come. And then, this happens. Of course, I went through a little bit of slight anxiety, but was able to talk myself off the cliff on several borderline anxiety attacks. I have always feared disobeying God, so my anxiety was a reaction to making my own decisions and thinking I would go to hell if I made a wrong decision. We should all know that is not how God works. 

Anyways...

After my third week was up, it was time to head home. I had to decide if I was going to continue to have this long distance “friendship” or if I should cut it off. Due to lack of overwhelming physical attraction, I decided I would end it. We made plans to have dinner after work on Friday, then I was going to drive home Saturday morning. That night, I became anxious to tell him it was over then flee town and never look back. I was going to run away. I told several coworkers, who had seen the whole thing flourish before their eyes. That night, I was driving back to meet him for dinner when he let me know that I could, “Take my time,” because he, “had a little accident.” I responded so fast with, “???” When I stopped for gas, he told me he had cut his hand while cleaning the bandsaw. Woman instincts kicked in at that moment and I knew our plans were about to change. I knew the Lord was working something within me. He was pushing me to hang on. He wanted me to be patient. I told him I would be there in a minute, but he assured me it was nothing serious, but he would have to go to the ER. I fully intended to go with him. I got to Publix and rushed to find him. Needless to say, he really just needed a bandaid, but due to covering all the bases, the manager made him go to the ER and he had to stay on the clock. We spent an hour or so at the ER, then it was time to be discharged. As we sat at the desk, I continued to contemplate my decision. I was seeing him in a real life situation and we were kind of going through it together. Not to mention, I checked in and got a visitor badge with his full name on it, which I wore proudly. 

After we got back to Publix to give our manager the paperwork, we walked to our cars and started to say goodbye. I knew that I had to decide my next move. What was my final decision? 

I decided to be honest. I wanted to completely humble myself and let him know exactly what was going on. I explained to him that I fully intended to end it as of several days before. I had prayed about it and decided we just needed to remain friends. However, after that night’s events, my mind had understood what I was supposed to do very differently. I had to reinterpret what I was supposed to do. I knew that we had taken things very quickly and discussed all the serious matters before anything else. We jumped straight to marriage and that was all we had in common: pursuit of marriage and theology. We had not found any normal things in common. I took this as we needed to work on our friendship intentionally over the next year and a quarter. Of course, his response was the perfect one that I wanted, but did not expect. He fully agreed and even explained his own thoughts and feelings, which were basically identical to my own. We continued to talk about things for an hour or so before I decided I needed to get a move on my two hour drive to my half-way destination. I had no idea what the future held for us being four hours away from each other. 

Here I am, weeks later. I became overwhelmed with school and kept telling my grandparents that I wish I could move back to school to escape all the responsibilities and just focus on school and work. After some time, I came to realize that I could live with my dad! He lives two hours away from home, as well as so many other advantages. After a little talk with my dad and my managers back home, I decided to transfer to Publix twenty minutes from my dad. 

All that being said, I am moving to my dad’s in a matter of weeks and will be joining the Navy in April! There is so much more to go on about, but this is all that is necessary.

I really just wanted to emphasize God’s greater plan to play out in life. I have struggled with fear of disappointing God in my decisions, but I must trust that I have the Holy Spirit living in me and that He is guiding me in my choices. I see the potential in all of these decisions and I cannot wait to pursue each of them! 

God is so good. It is amazing. 

[gracewithducks]

An Inch of Grace (Genesis 37:1-4, 12, 18-27)

When I was preparing to become a pastor, we did all the things that you’d expect budding pastors to do: we studied the bible, and theology, and church history, and pastoral care, and prayer practices. We even, eventually, learned a little bit about how to make a budget and how to run a meeting and how to get your church conference paperwork done without losing your religion. But one of the things that surprised me, that I wasn’t really expecting to do, was some very interesting work in family systems theory.

 Family systems theory says, basically, that your family of origin shapes who you are, and by examining your family’s systems and stories, you can better understand who you are and decide who you want to be. Your family of origin is the family that you come from: your parents, and step-parents, and grandparents, your siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles: the important people who, for better or for worse, have helped to shape your life and make you who you are. What might it mean for you to have grown up as the oldest or the youngest or the only child, to have been close to your cousins or estranged from your parents, to live through divorces or deaths, to consider patterns of mental health problems and addiction and all the other pieces that come together to shape our stories.

 The conversations surprised me because, by the time we’re adults, we like to think that we’ve made ourselves who we are – that we’ve outgrown the baggage of being the punchline for our brother’s jokes or listening to our parents fight. But the reality is, while we can grow and we can heal from our hurts, we also carry them with us… and when we sit through a meeting where conflict escalates to fighting, or when we are hurt by an offhanded comment by someone we trust, all those old insecurities can come rushing right back in.

 When I sit with couples who are preparing for marriage, I always ask them: tell me about your family. Tell me about your parents. Not because we’re destined to become them, but because what we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced, shapes and impacts who we become - for better and for worse.

 Every time I open my mouth and my mother comes out – or, for that matter, every time Michaela opens her mouth and I hear my own voice come out – I am reminded just how true it is. Our families shape us: our expectations, our traditions, our legacies are powerful indeed.

 Today we continue the story of the first family of family, the family we meet in the book of Genesis. And today we are reminded that family traditions transcend generations… and unfortunately, in this family, the legacy that’s handed down is a legacy of rivalry, and scarcity, and competition even to death.

 Today we meet Joseph, whose grandfather Isaac was pitted against his half-brother Ishmael, until their parents decided there was room for only one son in their hearts and in their homes… and Ishmael was sent into the wilderness to die, never spoke of again.

 Joseph’s father, Isaac’s son Jacob, was one of two brothers, twins, who were at war even in the womb. And as they grew, each parent picked a favorite twin; the family was split in half, taking sides, and Jacob tricked and stole from his brother, and his brother plotted to kill Jacob, and Jacob had to run away to survive.

 And Joseph’s mother, Rachel, was one of two sisters, each pitted against each other, constantly being compared to each other, always wanting what the other has, neither one ever being content or ever feeling safe and secure in her own self.

