#faith deserved better

[nukbody]

Jeckole I've never posted cause....uhhhh.....UHHH

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Does it ever hit you that Martha sat down in New New York and told the Doctor that she needed his honesty more than she needed to go home and that religious music played in the background at that scene and it was almost framed as a confession, in the most religious sense, and go a little bit feral? That as early as her third episode, she was framed as his equal, equally divine, equally a doctor, able to confront him, able to make him honest, able to sympathize with him, able to abide with him? That so few companions have ever spent so much time in one time period with the Doctor (1969/1913, for example), being with him/her, not running, just staying? That for every fucking thing Ten did wrong as John Smith/after coming back to himself in Human Nature/Family of Blood, he trusted her enough to leave himself vulnerable and human in her care, because he trusted her as a Doctor, because she was just as much a Doctor as he was? That Martha was, more than any other companion of the Tenth Doctor's, his equal, that her final speech about not being second was not just talking about her not being second best to Rose but about being second best to him? That she finally understood what had been true from the moment that they met and she closed Stoker's eyes and the Doctor realized that she had not just bravery and cleverness but a kindness that he had forgotten, that Martha Jones, more than anything else, has been and always will be The Doctor?

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

In Judaism, one alternative way of referring to converts is "Jews by Choice."

If a parallel term exists in Xtianity I am not aware of it, but I would like to propose that it really should exist, albeit not just in reference to converts but to all Xtians. Every Xtian should get the opportunity to fully understand their faith in context and to make an informed decision to choose it for themselves. As it stands, many Xtians are deeply ignorant about Jewish history (before and after the formation of Xtianity), the original cultural context for the stories in the Old Testament, the cultural Jewish context that Jesus existed and taught in, the critical historical (scholarly) read of these texts, what they probably meant to the Israelites who produced them, and what they mean to Jews today and how we read these same texts differently in our religious context.

This creates a problem, where Xtians are taught only the narrow band of context that their church deems it important for them to know, and even that is frequently inaccurate or so limited in scope as to make it inaccurate by omission.

And this is because the reality is that the Tanakh (that is, the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures that the Old Testament is based on) does not naturally or inevitably lead to the Jesus narrative. If you are starting from a Xtian perspective, and especially if you read the New Testament first and then and only then dive into the Old Testament, the Jesus narrative is obvious to you because you are looking for it, expect to see it there, and are coming at these texts with that reading lens in mind. And it's not that you or anyone else is nuts to see that narrative there - there are plenty of solid Xtian reads of these texts that make sense if you already believe in Jesus as presented by the New Testament.

But what the vast majority of Xtians aren't taught is how to approach the Tanakh from a Jesus-neutral perspective, which would yield very different results.

Now you might fairly ask, why would they *need* to approach the Tanakh with a Jesus-neutral perspective? They're Xtians! Xtians believe in Jesus, that's what makes them Xtians!

My answer is multi-pronged: First, I believe that G-d wants a relationship with all people, and speaks to us in the voice we are most likely to hear. That's inherently going to look different for everyone. And that's okay! G-d is infinite, and each of our relationships with G-d are going to only capture the tiniest glimpse into that infinite Divine. Therefore, second, when approaching religion, everyone sees what they want to see. If you nothing religion but find your spirituality in nature, you're going to come at these biblical texts with that lens and take away from them similar things that one might take away from other cultural mythologies. If you, like me, are coming at these texts with a Jewish mindset, you are going to come away with a portrait of Hashem and our covenantal relationship as Am Yisrael. And, of course, if you read with a Xtian lens, you're going to see the precursor narratives leading up to Jesus. That reading bias is not only understandable but good or at least deeply human. Everyone sees what they want to see in these texts. There is no objective or flawless way to read them, and to claim that there is, is to claim that not only is there only one answer, but only one kind of relationship that G-d wants to have with people, that you personally happen to know what that is, and that everyone else is wrong. I am sorry, but if you believe that - if you truly think that you in particular (and/or the people you happen to agree with) know the mind of G-d, then you do not worship G-d. You worship yourselves, because to know the entirety of G-d would require you to be G-d. There's a term for that. That doesn't mean there aren't wrong answers too. But it does mean that there is no singular unimpeachable reading of the texts. What you see in these texts then, says far more about you than it does about the texts themselves or G-d.

So the question then becomes: Why do you want to see this? (Whatever your "this" is.) If your read of these texts is something you choose, why do you choose to see what you see? And is it a meaningful choice if you are not taught other ways of knowing, other perspectives on these texts, and to think critically while exploring them?

