#because I cannot conceivably believe in a god who would make the world such a shitty place

[ohholydyke]

See the thing about fundamentalists and trads and Christian nationalists and MAGA evangelicals and ethnocratic bigots is that they render the faith so boring.

I take no issue with the fact that they would look at me and say that I’m not a member of the faithful because their faith is radically, inherently, ontologically distinct from mine. My God is too big and too loving and too esoteric to fit neatly into the gendered understanding of an authoritarian white father disciplining his children for not perfectly falling into lockstep. My Savior is the man who told the religious leaders “Caesar can have his idolatrous blood money, but give God your heart and your faith,” challenging the notion of an earthly ruler. My apostles wrote of the throne of man being empty—there are no masters or kings or governments, there is only Jesus Christ, Basileus Basileōn, king of kings. I believe in radical oneness with God through Christ—one flesh and one body, biblical marriage with the bridegroom whose flesh and blood make up the holy Eucharist. My faith is Queer, ancestral, esoteric, anarchist, insurrectionary, anticolonial, antiracist, unorthodox, disruptive, free. When I encounter the divine, or pray to the saints, or sit in the chapel to pray, I am experiencing communion with the sublime, in every sense of the word, the same presence that made the apostles fall to their faces before the transfiguration, that shaped the world from void, that animates the deep care and rage which boil into every aspect of my being.

When conservatives tell me I am not a Christian it is only because they cannot conceive of a Christ and a faith so big, so all encompassing, so beyond anything our human minds can comprehend, and they cannot conceive being in tune with this divinity and being left senseless by the knowledge that the divine above all else is us and loves us more than we could ever comprehend, such that experiencing this love is enough to leave one fundamentally, ontologically changed down to the fiber of their being. I feel sorrow for them. I pray that Christ may reach into their hearts and open their eyes, that they may see not only the horrors that they commit but also the deep love and freedom that awaits them through abandoning their fundamentalism and their bigotry.

Or, in other words, me every time I see another conservative Christian whining about how people aren’t doing Christianity right because they don’t adhere to a super narrow and watered down version of the faith:

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[our-queer-experience]

(1) I'm about to go to my top surgery consult and am very excited

(2) I just finished up an email response to my uncle's response to my coming out email

here is a few excerpts I'm especially proud of that lack any personal info:

Him: “As a God-fearing Christian, it would be wrong for me to hate anyone or be prejudice. I may not like someone or their decisions, but hate is a strong word. If I might not like someone, I’ll avoid them. I judge people by the content of their character, not their skin (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.).”

Me: "I do appreciate your position on hate as a concept, but I don’t personally think avoidance is a perfect solution. In my opinion, understanding those who are different from you is the greatest thing you can do to guard yourself from becoming prejudiced. As Martin Luther King also said, 'People with good intentions but limited understanding are more dangerous than people with total ill will.'"

Him: "My questions are these: After all of the OUTWARD changes, after the mutilation, operations, procedures, drugs, etc, etc. Do you believe all of this is going to satisfy what you’re chasing? Are you going to be satisfied with the end result ??? Once you go down this road, you can’t come back. What is the end result you are chasing? These are questions only you can answer. I don’t ask these questions out of anger or hostility; I ask out of concern. Has anyone asked you these questions and can you answer them (to yourself) honestly?"

My response: "Well in truth that's not really something I can answer. For one I wouldn't say that I'm 'chasing' anything. I'm making informed choices about what I want today. Part of the information I take into account is if I might change my mind later in my life, but that is all I can do. As for the end result, I don't think there will ever really be one. People never stop changing and growing, not until they're gone. So I can't promise that I'll be happy with my choices 5 or 10 years down the line because I'll be a different person then. I can however make an educated guess based on who I am today and the things I know would make me happy now, and that's what I've been doing.

"And I can say that it's been working. Since I've socially transitioned, I haven't felt as though I've been drudging through life anymore. I feel lighter and freer, even more so since going on testosterone. The more changes I experience, the less I want to crawl out of my skin. I cannot conceive any reason as to why I'd want to go back."

Him: “Are you sure all of these outward changes are going to satisfy you? Your soul and your mind are not going to change because of any of this. What happens when you get to end of the road and you don’t like where you’re at ??? You can’t go back.

That absolutely worries the crap out of me.

You are [Full Legal Name*]. God has sent you into this world as [Full Legal Name]. Although you might be able to change the outside, you cannot change the inside.”

*I should note that I do not have a dead name otherwise this would be significantly more fucked

Me: "You're right, at the end of the day I'm still going to be me on the inside, but the outside is going to better reflect who I am. I am [Full Legal Name], I am a guy, and that isn’t going to change. Your concern is touching, but it's not necessary. I know who I am and I know what I want. This journey is mine, but as a prominent masculine presence in my life, as my Uncle, I hope you’ll be here for it."

despite everything going on outside rn, life keeps going, I keep going. ig I just forgot that for a second but today is a nice reminder. I'm going to keep going until somebody stops me, and probably a while after that too. to all of us: don't hide, don't shrink away, show them what you are. if they don't stick around, if they refuse to learn, that's their fault. we've seen time and time again what happens to those who are intolerant. and if we know anything it is that history repeats itself. thank you.

man you handled that really maturely. congrats on the consult and i hope things improve 🫂

[hamliet]

BSD 112: War and Peace

Now that the manga has finally caught up to the anime, I shall say that I am still pretty convinced Fyodor will pull a Jesus and be fine.

That said, I hella loved this chapter. The themes, man. Essentially Fukuchi is inviting Fukuzawa to become God, though I would NOT be surprised to see a certain new character show up considering this entire chapter is basically Fukuchi and Fukuzawa trading paraphrased quotes from A Certain Novel.

It's a battle of free will vs peace, and how we walk that line as individuals and societies... war is futile and hell, and pointless because what even is a state anyways besides some arbitrary idea we've all agreed to for... reasons, and yet if you remove the ability for war and conflict as a whole, you don't really have humanity but instead mind-controlled slaves.

War is not a polite recreation, but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to realize this and not make a game of it... as it stands now it's the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous.”

Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity... Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.

It's true that people are born where they are born, and caught up in the stories that are grander than they are. Everyone likes to imagine what they know and what they experience and what they want and believe is True, but is it? Or is it merely a product of how they've grown? Is it a product of the centuries and millennia of people before us who create wars and conflicts and use us in them?

Yes, humans are used as unconscious instruments. But is that all they are? All they should be? Fukuchi seems to think yes. If they're currently used as instruments of war, then why not use them. as instruments of peace?

Fukuzawa, however, thinks otherwise.

It's an existential question humanity has been wrestling over since human beings have existed, and it won't be answered anytime soon because there is no neat answer. It's the paradox of human nature and human existence.

He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree.

Dictatorships are known, obviously, for suppressing free will and free expression.

Now, in War and Peace, Tolstoy's answer is love. And God, who is Love. But love first and foremost since Tolstoy himself wasn't super religious when writing it (later on he was though).

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.

Yet, if you remove the ability to choose love or violence, then:

A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life. 

And it's pretty clear what lesson Fukuchi has to learn:

Life is everything. Life is God. Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God. And while there is life, there is delight in the self-awareness of the divinity. To love life is to love God. The hardest and most blissful thing is to love this life in one's suffering, in the guiltlessness of suffering.

Life sucks. War is hell. It makes life feel like it's not worth living. But without free will, you are not alive at all.