 These are Joseph’s parents: two people whose sibling rivalries destroyed their own lives. You’d think that Jacob and Rachel would know better, that they would be able to look back at the devastation that their parents playing favorites had wreaked in their own lives. You’d like to think that they’d be determined to do better by their own kids – and maybe they were, but it was just too hard for them. Or maybe they couldn’t even recognize how they were repeating their parents’ and grandparents’ mistakes; they were so steeped in the old family ways, so steeped in that climate of competition, that it was impossible for them not to pass their rivalries and jealousy on to the next generation.

 By the time Joseph is born, Jacob already has ten sons: most of them by Rachel’s sister Leah, the unwanted wife, and a few through Rachel and Leah’s surrogates, who were drawn into the sisters’ rivalry. Rachel was always jealous of Leah’s sons; Leah was always jealous because Rachel had Jacob’s heart… and the two women used their children as pawns, as markers on the scorecard where they were both trying to win.

 Finally, after years and years of desperation and disappointment, finally, son number 11 is born: and he’s Jacob’s eleventh boy, but he’s the first from Rachel’s womb. And because he is the son of his most beloved wife, little Joseph becomes his father’s favorite, too.

 How quickly Jacob forgets! How quickly he forgets how much it pained him when his father favored his brother and ignored him; how quickly he forgets how his mother’s preference for the younger son had torn the family apart. He forgets how he had to run for his life, because when he was growing up, his parents did not have enough love to go around.

 Jacob forgets. Jacob forgets, and he starts down the exact same road: he is so taken by Joseph, his miracle son, the son of his favorite wife, son of his old age… that he showers gifts and favors on Joseph, much to the pain and frustration of the ten forgotten older boys.

 It doesn’t help matters that Joseph really does seem to be special. He’s a dreamer; just like his father once met God in a dream, Joseph starts to have dreams of the future, and the way that things one day will be. But he’s young, and he’s spoiled, and he’s as oblivious as his father to his brothers’ resentment… so he uses his dreams, his gifts, to beat his brothers down even more.

 And they start to hate him for it.

 And then Jacob gives Joseph a coat. It’s a new coat – which is really saying something, because in a family with ten older brothers, you have to bet that hand-me-downs are the norm. Joseph should be running around in patched and threadbare clothes, but instead, his father gives him something entirely his own, a coat that’s brand new.

 And this coat is special: different translations give us different reasons why – perhaps it’s a coat of many colors, a beautiful piece of artwork, a coat that is meant to be admired, to draw attention to its wearer; a coat that is so lovely it certainly can’t be worn out to work in the fields. Or perhaps it’s simply a long coat, a coat with long sleeves – which may not seem so special, except that you would never wear a long-sleeved coat to do an honest day’s work; it would be ruined. Colorful coats and long sleeves were for those who were privileged or pampered enough to avoid hard labor…

 …and for Joseph’s brothers, who have spent their whole lifetimes in hard labor for their father’s sake, this coat is salt in their wounds; it’s the last straw. They’ve had it with this spoiled little brat of a brother; they’re done.

 Cain killed Abel; the relationship of the two first brothers in history ended in death. And Ishmael was sent to die, and Jacob had to run from his brother’s murderous plot… and the story repeats itself again. Joseph’s brothers start looking for a chance to get rid of him.

 Another generation turns to violence and death, because of jealousy, because of sibling rivalries, because there just isn’t enough love to go around.

 This is the generation that will either make or break Abraham’s family story. God called Abraham, and promised to make his family a great nation, and through them, to bless all the families of the world. God called them to look beyond themselves, to trust in God’s abundance, and to be a part of making a world full of justice and compassion and grace. But so far, all they’ve managed to do is turn on one another; instead of abundant and overflowing blessings, they’ve fought for scraps which never seem to be enough. We’re getting close to the end of Genesis: this could be where it all ends. This messed-up family is running out of time.

 When Joseph comes out into the fields in his fancy coat, his brothers are enraged, and they throw him a pit. This, I think, has to be where, for Joseph, it all comes crashing down. This is where he realizes that all his dreams, his comfortable and sheltered life, are in fact incredibly fragile, nothing but a house of cards on a foundation of clouds. As he sits in the pit, hearing his brothers up above debating how best to get away with his murder – it has to feel, to him, like the end.

 He has fallen, in an instant; he has reaped what he didn’t even know he was sowing; he has come into the family inheritance of bitterness and pain. And all his dreams: his dreams of power and glory and changing the world – all his dreams are going down the drain.

 Meanwhile, Joseph’s brothers are debating, trying to figure out what to do. And interestingly enough, it’s Rueben, the oldest son, Leah’s firstborn, who speaks grace and encourages his brothers to show some restraint. Rueben is the one whose inheritance and place in the family is most threatened by the blatant favoritism his father shows Joseph, but Rueben is also the one who says: wait. Let’s not kill him.

 Rueben shows grace. I don’t know why, but I find a lot of hope in this fact: we always remember Joseph as the hero, but it’s Rueben, in this moment, who starts to turn the family story around. He starts looking for another solution than violence and death. He starts trying to figure out a way that all his brothers – even the one he hates – that they all might prosper and live.

 Rueben shows grace… but he is surrounded by nine other angry brothers hungry for vengeance. While Rueben is trying to figure out how to get his brother out of the pit and back home safely, is brothers come up with another plan: Let’s not kill Joseph, they decide; what’s the gain in that? Let’s just tell dad he’s dead, and let’s sell him as a slave instead.

 Not exactly a resounding and shining moment, but it’s a start, and in this case, it’s enough mercy that God can work with it. The story isn’t over yet.

 To Jacob, I’m sure, it still seems like his dreaming his over. And in truth, his life will continue to be a cycle of up and down, rising high and falling low, rising higher only to fall farther still. It isn’t the first time it feels like everything is lost, and it won’t be the last time he watches it all slip away - - but the story isn’t over yet.

 And that’s the thing about God’s dream, to bless all the families of the earth, to create a new community built on justice and grace – it’s a fragile one, and there are times it seems like it’s a pipe dream, a hopeless fantasy, slipping through our fingers and drifting away.

 There are times when we know how Joseph must have felt in that pit: hopeless and lost, sure that it’s all over. This is where our story ends.