Judaism inherently teaches a multiplicity of opinions on the texts, and maintains that they can be read to mean different things, even at the same time by the same person. Deep textual knowledge and methods for learning more, asking questions, challenging accepted answers as a way to discover new meaning, and respectful disagreement are baked into our culture and methods. Some Xtians of some denominations have analogous processes, although on the whole still emphasize correct unified belief over correct action with a multiplicity of belief. I am not suggesting here that Xtians stop approaching their own scriptures as Xtians or adopt Jewish methods instead. What I am suggesting is that Xtians should be taught a fuller picture of these texts and learn other perspectives so that they (1) understand their own beliefs and why they believe them (or after further inquiry if they believe them), and (2) understand and respect that this is what they are choosing to believe and that it is not the only thing one could reasonably believe. Because (3) if not, they are more susceptible to having their faith shattered at random by something unexpected, and will connect less to their faith as a relationship with G-d and more as an obligation based on an unchallenged world view.

And, frankly? (4) It will help them to be better neighbors, to love their neighbor as themselves, and to give to others the respect that they would like to receive.

Being taught the historical context, Jewish history before and after Jesus, the differences between the Old Testament and the Tanakh, the timeline of the development of Xtianity in relationship to rabbinic Judaism in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple, the development of church doctrine and the various splits amongst the denominations, and Jewish readings of the Tanakh would give clarity and desperately needed context to Xtians about their religion. Is there some risk that some people, upon understanding these things would drop out of faith entirely or, like me, discover that they are actually meant to be Jews? Yes, definitely.

But let me let you in on a little secret: you don't want those people to begin with. You really don't. Because the reality is that if a person is not called to relate to G-d through Jesus, eventually that person will learn this about themselves one way or another. If they are given the information and tools to make a meaningful choice, they will part company on good terms. If not, they will likely become disillusioned and leave the church in pain, anger, and even trauma. They will bring that out into the world with them, and spread the bad news about the Good News making it even more likely that other people who were already on the fence will jump ship on bad terms. You cannot trick people into a meaningful relationship with G-d. You can only give them the tools they need in order to explore on their own and the rest is between them and G-d.

And the bottom line is that you don't need to and should not be afraid of knowledge. If your faith cannot stand up to scrutiny, then it deserves that scrutiny tenfold. The people you lose from the flock? You would have lost them anyway, because we aren't in the driver's seat here. G-d is. Hashem called me to be a Jew with just as much love and desire to connect as G-d calls Xtians to the church and to Jesus. A faith examined is a faith deepened or exposed in its weakness. And if it is the latter, don't you want people to know this sooner rather than later in order to fix it?

So my proposition and wish for Xtians is that they become Xtians by Choice. That they delve deeply into the origins and context of their faith so that they can be 100% certain that they understand their Xtian faith and why they choose to relate to G-d through that lens.

[the-crimson]

I need everyone to understand that q!Tubbo, q!Bbh and q!Aypierre spent seven hours fighting a psychological war today and they lost… but it prevented both teams from dying and no one will ever know.

(All talk about character not ccs etc etc)

Tubbo wasn’t there during the egg battle so he doesn’t feel the betrayal and humiliation that the other two do. He looks at green team and sees his friends. People he cares about. He doesn’t want them to lose especially not like this! He’d made up his mind the moment he learned of the event. No one was going to die.

Aypierre looked at green team and saw the snakes who broke their promise to tie the previous challenge. Why would they agree to tie this time when they’ve already proven to be untrustworthy? They betrayed him. They humiliated him and his entire team. This was his opportunity for revenge. Why shouldn’t blue team take it?

Bbh is much more in the middle. He agreed with the premise of a tie because he wanted to give green a fighting chance. He had a gut feeling it wasn’t going to work but he was willing to try. However, he didn’t trust green either. The whole time he was paranoid about green logging in at the last minute to scrounge together the quests to beat them. He was constantly reminding the group to stay together so they couldn’t be killed in case green logged in. He did not trust green to keep to the deal but he was willing to try.

For the first five or so hours of the streams the three had too many conversations to count where Aypierre would try to convince them to just say fuck it and turn in their tasks. To break the tie and be done with it! But each time bbh and Tubbo manage to hold him back and keep to the plan. It was only when bbh and Aypierre were in green’s secret base standing in front of green’s merchant that Aypierre finally caved and turned in his missions.

This was one battle lost. The next was Aypierre and Tubbo pulling bbh in two different directions and Tubbo choosing to give Green the quest items to rebalance the score. Two different battles that culminated in the single decisive moment of bbh claiming all of his missions. But what happened leading up to that moment? Chaos.

