#cruel religion

[stardustpinkart]

"Repeat your lessons girl".

Poor Luz. If Belos caught her, I could imagine a number of Esmeralda Frollo situations. Didja know in the original book Esmeralda was only 14 for one thing? We know Belos/Phillip is a monster, he has no heart, and even still hes obsessed with saving her. During there battle just before the Collector appears he implores her to see sense.

I honestly wouldent put it past him to be obessed with her. The guy is CRAZY, religious fanatics are often two faced and cruel, and many of them harm children and women. Even NOW you get child brides in places like AMERICA, not to mention abuse covered up by the church. Females are second class citizens at best, the are to be submissive to men, that men are the head of women just as god is the head of the church. In Phillip's timeline she would be considered a woman also. Then theres fanfics which have Phillip see her as a gift from god, a beautiful reward for doing the lords work. In the Bioling Isles I suppose he would say its the "Titans Will" that she be his empress, much like christian fanatics, now and hundreds of years ago, would say to justify his vile actions. Some may question it, but, if thats what the Titan wills, it must be a good thing?

I can imagine she would be utterly horrified at the notion.

[midnightsslut]

religion is one of the most prominent recurring themes on the album, and it has been present in some capacity for quite a few records now. taylor previously compared love to religion: her saving grace, her belief system, and a fated divine intervention (false god, cornelia street, and cruel summer are the best examples of this). ‘sacred new beginnings that became my religion’ and ‘we’d still worship this love even if it’s a false god’ are two of the defining statements about her philosophy on the lover album.

taylor doesn’t want to leave all of that behind on ttpd, at least not at the beginning. the first supernatural force she mentions is the spaceship on down bad, which she compares to a skylight of freedom in the epilogue. *something* has finally come to save her from her life of suffering. she doesn’t care if it’s a force of good at first; if anything, she’s just fine being taken away by aliens. she views this man as her destiny. it isn’t until guilty as sin? that taylor starts to ponder the moral implications of what she’s doing. is she guilty as sin for wanting to leave her previous religion and relationship behind? she comes to the conclusion that, even if she rolls the stone away and gets resurrected/redeemed, she cannot avoid the fallout. she is okay with the thought of having to wait, as long as both lovers vow to be together forever, just as she once did with someone else in false god. ‘I choose you and me religiously’ finishes the bridge of the song in a direct callback to cornelia street.

the next mention of religion has murkier imagery. she claims that she does not need the Lord’s help to save this man. she sees the halo that he has, and she can fix him herself. now that she feels free of her prior cage, she isn’t looking for divine intervention anymore. she wants control. she is their route to salvation.

when the relationship falls apart, she retreats back into the position of a believer rather than a divine figure. she compares him to a Holy Ghost who promised to save her and take her to heaven. instead, she is in hell in every sense of the word: she’s down bad and feels guilty for digging up the grave. he was a jehovah’s witness who promised that she could break free of the cage imposed by love without changing her religion altogether; she would’ve just had to switch denominations. she could still have a marriage and kids! she could still have a blue tortured poet! the man was different, but not the dreams they had together. the story of the first part of the album ends here. her faith has been broken, and she has only found any semblance of sanity by refusing to mention these belief systems altogether.

side b/the anthology blends the christian imagery of side a with goddesses, sorcerers, and prophecies. she bargains with these powers to let her have the future she wants (the prophecy). she doesn’t sound like someone believing in salvation. if anything, she feels cursed. she decides that the concept of divinely ordained timing will never work in certain relationships (‘the goddess of timing once found us beguiling / she said she was trying / peter, was she lying?’). this disdain extends onto her perception of other people’s faith (‘bet they never spared a prayer for my soul’). she does position herself as a prophet in cassandra, but even then, she admits that the role has hurt her. perhaps the pain in thank you aimee was meant to be, or perhaps she was just strong enough to build a legacy in spite of it, boulder by boulder. is she a martyr? does she want to be? or did she save herself?

the only real love song on this half of the album makes no mention of fate or any divine forces. it wasn’t meant to be. it’s not a supernatural invisible string or lightning in a bottle. she is just in love.

the album ends with the manuscript, which revisits an old story of a defining, formative heartbreak. as she sings ‘at last, she knew what the agony had been for’ while describing the legacy of her writing, she seems to revert to thinking about the purpose of trauma. the only exception is that, in this case, she is the one who found meaning in her pain by turning it into a manuscript. writing is her belief system now, and she proselytizes by telling her stories and thus giving up the manuscript.

ultimately, her belief in destiny has chewed her up and spat her out. she so desperately clung to her existing belief systems that she was fooled by a conman, which left her feeling cursed. religion is supposed to be with someone even in their darkest moments, but the album explains that taylor often felt abandoned. the only constant in her life was, well, herself. she’ll be okay, but her pen will be her saving grace.