For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.

Anyways, even if Leo Tolstoy does not appear as an actual character with the supreme ability of "War and Peace," well, he sure is influencing this arc a lot.

[paula-of-christ]

hi! i remember vaguely you posted something about how mormons believe in spirit babies, could you elaborate what that belief means?

I'm going to use the language that the LDS use for their theology and then do some explaining since they use similar words but don't MEAN the same thing that Christians do when they use them.

When Heavenly Father first created the world/universe we live in (note, this is NOT the beginning of time), him and Heavenly Mother (or 'mothers' if you are faithful to what all the LDS prophets/leaders have said, that's right God is a polygamist) had spirit children, becoming angels. One of those spirit children was Jesus, one was Satan. They both came up with ideas for how salvation should come about (I don't remember the details of the supposed plans, I'd have to look it up) but Heavenly Father went with Jesus' plan. So everyone else had to choose sides. 1/3 chose Jesus' side, 1/3 chose Satan's side, and the last 1/3 didn't choose at all. The 1/3 that chose Satan were sent to earth with the 'Mark of Cain' which in the Doctrine and Covenants is explicitly dark/non-white skin. The other 1/3 were punished for not choosing by being sent down while not being in the LDS, so they had to wait until they died and went to spirit prison* to be preached to by the last 1/3rd that followed Jesus and were born into the Mormon church. It might not be exactly 1/3 on all sides, but I know for sure 1/3 was following Satan, because Joseph Smith took that from Revelation.

So basically, when a couple has sex, they are inviting a spirit that already exists, to come and reside in the body that is made. And if the child dies before the age of 7/8, well that spirit just didn't want to be born yet. And if you CAN'T conceive a child, it's because no spirit thinks you're worthy of it.

"Heavenly Father" is what they call God, and according to the LDS he didn't actually make the universe from nothing, but was created by some god before him, and became an exalted man, and got to create his own universe when he became exalted. Jesus is also an exalted man, and is NOT god. Neither is the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Mother is not usually spoken about beyond very briefly because OBVIOUSLY their god wouldn't be able to create spirit children on his own. She is NOT to be worshipped even though she would also be a god. The modern church only ever talks about one but even as early as Brigham Young (the second leader of the LDS after Joseph Smith died), there was the idea of more than one wife of god, because you cannot become an exalted being without being married to at least 3 women. And if you're a woman who is married to a man and he has less than 3 wives, you will not get to rule with him because he will not become exalted.

To contrast this, classical Christian theology surrounding the creation of new life is that a father and mother are co-creators with God, and that God creates the spirit of the person at the moment of conception, ie at the moment when man and woman biologically create life, then the spirit is there. It was a little shaky at first of when life started, but it was always 'if there is life, there is a soul, but before there is life, the soul is yet to exist'. One of the things the LDS church teaches is that babies remember what the spirit world is like, because the 'veil' between worlds is thinnest at the beginning and end of life. But eventually as they get older, they forget, and that's why we have to go through life the way we do.

It's all very confusing and doesn't make much sense, but I hope I explained it in a way that can be somewhat understandable (or at least.... answered your initial question).

TLDR: God the father created every soul that would ever live when he created the universe and having sex is just 'inviting' that soul to come down to earth. Having sex outside of a mormon marriage or with the intent of raising the child outside the Mormon church is akin to inviting the spirit to be forever damned. And so conception issued boils down to you not being worthy for the spirit to WANT to be your child.

*Yes its called spirit prison, and the only way to be 'saved' from it is if a mormon on earth goes to the temple and gets a proxy baptism using your name after you have died. This is called baptisms for the dead and the Mormon church got in a lot of trouble when they, for a long time, allowed their members to get baptized on behalf of jews killed during the holocaust. Now you can only get baptized by those who are biologically related to you, but there is almost 0 oversight on it, so even though the person doing it is supposed to get permission from the *closest* living relative, often times they don't and just say they do. How does the Mormon Church know who you're related to? Oh, they just own the largest database of ancestry paperwork in the US, possibly the world. To the point that the US government will sometimes borrow their stuff. The Vatican has put a ban (as well as other independent protestant churches) on parishes giving the Mormon Church or member ANY genealogical or baptismal information, since it is only used to do their weird necromantic baptisms, since no baptism is valid except a Mormon one.

[meanlesbean]

Commentary for Chapters 3 and 4 of Cadence. I got some requests for this a few weeks ago and then um. I forgor.

Chapter 3 - The Stock Pot Inn

In my outline, chapter 3 was supposed to cover all of the events of what is now both chapters 3 and 4. Yes all 24,000 words of it. Let’s all take a moment to point and laugh at me for that.

One of the reasons why I felt okay with going all out and making Mask really, really abrasive from the get-go is because I knew we would be getting an entirely different perspective on him from the Termina residents right after his introduction. Anju’s scene in particular was very fun to write. 

Up until like two days before publishing I just had this as a placeholder in that first scene: “He hasn’t seen the old man this mad in a while, not since [?? SOMETHING THAT WOULD MAKE TIME VERY ANGRY].”

I was going to use the like-like scene from the comic as a fallback, but I wanted Time’s level of anger to be more clearly justified

Something that I’ve never vibed with is characterizations of Time where he’s really strict just for the sake of being strict. I don’t think he is ever going to be the kind of guy who respects authority for authority’s sake, so he’s not going to expect that from the others. But I do think he feels responsible for everyone’s safety, so when you have situations like “we are in unfamiliar and potentially hostile territory and need to find shelter before it gets dark” and he finds a large group of them goofing off, he’s going to be really mad because the group’s safety comes first. 

Anyway the first thing I could come up with was a cliffside pissing contest, which I decided to commit to because I think that the boys, even as heroes, are not entirely immune to the comedic sensibility of your average 16-year-old boy. 

I know we got Warriors referring to Twilight as his brother to the innkeeper in one of the Sunset comics, but I stuck with calling them cousins instead because it’s a way more believable story to outsiders IMO 

This is also based on my extended family and having a lot of cousins around my age. When you are walking around in a group of ten and you all look vaguely related but there are also way too many of you within a close age range to conceivably be birth siblings, people will ask questions. 

My mental image for Isa is that she looks like the Kokiri girl who sits above the shop, in keeping with MM tradition of reusing the OoT npcs

I did not intend to torture Twilight with sensory issues in these chapters, but I already committed to giving him heightened senses as a Hylian, and I think he’d need a bit of time to adjust whenever he’s in a new place. 

I don’t think he has this same problem as a wolf even though his senses are way stronger because things that smell bad to humans just smell really interesting as a canine. All my fellow dog owners who have found their dog rolling around in mysterious, pungent substances can attest to this.

The end scene first originated as a joke about bomchus because bombchus (specifically the OoT/MM ones) are my favorite Zelda weapon hands down. I don’t think there’s ever been a more perfect mini game than bombchu bowling. 

Legend being the Hero of Time’s secret third successor is a dynamic I am so fascinated by. I chose him for the ending scene conversation because of this + the amount of quests he’s been on + the fact that he hasn’t been deeply insulted or emotionally impacted by Mask appearing, which all leads to Legend almost immediately putting together that a hero cannot refuse the call of a quest. 

Chapter 4 - The Milk Bar

This ties in with chapter 3, but one of my favorite worldbuilding things to explore in zelda fanworks is the cultural impact of religion and how the average person might approach it.