Various members of green team were logging in and out for the next two hours which only fueled bbh’s paranoia even more. Aypierre was trying to convince him to just claim the tasks the games already over! While Tubbo was confident they could still tie the score. It all went to shit in the last fifteen minutes.

Bbh and Aypierre discovered the quest items were gonna from the chest and Tubbo was lying to them about where he was. Tubbo made an executive decision to try and balance the score knowing the other two were too on the edge and chaotic at the moment. They’d discussed potentially giving green some items to tie the score but this was never agreed to and bbh and Aypierre had no idea what Tubbo was giving them.

They arrive at the center and the score starts changing and bbh starts panicking. Aypierre calls Tubbo a traitor for going behind their back and bbh is trying to mediate and figure out what’s going on - what did Tubbo do? Tubbo doesn’t explain fully so bbh assumes he gave both ElQuackity and Roier the quest items. Then Mouse logs in and bbh’s paranoia goes into overdrive. Did green have the items stockpiled and ready for Mouse to turn them in to sweep the victory last second? It’s happened twice before so it’s not out of the question. Bbh looked at the being Coco that acted so much like his son and asked, and it told him to cash in the quests. So he did.

At this point, everything was pure adrenaline. All bbh was thinking was save Dapper. “Run over anyone you need to to win”. If it ended as a tie or if blue won, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was he could not LOSE.

All three of blue fought so incredibly hard today it’s incredible. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ccs aren’t completely emotionally exhausted. Aypierre gave into his revenge after fighting it for nearly five hours straight. Bbh gave into his paranoia after fighting it for SEVEN HOURS straight. Tubbo gave into his need to do the right thing at any costs by going behind his team’s back which lead to the miscommunication that lead to that pivotal moment.

Blue failed today. They fought an internal war for seven hours and they lost at the very last moment. But in so doing, they saved their entire team. And they’ll never know. And no one will ever know. They will continue being the villains in this story even though no one on red or green knows what they went thought mentally today. None of them understand that it took seven hours of constant stress for them to break when they could have cashed the quests and secured victory within an hour.

In the end, Aypierre said it best “Either we win a fraud or die a villain.”

[nessacousland]

Well, I finally finished Dragon Age: Friendship is Magic and that is *my* biggest regret.

[genericpuff]

vent post

[theseandi]

rewatching btvs and getting to season 3 which means remembering the extremely complex similarities and yet duality of buffy and faith and it makes me want to cry but also scream and tear my hair out

[hello-nichya-here]

My problem was not Buffy being mad, that's completely understandable, and would have been a terrible choice to just have her suddenly not care about that.

The problem is that she's not acting like a victim that wants justice, she's acting like a jealous ex-girlfriend that doesn't like that she "lost" Angel to Faith - she even brings up how much happier Riley makes her even though that is completely irrelevant. This was a problem in the aftermath of the body swap in BTVS too, where she's insecure that Riley will be "comparing" the two of them instead being horrifyed at what Faith put them both through.

They are making her focus on petty shit instead of addressing her trauma (say, like they did with Wesley after Faith tortured him) and that's honestly a disrespect to her character. Even the way the show makes Buffy say "Faith wins again" when it's clear that her past relationship with Angel is damaged beyond repair feels wrong because:

1 - They were already over.

2 -Their doomed romance should not have been the focus here!

They don't have to make her forgive Faith, be it right away or ever, but EVERYTHING about her behavior during that episode feels off. Even the way she finds out about Angel helping Faith is framed like her walking on her ex with a new girl - why is THIS the source of drama here instead of "Someone Buffy used to see as her protector is now helping someone who just put her through hell, and he has good reasons, but she still feels betrayed, but she still cares about Faith, but she feels it'd be wrong to let her get away with just a slap on the wrist"

She's not acting like Buffy. At all. Like, the one moment she felt slightly in character was when, despite being furious as hell, she still doesn't want Faith to be harmed - because the whole reason why Faith's betrayal hurt so much was because Buffy cared about her.

Even Buffy saying she's entitled to want revenge - WHEN has Buffy ever focused on that? If anything, she lets people get away with way too much (see literally everything Joyce ever did).

Honestly, her dialogue during the episode feels like it was written either by someone who never watched Buffy and only knew she was Angel ex who is also a slayer, or someone that actively despised that show and it's main character and wanted the audience to hate her too.

"I've lost battles before, but no one ever made me a victim" Xander tried to rape her, Angelus psychologically tortured her for half a season, Spike (who is now part of her team) tried to kill her a billion times AND was constantly trying to destroy her friend group from the inside, etc.