 But consider the power of one person willing to speak mercy, even just a mustard seed of compassion, an inch of grace – enough to open the door to hope once more, enough for God to creep in and remind us: it’s not over yet.

 We can be that person. We can be that voice of compassion; we can be the one who says, don’t let it end here, not like this.

 And we may not get it all right. We may not be perfect. Rueben wasn’t. He was still hurt by his father’s preference for his brother, and he was also too afraid to speak the truth, willing to let his father believe that Joseph was dead rather than let their father hate all the brothers all the more for selling Joseph away. Rueben wasn’t perfect. But let’s not belittle what he did do: he did what he could. He offered enough mercy to keep the story going: and sometimes, by God’s grace, that’s enough.

 We are all shaped by our family traditions: from grandfather clocks to casserole recipes and Christmas stockings and stories we tell over and over again, we are shaped by our families; there is so much we do in our lives just because it’s what we’ve been taught, what we’ve learned: “This is who we are, and this is what we do.”

 We are shaped by our families, but the very impact that our heritage has on us means that we are powerful, because what we do can shape generations still to come. Our decisions, our actions and our choices, can make new traditions; we can be the ones to teach future generations, “This is who we are, and this is what we do.”

 There has been a lot of talk about heritage and history lately. And we need to know our history, we need to have our eyes opened to what we’ve inherited – so that we don’t just keep repeating it, over and over again. We can make a new future; we can make a new way. In our homes, in our families, in our church, in our nation – we can be the ones who speak grace. We can be the ones who offer compassion. We can be the ones who open the door for God to turn it all around.

 It’s not over yet. Thanks be to God.

  God, you know how our families and our stories have made us who we are. For all that has blessed us, we are so thankful. We thank you for favorite recipes, for jokes that still make us laugh, for traditions and stories that keep us grounded, that keep alive our connections with family members who have passed away and those generations still to come. But God, you also know that our heritages and stories aren’t always good ones. We carry in us the weight of the choices our parents have made, the baggage of their mistakes as well as our own. And sometimes we find ourselves, without even realizing it, repeating the same old mistakes over and over and over again. Help us to believe that you really are a God of resurrections, of transformations and new beginnings: and if we let you, you will help us write a new story. Give us the courage to speak as much hope, to offer as much mercy, as we can – to choose who we will be, and begin to create traditions and a heritage of grace. In Christ’s name we pray; amen.

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

This sermon has marinated in Jessica LaGrone’s reflections on Joseph in her book Broken and Blessed: God Changes the World One Person and One Family at a Time. Though some readers may be distracted by the consistent male language for God, LaGrone nevertheless offers great depth of insights in the lives and lessons of the first family of the bible, and I am grateful for her work.

[dicecast]

Rather Disappointed by Pillars 2 Companions

Ok so we go from 11 Companions in the first game to 6 in the second, and that isn’t in itself a problem.  Less companions means more focus on those who are left, more personality, more dedication, more individual plot arcs, like Baldur’s Gate vs Baldur’s Gate II.  So I don’t object to the lower number, my issue is the choices, let’s talk the purpose of companions. 

    Companions in these sorts of games are what keep you active and focused on the world, they are your main form of engagement.  Its like your buddies in a D&D game, they provide friendship and give you a reason to care about all this.  Bioware is really good in this department, even when the main story is boring (Origins), incoherent (DA:II) or makes no sense (Inquisition) the core focus of engagement on your companions stays strong, these guys are your friends.  Except Blackwall, he sucks, but everybody else are interesting unique people who you care about and get involved in their lives.  And Pillars 1 was already kind of a step back in that direction, only a little banter, pretty basic personal questions, and about half of what they say is exposition.  Like with the original Baldur’s Gate, they work better when they ipmly a larger personality rather than showing one, which is why Greiving Mother, Kana, Durance work so well, and while Aloth and Pallagina are so much weaker, they are just generic.   

   The other role companions fulfill is teaching us about the world as a whole, this is doubly important for a work with its own unique setting that we the audience don’t know.   Lets use DA:II as an example.  We have 

  Varric, who introduces us to Kirkwall, Surface Dwarf Culture, and the storytelling traditions of Thedas

  Fenris: Who teaches us about Tevinter, Elven Slaves, the Religion of this world, and understanding anti mage Bigotry 

   Anders: Who teaches us about Apostates, the Circle, the Pro Mage Position, Spirits, the Fade and Abominations 

   Merrill: We learn about the Dalish, BLood Magic, Ancient Elves, Demons, the Fade, and the world’s approach to history. 

   Isabella: Shows us Rivani, sexual politics, the role of women in Thedas,  but mostly the experience of the every day people in this larger world, since her reaction mirrors most people in the city. 

   Sebastian: The Chantry and more complex theology 

   Aveline: Fereldin, Orlais, gender roles again, the role of the military, and Kirkwall

   Tallis: Stuff about the Qun 

Oh and Caver/Bethany are there too, they are doing stuff. 

   Through them we learn about the world and get more connected to the overall experience of the setting.  This is kinda done in Pillars, but it misses a lot opportunities in the first game, because the biggest problem with Pillars is that they have this super unique interesting fantasy world but instead focus on just rehashing all of the basic shit you can get in any fantasy world.  I mean why are we in Drywood, generic Europe/Colonial America when we hear about these much cooler places we won’t be able to go too.  Oh there are two  opposing factions who are unreasonably fanatical that you have to choose between and one of them happen to be knights, you don’t fucking say?   This is a world where reincarnation is provably true?  Huh I wonder how that would affect the religious and daily life of the people, and in what ways would people change, gee that sounds like it could have lots of interesting societal/theological implications and...oh we just aren’t going to address it beyond a few throw away lines, ok, sure.  Not like we have actual societies that believe in reincarnation whose ideas we could incorporate.  

   Oh you’re world has a generic italian setting full of civil wars, art, trade, ships, bad tempers, vendettas, culture and fine food?  Gee, I would have never guessed, don’t suppose we could have something a little more unique?  Oh they are all black...huh well that something I suppose.  

   Hey you have these Godlike who are full of interesting possibilities and people reaction to them.....oh that isn’t coming up like...at all.....thanks Pillars, thanks alot.  And yes, I am still bitter about playing a Godlike and getting no reward for it.  