Like, you have worlds where magic and spirits and gods are very much present and impacting society, but being able to use magic and having direct interactions with spirits/gods seems to be more of a rarity than the norm 

I’ve seen a lot fics where the divide in religion is “atheists and believers” which has always been kind of weird to me and clashes with the bit that we've gotten about this in the games

Generally, I imagine that there's universal-acknowledgement of the existence of higher powers but disagreement over how much power and influence the spirits and gods actually have. 

This is shown a bit with Emery and Captain Viscen. Viscen doesn’t object to the existence of the Giants, he just believes that the gods are a lot more hands-off than what Emery believes

Warriors’ army division is a little easter egg for what number his game would be if it existed in mainline Zelda continuity. 

The original Hyrule Warriors game would have been the 17th game in the series. If we ignore the first version and go with the Hyrule Warriors Legends version that added all the Wind Waker content (the version I played), it would be the 18th game. Which also sounded better than 17 so that’s what I went with

Warriors’ last name, Hargrave, is likely a place-name that means “from the grove on the border” but also has possible army-related roots. I think Warriors’ family historically lived either in or very close to the Faron woods, which is how they’d get the name. 

I likely won’t include any other surname headcanons in the story though because I have such a hard time finding last names that sound fitting for the character and Hyrule as a setting. I’m actually a little surprised I was able to settle on something for Warriors

Most of the Links being too poor to have a last name does have historical roots though. In most of Europe, surnames didn’t come into universal use until the 11th–15th centuries. And in a lot of places, surnames originated in the upper classes before widespread adoption. 

Speaking of history, Milk punch is a real drink that got carried around in bottles. 

The flirting scene with Emery and Twilight took me so long to get right and I almost cut it altogether. But I really wanted to keep it, firstly as a little fuck-you to the prevalence of homophobes in the LU fandom. Secondly, sex and intimacy are really interesting ways of exploring characterization, and I wanted to touch on it with Twilight while I had the chance.

I think the way that Twilight, in the comics, has either dodged or played his relationship with Midna off as a joke says a lot about how he’s dealt with it, which in my interpretation is: extremely poorly. 

Specifically, Cadence Twilight is in a situation where he’s been cutting out the parts of his life that make him think about his trauma. Romance and sex had to go because it reminded him of Midna. But instead of fixing anything, he’s got all this unaddressed trauma seeping through the cracks. So something that should be fun and innocuous and really low on the “emotionally intimate” scale like making out with a hot stranger at the bar is now a minefield of triggers 

The dream sequence was another bit that absolutely dragged while writing, and I’m still not totally happy with it, but the character introspection that comes after was too important for me to cut it completely

Not to tell on myself but the thing about Twilight having recurring dreams of reuniting with Midna is inspired by my own recurring dream of reuniting with a former very close friend who I haven’t spoken with in years. Luckily for me, I can deal with my problems by shoving them onto fictional characters. 

One thing that is really key to my conception of Twilight’s character is that I don’t think he divides his life into Before and After his adventure as much as he divides his life into Before and After Midna breaking the mirror.

Which is another commonality he shares with Time, who sees his big defining before/after as Zelda sending him back in time and losing Navi right after

[bestworstcase]

do you think it will be significantly harder for oz to reconcile with salem’s cause than the rest of rwbyjnor? with the way things are going i can see how the kids could get there but i’m so curious to see how oz will react. even if he is opening up more now, it’s a whole other thing to go back on the mandate and shift his view of salem after how long it’s been.

honestly i think the hardest part is already over in that none of it is buried anymore. for thousands of years ozma wore himself deeper and deeper into this rut, methodically cutting salem out of history until he had nearly absolute control over the fact of her existence. and then he locked the proverbial tower and threw away the key.

he had no plan.

like, prior to the fall of beacon, ozpin was just rotting. he dissociates through all of V1 and only wakes up when qrow alerts him that salem has "pawns" at beacon. and—look.

beacon academy—the school ozma built—is modeled after salem's father's castle. the headmaster's office is in her tower.

what does that tell us about how ozma conceives of himself, how he feels about his task, about what he really wants?

then the lost fable happens. ruby asks what ozpin is hiding, and jinn tells his whole story. he's made to relive it all over again, see himself make these choices once more. (he sees himself tell the god of light no. he hears himself say "that world just isn't as dear to me without her." he sees her tell him the truth—the gods ended the world—and he sees himself choose to tell her nothing, because he didn't trust her, and keep making that choice for years.)

thennn he spends months boiling in self-hatred and guilt before finding the wherewithal to climb back up and try again. he returns with a narrative monologue about fear, and rising above fear:

"fear of growing closer to someone; a subsequent fear of loss. fear of failure. and, as more people depend on you, those fears can take on greater power. but... fear itself is not worthy of concern; it is who we become while in its clutches. will you be proud of that person? will you forgive them? will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? will you even recognize them? ...or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start?"

i wonder

what he might be thinking about, there.

anyways, consider the lyrics of 'until the end':

To live free or die, it’s all the same The enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming In waves of shame We’re desperate to make amends But through a simple soul we lie complacent Love brings us dreams But grief makes the heart burst at the seams As light fills my eyes I’ll picture me beside her And pray that I’ll inspire I promise I’ll be here until the end I promise I’ll be here until… ...Our story has been told Til our bodies break down every door Til we find what we’ve been looking for And stare with pride into the face of fear In our finest hour, I’ll be standing here

and also consider the way 'fear' lists his, er, fears:

We live in fear that we might fail Fear that we'll succeed Fear that we may not provide The things our loved ones need

in waves of shame, we're desperate to make amends.

and, we live in fear that we'll succeed.

ozma believes that the only way to save the world is to destroy salem. the only reason he agreed to return to the world at all was because salem was in it. that world just isn't as dear to me without her.

he's been stuck and stagnating all this time because: 1. he believes everything the god of light told him. 2. he, like salem, believes that the gods will rule against humanity. 3. he's terrified of the world ending. 4. he believes the only way to avoid that is to destroy salem. 5. salem is, and has always been, his reason for living.

he cannot destroy salem because she can't be destroyed. but he also cannot destroy her because given the choice between losing her and losing the world, he would choose her. he already did choose her.

he's afraid to fail. but he's even more afraid to succeed.

the point of contention between him and salem, fundamentally—the reason they're in conflict and the reason they haven't been able to reconcile up to this point—is #1. ozma has faith in the god of light, regards him as the supreme creator, and does not believe that there is any possibility outside of the binary given by the mandate. salem rejects that, utterly.

shatter ozma's faith, and reconciliation becomes possible very quickly, because that is what he wants. it's less that he needs to be persuaded to reconcile with her and more that he needs permission, because right now he has it carved into his bones that doing what he wants will doom the world.

i think salem will actually be the one much more reluctant to reconcile, as opposed to striking a truce with the vacuo coalition, because ozma abused her trust in such a profoundly horrible way and she is very obviously not over it. like... as things stand right now, ozma is straight up pining for her while salem desperately just wants him gone. "why do you keep. coming. back."