Buffy 100% has been victimized before - that's part of the horror influence on the show. It makes no sense to act like Faith is the only one who ever hurt Buffy like that and thus justify why reaction is so different. For fucks sake, I don't even believe the attempted rape in "Seeing Red" was in character for Spike, but Buffy's reaction felt much more in character: she's angry, she's hurt, she calls him out on what he did, but she also focuses on the mission first AND can still acknowledge that Spike is apologizing to her even if she's not forgiving him. Compare that to her telling Faith "If you apologize, I'll beat you to death" WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE AND WHY ARE WE SEEING A WEIRD BUFFY CLONE?

Her saying to Angel that, unlike him and Faith, she's not a murderer. During the events of "Ted", Buffy beats up her mother's creep of a boyfriend "to death" (he got better), and even though he had just threatened and attacked her, she still says "I'm the slayer, I had no right to hit a human that hard." She was possessed by the ghost of murderer trapped in limbo because she was so angry and hurt after Angel turned into Angelus and thus he could relate to her and she then shot Angelus like the dude shot his girlfriend - foreshadowing the events of the season finale in which Buffy kills Angel. Not Angelus, Angel. Something that was necessary but still deeply traumatic because she FEELS like a murderer. Once again, this line feels like an insult to the character and all the trauma she was already dealing with, instead of addressing the new trauma Faith just put her through.

Seriously, I've never liked the Bangel ship, but this is the one time I actually wanted to beat up the writers because holy shit, they did not need to force Buffy into the role of scorned past lover/bitchy ex, especially not in a moment like that. It honestly even felt sexist. "Sure, this girl was just raped and so was her boyfriend, but all she can think about is how her rival slept with her man and might be making moves on her ex" once again, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

They even have to ruin a great Faith and Angel scene by having her let slip that Buffy has a new guy now. For the final time, WHY IS THEIR DOOMED ROMANCE THE FOCUS HERE? WHY GOD, WHY? Would it kill the writers to not force this bullshit down our throats?

Bangel really is the worst ship in both shows, my God. I've seen boring, bland relationships, but this is one of those few truly awful ones that actively make the story worse because the writers refuse to just LET IT DIE ALREADY and keep trying to milk as much drama from it as possible.

Watching season one of Angel is being quite insane

Things I expected: Angel would be a million times more likeable than he ever was in Buffy, and Faith would get a redemption arc.

Things I did NOT expected: Buffy would be a million times less likeable than she ever was in her own show, and I'd be hardcore shipping Faith and Angel.

[just-a-tiny-goldfish]

When the priest turns out to be a scardy cat and dooms your soul

[dykedvonte]

I find the line "I have to believe our worst moments don't make us monsters." Fascinating because it comes from Anya, and I feel she really proves it the best.

For obvious reasons most people are in the "Anya did nothing wrong" camp and for good reason but there is a single action that I don't think she did well and it was her suicide. Specifically her method.

Realizing that Anya took Curly's painkillers was horrifying to me. As a Nurse I have no doubt that she'd know how terrible dying from overdose is. She had access to a gun which is well known for having a far more instant and far less painful death. And despite everything falling apart around her, knowing how bad Jimmy was, she still left Curly alive.

I don't think I thought about it much like that at first but the longer this game has sat with me the more horrified I am by the action. Curly is man who has been horribly disabled and is completely unable to help himself and he is very much a human being who does not deserve to be anywhere close to that amount of pain. Those painkillers were one that the few things that could give him any amount of relief and Anya took them.

She could have shot herself and left the painkillers for whoever was left to help Curly. She could've shot Curly and then taken the painkillers. She could've shot them both and quickly put an end to their misery, yet she didn't. Anya had a great amount of her agency stripped away from her, to the point that she didn't deem life to be worth it anymore and ended it, right next to a man who couldn't make that choice for himself even if he wanted to.

It is easily her most horrific choice and yet, she's still an angel.

(Please don't take this as Anya slander, I genuinely love her so much. I just find this to be an incredibly interesting thing)

I do subscribe to the idea that Anya realized that Jimmy was hitting Curly when giving him his medicine but didn’t intervene. I also don’t think her taking the pills from Curly as monstrous mainly because (while she knew he suffered worse with out them) she likely also knew they were basically bandaids on a bullet wound.

I have this sort of belief that that statement can only really apply to Jimmy in the inverse. Like some statements in the games aren’t meant to apply to all characters and not in every context of every action they do. It’s the idea that no one should be responsible for Jimmy’s actions but himself but they are forced to by him or the environment. Everyone is experiencing their worst moments but no one is a monster outside of Jimmy due to his inability to take responsibility and how he escalates the severity of the situation through his bad choices. Even then it’s not one moment that makes Jimmy a monster it’s the culmination of every moment that prove his inability to be anything but in this scenario.