    Pillars is a much more interesting game which constantly seems to want to generic itself, which is the same problem I have with D&D actually.  And that brings me to the companions.  Because lets look at the new people here we have 

A human Druid, an Aumaua Druid, a Wild Orlan.  No Pale Elves (again), no new Godlike (the Godlike being emblematic of pillar’s larger problem), no Boreal Dwarves, only 1 Orlan and 1 Aumua.  I’d mourn the lack of Mountain Dwarves but honestly, who cares, utterly generic.    And then of the returning characters......gah.

   OK Eothas is returning so that is like a whole thing, I get it.  So Eder being there is likely important cause he has a relationship to his God’s death and all that.  I understand taht.  And the Devs said that they felt they didn’t do a good job with Pallegina (not shit?) and want to give her another chance, ok that makes sense I suppose.  But Aloth?  not only was he the worse character in the first game, he had his story line, it was all about the Leaden Key, he is done, its over, we don’t need him anymore, go home.  Its weird that literally half the companions are hold overs from the first game, I think it was very wise of Bioware to make sure that only a few companions returned in each game.  But even beyond that, if you had to have three old companions return, instead of Aloth why not you know...somebody connected to Eothas....like the guy who fucking killed him?  Wouldn’t Durance have like...opinions on this whole affair?  He is also less crap than Aloth as a character.      

    None of this means that the games will be bad or the characters will be bad, or even that this won’t be better than the first game, its just that right off the bad i’m seeing choices that ignore better opportunities for a story.  The Sequel should be an opportunity to do what DA:II did but with a less shit ending, to embrace what makes its unique and distinct and use the second game to really differentiate itself from fantasy mythology as a whole, not fall back unto old habits.

[jadejedi]

My Star Wars Movie Rankings

So I’ve just recently jumped back into the Star Wars fandom (despite jadejedi being my url since 2014 when i joined as a Doctor Who blog for some reason, lmao) and have a few new followers, so I thought it would be fun to rank the movies!

All opinions are my own yada yada... (This is *mostly* based on my enjoyment and not my objective evaluations)

1. Empire Strikes Back- Literally my favorite movie of all time. It is one of those sequels that not just continues the story of the original, but expands upon the world and mythology of the universe created by ANH. ESB introduces so much to the Star Wars universe that we take for granted: telekinesis, Force Ghosts, visions, Vader = Anakin, and just so much Jedi theology. Beyond that, the Han x Leia romance, Luke’s training, just all of it. It is nearly a perfect movie. 

2. The Last Jedi- HOT TAKE lmao. I love TLJ and genuinely think it’s the best Star Wars movie since ESB. It does the same thing as ESB in terms of expanding on the first movie in the trilogy, while also dealing with its place in the saga as a whole by addressing the flaws of the Jedi and by extension the Republic. I view the OT as the presentation of this sort of idealistic presentation of a conflict between good and evil, while the PT pulls back the curtain to reveal the truth behind the rise of fascism, while TLJ deals with the fallout of fascism. Plus, all the characters get great arcs that move along their journeys, there’s a great little message about female authority and how our society views women who question the men around them, as well as just it’s beautiful imagery and wonderful theme of working through failure and having hope in dark times. 

3. Return of the Jedi- I love it. Love love love. Luke is my favorite character, and in this movie we see him at his best. One of my favorite moments in the whole saga is when Vader realizes Luke has a sister and threatens Leia, causing Luke to go a bit crazy, which is such a touching sibling moment. Honestly, one of my favorite changes George made to the OT was Hayden as Anakin’s Force ghost. It literally made me cry the first time I saw it after growing up on the VHS. 

4. The Force Awakens- This used to be number 2 or 3 until TRoS ruined it for me lol. The mystery box approach that made it so fun and interesting originally now has lost a lot of the appeal now that we have the answers to those questions. But all the same, I love the characters SO MUCH. Rey is my second favorite Star Wars character, Finn and Poe are so sweet and great, Kylo is a great piece of shit villain, Han is, in my opinion, at his most interesting, and I always have a fun time watching it. 

5. A New Hope- It’s a classic. It’s the original!! Such a great set up to a wider universe. Hearing Obi-Wan describe the Jedi still gives me chills. The way it introduces such iconic characters and plots is just so fun and amazing. Also, I love it because anytime people criticize the cheesiness of the PT I can just point them here lmao. It’s Star Wars, man. It’s cheesy af. 

6.  Revenge of the Sith- The drama. The romance. The tragedy. The politics. It has everything!! The biggest issue for me in this movie is the BREAKNECK speed of the second half of the movie. Like from the opera onwards things just happen so quickly that is honestly shocked me on my last rewatch. But it is still a fantastic conclusion to Anakin’s story. Seeing how everything has devolved from TPM is weirdly satisfying.

7. Attack of the Clones- I love Padmé so freaking much and honestly her hair is basically its own character in this movie lol. Her and Anakin’s dumb adorable flirting is awkward and great. And who can forget Anakin’s 100% accurate and iconic analysis of sand. The whole mystery plot is a bit convoluted; it literally did not make sense to me until this year upon what must be at least my 10th rewatch, but I enjoy it anyways. I also like seeing all the Jedi on Genosis, even if the sequence is quite long and the fights themselves are kind of bland. 

8. The Phantom Menace- Once again introducing so much fun stuff, from Padmé and the Naboo, to Coruscant and the political realm, to Obi-Wan as a padwan, introducing Anakin’s tragic backstory, just so much great stuff!! I feel like the prequels get a lot of undeserved criticism, beyond what I think is valid, and that is a super bummer. If I was rating just on quality rather than my personal enjoyment, I might have moved this one down a spot, but I would MUCH rather watch Ani going “Now *this* is podracing!” than the movies below this.

9. Rogue One- A lot of cool ideas, great visuals, and witty one-liners with very little substance. I like a lot about Rogue One, but I love very little. 