[intertexts]

OK. OK OK OK. HI. IM AT WORK NOW SO THIS IS GONNA BE DISJOINTED AND NOT MAKE A WHOLE LOT OF SENSE BUT IM COOKING SO THIS REQUIRES AN ASK AND NOT A REPLY BC THOSE HAVE CHARACTER LIMITS (cooking both metaphorically and literally because it's 95 degrees outside at 9am and it is so so so so fucking humid) oh god get me out of the kitchen before i start burning things!!!

this could be Nothing. bc again I desperately need 2 learn more about cauldron and their motivations and such. BUT. going back to the tide/leviathan comparisons because they're making me kind of insane and i want to give him a Complex about it. because if we're not going to lobotomize him I need 2 hurt him in other ways (sorry dad)

so. this doesn't EXACTLY work 1:1 because there are only 3 endbringers and only 2 of them seem to be element-focused as far as i know. but if we have tide as a comparison to leviathan, we also have MAGMA who could be a comparison to behemoth if my thoughts are correct and behemoth is . big fire guy (he sleeps in a volcano so. I'm assuming.) . granted we also have like. whirlwind and shockwave and seismic who are the other elementals and they don't actually have an endbringer counterpart BUT IM !!!! going a little crazy thinking about like. if tide + his siblings are artificial capes, what if they (or at least he and magma because I'm kind of thinking abt them as the older ones. havent listened to the oneshot in a while so this may not be accurate) were given their powers SPECIFICALLY to be counters to the endbringers. or at least in an attempt to make a cape equivalent of the endbringers to better like... study their powerset or something. (I keep saying cauldron studies things bc I said that with david too and this really just comes from my inherent need for a big evil science team. in worm it seems like they're more capitalism focused but let a guy dream here)

this also brings up an interesting point with Elle who i know u don't know yet but she could be an interesting counterpoint to simurgh? Who as far as I know now isn't necessarily elemental but . neither is Elle really!! and that creates the big disaster in the oneshot bc she can't control her powers and goes kind of nuts about it.

anyway anyway anyway. tldr; tide and magma were specifically created as parallels to leviathan and behemoth, this wouldn't really be common knowledge to the rest of the capes bc of cauldrons secrecy BUT i think ppl would definitely notice the similarities in their powersets and that makes a subconscious fear response in people who have seen an endbringer attack firsthand (I believe in scary intimidating tide supremacy but then you talk to him and he's the sweetest human being in the whole world) . tide and magma both know this and have complicated emotions about it. I think tide has a very bad reaction to the leviathan attack if we are keeping that as an event that happens.

OR IT COULD ALL BE COINCIDENCE AND THIS IS NOTHING. but until i learn more about cauldron I am choosing to view them as my favorite trope of big evil science corporation <3333

OHH U R FUCKING COOKING DUDE YEAH <333

it is. so hard whenever u r talking about cauldron.... mallard conway ass levels of "oh okay i literally Cannot talk about this or else im accidentally gonna say spoilers." but. i DO think this goes so hard & conceivably makes sense for cauldron to do...... man one day in the far future we're gonna have to sit down and talk about if cauldron even would exist in this au. but. for now. hehehe :33 & i will say!!! i will say!!! research is. involved, in what they do. you are not off the mark.

ANYWAY. love this for him so much..... the way he moves and acts in a fight echoes leviathan.... does he have that water afterimage too??? when he's fighting?? because that shits cool as hell he should have it. i'm always just really ill over someone made to be a weapon who never wanted to be one.... tide you have to be at the leviathan fight but you shouldn't be :(((

i gotta listen to the elementals oneshot i have it downloaded rn.. i wanna know elle's deal because you have just said something unwittingly extremely funny & i need to know What happens to her before i comment on it!!!! anyway!!!! thinking abt tide lambert forever & always...

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

i'm out here inventing entirely new moral dilemmas in toxic relationships like i don’t think “is your goth robot gf taking advantage of you if she's rapidly ascended from terminator to very adorable skynet upgraded herself to singularity levels on a whim is like five separate gods at this point hurts you for fun and is entirely in this to eventually painfully kill you? or are you taking advantage of her bc she's got near zero socialisation or knowledge of the world she immediately gets attached to anyone who treats her like a person and is terrified of losing that connection she's literally programmed to want to follow orders and tends to obey whatever anyone she trust says without question or hesitation because she literally cannot conceive of people liking her without her being useful she's reliant on you to make sense of the world outside of murder and would instantly believe whatever you say no matter what and she's unable to ever stop obsessing over you to the point you’re basically the only thing that matters in her world? are you both taking advantage of each other? does the fact you’re both mutually entirely down for the fucked up aspects of this relationship mean neither of you are taking advantage of that? does your relationship being a qpr change things? is everything okay up until you kiss and stuff bc despite both being aroace you’re two very easily bored impulsive adrenaline junkie curious teenagers who feel safe to explore stuff like that with each other? does it get more ethical when the two of you become adults or less? is it selfcest to be in a relationship with someone if you consider each other one and the same?” is a train of thought anyone before me has ever had. i'm innovative what can i say.

[demivrg]

Ultima as a 'Mother' Figure

Ultima used their powers to create humanity, imbuing them with life. They birthed the original humans that eventually repeated the same mistakes as Ultima's species- Relying on near identical magic technology. The Fallen warred against God and their civilization was destroyed, but the side-effect of using magic continued to plague humanity in the form of Dominants and Bearers who suffer the Blight.

When Clive and Joshua confront Ultima at the site of it's abandoned, ashen husk does Ultima mention that humanity was 'nurtured and fed' by them. They also make it a point to dig at Clive's childhood neglect at the hands of Anabella, pointing out that she should have shown Clive the same maternal attentions that Ultima believes they performed.

Maybe the devs included Ultima having these moments of comparing themself to a mother/providing 'their Mythos' and people like Barnabas with the maternal protection and care just because it's fucking creepy, but I can't help but also see Ultima as a bad parental figure trying to control their own children.

Parents have children for various reasons: to leave behind a part of themselves, animal instinct & survival, to better the world with a person who embodies their values that they want to instill. Ultima expects subservience for parenting humanity like that's just what's owed to them for having the 'benevolence' to care for the things that they create. True love is selfless, not a form of currency to be repaid or a tool used to control and manipulate others to your will- Clive's so called 'anime power of friendship' is just another example of the narrative showing how important selfless love and interpersonal bonds are in life, which are values that any parent should perform towards their children. Instead, Ultima (and Anabella) turn their children into vehicles for their own desires or to rectify personal failures they experienced in their own lifetime and try to control everything about their childrens' actions.

I've noticed the fandom making a lot of negative comments about Ultima and the theme of Final Fantasy XVI as "God killed by the anime power of friendship" trope, but I don't believe this is the theme of the game. The theme is about life and what constitutes as living, I think Clive's last conversation with Ultima conveys this in a really obvious fashion. Ultima and humanity both fight to preserve their own lives, but Ultima cannot accept that fear and suffering are intrinsic to the quality of life- One cannot experience joy and fulfillment without suffering and loss. One cannot fully or truly live without the knowledge of death.

Ultima also fears death itself and they fear the lack of control and perfection they believe themselves to embody, which is why they abandon humankind. It wasn't just that the Fallen tried to fight their creator, it was a reflection of Ultima's own flaws- Their heavy reliance on magic. Even as magic is factually the source of the Blight, Ultima cannot conceive of a world without it's use, they STILL rely on magic to make their vision of paradise come to fruition rather than abandon it as a tool the way Clive eventually does. Ultima can be seen as an arrogant being because they think their use of magic will be somehow different than the previous attempts of using it's powers, that their use of magic is the power that is necessary to create a world without fear, death, or loss/suffering.