[hauntedbythenarrative]

The darkness said, You die whether you risk anything or not. I emptied ashes from my pockets. I crawled to feel the stones cut my knees, God's foot on my throat. The dream said, Follow me. The angel said, You're here.

Yellowjackets (2021-)//Andrei Tarkovsky//If I Believe You, The 1975//Agamemnon, Aeschylus//“dear thanatos, [it wasn’t a dream…],” come the slumberless to the land of nod, Traci Brimhall

[c-hrona]

Pietà

[clockworkbee]

Them: So what's all this hype around The Folk of The Air? It's just another YA enemies-to-lovers, urban fantasy series.

Me:

[cigarettefawn]

because you’re young

you’re wild

you’re free

you dance in circles around me

you’re fucking crazy

[anghraine]

[For context, I'm an agnostic lesbian raised Mormon with some scattered Catholic influences from summers with my bio dad and his family. I have buckets of religious trauma and associations as a very predictable result, though not everything was terrible.]

So I was waiting for my best friend and his girlfriend to get home from dinner with my BFF's mother—this is the first time his girlfriend, who was a close friend of mine before meeting him, had met his family. Ash had gone downstairs to change and wipe off her make-up when someone knocked insistently at our door.

The doorknob is a bit persnickety so I rushed to let in my BFF, only to find myself facing down an unexpected but very familiar sight: young male Mormon missionaries.

me: Oh ... hi. missionaries: Good evening, ma'am. Would you like to hear news about Jesus? me: Um, I'm not—I'm a member, actually. I was raised in the Church. missionaries: Really? me: Yes :) I was the pianist for the primary in our old ward for years :) missionaries: Oh, what ward was that? me: St Helens. I didn't really go when I was in grad school and I just graduated. missionaries: Ahh, I see. Well, if you want to go back, [directions to the local church]. me: Thank you. missionaries, after a very awkward pause: Do you need any help with anything? me: Oh, we're... [*resists the urge to point out that the other household members who just happened to be absent are a Jewish atheist socialist, a devoutly Muslim bisexual post-colonial scholar, and an Exvangelical trans woman still processing her rage, and none of them would have the slightest desire to get help from Mormons*] We're good, really. My parents are the ones who would need help from the Church, I think, and they live over in [town], so their closest ward is actually the one in [other town] and they can reach out to them. Thanks, though :) missionaries: We could just leave our number with you in case you ever needed anything. me [very conscious of the temptation to call on the Church when a crisis strikes and I desperately need help, and how trapped and shitty I feel afterwards]: That's really nice, but I think we're fine. There are several of us here. I hope you have a good night, though! :)

[evesetchings]

More doodle of Dream Eater! My space riders oc! Who is surprisingly fun to draw!

I’m gonna take this opportunity to turn this fun couple of shitposts into a lore dump about them and their relationships with other characters, okay? Okay.

So as said in my last few posts about this guy, Dream Eater is a being whose sole motivation is its own survival. Anything else, including the lives and well being of their fellow members, is secondary. Despite this, Dream Eater is still one of the highest ranking members of the cult, being able to communicate directly to the prototype, probably because it lets him keep a close eye on Dream Eater’s behavior, and because their powers not only let them go on covert manipulation missions to make conquering planets easier, but also because it lets them inhabit the bodies of fellow cultists and report directly back to the prototype. It also has the wonderful advantage of making cultists more careful with what they say or do, because who knows if one of your fellow members has a brain sucking monster watching you. Dream eater itself couldn’t care less about the grunts of the cult, viewing them as disposable meat shields or cheap hosts, (they still need to eat after all) but with more powerful members, Dream Eater turns into the biggest ass kisser imaginable, both to lower the risk of being murdered by them, but also because it gives them a powerful ally. After all, the tougher the partner, the longer they can distract the threat.

Their relationship with the space riders is pretty bad on principle, but Catnap holds a special place of loathing in his heart for Dream Eater, as their first encounter being when they were sent on a mission to “gently persuade” (read: gaslight and manipulate) into joining the cult of his own free will. It didn’t work of course, but Catnap has reviled them ever since and Dream Eater themselves isn’t to fond of the either for making him lose some favor with the Prototype for their failure.