With Anya you must remember she did have the code to the gun. Yeah, she could’ve broken it open but who’s to say how easy or how long it would’ve taken. Not to mention, there’s this misconception that she wanted the gun to kill Jimmy which isn’t true. She wanted the gun to defend herself in the case he got aggressive which is an important note of Anya being the only proactive person on the ship vs reactive. Locking the door, knowing there was no way in was likely a duel mercy for them both. A person in his state would die relatively soon without constant care and she has ample time to pass. It’s a hard decision to make for herself and someone else but it was the easiest even if it caused more damage than it was ever meant to cause.

It’s a sort of parallel to how Curly made choices he thought would help Anya and everyone but ultimately doomed them all further. Jimmy got what he wanted in both scenarios of crashing the ship and wanting Anya gone. What happened on the Tulpar will go down as a tragedy if they are ever found, a mystery if not but certainly not in a way that Jimmy wanted. Anya and the pregnancy are effectively gone but he’s still facing the repercussions for it.

There’s this idea that it’s controversial to say that Anya was anything but perfect and while I don’t think she did anything wrong, she certainly didn’t make the best choice in telling Jimmy but that again was because of the situation and environment she was in. We don’t know why she didn’t wait on Curly after their conversation in the cockpit, we know that was the plan and we know Jimmy finding out through her alone was the catalyst to the crash within like the next hour, yet you can’t really blame her. We don’t know why Jimmy came to medical nor what anyone else was doing. It can be considered her one mistake but then again we can’t blame a reasonable action on someone’s unreasonable response.

I think that’s a big aspect a lot of people look over in the characters actions. Most of them are normal, reasonable, human. But the systematic responses to them and Jimmy’s are unreasonably harsh and punishing.

This has gone off in a tangent from what you originally posed but I genuinely think of what might do happened if that confrontation happened with Curly there and away from the cock pit. I assume it’d happen in medical or even utility, hell, an area away from anything sensitive but what if? If the ability to do something awful wasn’t at Jimmy’s finger tips, if there was more than one voice in Curly’s head during that moment, what would’ve changed?

When I look at Anya I see her as having the best responses to anything happening during the events of the game but the environment, systems against her and even the other crew mates to an extent made it so it would inevitably backfire on them and mostly her hard.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

What Aang stans and Zuko/Zutara antis have in common

They forget season 3 of ATLA exists.

[borgialucrezia]

the borgias truly went off in 2.10 'the confession'. specifically, where devastated rodrigo buries juan with his own hands, being intercut with everyone happy and celebrating lucrezia's betrothal, and being perfectly juxtaposed with dark and light. we get to see how rodrigo always saw juan while carrying his body (and that's probably how he sees all his children) as an innocent little kid instead of a broken soul. which was one of the most touching and well-crafted scenes that have ever aired on tv btw!! the whole sequence is also backed by a moving piece of tragic music that matches how guilty rodrigo feels about making the family hate juan by pressuring his inadequacy, making him full of misguided notions of defending the family's honor that led him to go wild. and setting him up to be envied by cesare. the murder made rodrigo reflect, and the viewers can tell that he has never told his eldest son that he sees himself when he looks at cesare, and that he has always held him in high regard but with a different dream and vision for him, despite cesare's wrong assumption that juan was rodrigo's favorite. and all because he always had a self-loath. to accept cesare as his favorite, he has to accept himself first. plus the cliffhanger? peak cinema imo.

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Psst this is just some advice from someone who grew up with the Wild West version of the internet but:

Just don't engage with mean spirited asks or people.

They want attention. Don't give it to them. Delete it, block em, scroll away, take a deep breath, and move on. They want to waste your time, so waste theirs instead.

They came into your house and tried to start shit in probably the most milquetoast way possible, so just block, delete, and move on. Don't even mention that you did. It'll be a fun little thing that you know and they know but no one else knows, and that's so much more satisfying.

Nothing you can say will "win" the conflict or change their mind. Just put them in time out by deleting their ask and you'll feel much better. :)

[chentastic]

cw blood under the cut: F!Sydney x Carrie

She's been wandering in my head since I saw this post from @robinsprotector

[miss-sweetea-pie]

Been thinking about that new avatar movie and bestie I’m scared that Katara is just going to give us stepford wives energy the whole time. And everyone’s just gonna be like wow such a cute couple they are so wholesome.

[hiddenonigiri]

neither of us ran away this time. do you want to try again? ✩ our dating sim ep5