In a weird way, I think that Ultima earnestly wanted to create a paradise. The issue is that they saw humans as simple vehicles to carry our their plan when they actually gave birth to something unique and worthy- That in the process of creation, left a bit of their own divinity inside of humanity itself and gave them the same potential they believe their species solely possessed.

Anyway, TL;DR- I feel like Ultima as provider/mother figure was very intentional and not just a one-off addition? It would have been interesting if they'd leaned on it even harder, but alas.

[mausers]

I hate Biden's fucking guts too, but the other guy...the other ADMINISTRATION, is going to be so much worse in every way. May fucking cancel democracy! Wants to cancel the ACA, cut social program benefits, support anti-trans legislation, do the mask bans, every vile, shitty thing you've already seen them trying gets turned up to 11 with Executive Branch support. All of that stuff is an existential threat to my family, and we live in one of the places they like to test all their shit out. Please do not endanger millions of families like mine to prove a point! Look at the list above and think about what that list looks like here! ALSO: he probably gets to appoint EVEN MORE Supreme Court justices! Ask women in states where they can no longer make decisions about their own bodies how much they appreciate the people who stayed home and let Trump in the first fucking time! Also they've declared that Presidents are now above the fucking law, so God, wouldn't it be great to see what Trump would do with that? NO IT FUCKING WOULDN'T! ALSO: the climate can't afford another round of a Republican administration! They will let fucking oil companies plunder every last wild space they can get their fucking hands on, JUST FOR STARTERS! They will undo or make worse every single thing that did anything to move us towards living on a planet that's not trying to murder us! FUCK'S SAKE! POINT THE FUCKING WHATEVER: The dementia/old thing? HAVE YOU LISTENED TO TRUMP? He can barely form complete sentences half the time! He's old as shit! For fuck's sake, he's also a rapist and we got new stuff saying that likely Epstein helped him expand his monstrosities by raping kids, too. He's been convicted of a number of fucking felonies! He's already tried to overthrow the government once! He's SO FUCKING VILE AND STUPID! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! So I am begging you to just...especially if you do not live in a solidly blue state, please just hold your nose and do it. Vote everything downticket, too! The other administration is going to DO MORE GENOCIDE. They're gonna cut programs people need to fucking survive. They are going to continue to fan the flames of the culture wars to make this happen, classic fucking descent into fascism playbook! They are going to make the world worse in every conceivable way! Again, an administration isn't just the one fucking guy, it's also making the CDC anti-science and a Secretary of Education who actively doesn't believe in public education and a director of the EPA who is a former oil executive. Like, Christ Biden sucks so much, yes! What an idiot fucking racist! Almost certainly I have hated him longer than you! You very likely didn't see the Anita Hill hearing live. I did! I am going to vote for him anyway because the alternative is maybe very literally the loss of the ability to ever vote again, and with absolute certainty much worse outcomes on every other possible front! Fuck! You cannot teach or punish the Democratic Party! Democrats do not move left when they lose elections! I'ma say that again: DEMOCRATS DO NOT MOVE LEFT WHEN THEY LOSE ELECTIONS! They have to be primaried out, and that can only ever happen with engagement at local levels! You want third parties? YOU HAVE GROW THEM FROM THE GROUND UP! You are not getting a revolution! This is not France, there is no support system for any of it, no playbook to make it happen! Unions are growing, help them! Mutual aid is increasing, help your neighbors! Please just vote for the fucker as a baseline "the other thing gets way more people killed" kind of harms reduction action and then do the really important stuff: start working on your local government, mutual aid, joining and promoting unions. That's the stuff that will change things, and you'll feel great about it, too! The presidential vote is just the thing that makes any of that possible! Please don't gamble with a descent into nightmare fuel fascism and vulnerable people's lives because you have confused electoral pragmatism with a popularity contest. I am fucking begging you.

USA please listen to me: the price of “teaching them a lesson” is too high. take it from New Zealand, who voted our Labour government out in the last election because they weren’t doing exactly what we wanted and got facism instead.

Trans rights are being attacked, public transport has been defunded, tax cuts issued for the wealthy, they've mass-defunded public services, cut and attacked the disability funding model, cut benefits, diverted transport funding to roads, cut all recent public transport subsidies, cancelled massive important infrastructure projects like damns and ferries (we are three ISLANDS), fast tracked mining, oil, and other massive environmentally detrimental projects and gave the power the to approve these projects singularly to three ministers who have been wined and dined by lobbyists of the companies that have put the bids in to approve them while one of the main minister infers he will not prioritise the protection of endangered species like the archeys frog over mining projects that do massive environmental harm. They have attacked indigenous rights in an attempt to negate the Treaty of Waitangi by “redefining it”; as a backup, they are also trying to remove all mentions of the treaty from legislation starting with our Child Protection laws no longer requiring social workers to consider the importance of Maori children’s culture when placing those children; when the Waitangi Tribunal who oversees indigenous matters sought to enquire about this, the Minister for Children blocked their enquiry in a breach of comity that was condemned in a ruling — too late to do anything — by our Supreme Court. They have repealed labour protections around pay and 90 day trials, reversed our smoking ban, cancelled our EV subsidy, cancelled our water infrastructure scheme that would have given Maori iwi a say in water asset management, cancelled our biggest city’s fuel tax, made our treasury and inland revenue departments less accountable, dispensed of our Productivity Commission, begun work on charter schools and military boot camps in an obvious push towards privatisation, cancelled grants for first home buyers, reduced access to emergency housing, allowed no cause evictions, cancelled our Maori health system that would have given Maori control over their own public medical care and funding, cut funding of services like budgeting advice and food banks, cancelled the consumer advocacy council, cancelled our medicine regulations, repealed free prescriptions, deferred multiple hospital builds, failed to deliver on pre-election medical promises, reversed a gun ban created in response to the mosque shootings, brought back three strikes = life sentence policy, increased minimum wage by half the recommended amount, cancelled fair pay for disabled workers, reduced wheelchair services, reversed our oil and gas exploration ban, cancelled our climate emergency fund, cut science research funding including climate research, removed limits on killing sea lions, cut funding for the climate change commission, weakened our methane targets, cancelled Significant National Areas protections, have begun reversing our ban on live exports. Much of this was passed under urgency.

It’s been six months.

[princeofgod-2021]

LIGHT OF LIFE 683

John 1:4

DIVINE ORDER 248: LIVING AND DYING ORDER 12

Heb 9:27 EVERY HUMAN BEING IS APPOINTED TO DIE ONCE, AND THEN TO FACE GOD’S JUDGMENT. TPT

We still have to conclude on DEATH TO THE WORLD beloved. These messages flood the books of the New Testament and letters of the Apostles but Christians are not reading them enough with full concentration, probably because they seem boring or too difficult to grasp.

There is simply no way around this issue into heaven. We all must embrace this.

Now, apart from crucifixion of Mr. Flesh on the cross, what is the consistent element that confirms your death to the world?

It’s simply Christ in you, the hope of Glory (Col 1:27).

AFFIRMING YOUR DEATH

Rom 8:10-11 However, IF CHRIST LIVES IN YOU, YOUR BODIES ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN, but your spirits are alive because you have God's approval. Does the Spirit of the one who brought Jesus back to life live in you? Then the one who brought Christ back to life will also make your mortal bodies alive by his Spirit who lives in you. GW

You cannot have Christ in your life and be comfortable with sin. The moment a man can still sin willfully and with near-dead remorse (I Tim4:2), he is empty of the God-life.