10. The Rise of Skywalker- This isn’t 11 because I can at least laugh my way through this one. There is about 30 minutes that has some good stuff in it. I like Han’s “role” in this, I like Kylo’s “come at me, bro” shrug, I like most of Luke’s pep talk to Rey, as well as that scene where Kylo realizes that she’s in his room. That scene gets one of the only actual laughs from me. Unlike in the rest of the list, these aspects I enjoyed are not a part of a larger list of things I enjoyed from this movie; they are the whole list lmao. A disappointing end to the trilogy and the saga, especially because it sours the Force Awakens for me in retrospect. 

11. Solo- I wanted to be fairly positive on this list but god I hate this movie. Is there anything redeemable about this trash fire of a movie? Well, I enjoy the last scene in which Han wins the Falcon. Otherwise, no. Just garbage. IMO, Han isn’t a super deep character, so to learn that his arc in the OT of going from scoundrel to friend and rebel is actually not an arc at all because he’s always been a good friend and rebel sympathiser is a real no from me, thanks. I would rather watch the Phantom Menace every day until I DIE than watch this for a third time.

[enouragement-blog]

Fan to flame

In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul encourages Timothy to “fan to flame” the gift in him. As Christians we must take care to fan to flame our spiritual lives as well. I was burning a lot of wood over the last week, and a few times the flame got too low because all the wood (fuel) had burned out. A fire needs three basic components: heat, fuel, and air, and there are two main reason you’d have to “fan to flame” a fire. The first is that you are starting a new fire, and the second is that you had a fire and it burned down. Just because you don’t see flames doesn’t mean that there isn’t a fire. Where there is heat or smoke, there is still a fire. It is definitely true that a forest can burn to the ground on account of a single spark, or a little bit of heat, or a little smoke.

We will be discussing the second reason for fanning to flame: there was a fire, it burned out, and you’re trying to get it back. Anybody who deals with fires knows that not every time that you “fan to flame” does it take the same amount of energy. Sometimes it takes forever, and sometimes it lights right back up - it’s difficult to know which one it will be, but burn level of the ash and heat can give you a clue.

If you want to fan a fire back to flame, you need three basic things: first, endurance. It can take a lot of energy and time and you have to be willing to give it time. Second, you have to have an array of fuel from small to large - sticks and logs, weeds and branches. If you try and get a flame when you only have logs, it can be very difficult or impossible, but if you lead the flame back from smaller to larger fuel, it’s a lot easier. This is less true the more heat you have - in other words, if your fire really hasn’t burned down much at all, you can just throw a few logs on it and it will do all the work itself. But the smaller the fire has gotten, and the more cold, the more you have to guide it back slowly. This is intentional, and when you are first starting a fire, you have to also start here: with logs build the main outline of the fire, and then put weeds and easy lighting fuel at the center, with slightly larger twigs over that and sometimes branches over that, depending on what kind of fire you are making and how big you want it to be. Sometimes you just start with weeds and twigs. Third, it needs constant care. You can’t get going and then walk away. Sometimes you have to protect it from getting air, sometimes you have to give it more.

This relates very strongly to what it is like fanning our spiritual lives to flame. If you are trying to resurrect your dead, grieving, bitter spirit, it will take the same effort. The longer you leave the problem, the more work it will take and the more time it will take. When you start fanning a flame back from ashes, there comes a time when a bunch of smoke will come up and hit you right in the eyes, sometimes even drowning out the baby flames, and that’s what happens when you start trying to heal and forgive people too: a stray bullet, a betrayal, a bad situation, whatever it is, that smoke will come up and threaten to choke out your efforts. Expect it, and role with it when it hits.

Endure, keep working towards the goal. Work from smaller to larger fuel - take baby steps towards the goal of growth, repentance, restoration, ministry, service. Just don’t do what most do: start with small fuel and then keep it there. Maybe you’ve been hurt, maybe you’ve been disappointed. Whatever the situation, there is a temptation to stop working towards a strong healthy fire in our souls. We like to get comfortable and stay where we are. If you do, it’ll have repercussions. Start small, build bigger, have a plan, have a direction and a purpose to what you do. And then just like you have to care for that fire, and be sensitive to what would best help it to grow, care for yourself so you can heal. You don’t have to be healed to minister to others, but if you aren’t healed, you’ll burn out. You don’t have to be healed to help others, but if you don’t deal with it, it will stop you from helping others. It’s a very complicated business, healing and serving. Try to not deal with your issues, and then help others with similar issues - messy. Watch closely so you can tell if you’re still moving forward if you’re sinking back into anxiety or depression or burnout or anger or whatever. Don’t try to go from one to ten - give it time, and work through it. Work out the death and the loss and the betrayal. You have to heal. Don’t try and cover the scars - they are proof of healing. Take care of yourself, get help and keep pouring into yourself. Not at the expense of loving others, but still, get help and healing.

I got to a point where everything I read in the bible I could only think of how it applied to other people. I had to get to a point of dealing with just a few verses, praying for God to help me see me in the verses rather than everyone who had wronged me, and God was gracious. He doesn’t rub in failures, and He loves to see us grow. I asked for Him to help ME learn from His word rather than being judgmental either from grief or anger or revenge or whatever, and slowly, little bit little,I got over it. Start there when you’re fanning to flame: get back to the basics of praying and reading the bible, and then build from there. If you have to take a temporary leave from ministry to readjust or to work through it, do it, but do it with the purpose of getting back into ministry. Running from problems doesn’t help anyone, and everyone Christian is in ministry.

Don’t neglect it. HOWEVER, take great care in what you feed the flame. Beware of:

- untested people. These are people who don’t know you, yet they have answers for you. Maybe you like what they have to say, maybe you don’t. But either way, you take them for their word, don’t weigh it against the bible, and even though you don’t know where they are coming from, you blindly accept their words. This is not good. Just like deacons should be tested before they are appointed, so you should be very careful of who you receive counseling and guidance from.

- people with poor theology. You know them. They have no idea what they believe, or they just believe nonsense. They go on about faith and miracles, they see demons and spirits everywhere, make everything spiritual, make you feel bad for having struggles, talk about the prosperity gospel, etc. Weigh what people say, don’t be naive, don’t believe everything, and read your bible and try to understand it for it actually means.