(also despite being a MASSIVE coward, Dream Eater isn’t much of a slouch when physically fighting. Those claws aren’t just for show and being able to shove yourself down an enemy’s throat gives you pretty good access to their vital organs)

This au belongs to @onyxonline, check out their stuff!

[gingermintpepper]

Hi!! I don't know if you remember me, but I'm the person you explained the Castalia thing to a few days ago. I've been following you for a while now, but I just managed to go through your blog well and proper, and I'm here to express both my gratitude for the amount of info and links you've shared (I did NOT know about the hepatoscopy and haruspicy, and I'm about to go down a lengthy rabbit hole) and my horror at once again being given a new hyperfixation (I didn't imagine wanting to read about liver-divination help).

Also, also, are you the author of Exeunt Phoebus Apollo on AO3 because that was the fic that sent me on this greek mythology spree, and it's so good I got obsessed with Apollo, and he's everywhere around me now. Thank you for writing it!

AAAAAA THIS IS SO SWEET?? THANK YOU!! I do remember you and hey man, I'm always happy to help <33

I'm so glad to recruit someone else to my hepatoscopy group because it is a long and storied tradition with many many different types of study and schools of thought dating all the way back to the Sumerians! It's an extremely underrated bit of study when it comes to sketching portraits of divination and prophecy when it comes to adaptations of imaginings of greek myth works - similar to bird augury (which was such a widespread skill that most people had some level of understanding of the basics of what the omens of common birds meant the way people now can look at the clouds over head and know if it'll rain and when approximately that rain'll happen).

It's a great and common misunderstanding that things like prophecy and magic were these fantastic elements that had no tangible features to their practices and while there's nothing wrong with interpreting things as more fantastical for the sake of coolness or aesthetic, I personally think these elements are interesting enough to be worth looking into and portraying!

Also yes, I did write Exeunt 😳I'm very very honoured that you enjoyed my work so much and I'm even more grateful that it could let you see the Apollo in everything 💖 Thank you for reading it!!

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

can people be normal about Muslims for two seconds oh my God

tell me why obvious and casual stereotyping is unacceptable until it comes to us

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

[stargleam-star]

In Star, everyone keeps referring to Splashtail as crazy. Buuut idk how I feel about that descriptor. Especially because its mentioned a lot. I'm probably just reading into it too much lol

[gaytobymeres]

he's so sweet

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

.

[winter-came]

It's nearly a year, just 12 months, since I fully gave my life to Jesus Christ and God. And while I could write a whole essay (and I might eventually) on how my life changed, I wanna say something else right now.

What I often see in the present day (yes, among christians themselves too), is God spoken of as an indifferent, if not downright narcissistic terrifying, entity.

And I am seriously sad over that. It feels like God of The Old Testament. Whom, in my opinion, was deeply misinterpreted and therefore He sent us Jesus.

He demands, the most important commandments, that we have faith in Him and we love eachother. Why are we acting He wants so terribly much of us?

Maybe we should stop looking at God as this demanding ruler, some big brother watching and waiting for us to stumble so he can condemn us. Maybe stop looking at him as an indifferent and harsh father figure you have to whip your back for, someone you have to scrape your knees to the bone for.

Maybe we should start looking at him as an artist, as creator, as a loving father. We are made in his image right? That's repeated often throughout the word.

Humans are, in their core, artists and creators. Fond of joy and beauty and kindness. Look at what humans created. All the cathedrals, castles, bridges, all the paintings and statues. All so thought through, detailed, beautiful and complex. Why then is it so hard to believe the beautiful world we live in was created by God?

Look at the trees, why do leaves have edges? Why does grass smell? Why is sunset thousands shades and not once exactly the same? Why are all stones of different size and shape and color? What tyrant would care for such details? And what artist wouldn't?

Maybe stop saying God doesn't have empathy, that he deserted us, that he is a stranger to beauty and joy. When each day is crafted and new. God loves us, He waits for us. He wants us to come back to him. And once you do? You won't remember how harsh life was before. I know what I am talking about.

If just 1% of your soul is willing to meet Him, he will lead you into the light and you will never look back. And I pray for everybody to experience the change and the revival I have had through Jesus Christ.

The world is beautiful. God is good and gracious. You're never far too away and too damaged to not be welcomed back by Him.

[msue0027]

Martha Jones - Jesus Christ parallels (never thought i'd write a sentence like this)

there's the other one who has sent me

For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. (John 12:49-50)

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. (John 5:30b)

I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world. They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him. (John 8:26-29)

[...] for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. (John 8:42b)

etc., and so on...