What else should Christianity be about if not Victory over sin, which Jesus originally came to save us from? (Mt 1:21). Now there’s something I want to show you from this scripture. Read:

Mat 1:21-23 She will give birth to a son and YOU WILL NAME HIM JESUS, BECAUSE HE WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS.” This all happened SO THAT WHAT WAS SPOKEN BY THE LORD THROUGH THE PROPHET WOULD BE FULFILLED: “Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, AND THEY WILL NAME HIM EMMANUEL,” WHICH MEANS “GOD WITH US.” NET

I’ve mentioned often how we ought to understand CONTEXTS and application of scriptures, but this is more of understanding PARALLELS and CONCORDANCE with verses of scriptures.

Look closely at the scripture about Jesus again: How does “Emmanuel; God with us” fulfill or correlate with “Jesus; Saviour from sins”? How could Emmanuel mean Jesus?

The understanding of that scripture is in placing their essences parallel to each other. It simply means that for Jesus to effectively save us from sins, He has to come and Live right inside, and be within us always, not just to die on the Cross for Man.

Jesus died on the Cross for all men, but lives right inside those who come to, and embrace Him (Jn1:11-13). Got it?

2Co 6:16 And what agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." MKJV

Now, how can you affirm that Christ is always living IN you after you have embraced Him?

Simply by the obedience of “Denying Self, Carrying your Cross and Following Christ” (Lk9:23). Then you will see and learn from the one you are following (Mt11:20-30) that “godly suffering” is the way to kill Mr. Flesh and hence, the way of life for all Believers.

1Pe 4:1-2 FORASMUCH THEN AS CHRIST HATH SUFFERED FOR US IN THE FLESH, ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND: FOR HE THAT HATH SUFFERED IN THE FLESH HATH CEASED FROM SIN; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. KJV

Please read that again and Believe it! Victory over sin stands elusive for some Christians because whenever they see trials, they scream at God to stop, and hence prevent the full impact of such experiences, which is postponed till another day or eventually stopped if you refuse to learn.

I’m not teaching strange doctrine; please read and understand…

Jms 1:2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. SO DON’T TRY TO GET OUT OF ANYTHING PREMATURELY. LET IT DO ITS WORK so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. MSG

Let that experience KILL Flesh in you and free you from the strongholds of sin.

Sadly, many want riches and fame, but those are the very things that give more life to Mr. Flesh. You can’t keep Dying to Flesh on Sundays but going back to revive same Flesh the rest of the week.

How long will we keep fooling ourselves but supposing Christianity is difficult?

1Ti 6:9-10 PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE RICH FALL INTO ALL SORTS OF TEMPTATIONS AND TRAPS. They are caught by foolish and harmful desires that drag them down and destroy them. The love of money causes all kinds of trouble. SOME PEOPLE WANT MONEY SO MUCH that they have given up their faith and caused themselves a lot of pain. CEV

This [abstract] Form of Death is a Divine Order and Mandate for all serious Christians. We can’t keep raising the things which should be destroyed (Gal2:17-18).

Let’s get serious!

May we find Grace to go all the way to the Cross with Christ our Lord, IN JESUS NAME.

See you on Wednesday, as we continue with this explosive Subtopic.

Brother Prince

Monday, June 23, 2025

+234-8055125517; +234-8023904307

[bestillmylovingheart]

James Baldwin, The Creative Process

THE CREATIVE PROCESS By James Baldwin from Creative America, Ridge Press, 1962. Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone. That all men are, when the chips are down, alone, is a banality—a banality because it is very frequently stated, but very rarely, on the evidence, believed. Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. None of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

The state of being alone is not meant to bring to mind merely a rustic musing beside some silver lake. The aloneness of which I speak is much more like the aloneness of birth or death. It is like the fearless alone that one sees in the eyes of someone who is suffering, whom we cannot help. Or it is like the aloneness of love, the force and mystery that so many have extolled and so many have cursed, but which no one has ever understood or ever really been able to control. I put the matter this way, not out of any desire to create pity for the artist—God forbid!—but to suggest how nearly, after all, is his state the state of everyone, and in an attempt to make vivid his endeavor. The state of birth, suffering, love, and death are extreme states—extreme, universal, and inescapable.

We all know this, but we would rather not know it. The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we fall prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge. It is for this reason that all societies have battled with the incorrigible disturber of the peace—the artist. I doubt that future societies will get on with him any better. The entire purpose of society is to create a bulwark against the inner and the outer chaos, in order to make life bearable and to keep the human race alive. And it is absolutely inevitable that when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition is, the people, in general, will suppose it to have existed from before the beginning of time and will be most unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it. They do not know how they will live without those traditions that have given them their identity. Their reaction, when it is suggested that they can or that they must, is panic. And we see this panic, I think, everywhere in the world today, from the streets of New Orleans to the grisly battleground of Algeria. And a higher level of consciousness among the people is the only hope we have, now or in the future, of minimizing human damage. The artist is distinguished from all other responsible actors in society—the politicians, legislators, educators, and scientists—by the fact that he is his own test tube, his own laboratory, working according to very rigorous rules, however unstated these may be, and cannot allow any consideration to supersede his responsibility to reveal all that he can possibly discover concerning the mystery of the human being. Society must accept some things as real; but he must always know that visible reality hides a deeper one, and that all our action and achievement rest on things unseen. A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven. One cannot possibly build a school, teach a child, or drive a car without taking some things for granted. The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides. I seem to be making extremely grandiloquent claims for a breed of men and women historically despised while living and acclaimed when safely dead. But, in a way, the belated honor that all societies tender their artists proven the reality of the point I am trying to make. I am really trying to make clear the nature of the artist’s responsibility to his society. The peculiar nature of this responsibility is that he must never cease warring with it, for its sake and for his own. For the truth, in spite of appearances and all our hopes, is that everything is always changing and the measure of our maturity as nations and as men is how well prepared we are to meet these changes, and further, to use them for our health. Now, anyone who has ever been compelled to think about it—anyone, for example, who has ever been in love---knows that the one face that one can never see is one’s own face. One’s lover—or one’s brother, or one’s enemy—sees the face you wear, and this face can elicit the most extraordinary reactions. We do the things we do and feel what we feel essentially because we must---we are responsible for our actions, but we rarely understand them. It goes without saying, I believe, that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less. But the barrier between oneself and one’s knowledge of oneself is high indeed. There are so many things one would rather not know! We become social creatures because we cannot live any other way. But in order to become social, there are a great many other things that we must not become, and we are frightened, all of us, of these forces within us that perpetually menace our precarious security. Yet the forces are there: we cannot will them away. All we can do is learn to live with them.

[addictiveissues]

Image

Hi there Sister,

Today bringing another piece for our journaling surrounding

🏹 Your Soul Journey

And here we are…❤️

Lesson 139

I will accept Atonement for myself.

Here is the end of choice.

For here we decide to accept ourselves

as God created us.

And what is choice except for uncertainty of what we are...?

No doubt is not rooted here.

There is no question but it reflects this one.

There is no conflict that does not entail the single,

simple question, "What am I?"

Yet who could ask this question

except one who has refused to recognize himself?

Only refusal to accept yourself

could make the question seem to be sincere.

The only thing that can be indeed known

by any living thing is what it is.

From this one point of certainty,

it looks at other things as specifically as itself.

Uncertainty about what you must be

is self-deception on a scale so vast its magnitude

can hardly be conceived.