- People who are not under authority. Everyone is under someone’s authority, whether it’s someone in a church, a spouse, parents, the government or whoever. But some people have a very rebellious heart. They criticize everyone and everything, usually talk about the president or other leaders, gossip and complain, hide things from their spouse, and act like what they do with their life DOESN’T affect anyone but themselves (right). It amazes me how someone will pull out of a church, spend their lives doing homes study groups, arrogantly assume they are the only one who has it right, and see themselves as spiritually superior. Then they want to tell you how to fix all your problems. Be careful of what you are feeding the flame.

- The people you are ministering to/working with. They will DEFINITELY effect you. You will find yourself believing and saying things they think and believe. Be careful who you are around. As an example of how others will affect you, when I’m talking with someone about their anxiety, I feel the anxiety rise up in me.

- Books about the bible. These can be very good, but not if they take the place of the bible and you don’t weigh what they say against the bible. Be discerning and test it. I love a book called “waking the dead” by John Eldredge, but his theology is WAY off. I own the book, I love the book, but I read it IN LIGHT OF the bible.

- TV

- Music

- Online articles that make severe claims with little to no support based more off subjective reasoning than facts. Usually these are psychology articles, written by someone with a phd but no experience, or a masters with too big of britches, or a stay at home mom. Statistics don’t lie, but they can be twisted to back up a stupid claim.

- People who just tell you what you want to hear.

You need friends that will tell you the truth. I had gotten real negative because of some things that had happened. It started with some betrayals and disappointing events, but what the root of me not getting over it was the death of my son. You start thinking that you have to remember them because no one else will. It’s like if you let them go, you’re letting them down. I had to consciously thank God for my son, the joy he brought me, and then thank Him for taking him and watching him. That was hard, but necessary. You can’t give up. You have to keep fanning the flame because if you aren’t growing you are dying.

I got to be a bad and paranoid leader. Was it my fault? Could I have done something different? It’s like a scab - you can’t keep picking at it and get better. You need to let it go and move on. Stop replaying, stop thinking about it, just move on. Thankfully, my team is where they are because of me and, equally important, I am where I am because of them. We build on each other. They told me something that was hard to hear this week, but I needed to hear it. I was bitter and negative, prideful, distant, paranoid, and I didn’t even see it. I convinced myself that everyone else was wrong. I saw betrayal everywhere, and looked at everything in a negative light. Thankfully, I’m finally to acceptance, but I have to watch myself carefully. We’re not going backwards. I dealt with denial, I dealt with anger and bartering and depression. I felt like I was going crazy, I was lost. But now, I’m at acceptance. I can’t change it, but I can have joy now in this moment, and I can lead out of love rather than fear. Fan it to flame.

[wishingfornever]

2/23/2018 – Partial Contact:  I’ve Done It

I messaged her.  I started off saying she was “pretty” rather than beautiful.  This is because she is but also because everyone has been calling her beautiful on her Tumblr.  I would have said more, but I didn’t want to oust myself immediately.  I need to ask her. Honestly, I’ve thought to myself that maybe this is all just an excuse to talk to her.

Maybe.

I’ve made a new tumblr account just to talk to her.  I won’t reveal it because I’ll probably delete it once she blocks me.  I asked her if I could ask a question which is innocent enough.  Ended it without punctuation and with the word “tho.”  Didn’t double space my sentences either.

Did that all at about 1:30.  In the meantime, let me tell you about my morning.  Max, the brat that he is, pestered me to let him out.  I let him out and he immediately goes to Adela’s room.  I tell him, let’s go outside and he follows but is kind of reluctant.  I let him out back and he doesn’t pee.  I let him back in when he wants to come back in.

All he wanted was to be let out of the room.

However, I’m not in the checking on him sort of mood so I decided to bring him back to the room and try to catch up on some sleep.  This disappoints Max to no end, but he realizes that I knew what was up so he stopped trying to get out and frumpily laid to my side as I slept some more. He woke me up again at 11 and I let him out, he peed, and I didn’t force him back in the room.  Door is open, he’s allowed to come in or leave if he so pleased.

This was probably a bad day to contact Esther.  I’m actually going to be drinking… a little.  Maybe more?  Yeah.  Got involved with this streaming community on Twitch.  Found the guy on Youtube a while back, thought he was really funny.  Ended up watching his Youtube vids, then his streams, and now… well, now I am wrapped up in hanging out with people who also watch him.  There is this one fellow, who was drinking from 2009 from what his twitter shows but perhaps more.  He’s an accountant like Adela but also former military.

He’s taken a strong liking towards me because I’m funny, creative, and charming.  He LOVES my poetry.  Like, basically a bromance.

Sounds a little gay, but I like him too.  Not sexually (maybe if he were cute and not married already) but I feel appreciated.  Strangely enough, I feel like… well, did I tell you about when I used to be in an Orc Only RP guild?  I think I have.  Those were my WoW days and where I discovered I had a natural flair for poetic nonsense.

This community reminds me of my Orc Only RP guild days.  Sort of early on where I wasn’t an officer, just rising through the ranks and killing Alliance.  Oof.  A lot of nostalgia…

Anyways, there is a stream tonight and my Bromantic Partner and I tend to do shots if the streamer does certain things.  I intend to head out before Adela gets back to grab some chasers so when I get intoxicated, I can have something to clear my pallet with.  Oh, and I’m ordering a pizza tonight.  Going for… 7 again.  Or 6:45. Doesn’t really matter, it’ll be too early anyways.

Whatever, not the point.  The point is I will be walking to Dollar General, picking up some soda, then walking back.  I also want to see if my hours changed during the week.  Or if I got fired.  We’ll see.

Current time is 2:00.  I’ll check Tumblr again, where I’m reaching out for her, in about an hour.  In the meantime, I’ll do some reps with my weights, take a shower, brush my teeth, just get my self nice and clean before I vomit all over myself later.

So… I tried relighting the candle.  It refused to light.  So, I tore some paper off, set a piece of it on fire.  I had a picture up and I prayed to the men in the picture.  Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Fidel Castro.

I’m getting desperate, can you tell?

I asked for their strength, their wisdom, their guidance, and to bring Esther back to me.  She hasn’t responded yet but I’ll message her again before the day is through if I have to.  Whatever the case is, I promised Che and Fidel that I would dedicate my life to the revolution and I would not rest until the revolution is global.