To be alive and not to know yourself

is to believe that you are really dead.

For what is life except to be yourself,

and what but you can be alive instead?

Who is the doubter...?

What is it she doubts...?

Whom does she question...?

Who can answer her...?

She merely states that she is not himself,

and therefore, being something else, becomes a questioner of what that something is.

Yet she could never be alive at all unless she knew the answer.

If she asks as if she does not know,

it merely shows she does not want to be the thing she is.

She has accepted it because she lives;

has judged against it and denied its worth,

and has decided that she does not know the only certainty by which she lives.

Thus she becomes uncertain of her life,

for what it is has been denied by her.

It is for this denial that you need Atonement.

Your denial made no change in what you are.

But you have split your mind

into what knows and does not know the truth.

You are yourself.

There is no doubt of this.

And yet there are times you doubt it.

But you do not ask what part of you can doubt yourself.

It cannot be a part of you that asks this question.

For it asks of one who knows the answer.

Were it part of you, then certainty would be impossible.

Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself,

and be unsure of what you are.

This is the depth of madness.

Yet it is the universal question of the world.

What does this mean, except the world is mad...?

Why share its madness in the sad belief

that what is universal here is true?

Nothing the world believes is true.

It is a place whose purpose is to be a home

where those who claim they do not know themselves

can come to question what it is they are.

And they will come again until the time Atonement is accepted,

and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself,

and not to be aware of what you are.

Only acceptance can be asked of you,

for what you are is certain.

It is set forever in the holy Mind of God,

and in your own.

It is so far beyond all doubt and question

that to ask what it must be is all the proof you need to show

that you believe the contradiction that you know not what you cannot fail to know.

Is this a question, or a statement that denies itself in statement...?

Let us not allow our holy minds

to occupy themselves with senseless musings such as this.

We have a mission here.

We did not come to reinforce the madness

that we once believed in.

Let us not forget the goal that we accepted.

It is more than just our happiness alone

we came to gain.

What we accept as we are proclaiming what everyone must be,

along with us.

Fail not your sisters, or you fail yourself.

Look lovingly on them, that they may know they are part of you,

and you of them.

This does Atonement teach

and demonstrates the Oneness of God's child

is unassailed by her belief she knows not what she is.

Today accept Atonement, not to change reality,

but merely to accept the truth about yourself

and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God.

It is but this that we are asked to do.

It is but this that we will do today.

Five minutes in the morning and at night,

we will dedicate our minds to our assignment for today.

We start with this review of what our mission is:

I will accept Atonement for myself,

For I remain as God created me.

We have not lost the knowledge God gave us when He created us like Him.

We can remember it for everyone,

for in creation are all minds as one.

And in our memory is the recall of how dear our sisters are to us in truth,

how much a part of us is every mind, how faithful they have been to us,

and how our Father's Love contains them all.

In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator

and His Oneness with all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication

to our cause today each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts

that would distract us from our holy aim.

For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs

which the world would weave around the holy Child of God.

And learn the fragile nature of the chains

that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apart

from your awareness, as you say:

I will accept Atonement for myself,

For I remain as God created me.

---------

…and for our journal entry for today:

🏹 What did you learn about yourself with this lesson...?

Enjoy your journaling today-

See you tomorrow for Lesson 140.

Sending Love Immensely.

~ The Sigma Société

P.S. Are you ready to release yourself from self-sabotage...?

Self-awareness is critical to taking control of your life: Understanding your thoughts and behaviors is the first step toward transformational change and personal growth.

The Power to Unwind: Taking Control of Your Life and Overcoming Self-Sabotage

encourages women to reflect on their lives, identify areas where they can take control,

and start making positive changes to overcome self-sabotage.

Click here for your first three chapters.

P.P.S. If it has been over 30 days from your last life assessment

would invite you to complete this with today's journal.

Your invitation is here for the FREE Wheel of Assessment

it is designed to help you see what areas of your life are working for you

and areas that may need your attention to cultivate a bit more in the future

And, If a Sister, Friend, Mother, or Woman that you know of that would like to join you

in this soul journey process... finding the answer to:

Who is she in her inner core?

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[princesscolumbia]

In my original household, the central rule was “Do whatever will keep you from getting hurt by the person with the most power.” From this we learned to make choices based solely on fear of consequences, no innate ethical system, so we learned to misbehave without getting caught. We learned that if you can force someone to do something they don’t want to, you’re allowed to, because that’s how rules are decided, the most powerful person always gets their way. We learned that asking questions of someone with power over you is dangerous and you have to figure everything out on your own. We learned to keep secrets about how badly we were hurt. There was no oppenness, no conversation, no negotiation or questions or teaching, just fear and hatred and a lot of pain.

Gonna piggy-back off this for a moment; You know all those evangelicals who push to get laws passed that make it illegal to be queer in public or abolish women's rights or end protections for minorities?

This. This quote is the reason.

See, it's super easy for someone who grows up questioning everything (and is encouraged to) to slip the restraints of an arbitrary set of rules and actually speculate on morality and ethics. Questioning everything leads to actual well reasoned conclusions that best serve all parties involved in anything.

But.

BUT...

It also means that you have to learn to question the authority of the people who you axiomatically trust as "good people." Through sheer statistical numbers, we can infer that 80-90% of "good people" actually are (or at least want to be) good people. And at some point early in their development, they were told that that person (imagine me pointing to the person with the most power) is The Goodest Person Because They Have The Most Power. Maybe they are (good people tend to gather power, but not in the ways you expect, but that's another post) but maybe they're not. The trap, the horrible, hellish, nightmare trap, is the person looking to the most powerful are sincerely wanting to Do Good, so they Follow Orders. If they Follow Orders and Do Everything Right, then they're automatically Doing Good.

Why, this is easy! I'm a Good Boy/Girl (and you know it's a binary) if I just don't think and follow orders! I'll just work within the rules and the rules are absolute and that means I'm automatically good!

And soon, this becomes a crutch. Then a dependency. Then they would be 100% traumatized if you try to even budge that structure and set of rules.

And then, the next horrible step, the part that moves this from "trauma response" to "generational abuse," they repeat the cycle with their children.

When the "good" "Christian" asks with a completely straight face and 100% unironically, "How is an atheist supposed to know right from wrong without God?" and the atheist legit has no answer because they can't understand the basis for the question, this is the divide. The "good" "Christian" cannot conceive of not being told what's good or bad, right or wrong unless the word is coming from a higher authority. And the atheist looks at the "higher authority" and sees an abusive bully (no, not God, but the person who put themselves between the believer and God) and cannot fathom how someone could espouse a doctrine of evil without being evil themselves...

It's nearly an impossible gap. To properly heal the person who's convinced they're doing the right thing while doing evil, you have to completely rip apart their entire world view, likely down to the most basic, childhood trauma level, and then slowly, without once even hinting at the behaviors they grew up around, and you have to do it in a comparative vacuum where nobody else can impact their healing.

And that's a level of pain that, if not consensual, lands you squarely in "evil" territory.

So the people who question everything have to treat the people who question nothing like toxic exes they still have to see at family reunions because That One Cousin swears they can "fix them." We'll be there, but fuck you, we're not talking to you and stay the HELL away from my kids!

a friend of mine is a science educator. not a classroom teacher - he does the kind of programs you see in museums, fun experiments with lasers and dry ice and shit.

yesterday, a young girl asked him why he was allowed to pour liquid nitrogen all over his own arm but he didn’t want her doing it. I braced myself for some dumb “well I’m an adult so I’m allowed” non-answer, but instead he surprised me by giving some of the best science (and life) advice I think you can give a young person:

“well, it’s one of those rules designed to keep you safe. and following the rules really can help you stay safe, but they’re not perfect. sometimes, usually because they’re too simple, the rules let you do things that aren’t safe, or don’t let you do things that are safe if you know how to do them. one of the reasons I’m good at what I do as a scientist is I try to understand how things work so I can figure out my own rules for keeping myself safe. and sometimes my rules are little more complicated than what I might hear from other people, but they work better for me. like, I let myself play with liquid nitrogen, but only in really specific ways that I’ve spent time practicing. you should follow the rules you’re given at first, but if you take the time to understand how things work, maybe you can make your own, better rules.”

I loved this response. it’s a great encapsulation of two really important things I think people need to learn and re-learn all the time: on the one hand, listen to genuine authority figures; when someone knows more than you about a subject, don’t treat their expertise as “just another opinion” and act like your ignorance is just as good as their knowledge. but on the other hand, don’t obey anything or anyone blindly. recognize that rules and systems and established ideas are never perfect. question things, educate yourself, question things more.

and then, of course, a parent had to butt in and spoil this wonderful lesson by saying:

“but not the rules mom comes up with!”

everyone in the room laughed. except me. I gave her a death glare I’m pretty sure she didn’t notice.

because no. no. your rules are not above reproach if you’re a parent. the thing about the dictates of genuine authority figures - people who deserve to have power, and to have their positions respected - is that they are open to question. genuine authority figures are accountable. governments can be petitioned and protested and recalled. doctors must respect patients’ right to a second opinion. journalists have jobs terminated and credentials revoked if they fail to meet standards of integrity and diligence. scientists, to bring us back full circle, spend their entire careers trying to disprove their own hypotheses! you know who insists on being treated as infallible? megalomaniacal dictators, that’s who. oh, and parents.

I’m beyond sick and tired of this “my house my rules, this family is not a democracy, I want my child to think critically and stand up for themselves except to me ha ha” bullshit. my friend gave this kid the kind of advice that doesn’t just help people become good scientists - if enough people adopt the mentality he put forth to that girl, that’s the kind of advice that helps societies value knowledge and resist totalitarianism. and her mother shut it down because, what, she didn’t want to deal with the inconvenience of having someone question her edicts about whose job it is to wash the dishes on Mondays?

we already know you’re more likely to be a Trump supporter if you’re an authoritarian parent - and that this is a stronger predictor of your views on the current president than age, religiosity, gender, or race. I’ll say this another way in case you didn’t catch the full meaning: people who believe in the absolute, unquestionable authority of parents are more than two and a half times as likely to support Trump as people who don’t, and that’s just among Republicans. we can’t afford to treat the oppressive treatment of children or the injustice of ageist power structures in our society as a sideshow issue any longer. the mentality that parents should be treated by their children as beyond reproach and above dispute is a social cancer that has metastasized into the man currently trying to destroy the foundations of democracy in this country.

in short: parents, get the hell over yourselves before you get us all killed. and kids, learn as much as you can, and then make your own rules.

[yhwhrulz]

Charles Spurgeon's "Morning & Evening" Devotional for August 29

Morning

“The tree is known by its fruit.”

Matthew 12:22-37

Matthew 12:22

It would seem that the devil had special licence to do his worst among men during the days of our Lord’s sojourn upon earth. Thus was he the more gloriously defeated by the Son of God in many pitched battles between the two champions.

Matthew 12:23

They spoke honestly, but their leaders were prejudiced, and refused to see what was clear enough to the most ordinary understandings. It is a dreadful thing to be so warped by. education as to refuse to admit what is plain to all.

Matthew 12:27-29

For some of the sons of the Pharisees pretended to be able to heal possessed persons.

Matthew 12:30

Let this always be remembered, and let each one ask himself, “Am I with Christ?” If not, remember you are against him. Can you bear this?

Matthew 12:31 , Matthew 12:32

A terrible doom which fell upon these Pharisees and destroyed them. How careful we ought to be to render all reverence and obedience to the Holy Spirit, lest by grieving him away we should be left to final perdition! While the Spirit of God still continues to strive with us we have not committed this deadly sin.

Matthew 12:33

Nothing will suffice but a change of nature. The very root and sap of the soul must be renewed by grace.

Matthew 12:35

That which is in comes out. The stream declares the character of the fountain.

Matthew 12:36 , Matthew 12:37

This makes common talk a solemn matter. Who among us can bear such a test? Let us fly to the blood of Jesus for cleansing from sins of the tongue, and to the Spirit of God to bridle that unruly member.

Sovereign of heaven! thine empire spreads

O’er all the world on high,

And at thy frown the infernal powers

In wild confusion fly.

Like lightning, from his glittering throne

The great arch-traitor fell,

Driven with enormous ruin down

To infamy and hell.

Permitted now to range at large,

And traverse earth and air,

O’er captive human souls he reigns,

And boasts his kingdom there.

Yet thence thy grace can drive him our,

With one almighty word;

O send thy potent sceptre forth,

And reign victorious, Lord!

Evening

“He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”

Luke 8:1-3

Luke 8:1-3

So that our Lord was supported by the voluntary offerings of his followers. He did no more work at the carpenter’s bench, when he began to preach the gospel: his ministry required all his time and strength. It is noble in men, like Paul, to labour at their trade while preaching, but if believers were as generous as they should be, such drudgery would not long be necessary.

Matthew 12:38-40 , Matthew 12:43-50

Matthew 12:43

The evil spirit cannot rest. He is so malicious that unless he is doing mischief he cannot bear himself.

Matthew 12:44

The devil is represented as going out of the man of his own will, and, therefore, when he wills he returns. He calls it “my house” because he had not been expelled from it by divine grace, neither had Jesus taken possession. So men who become moralised and improved entirely of their own accord, and in their own strength, return to their old sins. When grace comes and turns out the devil by force of divine love, he never returns, but unrenewed nature soon welcomes back the tempter.

Matthew 12:44

Many men’s lives are swept from the fouler vices, and garnished with pretty human virtues; but they are not inhabited by the Spirit of God, and hence evil soon gets the upper hand, and the soul becomes worse than before.

Matthew 12:45

Idolatry left the Jewish nation after the captivity in Babylon, but formalism, superstition, and self-righteousness ruled over them, and made them harder to deal with than their idolatrous fathers.

Matthew 12:47

His nightly watches and daily labours were wearing him out, and his relations, conceiving the idea that he must be out of his mind, planned to seize him, and withdraw him from public work. The kindest of men cannot comprehend the zeal of a real fervent heart; they call it enthusiasm, and speak of the possibility of “going too far,” and being too earnest: so are the best men least understood. Our Lord’s mother seems to have had some hand in this mistaken project: blessed as she was she was, not infallible.

Matthew 12:48-50

The spiritual relationship outweighs the natural one. Believers are the true “Holy Family.”

Lord, what are we and what our race,

That thou dost us for brethren own,

Crown’d thus with dignity and grace

To brightest cherubim unknown?

What can we do to make return,

Or half our gratitude express?

To thee our souls’ affections turn,

With all our hearts thy name we bless.

Copyright Statement This resource was produced before 1923 and therefore is considered in the "Public Domain".