It… probably isn’t a good thing that I’m making these theological promises to men, but I’m desperate.  I ask for the infinite wisdom of the universe but then it occurred to me that I should ask someone whom I idolize.  There is a lot of belief and intention with the “magic” of the universe, for lack of a better word.

I’m not a spiritual person, but I had something to promise to Che and Fidel.  And I intend to keep my word should Esther return to my arms. How that will happen, I don’t know.  I’m hoping she’ll pity me maybe.  Idk.

Whatever, the point is if Esther returns I’ll embrace Communism and I’ll press Communism even further.  If she doesn’t, then I can continue being a casual Communist.  I promised dedication and devotion to a cause grander than me and all I ask in return is to be complete again.

What cheese, I know.  Regardless, it gives me a bit of hope but the room smells like burning paper.  There is a fire alarm and I’m glad it didn’t detect the smoke.  Had to open a window.  It was a mess. Unfortunately, my prayers may have been for nothing but the intend as well as the flame was there, sort of.  More embers, really, but it won’t prove that my prayers weren’t answered just that they may have not been received.

Theology is hard for someone without faith.  But I’m embracing something for my own sake so hopefully it’ll pay off later.  For now, I’m getting ready to drink.

I still have half a bottle of bourbon and vodka for the stream tonight. This is basically me drinking with friends without actually being there.  So, I also grabbed snacks for myself, not that I’d need it. I’m pretty decked out.  Tried grabbing store brand cola, root beer, and ginger ale.  The Root beer is for next week.  Stumbled upon a site that tells you what goes good with what.  For drinking and bartending or whatever.

Point is, I’m going to expand my options.  This week, I have Coke Zero and Ginger Ale.  I think I’ll do bourbon tonight, vodka tomorrow. Finish my bottles this weekend then next weekend, I go out and grab some more.  I want to try Schnapps.  Never have, but I hear it’s good.  Schnapps and rum next week.  Maybe more.  We’ll see.

[heartflute]

Kathmandu Feb ‘18

The airplane landing into Kathmandu doesn’t disappoint. It’s the harshest drop to the runway I ever remember experiencing in an airplane, a real jolt.  This is an international airport with no instruments to help the pilots land. They have to do it by sight. Even recently since this writing there was a significant accident  at the Kathmandu landing strip.  Several major accidents have occurred here over the last couple of decades. They have the worst reputation of any airport in the world with whole planes full of passengers losing their lives in this place. Nevertheless, as we make our way off the plane and into the airport, the laid back atmosphere and warm greetings work on my heart. I like this place as a welcome relief from the frenetic and overcrowded India.  We are greeted with “Namastes” and smiles.  The air temp is cool in a pleasant way.  

Kathmandu would be a place where I would speak my truth over and over as well as feel a little trapped.   As we leave the airport and are greeted by the hotel shuttle service, a few young men whisk up our luggage and take it to the van.  Then, when we look at them blankly when they want a tip, they turn angry. We thought  they were with the hotel and the tipping happened later The hotel van driver smiles benignly at this interchange. It turns out the luggage carriers were not with the hotel but are youth than hang out around the airport, small-time entrepreneurs hoping to make a few coins in tips.  Keith and I are culurally confused for a moment. “Should we tip them” we ask our driver, as we consider the situation of people grabbing our luggage like magicians engaging in some kind of slight of hand with tourists.  Unemployment is widespread in Nepal with some 2400 Nepalis leaving the country per day to work abroad.   The streets are empty as we arrive late night to the Yellow Pagoda Hotel and Conference Center.

I spend several days discussing theology  at the International Conference of Unitarian Universalists at the Yellow Pagoda.  The ground rules are laid out for our full days of small group discussions, celebrations and worship services: listen respectfully to other participants without commenting on what you just heard, consider and determine the four foundations of your faith and beliefs, and some other things hard to recall.  I spend a few days fearfully considering the people across from me at our small group discussions, taking a breath, and speaking my truths into the room, even though I know my views tend to be met with a negative reaction in Unitarian circles, at least in the U.S.   I think there is a loving source that is guiding and surrounding me I say.  I perceive that at death we return to the light.  My beliefs are informed by my various mystical moments I’ve experienced over the years and through my practices of yogic, shamanic, Sufi, and more--a hodgepodge--of  disciplines.  My creativity forms one of the four foundations of my faith because as I engage in it the universe reveals itself to my heart. That fourth foundation of my faith I list as compassion, doing good, service, love, basically the Judeo-Christian ethic which no one can argue with.  While most of my views and felt experience are discordant with the people at my discussion tables who are my same race, color and geographic background, white people from the West; curiously, I am right in sync and find resonance with a few women of color around me--a petit African American Unitarian from Rwanda, who says that at death that “we go to the place of all souls;” and, an even more diminutive women from India who shares some similar common views. We make an odd looking trio at our table of discussion, me a tall white aging male Westerner with these two women from Africa and India.  The other white Western men at the table, who appear a little bit older than me, all chime  in in consanance with their mechanistic, atheistic views as if they have all been molded by the same culture, religion, family unit, etc.  The theology professor, from Chicago, present at the conference running our discussions and another person, a prominent minister in Unitarian Universalism,  look at me with a twinkle of interest and acceptance over the Creativity piece of my beliefs, finding something in that statement provocative for them.    My heart is nervous and stressed speaking things that I generally leave unsaid in what I perceive as a general hostility in the Unitarian world towards, shall we say, in general, diversity.   After a week at the Yellow Pagoda, we, Keith and I, move onto my our next assignment, which is musical, as was our role at the Unitarian conference, where we had provided some music along with many other musicians in attendance.

Our next role in Kathmandu is at “Answer Nepal,” defined as American and Nepali Student and Women’s Educational Relief, where Keith gives a talk titled “Happiness” to a large group of college students.  To Illustrate Keith’s points, I sing “Wonderful World,” the old American standard--  “I see skies of blue, red roses too, I see them bloom for me and for and I think to myself...what a wonderful world!”  I sing this to illustrate the principle of Gratitude, which is one of Keith’s talking points for his “sermon,” if you will.  My singing skill is more brilliant at this event than anything in my  memory over the past decade of so.  It’s as if I have re-found my voice, which was lost somewhere or dormant.  Keith and I teach music daily for a few hours a day to the college students, which we both perceive turns out to be not the best use of our time or anyone else’s time involved for that matter.

In Kathmandu, at Boudinath Stupa, I walk into my first Tibetan Monastery of many I would visit on our nine week journey in India, Nepal and Sikkim.  I get my first glimpse of a figure in a red hat on the monastery wall, a painting I am wondering about. I would see the figure over and over and it would become etched in my memory.  This was Padmasambhava, the person who brought Buddhism to Tibet!  I relished in my first visions of the non-stop, covering-every- nook-and-cranny paintings and designs, using bold colors, that characterize Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and I reflected on a past life sense I have of having been a monk within a Tibetan culture.  I felt very stimulated and taken by the notion of the lotus-jewel in the center of the heart, which is both a mantrum--”om mani paddle hum”--and a belief or point of view in Tibetan Buddhism, that there is this kernel of goodness and light within the human being that can be found within and expressed and lived into creation.  Couldn’t I be subsumed into the lotus-jewel in the center of the heart?  Wouldn’t that be the ultimate destiny?  To be that jewel.  This feeling would follow me around, like an energy chasing me or dancing with me on the rest of our pilgrimage over the next couple of months.  

We circumnambulated Bhoudinath Stupa in Kathmandu, the largest Buddhist stupa in the world and, I believe, a unesco world heritage site, as well as definitely a major pilgrimage site.  While we were tucked away in our hotel conference, Shivaratri was happening, an event which brings twelfth thousand or so pilgrims every year from India for a Hindu celebration.  The main Hindu center for Shivaratri in Kathmandu is along the Ganges, for we are near her, as we were in Varanasi just a couple weeks prior.  This is her place farther up into the Himalayas.  Legend says that the Ganges River and a couple of other holy rivers in this region are none other than Siva’s long locks of hair falling down from the high Himalayan Mountain named Kailish.  I had remembered hearing just recently while we were in Varanasi that many people were on their way from Varanasi to Kathmandu, I think especially that Sadhus, the wondering holy men of India,  to participate in Shivaratri; and magically, or synchronistically, we too had left from Varanasi to go to Kathmandu also, along with this migration of souls across the Indian-Nepali border for this yearly time of pilgrimage.

[girlprobblog-blog]

    I’m all for a sausage roll, but replacing the sleeping Christ to advertise an advent calendar!? According to the BBC, Greggs had to apologise for their new advertising campaign, the sleeping baby sausage roll, after an up roar on twitter. There have been mixed opinions on the subject. Some found the advert funny, however others saw it as offensive, tweets stating that ’no other religion would stand for this sort of nonsense!’ Personally, I agree, the advertisement was ridiculous and demonstrates to what extent Christmas has become commercialised. We sometimes forget that Christmas is a Christian tradition to celebrate the birth of Christ.

In 2017 Christmas is the season to be jolly. It’s a time when watching films like Elf and The Grinch become acceptable, and Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey come out of their caves once again to grace us with their festive tunes. It’s a time of late night shopping, eating as much chocolate as possible, and dropping subtle hints to people so they know what you want for Christmas (I’ll make it easy, Harry Styles in the Givenchy suit from his VSFS performance, but if you can’t get that then maybe I’ll settle for some nice sportswear). But as a Theology student sometimes I sit back and think, when did Christmas become so materialised. When did we lose the sense that Christmas is about the birth of a saviour (to many).

Now I know not everyone is Christian. Even I am a little sceptical about the authenticity of the Bible, but I argue that Greggs have over stepped the mark by taking a holy image (the three wise men surrounding Jesus) and replacing it with a sausage roll. Religion is a large part of a person’s life, and to have it publicly mocked is disrespectful to many. For example, there would be a similar uproar if Mohammed (PBUH) had been used in a similar manner. So, Greggs should not assume that Christians would not take offense from the misuse and commercialisation of an iconic biblical moment. Although if you think this is the first example of biblical imagery in advertising, you would be very disappointed.

  What annoys me about the Greggs controversy; is that everyone pipes up as soon as Jesus is mocked or misused, but years of perfume ads using Eve as a sex symbol and everyone is silent. Most people know at least a basic version of Adam and Eve. After being told not to eat from the tree of knowledge, Eve is seduced by a snake and tastes the forbidden fruit, she then tempts Adam to the same fate, and due to this they are both banished from the Garden of Eden. Many theologians have read in to the Genesis story to explain original sin, but have also used it as a method to make women inferior. There are many interpretations that lay blame fully on Eve for the downfall of Adam (because you know, Adam couldn’t have said no to the apple!)

  The use of Eve in perfume adverts (for some reason they absolutely love her) is always portrayed in a seductive way. A snake choking her, an apple in hand and scantly clad, or the background is a mysterious garden. Eve is used as a sex symbol to sell perfume and entice people into buying this product. The saying is ‘sex sells’, but I argue that these ads are just as bad as Greggs. They are taking a biblical story and misusing it for their own commercial motives. Moreover, the use of Eve is derogatory, categorising women as a symbol to lust over, when in fact we are so much more.

  Other readings of Eve portray her as man’s equal. In the Genesis story she is made from man’s rib, the same material as Adam, and therefore she is equal to man. Going off these perfume ads, you would think she was just a pretty thing for Adam to look at. Women in 2017 need inspirational figures, not sex symbols.

Using religion in advertising is not always the best move; I don’t think people are being too sensitive, as if it were any other religion the reaction would be the same. However, I do think we need to open our eyes a bit more to the different uses of biblical imagery in advertising. We also need to remember the real reasons we celebrate Christmas. Not the fancy lights, or the parties, but family (and if you are religious, Happy birthday JC).

  Girl Prob Blog

 I’m all for a sausage roll, but replacing the sleeping Christ to advertise an advent calendar!? I’m all for a sausage roll, but replacing the sleeping Christ to advertise an advent calendar!? According to the BBC, Greggs had to apologise for their new advertising campaign, the sleeping baby sausage roll, after an up roar on twitter.